Andrey and Natasha

Volume II part III chapter 23. 
1/ Natasha is OK so far. I know she's supposed to be pure and lovely and charming, but for some reasons I'm not a fan. Too loud and noisy? Too talkative? Or maybe it's me, I don't even adore Elizabeth Bennet the way many people do. 
2/ Tolstoy's a magnificent artist- both the descriptions of outer scenes and inner thoughts are sublime. As in life, his characters do things inconsistent with their usual selves, contradict themselves, change, grow... without any sense of betrayal. They seem more like people, full of life and with control over their own actions, than characters created and dictated by an author. However, I do have issues with 1 scene (chapter 2, the same part) that I find a bit contrived- where Andrey, staying at the Rostov family, can't sleep and opens the window to overhear from above a conversation between Natasha and some others, and a short while later, also hears what Natasha says aloud to herself, which sounds a bit silly. 
Then later, at the ball, it feels slightly contrived again when Pierre suggests that Andrey invite Natasha to dance. 
This 2nd point might be defended that Pierre, as a friend of family, promises to help Natasha at her 1st ball (i.e she's out) and therefore asks his close friend Andrey. The 1st point, I suppose, can also be defended, but I'm not entirely convinced. Maybe the problem with it is not only that Andrey happens to be there to hear what Natasha happens to say, but more because of what Natasha says. 
3/ Andrey's disinterestedness in political work after he falls in love is convincing. I speak from personal experience.
4/ Andrey's and Natasha's kind of love is love at 1st sight. However, it's not a short, hasty courtship. The marriage is delayed for 1 year. 
5/ I'm curious about what Natasha and Liza have in common- the people 1 person has fallen in love with must have something in common, don't they? What is it, in this case? Beauty? Vivacity? Charm?

"In this day and age..."

War and Peace, volume II chapter III chapter 21. 
A conversation between Andrey Bolkonsky and Vera Rostova, when she realises something's going on between him and her sister Natasha. 

"....
'[...] In this day and age', she persisted (talking of 'this day and age' in the way that persons of limited intelligence generally love to do, all too certain that they have discovered and carefully considered what is special about their day and age, and that human characteristics change with the times), 'in this day and age a girl has so much liberty that the pleasure of receiving a lot of attention often suppresses her true feelings....'
..." 

Berg, Vera- men, women

War and Peace, volume II part III chapter 20.

"Berg smiled with a sense of his own superiority over a feeble woman. He paused and reflected that this charming wife of his was indeed a feeble woman, incapable of ever attaining any of the qualities needed for masculine prowess- 'ein Mann zu sein', as the Germans put it. Meanwhile Vera was also smiling, with her own sense of superiority over a decent, well-behaved husband, who nevertheless, as she saw it, took such a wrong view of life- as all men did. Berg judged women by the standards of his own wife and considered all of them feeble and foolish. Vera judged men by the standards of her own husband and, extrapolating from him alone, she found all men conceited and self-centred, each convinced he was the only one with any sense whereas he didn't actually understand anything at all."

"W&P": The meaning of life

Volume II part II chapter 15. 
It seems that the question bothering Tolstoy for all of his life was: What's the meaning of life? At least, I've seen this same theme in most of his works that I have read, especially the major ones- War and Peace, Anna Karenina, Resurrection and The Death of Ivan Ilyich.
Here, the characters deal with the same question. 
We can look at the 3 main guys- Pierre Bezukhov, Nikolay Rostov and Andrey Bolkonsky. 
All of them go through a crisis: Pierre- Helene's affair, duel with Dolokhov, break with Helene, meeting with a Freemason; Nikolay- massive loss at cards, followed by deep shame and bad conscience; Andrey- war, a moment he's facing death, the blue sky and then Liza's death. Pierre finds his life idle, selfish, pointless; Nikolay finds himself indulgent, shallow, unprincipled; Andrey finds his desire for glory pointless, a pursuit of false values. Consequently, they have to change. 
Here is where the difference lies, both Pierre and Nikolay want to be a better man by living for some ideals- the Freemasonry's principles and virtues in Pierre's case, patriotism and duty in Nikolay's case, whereas Andrey changes in the opposite direction, i.e lives for simpler things, less abstract things, such as himself and the people around him*. His rule might appear selfish and limited, yet a man cannot be a good man if he, whilst trying to live for some high ideals, cannot treat those close to him in a kind way. Andrey is disillusioned twice, 1st with married life, later with the army and its so-called glory. 
That is not to say I'm entirely on Andrey's side, disagreeing with Pierre and Nikolay. Nikolay can be a nationalist, with his limitations, but at least he'd doing something for his country, and has a good will, unlike Boris. Pierre can be naive, he's so easily swayed that the moment he meets a Freemason whilst struggling with his bad conscience over all the things he has done, he himself becomes a member of the Freemasonry, but he renounces his past life and tries to be a more virtuous man, to help others. Andrey, at this point, is not only in grief, he's in depression. Haunted by the look on Liza's face after she has died, he feels guilty of having treated her badly. In such a state, he becomes cynical and passive, seemingly abandoning everything. So it's like he's existing, rather than living.


