In Which We Discuss War and Peace, Part 15 Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5

 Chapter 1

We're now with Natasha and Mary, who are united in mourning for Andrew.  However, Mary is now "an absolute and independent arbiter of her own fate" since the death of her father and brother, and is the sole guardian of her nephew, so she has to pull herself together.  Natasha has less responsibilities - and is more of a drama queen - so it takes her longer.  She keeps going over what she and didn't say to Andrew.   The chapter ends with her being called to hear the news of Petya's death.

Chapter 2

Petya's death reunites Natasha with her family, after Andrew's had estranged her.  

Chapter 3

Mary delays the departure of her and her nephew, little Nikolai, because Natasha is the only one able to comfort her mother.  Natasha's love, in caring for her mother, is able to help her heal begin to heal from her grief.  Natasha cares for her mother until she becomes ill, and then Mary takes care of her.  Natasha and Mary begin a tender and passionate friendship "such as only exists between women" with much kissing of hands and face.  They begin to feel that life is only possible in one another's presence.  They spend a great deal of time talking, and Natasha comes to appreciate Mary's relationship with religion, despite not being able to relate to it herself, which is rather sweet.  Natasha and Mary stay with the Rostovs until January - remember, Petya died at the end of October - before leaving together.

Chapter 4

We're back to the war.  The French have been fleeing so fast the Russians cannot keep up.  The Russian generals are trying to get Kutuzov to take some action even though, as Tolstoy likes to point out, the French are already doing exactly what Russia wants.  Kutuzov is doing his best to ignore these orders, but the generals are getting more eager because they're seeing their last chance for a bit of battle glory.  It's all very Lord Rust (see Jingo).  There are some battles - one senselessly raging on for three days, for no good reason, just because Napoleon happens to be there and some Russian generals want to capture him - but the French mostly just want to go home and are using guerilla tactics to slip past the Russian army if they can't just surrender.  Plus, none of the plans are working because they're all out of date by the time they get to the troops and/or someone wants to do something a bit more dramatic.  A bit shambolic really.  This chapter is stolidly in defence of Kutuzov and damns other historians for their lack of respect.

Chapter 5

In 1812 and 1813 Kutuzov was very much criticised for, basically, trying to preserve lives and have a sensible war rather than throwing soldiers away on vainglorious folly, and since we're not upset about all of Mary's family dying - except her and her nephew - and poor little Petya, we're inclined to agree with Tolstoy, who describes Napoleon, scathingly, as "that most insignificant tool of history who never anywhere, even in exile, showed human dignity".

You know, I've been thinking about the book of The Princess Bride recently, and the conceit that it's abridged from a much longer original novel which kept leaving the story for essays about the history of the country it was set in.  I wonder if William Goldman read War and Peace and took inspiration from it, or if that's just a coincidence?  I recently got a fully voice-acted abridged version of War and Peace on Audible, which comes in at, if I recall correctly, about 9 hours.  Considering 100 pages is normally about 3 hours, that's only a third of the book so I suspect they've cut out all these war essays in the same way Goldman claimed to have edited Morgenstern's story.

Anyway, Tolstoy is very admiring of Kutuzov's dignity, and the way he appeared - from the writings and communications we have from the time - to be the only person who really understood what was going on and taking sensible actions about it.  Tolstoy attributes this to Kutuzov's pure Russian spirit.  There is definitely a vodka pun to be made here.  Tolstoy says that it is the fact that Kutuzov was a true hero and great leader that prevented him from being put in the false mould of the "European hero" because, as he's been saying since the beginning, the real world doesn't work like a story and battles and wars never go to plan, and you can't intend to carry out a plan and then do it in the middle of a battlefield so pretending that some generals did is just dumb.  He makes a very convincing argument.

In Which We Discuss Bellman & Black

I saw this image on facebook a week or so ago, thought it was cute, and used it as an excuse to finally read Diane Setterfield's Bellman & Black.  I bought the book a while ago because I loved her other novel, The Thirteenth Tale but, for whatever reason, it's been sitting on my unread pile.

I did do a reverse image search to try to find the original but I can't.

