Thoughts on Tolstoy's War and Peace, Parts X-XV

So I finally got around to finishing the 1200 pages that is War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. If you haven't kept up to date with my writings on the novel check these posts out here, and here.

Those posts cover the first quarter and half of the book. Now I will write about parts X-XV, the ending, and epilogue. 

The entire second half of War and Peace turns into a lot of war and philosophical exposition. The war scenes in this book are probably the best war scenes I've ever seen described in a book, aside from Homer and Plutarch's Romans. Nothing else really comes close. You get such a nihilistic sense [this goes back to the philosophy] of what war really is, how it is perpetrated, and the end result in terms of history of mankind. 

A bit of history. The novel spans the years 1805 to 1820. Catherine the Great was still in the minds of older Russians. She made French the language of the Royal Court and made the nobility to learn about French culture. Louis Antoine, Duke of Enghien is executed in 1805 and Alexander I rules Russia in the Napoleonic Wars. 

"Key historical events woven into the novel include the Ulm Campaign, the Battle of Austerlitz, the Treaties of Tilsit, and the Congress of Erfurt. Tolstoy also references the Great Comet of 1811 just before the French invasion of Russia. Tolstoy then uses the Battle of Ostrovno and the Battle of Shevardino Redoubt in his novel, before the occupation of Moscow and the subsequent fire. The novel continues with the Battle of Tarutino, the Battle of Maloyaroslavets, the Battle of Vyazma, and the Battle of Krasnoi. The final battle cited is the Battle of Berezina, after which the characters move on with rebuilding Moscow and their lives." [wiki]

If you know history, you know how the French lost this war. Napoleon killed thousands of Russians and eventually sacked the capital, Moscow. However, the French needed supplies to keep up their troops. The problem was that the French were very far from home, low on supplies, and the Russian winter is a deadly cold winter. This was what saved Russia. 

The French had to keep retreating while the Russians attacked their supplies and counter-attacked them. Although more Russians died and their army was smaller, therefore weaker, their will, their spirit was stronger, and the fact that they attacked the supplies of the French forced the French army to fight without supplies, namely food, resulting in a devastating, humiliating, defeat. But it is the way that Tolstoy describes all of this that is downright remarkable and ultimately creating an unforgettable war story. 

Pierre, the principal character gets captured by French soldiers in Moscow and becomes a prisoner of war. This part of the book is so lifelike, so visceral, you know that being a pow is exactly like what is described here. It's like a historical document. Prince Andrey, an important secondary character dies after eating a grenade. The result is that her betrothed, Natasha, ends up marrying Pierre, who was Andrey's friend. Very awkward and bad timing, but the way Tolstoy writes it is that Pierre and Natasha had actually always loved each other, and were happy to finally consecrate their love. What is revealing is that Pierre never loved his first wife and he's even happy when she dies. However, it's not the storytelling of the book that highlights parts X-XV, it is the ideas. 

The very last part of the epilogue is intriguing. Tolstoy writes of a historical philosophy that disclaims the fact that heroes or great men are the leaders of destiny, the creators of history, like Plutarch's Romans [the idea of the ancients]. Rather, it is the collective will of the multitude of men that makes or breaks history. Basically, great historical events are the result of many smaller events driven by the thousands of individuals involved. 

The other two parts that I've written [listed above in the second line] go into more of the philosophical details of War and Peace. Namely, the fact that Tolstoy wrote this not as a novel, not as a history, not as a chronicle, but as something philosophical. Tolstoy himself said the novel was his response to Schopenhauer's  The World as Will and Representation. 

Moving on, the critics didn't take the book well when it first appeared in Russia in 1865 [it was serialized and took till 1889 for book form]. "However, the most prominent Russian writers of the time supported the novel wholeheartedly. Goncharov, Turgenev, Leskov, Dostoyevsky and Fet have all gone on record as declaring War and Peace the masterpiece of the Russian literature.  Fyodor Dostoyevsky (in a May 30, 1871 letter to Strakhov) described War and Peace as "the last word of the landlord's literature and the brilliant one at that"." [wiki]

Lastly, my closing thoughts. This is without a doubt, one of the best works of Russian literature. Going beyond that, it's one of the best books I'll read or will ever read. The book challenged me in a way that no other work of fiction ever has. Each line is potentially thought provoking, forcing you to commit to all of it without hesitation. This book will make you smarter because it will make you think a lot about people, emotions, history, and ideas. The more you read it, the more you keep thinking, and the more you can understand. Even understanding just a slight bit more and more, every time you read it, is ultimately satisfying. 