*: My view now, not necessarily Tolstoy's, not necessarily my view in the future. 



Update at 12.10pm:
From Volume II part III chapter 1: 

"Prince Andrey had been 2 years in the country without a single break. All the innovations introduced by Pierre on his estates without any concrete results, because of his continual flitting from 1 enterprise to another, had been carried through by Prince Andrey privately and without any noticeable effort on his part. He possessed in the highest degree the 1 quality that Pierre totally lacked: the practical application to get things going with no fuss or struggle." 

The next sentences list his successes. 
Thus, without much talking, without big words, Andrey does what he has to do and does a lot more good than Pierre.  
The chapter ends with these lines: 

"On the journey there he seemed to have reconsidered his entire life and come right back to his 1st conclusion, which was as reassuring as it was devoid of hope- that he needn't bother with anything new, all he had to do was live out his life without doing any harm, free from worry and any kind of desire."  

 

Pierre Bezukhov and Dolokhov

I've come to Volume II part II chapter 11.
The other day I wrote that, Pierre changes except that he still tends to act on emotions. There's another thing that doesn't change- lack of resolution. Yearning to live a different life after joining the freemasonry but irresolute and indecisive, and letting others see it, Pierre is easily taken advantage of and fooled by the head steward. He easily accepts and feels content with some numbers in a record and certain things displayed particularly for him, and lives in illusion, because he so much wants to change that he also plays a part in the deception (without awareness of it) so as to make himself believe that he has done something useful and worthwhile after years of self-indulgence and idleness, and at the same time, he wants to change but lacks the determination to go to the end of things, to know with conviction that things have truly worked, not only seem so. 
Dolokhov is different. His tough appearance, with that bully persona, is a way he protects himself, as he hides from the world, except a few people close to him, his weaker, more vulnerable, gentle side. That might be dangerous, because if he always holds back emotions and tries to appear stronger, tougher, at some point it may break him. However, for the time being, one can see that Dolokhov can protect himself and handle things just fine, can be decisive and determined, and doesn't let others exploit him in any way.

An affair, and a duel

So, in volume II, we meet Pierre again at Nikolai's banquet. He sits there in silence, deep in thoughts, as he has known about his wife Helene's affair with Dolokhov. Anger's being built up inside him, then it explodes when Dolokhov impertinently grabs a letter to Pierre and makes him furious, at which point Pierre challenges Dolokhov to a duel.
1/ The affair, undoubtedly, makes me think of Anna Karenina. 
2/ Pierre challenges Dolokhov to a duel and wounds him. There's no duel in Anna Karenina. 
3/ The affair is not acknowledged by Dolokhov and Helene. Neither does Pierre bluntly ask the question.
4/ Pierre is slightly different. He, of course, no longer has the look of a socially awkward guy back from foreign countries, alone and unfamiliar with everything and rather disoriented. The fortune he inherits together with its consequences- power, respect and relations, changes him. What doesn't change is that he's not a man of reason. He acts on emotions- getting immersed in thoughts whilst being in public, letting the bad mood take over himself, behaving badly at the banquet, getting angry, impulsively suggesting a challenge, then deciding to leave his wife. Not the stoic, controlled, duty-bound type like Karenin. His reactions are signs of weakness.
5/ Helene is also slightly different. Initially, she appears perfect- superficial, yes, but gorgeous, elegant and always smiling. Then the nasty side is exposed, when nobody else is present and she screams at her husband. Helene might make one think of Anna, because of her beauty, and the affair, but she is shallow and doesn't seem to torment herself with guilt and self-questioning the way Anna does. At this point, one doesn't know what she thinks, however. 
6/ Dolokhov makes one wonder whether he loves Helene, the way Vronsky loves Anna, or he's more like Anatole. But there's a cool thing here. Tolstoy adds another facet to Dolokhov's personality, in the scene after the duel.

