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

Quite tempted by this idea of a George Eliot multi-book readalong too!
nicksenger.com/onecatholiclife/announcing-the-2023-george-eliot-chapter-a-day-read-along

Or indeed Virginia Woolf....just throwing it all out there! I have a few books that I read throughout the year and as we get towards December I always start getting itchy feet and keen to find next year's choices!

This sounds good 👍

These last two chapters were good apart from the condescending comments towards women. '...quick, clever comments nicely polished in their own little mental workshop...'

I know where I'd like to stick a nicely polished comment!!

I loved the last two chapters too (other than the condescending shite about women - couldn't agree with your comments more, Stokey!)

For the first time, I can really see Pierre & Natasha together.

I've got Les Mis for next year - or at least, I'd like to throw it in the ring for a readalong! 365 chapters.... but I have so enjoyed this, I'm keen to join in with whatever - although Vanity Fair is one of my favourites, just not sure it would last the year?

I'd be up for a

I'm easy I'd be up for anything for the next readalong.

I'm up for anything too!

I love the idea of Les Mis but feel I might need a year of reading for enjoyment only to get my mojo back. Does anyone know whether Hugo is generally easy to read, or challenging chuntering on about philosophy and battlefield geography ?

Not sure what happened to my previous post, but I'd be up for a George Eliot read-along!

I found Les Mis challenging - lots of digressions about history, the Parisian sewer system, architecture etc.
Like W&P a great story but a bit indigestible with too much padding for my liking.

Although if it has 365 chapters it sounds perfect for a year long readalong I must say, and maybe would be well suited to that style of reading.

29/11/22

Volume IV, Part 4, Chapter 18

Princess Marya agrees to help Pierre propose marriage to Natasha.

Oops that should be 30/11/22 for Chapter 18.

Does she? I didn't really get that from this - I think she's happy for them and can see them together but not sure, other than subtly promoting him and extolling his good points, what she can do.

I've read tomorrow's chapter just now though and adore the way it finishes:

With his heart overflowing with love, he loved people for no reason at all, and then had no trouble discovering many a sound reason that made then worth loving.

This is such a beautiful sentiment and is how I think all friendships should be approached... see them as good and worthy as a starting point. I think the world would be a much better place for it...

01/12/22

Volume IV, Part 4, Chapter 19

Pierre is overjoyed at the prospect of marrying Natasha.

I’ve just been reading Viv Groskop’s book about French literature and just finished the Les Mis chapter and, as mentioned there do seem to be a lot digressions BUT it feels very much like a gift, given the 365 chapters.

I also don’t mind George Eliot but don’t fancy Vanity Fair. It was my first book this year and truth be told, I was rather ambivalent about it.

Thinking about it, my vote goes for Les Mis as it's the sort of book I'll probably never read otherwise!

02/12/22

Volume IV, Part 4, Chapter 20

Natasha returns Pierre’s feelings of supreme, selfless love, and they agree to marry.

She shoots, she scores - and it's a hat trick for Natasha!

(Not to mention an engagement to Boris and a proposal from Denisov.)

Analysis

In the previous section, Tolstoy explored how different people experience war. In the novel’s final chapters, he does the same thing for the way different characters experience loss. Grief brings out the worst in some characters. For example, Countess Rostov becomes hysterical and unable to function when she learns of Pyotr’s death. When Prince Andrei dies, Count Rostov appears to mourn, but is really thinking mostly of his own death.
However, death also draws out some of the characters’ best qualities. Natasha becomes a mature, thoughtful young woman after seeing this darker side of life. Caring for her mother in the wake of Pyotr’s death gives her a solemnity that she could not otherwise have acquired. Tolstoy suggests that these qualities complement Natasha’s previous cheerfulness. If she was happy but flawed before, now she is the embodiment of Tolstoy’s ideal woman (and Pierre’s too). In some ways, she has remained a bastion of simplicity; the difference is that her simplicity is now grounded by the real world and its demands. While this is certainly lamentable in some ways, it is also to be expected; at some point, we must confront the world we live in.
Similarly, Prince Andrei’s death seems to jolt his sister, Princess Marya, out of her spiritual aloofness. As he dies, he advises her to marry Nikolai Rostovv_. Andrei’s concern for his sister’s happiness in life (even as he is dying) seems to convince her that spiritual purity isn’t the only measure of a person’s contentment and worth. Her growth is a reflection of Natasha's. Marya must learn to allow some material desires into her life. She has spent her life denying herself anything material in pursuit of a completely spiritual existence, at great cost, particularly the cost of her own happiness. After she accepts her brother's final request, she helps to broker Natasha’s marriage to Pierre because she realizes that worldly happiness is better than ascetic mourning. Marya’s decision to help Natasha and Pierre also paves the way for her own marriage to Nikolai Rostov.
Tolstoy interrupts the section’s main plot to describe the last weeks of the French retreat and Kutuzov’s death. On the surface, these chapters don’t seem to have much in common with the rest of the section. However, they complement the section’s broader theme, which is the effects of death and change. Kutuzov’s death parallels the more intimate, and emotionally wrenching, deaths of Andrei and Pyotr. On a broader scale, the French retreat marks the end of an especially terrible and dramatic period in Russian history.
The brief sequence in Chapter 14, when Tolstoy describes how Moscow comes back to life after the French retreat, parallels the ultimate message of the chapter. Just as Moscow is literally destroyed and pillaged, Natasha, Marya, and the other characters are emotionally devastated by their material and immaterial losses. But like their city, they make an improbable comeback and are stronger than ever before. There is a wonderful optimism when one considers this as the end of the proper novel. Tolstoy employed much cynicism even before the military sections made that pessimism explicit, and he never gives any indication that mankind as a whole will change. However, by continuing to search until we learn that the truth lies in simplicity, we might find a realistic, mature, sustainable happiness as do some of these characters.
Finally, a last note is worth mentioning about the historical nature of the novel. Kutuzov is a controversial figure in Russian history, and would have been more so in Tolstoy's time. His defense of the old man is less literary than political, as it requires him to take a side on a popular controversy. It is sometimes easy to forget that this novel is indeed fiction and that the virtues attributed to Kutuzov are of Tolstoy's creation, even though he claimed to have researched all of his real-world characterizations

Woo hoo we've done it! Well done everyone! Now for the epilogues....

So do we not find out if Marya gets together with Nikolai?

We do in the first epilogue which moves us on 8 years from the point we are now.

I really liked these final chapters. So full of joy and optimism. In a way, I would have been happy if the book ended there, if it wasn't for the loose thread of Marya and Nicolai.

Interesting section analysis as always and plenty to think about, thanks for that, Desdamona. I had the thought as well that Moscow* *was rather like a character, having gone through great trauma, destruction and renewal.

Yes, I like that idea, about Moscow going through a terrible destruction followed by a renewal.