War and Peace readalong thread 2022 - thread 3

[VikingNorthUtsire]

Welcome to the third thread. Please see the OP in threads 1 or 2 for the full info.on the readalong, links to different editions and translations, blog posts, etc.

I think most of us are established now so for this post I'll just re-shsre the reading schedule

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

I agree. I missed the St. Petersburg set too. They all seem to be a bit more exaggerated in their traits; the unsettling effect of the war, probably. I'm also wondering what's up with Hélène.

I was wondering if she was pregnant, but I’m probably inferring too much.

Thanks for all the summaries. I got a bit bogged down in the last section but am back on track now.

I thought they were teeing up Helene and the dodgy doctor to kill her off, leaving Pierre guilt free to pursue Natasha. But I maybe very wrong!

21/09/22
Volume 4, Part 1, Chapter 2

•	It turns out Anna Pavlovna is right – the next day the letter from Kutuzov arrives declaring a big victory over the French in Borodino. Everyone is overjoyed.

•	Prince Vassily is all, see I told you Kutuzov is the man.

•	Later that day, though, a different piece of news arrives: Helene has died! The official story is that she had some kind of heart malady, but in private people tell the more likely story: she was pregnant and using the new doctor to induce a miscarriage. When Pierre didn’t respond to her letter and she realized there was no divorce coming, she overdosed on the meds the doctor was giving her and killed herself.

•	Three days later, news comes that Moscow is going to be abandoned, and Prince Vassily changes his tune again about Kutuzov.

Oooh, Desdemona - do you know... I didn't get the whole 'pregnant, tried to abort, od'd' from the text but your summary makes so much sense. But I also think it's unlikely despite what they said (although angina also seems unlikely!) - I think Helene would've brazened it out if she'd fallen pregnant? Or maybe I'm misjudging the times and it was just about as bad as it could be - I mean, it could not have been her husbands?

Another one here who didn't get that first time round! Talk about reading inbetween the lines! It's more plausible than the angina story. I'm surprised and a bit sad that she felt driven to taking her own life.
As SanFran says,* *presumably the scandal was too great.

Oh god poor Helene. I was never a big fan of hers but I feel indignant now. How typical that the woman who sexually transgresses gets punished. It was certainly a failed abortion attempt IMO. She has finally found herself in a position where she can't carry on imperviously in society, keeping up appearances with her customary aplomb; her woman's body has let her down. Transgressing social norms can only happen up to a point.

I also find it upsetting, but fitting, that we don't get to witness the end of her story firsthand. We just find out through the gossip mill. It's as though society has closed in around her. In her case, social death and literal death come together.

Yes! I thought her death was treated dismissively. That makes sense. Thanks cassandre for that insight. * *

Certainly the BBC adaptation graphically portrayed Helena's death as a botched abortion attempt when she overdoses on poison given to her to induce birth prematurely.

Ah...interesting.

Poor Hélène.

22/09/22
Volume 4, Part 1, Chapter 3

•	Nine days later, a messenger comes from Kutuzov to Emperor Alexander.

•	Basically, he tells the emperor the deal – that it was either lose Moscow and the army, or just Moscow.

•	Alexander takes it in stride.

•	Then the messenger says the army is raring to fight. Which is music to Alexander's ears.

•	Alexander gives a little speech about how, if he ever stops being emperor, he’ll go and be a peasant and eat potatoes. Unlikely, but still, good effort.

Very unlikely, I think!

I like the irony that the Russian patriot doesn’t speak a word of Russian. I suppose being invaded by France must have been particularly traumatic to a Francophile elite.

I've fallen behind, again. Currently stuck in the longest war section EVER. I'm reading for the plot too so I can't look at the thread for fear of spoilers!

Volume 4, Part 1, Chapter 4

•	In hindsight, everyone seemed dedicated to doing their all for their country – one of those “greatest generations” that war creates. But in reality, plenty of people were just as worried about their own lives and small-time doings during the war.

•	Let’s check out one such person, our old friend Nikolai Rostov.

•	He’s sent ahead of his division to the city of Voronezh, way outside the fighting, to resupply. He goes happily, psyched to escape army life for a few weeks.

•	In Voronezh, he meets the head of the militia, then the city governor, whose wife turns out be one of his mom’s old friends.

•	Immediately he gets sucked into the little social scene there. All the ladies flirt with him and everyone makes a huge deal out of him. Which is just fine with Nikolai.

•	One night everyone gets together for an informal ball, and Nikolai chats up the wife of some local official. Her husband isn’t the greatest fan of this, but Nikolai plays it like they’re all three in on the joke together.

24/09/22
Volume 4, Part 1, Chapter 5

• All night long Nikolai keeps hitting on this woman right in front of her husband. It’s kind of gross.

•	Finally, the governor’s wife calls him away and tells him that Marya is in town. Seems everyone knows the whole story about how he rescued her from the peasants who didn’t want to let her leave her estate.

•	Nikolai is hemming and hawing, talking about Sonya, but at the same time he asks the governor’s wife to figure out a way to get the marriage ball rolling with Marya. He definitely has feelings for her, and it would be a financially good marriage that would make his mom happy.

•	It’s not the proper time for all this to be out in the open, since Marya is still in mourning, but the governor’s wife is all, um there are other, more discreet ways.

• Shmoop brain snack: back in the day, mourning wasn’t just a personal period of grief after someone died. It was an actual official-ish length of time when the survivors were expected to lead drastically restricted social lives. So no balls, no dinner parties, no theater or opera, and certainly no romance. Just a really quiet life at home. And how long would this last? Depends on how close the dead person was to the mourner. For Marya, since it’s her dad, the mourning period would be pretty long.