"Rostov went on ahead to do as he was bidden. To his utter astonishment he found out that the rough, tough Dolokhov, Dolokhov the swaggering bully, lived in Moscow with his old mother and a hunchback sister. He was a loving son and brother." 

Inconsistent? Perhaps, but I don't doubt such people do exist in life. And people are inconsistent and self-contradictory. 
7/ Does Tolstoy condemn adultery? And Helene? 
It's not so simplistic. Pierre isn't blameless either. 

"'It's not my fault, is it?' he asked himself. 
Yes it is. You weren't in love with her when you got married and you pulled the wool over our own eyes and hers." 

8/ Luckily, Marya Bolkonskaya doesn't marry Anatole. I like the way the 2 sequences are juxtaposed- 1st Prince Vasily tries to make Pierre marry Helene, Tolstoy describes in detail how Helene entrances Pierre, how Pierre feels, how he struggles against it- weakly, and then gets trapped in it; right afterwards prince Vasily comes with Anatole and makes a proposal to Marya, Tolstoy now depicts magnificently Anatole and the effect he has on 3 women, the old man Bolkonsky's reaction and Marya's final decision. These pages are marvellous, no one can improve them in a million years. 
9/ Now, having seen Dolokhov, gentle and vulnerable, as he faces death and when he's with his mother, I can't help wondering what he's like when he's with Helene. 

So far so good. No, War and Peace gets better and better. 

Is "War and Peace" a novel?

It can be said that War and Peace is 3 books combined: a novel, a historical chronicle and a philosophical work on history. 
So, can we call it a novel? 

Out of pure curiosity: 
Is The Book of Daniel a novel? 
Is The French Lieutenant's Woman a novel? 
Is The Unbearable Lightness of Being a novel?

The male characters in "War and Peace"

