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

No, we're okay! Today is Chaper 5.
You're ahead, rifling 😁

Oops! I'll have a day off tomorrow. 😁

😂

-waves to Cornish-

I see that tomorrow Helene is back, hurrah!

I don't prefer the war parts either, but it's gripping to see the French about to occupy Moscow.

I'm definitely up for reading another long novel next year, and all the ideas proposed sound good to me.

I read Les Miz a long time ago and I remember it as having lots of boring digressions, but also some amazing bits. As I've become older I have begun to admire Hugo a bit less than I did when I was young and idealistic; he's something of a sentimentalist, Hugo. But then again, so is Dickens.

Dumas I've never read and he sounds like good fun.

I'd love to read Clarissa, and I read on the internet (on a site I can't find again now) that you can read it unfolding in real time, as the novel takes place over the course of a year. Apparently in 2023 the days of the week across the calendar year match the days of the week in Clarissa (but I haven't verified this!).

Middlemarch is also an amazing novel, but too short perhaps (!!). And I've always wanted to read the whole of Proust, but that would probably be too long to manage comfortably in a year.

Anyway the Tolstoy is great. I think I've managed to keep up with it mainly because the chapters are so short, so if I fall behind it's not too difficult to catch up.

I think you might be a chapter ahead, rifling? Pretty sure Ch5 is today...

I’m so far behind as I got out of sync on holiday and couldn’t check as I had no internet for three weeks.

im still at Borodino and Andrei isn’t injured yet.

100% in for a readalong next year. Don Quixote? Apparently 52 chapters so would be one a week. I’m also up for the all those suggested and would definitely finally get to Les Miserables. I’ve read Monte Christi (but don’t mind a reread) and Vanity Fair (read this year and didn’t float my boat).

Still here too and up to date. Loving your comments and finding the summaries really helpful. Found the latest war section so evocative and horrifying. I am amazed at this huge cast of characters Tolstoy has created and how real and well drawn they are. It will be interesting to see how this has changed Pierre, for one.

Re: Clarissa: I didn't know much about this one but apparently it's made up of 537 dated letters dated 10 Jan to 18 Dec so you can read the letter that corresponds to the day. Interesting idea!
I suggested Proust a while back and have found a year schedule. Might be tough going, though. Les Mis is also a gift for a year readalong at 365 chapters. I am a fan of Vanity Fair but it's so easy and quite fun to read, so I don't think it would benefit from reading over a year, which has proven to make harder books easier with W&P 😀

Hi StColomb and musicmaiden!

Good to hear from you both!

21/08/33

Volume 3, Part 3, Chapter 6

•	Oh, hey, remember Helene? She’s back, and she’s on the horns of a dilemma. Since she’s been chilling with the court, she’s traveled from Petersburg to Vilno and back again. In Petersburg she caught the eye of an old VIP dude, and in Vilno she got together with a young foreign prince.

•	What to do, what to do.


•	She basically lays it all out there for both these guys, saying that she’ll be with whichever one wants to marry her. Which they both immediately say they want to do.

•	On top of all of this, she converts to Catholicism. She gets that this is because she’s really rich and the Jesuits are hoping to get some of that money for their various institutions, but she decides to make them work for it by getting her a divorce from Pierre.

I’d be up for another read along. I especially like the idea of Don Quixote. I agree that Vanity Fair is too readable to benefit from
the slow reading. I haven’t read the other suggestions so would be up for them. Another book I’d like to read but would need a support group for is Anna Karenina.

Yes, Don Quixote is another great idea. And Anna Karenina, though I have a feeling there might already have been an MN read of Anna Karenina? I could be making that up though.

For the first time I feel like I'm team Helene. It's just shocking that married couples can't divorce. It's not just Pierre who's trapped in a meaningless marriage, it's his wife too.

In a weird coincidence I had lunch in a Jesuit hall quite recently. 😁It was very ... male, apart from the nun who invited me, and the cleaner!

I would be Team Helene except she seems to be planning on moving out of one loveless marriage to another.. I'm not convinced she's in love with either of her suitors (or on board with her recent Catholic conversion either!)

I'd much prefer she sacks of marriage totally and just became a society madame which she's obviously awesome at and which I think she'd be able to pull off.

That said, as a divorced woman, it must suck to be married to someone you don't want to be married to - I just think she wants the adoration and its not reciprocated at all?

I think she loves the adoration too and it's her way of staying in the limelight. She's very phoney. Conversion to Catholicism my eye! I agree that she should forget about marriage completely and just enjoy herself. Bilibin is only encouraging her when he said to marry the older guy first and when he pops his clogs, to move on to the younger one. It's a kind of pastime for them really. What will Hélène do next...I know Pierre is completely off the scene and the marriage is a disaster, but really. I think 'Society Madame' describes her well!