25/09/22
Volume 4, Part 1, Chapter 6

•	It’s been a month since her dad died, so Marya is less overcome with guilt and grief than before. Plus, she’s been repressing all her feelings for Nikolai.

•	After coming to Moscow, she got a letter from Andrei telling her and the gang to head on over to Voronezh to stay with her aunt (her mother’s sister), who had pretty much hated old Prince Bolkonsky. (Oh, really? We like her already.)

•	The governor’s wife comes to talk to the aunt, and they agree to get the young people together quietly and see what shakes out.

•	Two days later, Nikolai is supposed to come visit Marya.

•	Marya is tense and nervous and doesn’t know how to act. Then she sees Nikolai and instinctively starts to be as graceful and pretty and captivating as anyone could be. Even Mlle. Bourienne is impressed, and she has the seductress act down cold.

•	Marya feels wonderful in Nikolai’s presence. He’s bowled over by her, too. But of course, for appearances, they have meaningless chitchat about nothing – about the war, about how Andrei’s son, Nikolushka, is doing (remember him?), and so on. They don’t talk about Andrei, since that’s an actual serious conversation and can’t be joked about (and they don’t even know yet that he’s been wounded at Borodino).

•	Afterward, Nikolai has some weird thoughts trying to picture a future life with Marya. Usually he can imagine a pretend home life – with Sonya for instance – but Marya is such an unknown quantity that his fantasies of married life don’t work. This worries him. Is it a good sign? A bad sign? It’s hard to tell, and the text doesn’t clue us in about what to think.

26/09/22

Volume 4, Part 1, Chapter 7

•	As soon as news about Borodino makes it to Voronezh, Nikolai is antsy and wants to take off.

•	He goes to the church service in honor of the victory and sees Marya there.

•	She’s deep in prayer and doesn’t pay any attention to him.

•	When they are leaving, he comes up to her and tries to comfort her – because now she knows about Andrei. 

•	Afterwards, he thinks about how into her he’s becoming and regrets having committed himself to Sonya. All his thoughts are bubbling over with love for Marya.

•	He is overcome and starts to pray – for real, the way he saw Marya doing, not how he used to pray as a kid.

•	Just then he gets a letter from Sonya. She's calling off their engagement. He’s overjoyed that his prayers have been so immediately answered.

•	He gets another letter from his mom telling him about how Andrei is staying with the Rostovs, and how Natasha is taking care of him.

•	Nikolai shows the letter about Andrei to Marya, sees her off, and then goes back to his regiment.

Was away over the weekend so just caught up...

I'm very much liking the budding romance between Nikolay & Marya! And how fortuitous was that letter from Sonya - I sense wedding bells as soon as Marya is out of mourning! Might be a bit odd for brother & sister to be married to sister & brother - but then again, the aristocracy has always been a little inbred, whichever country its in?

Hi SanFran! It seems a certainty that Nicolai is going to marry Marya. It ticks all the boxes. He seems to need someone to tell him what to do. I always felt that Sonya was going to be disappointed.

The last line of the chapter wouldn't fill you with optimism though, that he only felt dread. Here's hoping it will work out. Marya has been through enough.

@SanFranBear The endnote in my copy says that only one of the two marriages could happen, as a marriage to a brother/sister-in-law was forbidden by the Church. That certainly wasn’t the case in 19th-century England: there’s a double brother-sister marriage in Nicholas Nickelby, for instance.

Thanks Channel. It hadn't occurred to me, or more accurately, I didn't know about that rule.

27/09/22

Volume 4, Part 1, Chapter 8

•	Why on earth would Sonya write such a letter, you ask?

•	Well, her life with the Rostovs is hard. Remember, she’s dependent on them for practically everything and is a second-class citizen in the family. (She’s just a relative they’ve taken in.)

•	Most of her life, she’s been all too happy to self-sacrifice and generally be mistreated, because in her head this just made Nikolai love her all the more.

•	But now, suddenly, Countess Rostov keeps making snide comments about how she’s tied Nikolai down and how he can’t marry Marya like everyone wants, and generally making Sonya's life miserable.

•	For a while, Sonya plans to secretly tie Nikolai to her even more. (Maybe through a secret wedding? It’s not really clear what this means.) But now that Andrei is with the Rostovs, she’s got another plan going. She figures that Andrei will recover, and that he and Natasha will fall back in love and get married. If this happens, then Nikolai and Marya won’t be able to get married because it would be considered incest. (Wait, so first cousins getting married is no biggie, but people related only by marriage getting married, that’s incestuous? Oh, you wacky 19th century people.)

•	Meanwhile, the Rostovs are staying in a monastery. Andrei seems to be doing better, and Natasha is happy because of all the love. When Sonya peeks in one day, she sees Andrei sitting propped up on some pillows and it reminds her of what she pretended to see in the mirror fortune-telling game. Creepy.

•	Anyhow, because she has this theory about Natasha and Andrei getting married, Sonya is all too happy to finally oblige Countess Rostov’s pleading and writes the letter to Nikolai ending their engagement.

Aha... that explains today's chapter! Poor Sonya - I don't think she realises that Nikolay is over the moon about the possibility of marriage to Marya and doesn't feel the same as her!

I wonder if he'll get in first? In fact, I'm sure he will... or at least engaged which I think would mean, for family honour (and coffers!) Nikolay and Marya would take precedence over Andrey & Natasha - although Andrey is also a great (and wealthy) prospect given he has his own, significant estate... and Natasha is sort of 'spoiled goods' after her attempt at elopement so not sure she has the social standing needed to land another rich gent, hmmm 🤔

Ooh it's all hotting up. Having no idea of what happens, my money is now on Marya and Nikolai. Maybe Sonya's vision of Andrey means she will end up with him? Leaving Natasha free for Pierre.... That would tie everything up nicely without the stressful familial ties. I like the "wacky 19th century people" comment!