I started the book last night and finished it this afternoon, on a long train journey.  At first, I found the ending a little disappointing and puzzling, but then something clicked for me and I suddenly got it.  I wanted to post about that because, according to a quick google search, many, many people have had the disappointing/puzzled experience without the clicking part, and so I wanted to explain what the book is about because I'm confident that I understand it.  It's possible I don't understand it in the way Setterfield intends, but my understanding is satisfying and makes sense to me, so I'm sticking with it.  

This post will contain spoilers from this point on, and will make a lot more sense if you've read the book.

Firstly, let's look at the blurb for the book, taken from amazon.co.uk;

A haunting Victorian ghost story of love, loss and the mystery of death from the bestselling author of THE THIRTEENTH TALE.
As a boy, William Bellman commits one small cruel act that appears to have unforeseen and terrible consequences. The killing of a rook with his catapult is soon forgotten amidst the riot of boyhood games. And by the time he is grown, with a wife and children of his own, he seems indeed, to be a man blessed by fortune.
Until tragedy strikes, and the stranger in black comes, and William Bellman starts to wonder if all his happiness is about to be eclipsed. Desperate to save the one precious thing he has left, he enters into a bargain. A rather strange bargain, with an even stranger partner, to found a decidedly macabre business.
And Bellman & Black is born.

This blurb is written by someone who misunderstood the book, but it's a starting point.  I am confident in stating that because the blurb is written as if it's describing a horror story, which this is not.  My edition contains a Q&A with Diane Setterfield who outright states that it's a ghost story, not a horror story.  I see the confusion, because there are many stories which are both ghost stories and horror stories, but this is not one of them.  The goodreads blurb is a little better;

Bellman & Black is a heart-thumpingly perfect ghost story, beautifully and irresistibly written, its ratcheting tension exquisitely calibrated line by line. Its hero is William Bellman, who, as a boy of 10, killed a shiny black rook with a catapult, and who grew up to be someone, his neighbours think, who "could go to the good or the bad." And indeed, although William Bellman's life at first seems blessed—he has a happy marriage to a beautiful woman, becomes father to a brood of bright, strong children, and thrives in business—one by one, people around him die. And at each funeral, he is startled to see a strange man in black, smiling at him. At first, the dead are distant relatives, but eventually his own children die, and then his wife, leaving behind only one child, his favourite, Dora. Unhinged by grief, William gets drunk and stumbles to his wife's fresh grave—and who should be there waiting, but the smiling stranger in black. The stranger has a proposition for William—a mysterious business called "Bellman & Black" . . .

So.  The book does start with William Bellman, as a child fooling around with his friends, deciding to try to make an impossible shot with a homemade catapult, to shoot down a rook.  He doesn't intend to succeed, but he does, killing the rook.  The rest of the book is his life story from this point on, with a particular focus on the occasions when his friends or family die.  At many of the funerals he attends, William Bellman sees a mysterious man in black, who he is afraid of, and whom, afterwards, he finds he can't quite describe.  At the death of his wife and three of his children - arguably the lowest point of his life - Bellman has a conversation with this mysterious figure, leaving him with the idea to start a retail emporium devoted to the trappings of death - mourning clothes, coffins, etc.  He names the store 'Bellman & Black', mentally assigning the name 'Black' to the mysterious figure which he believes he has made some kind of deal with.  It is never explicitly stated - because Setterfield doesn't really do explicit statements - but it is clear that Bellman believes he owes Black something for the survival of his remaining child.  Bellman lives in fear of when Black will come to claim whatever this something might be. The book ends when Bellman dies, shortly after his final meeting with Black.  In-between the chapters on Bellman are chapters on rooks, all of them ending with different collective nouns for them.

It is possible to interpret the first 90% of the book as follows; with Black as the human form of the dead rook, striking down those around Bellman, being convinced to spare Dora, the child's life, in exchange for Bellman's service in creating the moratorium emporium and eventually his life.  I think most people, lead to believe they are reading a horror story, are interpreting the first 90% of the book in this way, and that's why the ending - the meeting between Bellman and Black - is unsatisfying.  Black never explains what he wants from Bellman or why he has been killing those around him.  There is no big confrontation, no sacrifice.  Bellman...just dies.  And his daughter lives on.