Volume I part III chapter 9. 
War and Peace, in spite of its 'reputation', is in fact very accessible and easy to read. At 1st, one is overwhelmed by the number of characters (with their confusing Russian names), later they become more vivid and distinguishable. 
So far I like Andrey Bolkonsky. Intelligent, thoughtful, strong, straightforward, calm. Ambitious, but not a social climber like Boris Drubetskoy, nor a blind nationalist like Nikolay Rostov. He has that tranquility that earns respect, and at the same time, authority. At home, i.e in the peace parts, Andrey seems tired, disillusioned, fed up with his silly wife Liza and his tedious life; he yearns for more. In the army, he becomes a different person, or it's more like, in doing duty and being useful, he can feel at home and do what he wants to do. 
However, he probably doesn't have a sharp eye for people. One doesn't know why Andrey gets married to a beautiful but silly, superficial and frivolous woman like Liza, but one can see this in the way he sees Nikolay and Boris. The moment these 2 characters appear together for the 1st time, one notes the difference- Nikolay is quiet, a bit awkward, in this scene slightly like Pierre, whereas Boris feels at ease and begins talking right away. Later, Boris wins Andrey over whereas Nikolay creates a negative impression, as it often happens in real life with these 2 types of people. Nikolay, as Tolstoy describes, 1st appears as a nationalist unaware of all aspects of war, who shouts that Russians must win or die in the attempt, then in battle falls of his horse, sprains his arm and runs away in fear like a baby and meekly asks for help, then over a bottle easily slips into falsehood and boasts about his own heroism, yet overall he's a nice, good-natured person. Boris, on the other hand, is ambitious, calculating, insincere, and a social climber just like his mother Anna Mikhaylovna Drubetskaya. He's the kind of person whose tongue never slips. Dishonest, unreliable. 
If there's a scale for insight, then I suppose that Andrey's in the middle. On 1 side would be Pierre, the socially awkward, passive, easily swayed, easy-to-take-advantage-of guy who notices nothing, and on the other side would be Andrey's father, the old prince, who sees through everyone and everything. 
I like that old prince. 
Prince Vasily Kuragin is in some ways like a male version of Anna Mikhaylovna, choosing shortcuts, taking advantage of contacts and persuading people to do what he wants. The difference is that Anna Mikhaylovna focuses on career, whereas Vasily focuses on marriage. 
His son Hippolyte hasn't created much of an impression on me (except that once he tells a bad joke to distract people from a heated discussion at Anna Pavlovna Scherer's place), but his other son, Anatole, is a fascinating character. A dashing, handsome young man, who has power over women even in silence, and very aware of it. Similar to Henry Crawford in Mansfield Park, but apparently without the artistic side. The scene of Anatole at the Bolkonskys is brilliant. The next scene, in which Tolstoy describes that Anatole drops off the moment he gets into bed whereas 3 women- the pious Marya Bolkonskaya, the French girl Mademoiselle Bourienne and the married, pregnant Liza, as well as the old prince Bolkonsky, struggle to sleep, is reminiscent of a scene near the end of Madame Bovary, after Emma dies, in which both her current love Léon and former lover Rodolphe easily fall asleep, without sadness or bad conscience. Anatole seems to be the same kind of person as them.
There are 2 other guys who are also interesting. 1 is Zherkov, always joking, incapable of seeing when it's appropriate, when not. The other is Dolokhov, bold and fearless to the point of irrationality and madness, even rather psychopathic.
I suddenly think of a list I saw a while ago: http://thisrecording.com/today/2009/8/3/in-which-these-are-the-100-greatest-writers-of-all-time.html Such lists are, as everyone can see, problematic, but one that ranks Tolstoy as 56 and fails to include Jane Austen, I can't take seriously. I wonder if the people behind this list have read both War and Peace and Anna Karenina.

Prince Vasily Kuragin

In War and Peace, Tolstoy has, at lengths, described and mocked people's changing attitudes for Pierre after he inherits a large fortune, but here in volume I part III chapter 1, I find an interesting passage:

"Prince Vasili was not a man who deliberately thought out his plans. Still less did he think of injuring anyone for his own advantage. He was merely a man of the world who had got on and to whom getting on had become a habit. Schemes and devices for which he never rightly accounted to himself, but which formed the whole interest of his life, were constantly shaping themselves in his mind, arising from the circumstances and persons he met. Of these plans he had not merely one or two in his head but dozens, some only beginning to form themselves, some approaching achievement, and some in course of disintegration. He did not, for instance, say to himself: "This man now has influence, I must gain his confidence and friendship and through him obtain a special grant." Nor did he say to himself: "Pierre is a rich man, I must entice him to marry my daughter and lend me the forty thousand rubles I need." But when he came across a man of position his instinct immediately told him that this man could be useful, and without any premeditation Prince Vasili took the first opportunity to gain his confidence, flatter him, become intimate with him, and finally make his request.
He had Pierre at hand in Moscow and procured for him an appointment as Gentleman of the Bedchamber, which at that time conferred the status of Councilor of State, and insisted on the young man accompanying him to Petersburg and staying at his house. With apparent absent-mindedness, yet with unhesitating assurance that he was doing the right thing, Prince Vasili did everything to get Pierre to marry his daughter. Had he thought out his plans beforehand he could not have been so natural and shown such unaffected familiarity in intercourse with everybody both above and below him in social standing. Something always drew him toward those richer and more powerful than himself and he had rare skill in seizing the most opportune moment for making use of people..."

(from Gutenberg, trans. Louise and Aylmer Maude)

I detest hypocrites, flatterers, manipulative, scheming people, who take advantage of others; Prince Vasily is such a person, and yet, as Tolstoy comes closer to his character, I'm no longer looking at this man in a distance and what he does somehow appears acceptable, unsurprising, natural, even like a matter of course. 
There's something magical in the way Tolstoy presents and depicts his characters fully without judging, condemning them. 
(A confession: I even liked Oblonsky in Anna Karenina at 1st).

