In Which We Discuss War and Peace, Part 9, Chapters 1, 2, and 3

I read the wikipedia entry on Great Comet (the musical) because I was pretty sure Id passed all spoilers.  I had - it covers most of that last book with a few bits from earlier, such as Pierre and Dolokhov's duel.  For some weird reason, Pierre is characterised as an "old man", though I've been under the impression that he's about the same age as Andrew. 

...I've just looked at his wiki page - and accidentally spoiled myself in the process, which is annoying - and he's a "young man" when his father dies, which, in the context of the novel, I would think of as late teens or early twenties, so he may well be around the same age as Andrew or Anatole - certainly not much older.

I also listened to half of the musical album when I went for a walk earlier, and it's pretty good.  Some songs are catchy, especially the prologue.  In terms of stats, I'm now 50% of the way through War & Peace.  I'll currently need to read an average of 5 chapters a day to finish before my birthday.

Chapter 1

War begins in June of 1812, preceded by a long period of everyone surreptitiously collecting their armies together at the Russian border, like in Civilisation when you negotiate open borders for everyone but you, line up your troops near your opponents cities, and then invade all in one go.  Tolstoy describes the war as an event "opposed to human reason and to human nature", in which many crimes are committed.  Everyone has their own idea about how it happens;  Napoleon blames the English, the English blame Napoleon, the Duke of Oldenburg blames the violence done to him, businessmen blame the Continental System which is ruining Europe, and so on.  I've read that this is the war Tolstoy intended to write about, but he realised he needed to go back to the Napoleonic wars to fully explain it.  None of these reasons really seem sufficient to explain why millions of men had to kill one another.  This chapter really feels more like an essay of Tolstoy's thoughts on the war rather than part of the narrative.

Chapter 2

On the 29th of May, Napoleon leaves Dresden with much pomp and ceremony.  Napoleon is writing letters to Alexander begging for peace and so on, but he's also riding out with his army and giving them orders to move towards Russia.  By the 10th of June he's in Poland.  We're back in the war chapters and my attention is flagging already.  40 people drown trying to reach Napoleon because they admire him so much.  Napoleon enrols the colonel - who survived jumping into the river - in his own legion.

Chapter 3

Tsar Alexander is in Vilna and nothing is ready for the upcoming war.  There are three armies with three separate commanders and they can't agree on a plan.  The Tsar refuses to take control and break the truce.  The longer it all goes on, the less interested everybody gets, so they start throwing parties instead.   The aides-de-camp hold a party for the emperor which Helene is invited to.  Darling Bory is also here, having left his wife, Julie Karagina, in Moscow.  He's now rich and high in standing, which is really all he's ever wanted.  He and Helene meet up and dance together at the party while Bory watches the emperor.  While Bory and Helene are dancing, the Tsar gets a message from General Balashev.  It seems to be important, by the way Balashev interrupts the conversation the Tsar is having.  Bory follows them out of the room and so is one of the first to learn that the French have crossed the Russian border and hear the Tsar declaring war.  The Tsar also sends a letter to Napoleon basically saying that Napoleon is being ridiculous and overreacting to an accidental breach in etiquette, and does he really intend to carry on?