The reason the ending doesn't make sense with this interpretation is because, again, the book is not a horror story. Black isn't the dead rook taking revenge.  All of the people around William Bellman die of natural causes. His life isn't filled with more death than those around him.  The first to go are his grandfather, his uncle, and his mother.  All sad, but, also, very natural.  Most people's grandfathers, uncles, and mothers will die before they do because, by definition (except in some rare cases for the uncles), these relatives are a generation ahead of you.  They're supposed to die before you do.  That isn't an unnatural occurrence.

I may be mistaken on the order here (or anywhere in this list of deaths), but the next death is that of one of William Bellman's friends, who saw the rook fall.  He dies in an accident.  Again, sad, but also not that unusual.  Sure, some of us will be the first amongst our generation to die but most of us won't.  A guy I went to primary school with died at eighteen because he was accidentally shot (in Britain, which made it especially weird).  Another child I attended primary school with - whom I barely recall at all, because I was five - died of leukaemia.  Another of my friends died of leukaemia a few weeks before his 21st birthday.  During my access course, before attending uni, another student died of an accidental drug overdose over the Christmas holidays.  I saw a stranger get hit by a car and die on impact when we were both in our early twenties.  All of these were tragic, of course, but they were not unusual.  I am not unusually beset by death and nor is William Bellman. This is not an unusual amount of death. It feels like it is because that's what the narration focuses on, and we're used to seeing what the narration focuses on as unusual and significant, but I will shortly explain why that is not the case.

The next deaths are those of Bellman's wife and three of his children, and the near death of his eldest child.  This would be unusual for us, but it is made explicit that it is not unusual at that time and place.  A fever runs through the village and almost every family has lost someone.  Setterfield describes the fact that the dead have to be buried in groups, daily, because there'll be another pile tomorrow.  Other characters - who are explicitly stated to have lost family members - notice that Bellman, who is normally focused on the work of running the mill he inherited from his uncle - is, instead, focused on his family.  Bellman is able to do this because he's been so successful at building up a solid reputation with the mill's clients, with making the mill better able to weather variables, and building up a trustworthy, competent staff, who can keep the mill going despite losses in their own families. They've all lost people, but only Bellman dwells on it. He doesn't face an unusual amount of death; he places an unusual amount of focus on it.

It is after the loss of his family - specifically after his wife's burial - that Bellman spends the night at her grave and meets with Black.  He is left with the idea of turning his business acumen to creating the moratorium emporium.  When Bellman returns home, he expects his daughter to breathe her last - because he has kept copious records of the symptoms of the rest of his family and all the treatments he tried in an effort to save them, and so knows exactly how people die from this illness - but she doesn't.  Dora survives, though she is left permanently disabled from the experience, requiring help for the rest of her life.

Bellman focuses obsessively on work.  He hears of the deaths of his cousin and his other friend (the other two children who saw him kill the rook), both before the ages of 49.  It's implied the cousin committed suicide - and, again, I know at least one person who died that way and I'm 31 - while the friend died of a heart attack (I think).  While one of these deaths was a little on the young side, I don't think it's strange that Bellman outlived three of his childhood friends.  Out of any group of four childhood friends, any of them has a 25% chance of being the last one to die (except in scenarios where, for example, two die in an accident together).  Personally, I think the story followed Bellman because he was the last of his four friends to die, not that his friends died because there was something unusual about Bellman. Bellman is unusually obsessed with death, not abnormally surrounded by it.

So who is Black?  Well, remember that this, while not a horror story, is a ghost story.  Black is the ghost.  But who's ghost?  For me, the answer to this question is what unlocks the whole book.  I think Black represents Bellman's own ghost, not in the sense of being his post-mortem spirit, but more in the sense of the death-daemons in The Subtle Knife.  Black is Bellman's knowledge and fear that Bellman himself will someday die.  That's why Bellman sees him at funerals, when he's reminded of his own immortality.  That's why Bellman's afraid of him, because Black is the representation of his fear of dying.  That's why Bellman can't find Black when he tries to find him at a funeral and is distracted by the act of searching, but only when he begins to fear that he won't see him.  That's why, after Bellman names his store Bellman & Black (I only bold book titles, and while this is the same as the title of the book I am not actually saying the title of the book), characters constantly mistake Bellman for Black.  That's why, after his wife's death, Bellman tries to fill every single minute with business and productivity - as he himself explains, time passes more slowly for busy people.  Making time pass more slowly is one way to keep his death further from him, although, in the end, the overwork is a factor in his death.  Putting money aside for Black - as Bellman does, in his fear that Black will return to claim something from him - doesn't work because death can't be kept away with money.  It can be delayed, in the sense that money can pay for healthcare and nutrition, but it can't be stopped.