I talked to a lot of everyday people about War and Peace and most of them said, "its too long," and, "I'm not ready," and some even, "I'm not worthy," well the truth of the matter is that most people talk about Tolstoy but haven't actually read him. My advice to these people and others is that Tolstoy is for everyone and you should read War and Peace in particular. Yes, its long, and sometimes even grueling, but in the end the reward is a lifetime achievement of ideas. 

No matter who you are out there, read this book.

Thoughts on Tolstoy's War and Peace, Parts V-X

 

Okay, so if you have made it this far on my series on War and Peace, thanks for reading. Make sure you check out the last post here. So if you saw that post you noticed that although the book has many characters in it, I focused mostly on Pierre and Prince Andrey. 

Pierre goes on a hunt for spiritual enlightenment by joining the Freemasons. Andrey recovers from a near fatal wound from an army battle, only to come home and have his wife die from childbirth, the child Nikolai survives but Andrey feels bad that he didn't treat his wife better. 

Pierre's wife, who Pierre had a falling out with because he believed she was cheating on him, begs Pierre to take her back, and Pierre, urged by the Freemasons' laws of forgiveness, decides to take her back. 

Natasha, the Countess of the Rostov family, is engaged with Prince Andrey. However, she meets a new man, named Anatole who seamlessly gets her to fall in love with him, and him with her. Faced with new feelings of loving a different man other than Prince Andrey, she inevitably breaks off the marriage with Andrey, which was scheduled to go on. This entire section devoted to Natasha, her falling in, and consequently out of love is such a heartbreaking part of this book. Because when you see that she could have been happy if not for wanting more, wanting what she couldn't have, you see how capricious love really can be sometimes. What is also interesting is that Pierre realizes he's in love with Natasha. And Prince Andrey coldly accepts Natasha's break off of the engagement, but he doesn't wish to ever see her again. 

Meanwhile, the whole of Russia is fighting Napoleon's army. Napoleon is characterized by Tolstoy as a charismatic man, even a good man, although he has his moments of arrogance. At times he sounds like a guy who loves the sound of his own voice. But at other times, he's sympathetic, caring, charismatic, powerful, well spoken, the very best of the best qualities that leaders and generals all share. Napoleon is a man who has many virtues according to this description in the book. 

Alright, so all these things are happening right after the next. But it is also at the end of this section [or near it at least], where the rest of War and Peace becomes a reading difficulty, the strain on you from reading the book becomes much more intensified, there's a degree of heaviness that bears upon the soul. Because of that this is probably one of the most difficult, most intense books I have ever read, maybe will ever read, who knows. 

Because you see that Tolstoy puts every emotion: joy, surprise, fear, disgust, anger, contempt, and sadness, and all the variations on and between them. This is what is meant by the fact that the second part of War and Peace [this part and onward to the end] becomes less a literary novel and more a grand philosophical design. "Tolstoy wrote in a letter to Afanasy Fet that what he has written in War and Peace is also said by Schopenhauer in The World as Will and Representation. However, Tolstoy approaches it from the other side." [wiki]

"Tolstoy said War and Peace is "not a novel, even less is it a poem, and still less a historical chronicle." Large sections, especially the later chapters, are philosophical discussions rather than narrative. Tolstoy also said that the best Russian literature does not conform to standards and hence hesitated to call War and Peace a novel. Instead, he regarded Anna Karenina as his first true novel." [wiki]

So when Tolstoy puts these aristocrat characters in these very personal, intense situations, and then he goes into every detail of their lives in a grand philosophical way, you get to experience philosophy in a much more literal literary form. It's been simplified of course so that we can experience it more from our hearts rather than just from our heads. This is important to note because I think this is what is meant by the fact that Tolstoy says the same thing as Schopenhauer in his The World as Will and Representation, but "from the other side," the other side could perhaps be the heart rather than the head [or brain]. I've also seen this particular comparison in Fritz Lang's Metropolis [the mediator between, the heart and the brain]. 

The book has become immensely more difficult but I plan to be done with the novel perhaps by early next week, perhaps earlier. At this point its not about how long it takes to read 1200 pages, rather it is about all the thinking that takes place when one reads something like this. You'll be thinking a lot. Nonstop, in fact, it seems. 

