Let’s face it, I’m not getting to the end of War and Peace any time soon.
So I thought it’d be best if I put my thoughts down as I go, instead of waiting till the last page and forgetting all about the gems that happened before. So here goes judgment day for War and Peace: Volume I.
The Story
Well, the story is, if nothing else, complicated. It always has one too many names for you to remember, you usually end up going “oh that’s the guy with the girl who’s the rich guy’s daughter” or something. It carries that overly interconnected Russian society vibe. There are always surnames and family ties to keep up with, a few nicknames to get used to. But this one differs in one way; good old Fyodor usually had about 6 names for each character, Tolstoy has 6 characters for each character. People come and go like flies. Some certainly do get lost in the haze, but mostly—due to that Russian blood of Leo’s—you get a sense of who’s who. Some more frequently occurring ones get a hold of you, and surprisingly, you grow familiar to those less mentioned.
The plot rarely slows down or looses beat—except for the war sections which always describes and explains way too much (Soljenitzin’s August 84 had butchered me for weeks on that matter), but besides that, it works out fine. Somebody’s always in love, or in trouble, or in some scheme—you don’t really get bored. There would be times in Dostoevsky’s stories that you would just beg him to stop dragging the story line (but that drag always somehow ends up being perfect) but Tolstoy’s rapid changing lines and ability to include vast changes at the scope of the story in a few lines usually speeds things up for you.
Last remark on what goes on would be that it’s communal. You don’t pinpoint anyone on the way. Sure you get a few extra pages of Prince Andrew or Pierre once in a while, but it refuses—he, Tolstoy, refused to—focus on anyone. There is no leading character—yet at least. You don’t listen to the story wondering what happens to someone specific. It’s about Napoleon, as much as it’s about Natasha. It’s about a city, a country, countries even—this crazy time in the world of which we only read in history books. Nobody’s that special, everyone’s a part of the story line. It’s a combination of a hundred climaxes, some related to one another, others completely apart.
The People
Here’s where the problem starts. Kerouac’s vividness that spurs of reality, or Dostoevsky’s muse-given talent to make people out of nothing, or Dylan’s superb way of telling you that Eliot and Pound are fighting in the captain’s tower—all the great things that make a story a story is very dangerously vague in War and Peace. Possibly because there are too many of them, rarely with few pages of inner self descriptions; or maybe because the scope is too big or something—but they’re mostly just book people, and you know that when you put them down. They don’t jump out of the pages.
Though rarely, sparkling do happen. Three people especially show the Russian-ness of Tolstoy, one being my favorite, who I’ll save for the last.
Count Nicholas Rostov is who I’ll start with for the obvious reason; I hated that brat at the beginning. He was a pitiful little rich man’s kid, and he seemed irrelevant. There wasn’t much going on with him. But Tolstoy shone through the pages as he turned young Nikolai from a spoiled kid to a brainwashed dutiful soldier to an honorable man. That kinda change, if done masterfully, is just plain delicious. The gambling scene from start to the end is the kind that renews your faith in literature. It reminds of Dostoevsky’s passionate gambler—but puts Rostov somewhere different, entirely different. And his fierce defend against Dolokhov (“My cousin has nothing to do with this and it’s not necessary to mention her!) suddenly gives him that charm only men who bleed can have. The way Tolstoy breaks Rostov amazingly makes him a better man, and you see his stupidity, his childishness, his immaturity with a loving eye. He possesses the wounded man’s appeal from then on, and you become sold on Rostov.
Pierre is the next persona of the story that is worth mentioning. He is kinda weird, not easily understood, a little too melodramatic even. He goes from being the silent, obedient, lost heir to a crazy jealous dueling husband, to a monk. His transformation goes slower and less charmingly than Rostov’s, and Tolstoy makes sure he keeps him intact and a single person—something that would have ruined Rostov, by the way. The way you love Rostov for the change, you love Pierre for the lack of it. His shyness gets you to have some sympathy for him, and almost hatred for his first needless, then obligatory, then practically evil wife Helene.
