War and Peace Readalong thread 2022 - thread 2

[VikingNorthUtsire]

"The finest novel ever written on this planet"
"Here is a novel that is worth whatever time one gives to it. There is more life between its cover than in any other existent fictional narrative"

This is a really helpful blog post by someone who has done the challenge: nicksenger.com/onecatholiclife/announcing-the-2020-war-and-peace-chapter-a-day-read-along

1. Translations

The main complication seems to be which edition to choose. The blog post above contains some commentary of the different tranlsations that are available and their merits. There's also a pretty comprehensive guide here including samples from some of the best-known translations: welovetranslations.com/2021/08/31/whats-the-best-translation-of-war-and-peace-by-tolstoy/

The main differences that I can see are:

• some editions (including the free download on Project Gutenburg) have a different chapter structure. I think/hope we would manage to find one another if some are reading versions with more or fewer chapters but I have based the readalong on the versions with 361 chapters.
• there's quite a lot of French in at least some parts of the book. Some editions translate it into English, others keep it in French but use footnotes
• some translators have chosen to anglicise the characters' names. I guess its personal preference whether you prefer Mary, Andrew and Basil or a more Russian version.

Looking at the editions recommended and reviewed in the above blog:

The Vintage Classics edition, translated by Pevear and Volokhonsky: www.amazon.co.uk/War-Peace-Vintage-Classics-Tolstoy/dp/0099512246/?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

NB also this link for the kindle version: www.amazon.co.uk/War-Peace-Vintage-Classic-Russians-ebook/dp/B005CUS9AG/?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

The Signet Classics edition, translated by Anne Dunnigan: www.amazon.co.uk/War-Peace-Signet-Classics-Tolstoy-ebook/dp/B001RWQVXA/?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

The Penguin Classics edition, translated by Anthony Briggs: www.amazon.co.uk/War-Peace-Penguin-Popular-Classics-ebook/dp/B0033805UG/?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

As a general rule I would definitely recommend downloading a sample of any kindle edition before buying, so you can be sure that you are happy with it.

Obviously, some people will prefer to avoid Amazon! Feel free to use the weeks in the run-up to Day 1 to share any tips on what you are buying and where from. Can I suggest though that we stick where possible to the editions with 361 chapters otherwise we will all get very confused!

1. Reading timeline

Nick, of the blog post, has very helpfully done the calculations for which chapters fall on which days, except he did it in 2020 which was a Leap Year. So feel free to take a look at nicksenger.com/onecatholiclife/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Nicks-2020-War-and-Peace-Chapter-a-Day-Reading-Schedule.pdf but see below the schedule for the Mumsnet Readalong.

Again, different editions name and number their chapters differently - some refer to four books divided into parts (as below), others refer to fifteen books although it's essentially the same structure just with different numbering. Hopefully there's enough info below to keep us all in sync, and always happy to let anyone know via PM what's happening in today's chapter so we can keep together.

Book 1: 1805
Book 1 Part One (25 chapters): 1/1 - 25/1
Book 1 Part Two (21 chapters): 26/1 - 15/2
Book 1 Part Three (19 chapters): 16/2 - 6/3
DAY OFF: 7/3
Book 2: 1806-1812
Book 2 Part One (16 chapters): 8/3 - 23/3
Book 2 Part Two (21 chapters): 24/3 - 13/4
Book 2 Part Three (26 chapters): 14/4 - 9/5
Book 2 Part Four (13 chapters): 10/5 - 22/5
Book 2 Part Five (22 chapters): 23/5 - 13/6
DAY OFF: 14/6
Book 3: 1812
Book Three Part One (23 chapters): 15/6 - 7/7
Book Three Part Two (39 chapters): 8/7 - 15/8
Book Three Part Three (34 chapters): 16/8 - 18/9
DAY OFF: 19/9
Book 4: 1812-13
Book Four Part One (16 chapters): 20/9 - 5/10
Book Four Part Two (19 chapters): 6/10 - 24/10
Book Four Part Three (19 chapters): 25/10 - 12/11
Book Four Part Four (20 chapters): 13/11 - 2/12
DAY OFF: 3/12
Epilogue One 1812-20 (16 chapters): 3/12 - 19/12
Epilogue Two (12 chapters): 20/12 - 31/12

Phew!

I would suggest that we meet at the end of each section (so 17 times over the course of the year) to discuss what we've read, but with (non-spoilerish) chatter welcome at any time in between. According to my guru, Nick, each chapter is around 4 pages long, so it should be do-able.

1. Chapter "meditations"

This looks like another really interesting blog post from someone who has done it, with thoughts and meditations on each chapter: brianedenton.medium.com/a-year-of-war-and-peace-cc66540d9619#.yabefbbgz

Come and join me! This time next year we will almost have finished reading the finest novel ever written on the planet.