So, what's up with the rooks?  The '&' chapters describe them, both literally and figuratively.  The first chapter describes the magnificence of rooks - their feathers, their ability to split black into different shades - and asks why such a magnificent creature spends its time in such common places, like with cows.  The same chapter answers by explaining that they go where they want.  Rooks are egalitarian.  In my opinion, both Black (the shade and the character) and the rooks are metaphors for death and grief in this novel.  Both are egalitarian - death accepts everyone equally.  

The first '&' chapter mentions that some people say "a parish of rooks".  Parishes, among other things, are associated with both death and grief.  The next '&' chapter follows the description of fever running through the village, and ends by stating that some people say "a clamour of rooks".  This, after describing a clamour of death and grief throughout the village.  The third '&' chapter mentions Huginn and Munnin, rooks from Norse mythology with names translated by this book as 'Thought' and 'Memory'.  The chapter ends by stating that some people say "an unkindness" of rooks, but adds that Thought and Memory find this puzzling.  Since this chapter states that the rooks represent Thought and Memory, then I am taking the 'unkindness' to be a description of them, which the narrative disagrees with, implicitly stating that thoughts and memories are not unkind.  That ties into the ending, so I'll come back to it in a minute.  The next collective noun is 'parliament'.  Arguably, death is the highest legislation.  It's a law no one has ever broken.  That wasn't the first thing I thought of, though.  I thought of democracy when I read that and, and death and grief are nothing if not democratic.

The next collective noun is 'building', coming right after the completion of the building (both noun and verb) of Bellman & Black, an edifice dedicated to death and grief.  The final noun is 'storytelling', and that's explained by the very last line.  This book has a little trick in it.  Right up until the last page it seems to be written in third person, but it's not.  It's written in first person, and the rooks are telling the story.  This is a story about how Bellman deals with death and grief in his live - by constantly working and distracting himself, to keep both at bay.  When confronted by Black - his own death - he is first forced to face that fear, by remembering his grief, but then he recalls his life and all the happy moments (via thought and memory).  The narrative character is/are these metaphorical rooks because the rook was his first experience of death.  The story is built around the deaths in his life not because those deaths are unusual but because Bellman's entire life is shaped by his grief and his fear of his own death, both of them triggered by the deaths of others in his life.  In addition, there are specific expectations of narration, namely that, if it is third person then it is unbiased.  However, this narration is not in third person - it's in first person.  It is biased towards specific events and topics, not because they are objectively interesting but because they are subjectively interesting.  The narrator itself is the embodiment of a metaphor for grief and death and so the narration focuses on those things.

Bellman remembers his deal with Black as Black having offered him an opportunity.  Bellman thought the opportunity was the opening of Bellman & Black, and the money he made from the enterprise, but Black tells him that was incorrect during their final meeting.  I think one thing that people find disappointing at the ending is what the opportunity was isn't stated by Black.  The final chapter repeats that some people say "a storytelling of rooks", and expands on the idea that rooks harvest lives and stories, as "I harvested William Bellman's story".   The opportunity given by your death is the fact that, to die, you must have first lived.  This is a bit of a tricky one because some people, and even some characters in this book, die at a very young age, so I welcome other interpretations.  I do have a vague memory of Neil Gaiman making the point that all lives are the same length - they all last a lifetime.  Which I think is a similar idea.

I post this suspecting that blogger will add a bunch of characters to my ampersands, but I cba to fix it.

Edit:  A few things have occured to me since posting this.  Firstly that, in order to grieve someone's death, you must have loved them.  That's the opportunity inherent in grief.  Love.  In the same way that life is the opportunity inherent in death.  That's why, after Black makes Bellman remember grieving his family, Bellman remembers the other memories that he repressed - how much he loved them.  Funerals can be an act of love and respect as well as an expression of grief, and that's where Bellman channels all his energy.