September Feels

September is my favorite month. Why? A lot of people I know seem to have birthdays in September, including my father, myself, and many kids I went to school with. I also like October because its the following month after, and my birthday is five days right before. I also just love the season of Fall, when the leaves fall off the trees, burning a red and orange color. I want to take the time here to jot down some general thoughts during this time period. 

There's a lot going on right now. Today was rushashuna so it was a busy day at work [luckily I worked a short late shift]. There's something about the Jewish holidays, and this one in particular that I find to have significant importance, at least for myself. Perhaps because it's near my birthday, but for some reason I always know when rushashuna is happening and I even have memories of this particular day in September going back to high school and middle school. 

Perhaps because some of my teachers were Jewish and they went out of their way to explain to us students the significance of this holiday, and what it meant to them. I'm definitely not a religious person by any means but I think it's important, and interesting that I put a certain significance to this particular Jewish holiday. I was in a cooking class back in high school, perhaps junior year when I first learned about rushashuna. The teacher was a short woman, I can still remember her plump white hands as she would show us how to bake cookies. Of course, the holiday has a significance like no other in the Jewish calendar, as it represents God's creation of the world. 

On top of that today the Notorious RBG [Ruth Bader Ginsburg] died at the age of 87. Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg was definitely going to pass away soon as 87 is very old age and she had gone through multiple cancers and somehow still survived and lived to do much more good work, after a lifetime of work dedicated to equality and justice in America. She's an American hero, a legend that will never be forgotten. 

The problem though is that we're 40-something days before an election and now because of her death, the Republicans [led by McConnell] will probably fill her Supreme Court seat with a conservative judge. Yeah, because that's exactly what America needs right now, another conservative Supreme Court pick chosen by Trump, after they already got their rapist Supreme Court pick with Kavanaugh. It just leaves a bad taste in your mouth that they got him, now they'll get another conservative pick? The only thing left to do is to make sure you all go out and vote, and vote Democrat because as Hillary Clinton said, "these people only care about power, not about what's good for the country, or the future." Well said indeed. 

On top of that we're all also dealing with COVID-19 still. America still has the highest deaths and the most infections. At this rate we're going to go over 200,000 deaths very soon. That is very scary. Nearly 200,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 when there is no reason that should've happened. We didn't do the testing. We closed and opened up too fast and too soon.

People aren't heeding the warnings and are still gathering and partying even though the pandemic is still going strong. We think we've already gone through the first wave but the fact of the matter is that we're still in the first wave. I seriously blame Trump's bad leadership for some of the deaths but the reality is that COVID would've decimated us either way, however, I do believe that Trump could have handled it better. We are Americans and we can handle the truth; instead Trump downplayed the virus and made his supporters think we were safe when we're all in danger. And for that, he should never be forgiven, lose the election, and be sent to jail for crimes against the State, some of which was addressed in the Impeachment Inquiry and the Mueller Report. 

Even more we have the 2020 Election coming up. A lot of Democrats, moderate left-wingers, and plain regular folks have been uneasy about this election. They were expecting Hillary to win in 2016 [what a blow to feminism that was] and now they see that they don't have a perfect or ideal candidate [Biden] so they're a little uneasy. I'm a little shaky on this election. This is the most important election in my lifetime so far. Democrats can't afford to blow it. 

However, I also realize that important life changing events have happened that have pretty much guaranteed that Trump will lose. Of course I don't know if its a guarantee but I believe these events are so important that they will make an impact, hopefully forcing Trump out of office this election. The events are as follows: The murder of George Floyd caught on video, the outrage of police/citizens killing and using extreme force against black and brown people, the mass protests for said outrage [where whites and blacks took to the streets even though they could've caught COVID], COVID-19 itself and its mismanagement by the Trump administration, and the Trump administration's misuse, mismanagement, and disruption of American democracy. These things are life changing for every American and they are so bad, so utterly terrible that I believe Trump can never recover from it. Let's certainly hope so. 

Finally, I realize a lot of this is out of my control and must take care of myself. I spend most of my time reading. I read the news less these days but watch the news almost every day. I'm halfway through War and Peace by Tolstoy and am truly enjoying it. I find solace in the superb story telling of a great Russian writer such as Tolstoy. 