PS Some may feel that each day off deserves a shot of vodka or two. I couldn't possibly comment.

Sorry Desdemona! I misread it! Yes, both are counts with the same name!

Yes, interesting how convincingly Tolstoy paints the young soldiers throwing themselves enthusiastically back into society, while the older General (?) obviously feels ill at ease (loved the business with the tray and the verses, so awkward)

Am I right that Pierre is sitting through dinner opposite the man who is sleeping with his wife?

Yes! (Allegedly!)

Volume 2 Part I
Chapter 4:
Pierre is sat opposite Dolokhov, Denisov and Nikolai, he’s distracted, depressed and gloomy.
This is hardly surprising as Anna Mikhaylovna has been dropping some non too subtle hints ‘about Dolokhov being rather too close to his wife’ and only that morning he has received an anonymous letter informing him that ‘his wife’s liaison with Dolokhov [is] an open secret for everybody except him. ‘
Pierre thinks back to how Dolokhov, now reinstated as an officer, came to visit the newly weds in St Petersburg taking advantage of Pierre’s good nature and their past friendship by simply moving into Pierre and Hélène’s home.
Something of a glutton for punishment, rather than ejecting him, Pierre set Dolokhov up, lending him money and tolerating his ‘cynical look’ as he praised Hélène’s beauty.
Now with the rumour mill in full force Pierre can barely stand to look at Dolokhov’s handsome, mocking face - and when he does a deep revulsion and anger stirs within him.

Young Rostov is unimpressed with Pierre’s ‘vacant, worried look’ he views him as ‘a rich civilian who may have married a great beauty but was still an old woman.’ Worse still Pierre didn’t acknowledge the dashing young hussar when they met, and now to add insult to injury Pierre isn’t even raising his glass to toast the Tsar. Nikolai is disgusted and dismisses Pierre as ‘an idiot’.

Dolokhov chooses this moment to push his luck, proposing a toast:
‘Here’s to pretty women, my dear little Pierre … and their lovers’ and snatching up the musical score that has just been handed to Pierre by a footman.
Something inside Pierre snaps and he causes a bit of a scene by loudly, and slightly hysterically, challenging Dolokhov to a dual. Realising as he does so that he is suddenly absolutely convinced of his wife’s guilt; ‘He hated her now. They were finished - for ever.’

The dual is to take place at 8am the next morning at Sokolniki woods. Nesvitsky is Pierre’s second, and Nikolai Rostov, Dolokhov’s.
By the time he arrives at the appointed place, after a sleepless night, Pierre has had second thoughts about the whole thing but feels compelled to go through with it. Despite the fact that it’s ‘pistols at dawn’ and he’s never actually fired one before! The ‘antagonists’ stand forty paces apart barely able to see their opponent for the fog and mist, now all is ready both seem reluctant to start.

Poor Pierre. He's thoroughly miserable. I feel sorry for him!

Thanks Desdemona.

I absolutely love a duel.

How did they ever do that? I would throw the gun and run like Andrei :)

@IsFuzzyBeagMise

How did they ever do that? I would throw the gun and run like Andrei :)

Hahaha... me too - without a doubt! Although think that was Nikolay, the big strong manly hussar who has got far too big for his boots, if you ask me! But I didn't like him after the way he treated Berg.. he might talk me round though - I definitely am missing cool, aloof Andrey!

I felt so bad for Pierre and what a cliffhanger of a chapter - quite unlike ole Leo. I wish I could remember more but I'm rooting for Pierre as not a fan of Dolokhov - he shot some poor sledge-drivers horse for fun?! What was that all about?

Oops SanFranBear you're right.

Who was responsible for that seating arrangement? I was glad to see a mention of the bear; I hope it’s roaming free in the forests. Or possibly being petted at the brothel by the women and menacing bad customers.
Rather nail-biting: shades of ‘Hamilton’.

It's a rip roaring chapter isn't it. Dolokhov is such a bad egg, I agree SanFran that mention of him shooting the horse really shows how despicable he is.
Weird that Nikolai is his second, they barely know each other. He mustn't have many friends. I suppose his bestie is that other arsehole Anatole who isn't around.
(Love Hamilton, ChannelLightVessel, all my duel knowledge comes from Ten Dual Commandments )

Didn't it say that Nikolai and Dolokhov had become firm friends very quickly after meeting?