More on the smiles in "War and Peace"

What kind of person reads a book like "War and Peace" and only pays attention to smiles?
You must be thinking.
Well I do pay attention to other things, but for the time being, I'd like to write more about smiles.

- Volume I part I chapter 25, when Marya Bolkonskaya talks to her brother Andrey about his wife Liza:

"Prince Andrey looked at his sister and smiled the kind of smile we reserve for people we think we can see through."

- Volume I part II chapter 3, when Kutuzov explains to the Austrian general why he cannot aid the Austrian army:

"And Kutuzov smiled with an expression that seemed to say 'You have every right to disbelieve me, and I don't much care whether you do or you don't, but you have no grounds for saying that out loud. And that's it.'
[...] Kutuzov bowed, still smiling the same smile.
[...] And Kutuzov, with a sardonic smile playing about the corners of his mouth, read out in German for the benefit of the Austrian general this excerpt from the letter of the Archduke Ferdinand..."

- Volume I part II chapter 7, when a German cart with some women passes by a group of soldiers.

"Every face smiled virtually the same smile; every man thought his salacious thoughts about 1 of them.
[...] asked the infantry officer, eating an apple and half-smiling as he stared at the pretty girl."

- Volume I part II chapter 9, when Andrey meets the minister of war to report the situation:

"He had the distinctive head of an intellectual, but the moment he turned to Prince Andrey, the war minister's shrewd and concentrated look changed into a contrived facial expression that he had all too obviously grown used to assuming. His face was left wearing an inane smile- the forced smile, with no attempt to disguise the effort behind it, of a man who receives endless petitioners one after another."

- Volume I part II chapter 15, at Grunth, before Napoleon's attack, the staff officer goes around, with Andrey, checking the officers and criticises Captain Tushin for being barefoot. 

"Prince Andrey couldn't help smiling as he glanced at Captain Tushin. Saying not a word, Tushin was smiling at them, hopping from 1 bare foot to the other and looking inquiringly with his big, shrewd,  kindly eyes from Prince Andrey to the staff officer and back. 
'The men say it's easier in your bare feet', said Captain Tushin, with a shy smile, keen to cover his embarrassment with a joke or 2. But before the words were out of his mouth he could see that this one was going wrong; they didn't like it. He was even more embarrassed."

 -  Volume I part II chapter 17, the battle has begun, Zherkov makes fun of the auditor. 

"... 'That's enough of that', beamed the auditor, with a simple but knowing smile, as if he felt quite flattered to be ridiculed by Zherkov, and wanted to make himself seem stupider than he really was.
[...] 'What was that?' asked the auditor with his naive smile. 
[...] 'That's awful!' But he seemed nevertheless to swell up with pleasure." 

etc. 


These details remind me of a passage from "The Russian Point of View" by Virginia Woolf:

"There remains the greatest of all novelists — for what else can we call the author of War and Peace? [...] Here is a man, too, who is no savage, no child of nature; he is educated; he has had every sort of experience. He is one of those born aristocrats who have used their privileges to the full. He is metropolitan, not suburban. His senses, his intellect, are acute, powerful, and well nourished. There is something proud and superb in the attack of such a mind and such a body upon life. Nothing seems to escape him. Nothing glances off him unrecorded. Nobody, therefore, can so convey the excitement of sport, the beauty of horses, and all the fierce desirability of the world to the senses of a strong young man. Every twig, every feather sticks to his magnet. He notices the blue or red of a child’s frock; the way a horse shifts its tail; the sound of a cough; the action of a man trying to put his hands into pockets that have been sewn up. And what his infallible eye reports of a cough or a trick of the hands his infallible brain refers to something hidden in the character, so that we know his people, not only by the way they love and their views on politics and the immortality of the soul, but also by the way they sneeze and choke. Even in a translation we feel that we have been set on a mountain-top and had a telescope put into our hands. Everything is astonishingly clear and absolutely sharp. Then, suddenly, just as we are exulting, breathing deep, feeling at once braced and purified, some detail — perhaps the head of a man — comes at us out of the picture in an alarming way, as if extruded by the very intensity of its life..." 

(http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/w/woolf/virginia/w91c/chapter16.html)