I’m not a friend of Helène’s but was pleased to see her for light relief. I enjoyed the Machiavellian scheming of presenting her dilemma as being which suitor to choose thereby distracting everyone from the question of whether she is free to marry at all.

Yes, Cornish, that was clever of her. A bit of light relief from the war analysis was definitely welcome too.

22/08/33

Volume 3, Part 3, Chapter 7

•	Back in Petersburg, Helene is being wooed by two men. Oh, and she’s still married to Pierre, which could be awkward, except Helene has a special genius for dealing with this kind of drama.
•	Being a really good PR person, she gets ahead of the story and spins it her own way. Basically she makes it less about “Helene want to get a divorce” (a huge scandal back in the day), and makes it more about “Which of these two men will Helene marry?”

• That’s pretty smooth.

•	The only one who doesn't buy into this spin is Marya Dmitrievna Akhrosimov (the lady whose house Natasha was staying in when she wanted to run off with Anatole). When she sees Helene at a ball, Marya tells her off.

•	Meanwhile, Helene’s dad, Prince Vassily, tells Helene that he’s totally behind her and is just happy she’s getting whatever her heart desires.

•	Helene’s friend Bilibin (the guy who’s always trying to be super-witty) kind of jokes his way out of the whole thing by saying that she should first marry the old guy, give him a few good years of fun, and then marry the young guy when the old one dies. Then he asks her how Pierre is going to feel about all this, to which Helene is all, oh he loves me so much that he’ll give me a divorce since that’s what I want.

•	Finally, Helene is confronted by mommy dearest. Her mother is jealous of her daughter and shows her the part of the Bible where divorce is clearly declared to be immoral. Helene starts to object, when suddenly her young foreign prince comes into the room. Princess Kuragin is such a starstruck snob that she immediately drops all the objections and gets with the Helene-remarriage program.

•	Helene writes a quick note to Pierre asking him for a divorce. It’s delivered to his house while he’s at Borodino.

23/08/22

Volume 3, Part 3, Chapter 8

•	After the battle Pierre makes his way down from the battery, past the medic station. He is just trying to get as far away from the whole horrible place as quickly as possible. The whole thing is just too much for him and he needs some time to process and digest.

•	He walks along the road, then lies down. For hours.

•	Finally, some passing soldiers set up camp near him. He wakes up and chums it up with them by pretending to be a much lower-ranking person than he really is. They give him some grub, and it’s the best thing he’s ever eaten.

•	He walks to town with these guys until they run into his horse groom.

•	There’s nowhere at the inn for Pierre to sleep, so he just bunks down in his carriage.

Marya 'tells Helene off'?! Bit mild: she basically calls her a whore!

I am not generally a fan but H's ability to bend people to her way of thinking is impressive. In fact, I wonder if they are machinations at all or just complete confidence in her rightness.

I know 😄

"She spins it her own way". I was thinking the same thing.

Good grief.. the final sentence of Chapter 9 is so so brutal! And is it true, do we think?

24/08/22

Volume 3, Part 3, Chapter 9

•	Pierre immediately falls asleep and has some crazy dreams.

•	In his first dream, he's back at the battle, with the noise and guns and smoke and dead people. This nightmare wakes him up slightly.

•	Next, he moves into another dream in which he's back at the English Club with his Masonic mentor at the head of the table. Across the table are Dolokhov, Anatole, and Denisov – guys Pierre actively dislikes and is maybe a little intimidated by. They're yelling and singing. Pierre ignores them and listens to his mentor, who is saying something really useful. The other guys surround the mentor, crowding Pierre out, and Pierre is suddenly embarrassed to be shoeless. Again he wakes up a little bit.

•	In his third dream, he hears a voice in his head revealing the secrets of the universe. Or at least that’s what it feels like. The main secret is in uniting all things and all meanings within the soul. (Say what? Yeah, we agree – pretty confusing.) The voice then yells that everything has to be “hitched” together, and Pierre wakes up to the coachman telling him that the everything has been “hitched” together and they’re ready to go.

•	Pierre then has that really common experience where he just knows that if he’d stayed asleep another two minutes he’d really be able to understand the deep thoughts of his dream, but now it’s too late and he’s forgetting what he dreamed about. Argh – so frustrating.

•	The troops are departing all around him and leaving the wounded behind.

•	On the road, Pierre learns that Andrei is dead.

•	Hold the phone! Andrei is dead? Just like that? And this is how we find out? That’s cold.

God I hope not 😥

That was abrupt alright! It could be a rumour, although Andrei was seriously injured 😮

Really hoping Andrei isn't dead 😥. Also Anatole had his leg amputated but seemed ok? Is it just rumour?

I'm pretty sure an amputated leg, in the conditions it was done under, would finish you off. But isn't the rule in literature if you don't see the corpse they ain't dead! (Although they may be 'undead' depending on the genre!)