Dolokhov just does things because he thinks they might be fun or liven things up, and that includes killing, I think. He really DNGAF – at least, for the most part (I'm a chapter ahead and trying not to spoilerise).

musicmaiden, in the chapter before todays it does say with regard to Nikolai meeting Dolokhov; 'whose acquaintance he had recently made and greatly prized’. I assumed they'd just met at the dinner but that probably implies the meeting was a few days of weeks before, I did imagine your 'second' at a dual would be a friend of long standing, kind of like a best man role but in not such joyous circumstances

I imagine a lot of people are a chapter ahead given that cliffhanger ending

Yep, me too! It feels very much like those serialised Victorian novels now it's got going (in fact Google tells me an earlier version was serialised) always keeping you on tenterhooks so you buy the next issue of the magazine!

@DesdamonasHandkerchief My DD is a huge fan of ‘Hamilton’; I think she knows all the words. I always cry in the song about ‘dealing with the unimaginable’ (after Philip’s death in a duel).

Oh yes that's such a sad song Channel 😭

Volume 2 Part I
Chapter 5
The duel has passed the point of no return, Jonathon Ross makes the announcement:
“Since the adversaries wefuse all weconciliation we may as well pwoceed. Take your pistols, and at the word ‘fwee’ you may begin to advance…. O-ne! T-wo! Fwee!”

Dolokhov and Pierre begin to walk towards each other.
Dolokhov walks slowly, pistol down, looking at Pierre with a sardonic smile. Pierre holds his pistol at arms length, stumbling, wading through the snow rather than walking the pathway cleared for him.

Each has the right to fire at any point. I have become a bit of a dual expert I've looked them up on Wiki! and they are fighting a ‘barrier dual’:

‘A barrier duel, or duel à volonté (“at pleasure”); did not have a set shooting distance. The two duellists began some distance apart. Between them there were two lines on the ground separated by an agreed distance - this constituted the barrier and they were forbidden to cross it. After the signal to begin, they could advance towards the barrier to close the distance and were permitted to fire at any time. However, the one that shot first was [then] required to stand still and allow his opponent to walk right up to his barrier line and fire back at leisure.’

Pierre has never fired a pistol, indeed doesn’t even know how to hold one, and Dolokhov seems to be banking on the fact that Pierre will either fire first and miss, or lose his nerve and not shoot at all. In either case Dolokhov would then have the advantage of being able to walk all the way to the sabre that forms his side of the barrier and take the kill shot when he’s sure of hitting his target.

However Dolokhov has badly miscalculated. Pierre shoots, he scores! Dolokhov is badly injured.

Pierre is horrified, sobbing he runs towards the man he’s shot, who has fallen by his sabre.
But Dolokhov isn’t quite beaten yet, ‘Your barrier!’ He warns Pierre, who is in danger of crossing it, and is now only ten paces away. Dolokhov props himself up and takes a mouthful of snow in an effort to remain conscious.
‘Sideways on’, ‘Covah’, yell Nesvitsky and Denisov, willing Pierre to make himself a smaller target, but Pierre is so full of remorse he stands ‘with legs and arms outstretched.. his broad chest fully open to Dolokhov.’
Dolokhov takes aim, he fires, he misses.
Pierre, appalled by what he has done, is taken home by Nevitsky. Rostov and Denisov bundle Dolokhov into a sledge and set off for his home.
On the way Dolokhov, ‘the swaggering bully’, reveals that he is a loving son and brother. His only concern is for his ‘angel’ of a mother who he adores, it would kill her to see him like this he says. He begs Rostov to go on ahead and prepare her for the arrival of her ‘half-dead’ son.

And just like that Tolstoy pulls the rug from under us as we find this pantomime villain’s Achilles heel is a deep love and affection for his dear old ma and hunchback sister.

I was almost literally sitting on my hands not to post about the duel until you had all read it. It’s such a fabulous scene. One of my favourites in the entire book.

It is, isn't it? I wasn't expecting that outcome.

Thanks Desdemona! Nice bit of research there!

🤣 Hands up who actually waited till today to read that chapter 🤣

Far too much of a cliffhanger to wait!

I had to read ahead too, so good. And yes my dual knowledge also comes from Hamilton!

🎵Time to get some pistols and a doctor on site
You pay him in advance, you treat him with civility
You have him turn around, so he can have deniability 🎵

My favourite rhyme 'civility' and 'deniability' 🤣
(Sorry for the derail!)

I waited.. and it was totally worth it! Who knew Dolokhov had a heart under there... talk about a man able to compartmentalise! I guess that's another reason he was so determined to rise back up the ranks - to bring pride back to his family? Nonetheless, I'm still pleased Pierre got his shot in first although I do hope Dolokhov isn't actually dying and lives to (literally) fight another day.

Does make you wonder how many senseless deaths were caused by duels - they never seem to be worth it and there's always a chance the less likely opponent will win!

This seems an appropriate time to share my favourite duel painting: Pushkin carried by his servant (it will be no surprise that Pushkin died).