As each day goes by I realize that the material world is not for me; I spend less and less time on the computer and spend more time reading, writing, and playing the guitar. If I ever get anywhere in this world, it will be through those pursuits. Even if the world is burning outside, I know that inside myself, there is a spiritual place, a path resides therein, to make your way in the world, and out, where no evil can touch you.

Thoughts on Tolstoy's War and Peace, Parts I-V

 
So I'm reading War and Peace by Tolstoy for the first time. I figured I would do a writing exercise where I lay out my thoughts on what I've read so far and use it as further analysis for when I finish the book and inevitably write more about it. Because the book is some 1200 pages, I thought breaking it down into parts might be easier to read and understand, mostly for myself, but also for the readers. So without further adieu, here are my thoughts on War Peace Parts I-V, approximately from page 1 to 400, about 1/3 of the book. This will read like a reaction review.

For starters, this book is amazing. The beginning is quite complicated because Tolstoy introduces many characters at once, everybody is chatty, and many characters are introduced right after the other. What you get is that there are about 3 or 4 major characters, and everyone else are minor characters that might get more screen time later on, presumably. 

Pierre appears to be the "main", main character, a bastard son who's committed some crimes in the past, like the hilarious crime where he tied a police officer to a bear. He inherits a large some of money from the Count, his father, and is troubled by what he must do with it, as well as what he should do with his life in general. He thinks his wife is having an affair with a family friend, a gentlemen he's helped greatly in life. Pierre challenges him to a duel, and the poor man doesn't even fire at Pierre because of everything Pierre's done for him, but Pierre shoots him, satisfying his ego but destroying his soul in the process. Later, Pierre tries to pick the pieces and come to grace, by becoming a Freemason and changing his life forever, trying to become a better man; a better man to his peasants, his family, and his friends. Tolstoy goes into great detail, displaying Pierre's initiation into Freemasonry, and its quite what you would expect.

Prince Andrey seems to be another important, "main", character. He joins the army and fights against the French, fighting against Napoleon. He goes to war to prove himself and become a hero, he wants to be loved by men who will never know his name, but instead all he finds is death and suffering. He wants Pierre to apologize to his wife about the duel and the affair, for which Pierre had no evidence, but Pierre wants nothing to do with his wife and says he's done with it forever. 

Pierre and Andrey seem to me to be the two most important characters in the novel thus far. There are many other characters; children of the aristocrats [they're all rich people here except for the maids and peasants, who sometimes take on important roles], princesses, counts, generals, soldiers, the list goes on and on, but for me, I tend to focus on Pierre and Andrey because Tolstoy writes them [as well as the minor characters, fantastically] with such detailed precision, its like an x-ray onto the character. Tolstoy goes into the general character, their thoughts, their moods, their language and dialogue, but he also goes into the soul of the character; mind, body, and spirit, which brings me to my next point. 

At this point in the book one begins to realize that this is not just a book, not just a story. Sure, there are innovative plot points and the narrative flows better than most fiction today [the development of good story and narration is something I learned a lot about from Don Quixote, but Tolstoy is such a master of this art, that it leaves one awestruck], but what I'm getting at is that this book isn't just a story, or about characters, or about war and peace, rather it could perhaps be a grand philosophical opus. Tolstoy himself said that War and Peace was his take on German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer's ideas, particularly his masterpiece, The World as Will and Representation. 

Here is where the reader must know Kant, and must know that Schopenhauer's ideas take off from Kant's metaphysical system of transcendental idealism. 

Schopenhauer saw the human will as our one window to the reality behind the world as representation, i.e. the external world as we experience it through our mental faculties. According to Schopenhauer, the will is the 'inner essence' of the entire world, i.e. the Kantian thing-in-itself (Ding an sich), and exists independently of the forms of the principle of sufficient reason that govern the world as representation. Schopenhauer believed that while we may be precluded from direct knowledge of the Kantian noumenon, we may gain knowledge about it to a certain extent (unlike Kant, for whom the noumenon was completely unknowable). This is because, according to Schopenhauer, the relationship between the world as representation and the world as it is 'in itself' can be understood by investigating the relationship between our bodies (material objects, i.e. representations, existing in space and time) and our will. [wiki] 

That's very intense German metaphysics for the laymen, but the ideas represented do fit like a missing puzzle piece to this great novel. Why do you think this novel is so great? Of course Tolstoy read Schopenhauer and took some ideas of it for War and Peace.

More on this subject when I reach the halfway point. Watch this space.