And then we have Prince Andrew Bolkonski—the only man you get hung up on. His grandness, his appeal, his charisma—man, can you feel that one through the pages. His cruel indifference to his pretty little wife, his denial at everything on the battle field, his way of diminishing Napoleon, his unexpected return—all of it you read with excitement, and let’s face it, attraction. You picture a broad shouldered blonde Russian with a heart of steel and a charm of gold. He keeps that up—of course—until Tolstoy makes him fall in love with Natasha. But even he then somehow navigates through that with a different air. He always brings a give’m hell attitude to the story, the way he ignores his family, mocks his sister’s religious folk, puts up with his father—from the first moment of crazy drunk Russian men fooling around to his marriage decision (which happens in the second volume) he remains charming, attractive and strong. He feels like he stumbled upon the story, and though he does not fit in perfectly, he stays on as a favour. He feels a little out of Tolstoy’s league—and reach too—and stands aloof and apart on his own road. The Mitya of the lot, he with his uniform and his coldness and his irony stands to be the best part of this very long story; and manages to flash among everybody else.
One more person should probably be mentioned before I move on—and that is a little fella that goes by the name Napoleon. Fate has it, he is in flesh and bone through the book with a few appearances, which is hilarious, considering he usually comes up in history classes and, well, history classes. There are a few scenes in the book that could be seen quite entertaining, and awkwardly real. Anywho, not that I ever cared much for the guy, but it is kinda fun to be reading a sentences that goes as Napoleon took out his glove...
The Man
Now for Tolstoy.
He is no Dostoevsky, for starters. I can see why the man’s a legend—the attention and effort and work put into that book is too large for any human to even grasp. It seems to have been just spit out like that, just like you and I and everyone else have been- for else you don’t picture one man being able to create so much with so many entanglements. But still, the scope shadows the context.
Aside from a few moments of hellish brilliance (Andrew’s return, Rostov’s gamble, Anatole and Mary etc) often, the book just flows. I’m not saying it’s a bad flow, but it’s a flow nonetheless. It becomes habitual almost, for it usually stays on the same wave of light. You end up getting more and more used to it, and that kills the spark. Now it could be because I’m kinda moving slow, but a few moments I definitely do remember, and many others I don’t—I doubt that is entirely my fault.
But Tolstoy seems to have little interest on any of that anyhow—you see what the man likes to talk about: it’s love. The same subject that Dostoevsky clumsily mentions, or tiptoes around, or tries to turn into some psychotic other dimension of feelings—Tolstoy clashes with it head on. Somebody’s always in love, and then in love with somebody else. He has the fierce ability to explain one’s feelings on the subject, and the courage to bring it up in the most unlikely places. He is playful too; one who loves someone loves someone else the next day. Dostoevsky’s insistence on certain people being for certain others doesn’t exist in Tolstoy—he pushes and pulls as he wishes. He cares little for boundaries and promises made. And even more, he rarely puts love—or at least attraction--down, he treats it with joyful respect, and gives it its spotlight no matter where. In a room filled with a dozen people he never misses out the sparks between two people. He takes them and brings them forth. In a way Dostoevsky—or anyone else I’ve read—ever do, he makes love the leading character. He puts it in colors and shapes you have or have not seen—and he always bows down in admiration to its greatness—and its natural simplicity.
So the general tone in post-War and Peace Volume I?
Pride, firstly. It’s not an easy one to get by. It is a different reading experience, one that seems to outgrow history and life and literature. Kinda like the way Desire sounds so otherworldly even though it is not the greatest album Dylan put out--War and Peace does not belong to this world. It’s too large to ever fit in. It is not entirely beautiful, though graceful; not entirely life changing but effective. You don’t feel like you peeked at a god who had been lurking in the dark, but you do get the feeling that you may have just met the perfect man that came out of millions of imperfect folk.
Well, that’s the end of Volume I. Who knows what the rest may bring? I’ll let you know.