Secondly, because the rooks are Bellman's personal metaphor for grief and loss, and because they are the ones telling the story that means, in a way, that the story is being told by Bellman.  That's why it's biased to how he sees the world, as being unreasonably filled with death and loss, despite the fact that the deaths surrounding him are not unusual.

Edit the Second: this is an excellent analysis that picks up on some things I missed.  I don't think it contradicts my interpretation.

In Which We Discuss War and Peace, Part 10, Chapters 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, and 39

Chapter 33

This chapter describes a broad view of the battle.  Again, Tolstoy makes the point that Napoleon could not see a fucking thing and the news he was being brought became out of date as the rider travelled to him.  The men on the battlefield do whatever they need to do in the heat of battle and in preservation of their lives, until they reach safety whereupon their superiors gather them back up and lead them back in.

Chapter 34

Napoleon's Generals - Davout, Ney, and Murat - are finding that this battle is not going at all according to the way they normally do.  The Russians are not retreating.  Murat sends an adjutant to ask Napoleon for reinforcements, which Napoleon finds shocking, and, I am forced to assume, makes a stupid face.

Napoleon denies the reinforcements and distracts himself with something else.  Another request for reinforcements arrives, swearing up and down that the Russians will be defeated with just one more division.  Napoleon says he's made a mistake and sends him away.  Another messenger turns up immediately, requesting reinforcements again.  Napoleon finally gives in, but dithers over which one to send, "playing the part of a doctor who hinders by his medicines".  Requests for reinforcements keep arriving and Napoleon begins to worry.  M. de Beausset turns up to suggest lunch and asking if he can congratulate Napoleon on a victory, because he's not been paying attention,  Napoleon nods distractly, which De Beausset takes as a yes on the victory.  Napoleon is realising he is losing and is feeling quite depressed about it.  He can't figure out why, considering he has won victories with this army and these techniques against this enemy before.  He just gave a few orders and then someone turned up to congratulate him.  He notices that all the men who understand war are feeling the same way he is and avoiding one another's eyes.  Berthier - one of those men - suggests that Napoleon should ride along the line and ascertain exactly what is happening.  They go and find a continuous slaughter, with no good to either side.  Napoleon has never seen such slaughter.  He can't do anything.  Another general offers to lead the Old Guard into action, which Ney and Berthier roll their eyes at.  Napoleon says he will not have his guard destroyed and leaves.

Chapter 35

Now we look in on Kutuzov, I assume so we can compare him to Napoleon.  He doesn't try to give orders, but just agrees or denies the requests brought to him.  He understands that one man cannot direct hundreds of thousands of others who are struggling with death, and that the result of the battle will be based on the spirit of the army more than anything.  At 11am he learns that the fleches captured by the French have been retaken, but that Bagration is wounded.  He asks for more information.  He sends the Duke of Wurttemberg out, but gets a message from him - sent before he can possibly have reached his position - requesting more troops.  Kutuzov sends Dokhturov to take over and send the Duke back.  A little later he receives the information that Murat - one of the French generals - has been taken prisoner.  He doesn't want to celebrate too soon but does send the news out to the troops.  At 3pm, the French attacks cease.  At dinner, General Wolzogen - who said, in front of Andrew, that the battle must be extended - turns up to tell them that the battle is lost, based on Barclay de Tolly seeing wounded men and assuming.  Kutuzov tells him - and, by proxy, Barclay de Tolly - to fuck off.  I paraphrase, he used more words.  He tells Wolzogen to tell Barclay de Tolly that he fully intends to attack again in the morning.  Wolzogen goes off, marvelling at how stupid Kutuzov is being.  Raevski turns up and gets a much warmer reception, not least because he's been at the most important part of the battle and is reporting a victory.  Wolzogen comes back and insists that Barclay de Tolly must have the orders in writing or he won't follow them.  Kutuzov gives the order to have them written out, without even looking up.  Kutuzov's words - of victory today and attacking again tomorrow - manage to spread from one end of the army to the other, not through his exact words being passed on but more because his words and orders encompass the spirit of the army and of every Russian soul.

Chapter 36

Andrew's regiment was one of the reserves which were held back, under artillery fire, until after 1pm.  They'd already lost more than two hundred men before they were able to move forwards into battle and thousands more died before 2pm.  The regiment lost another third of its men from cannon fire before being able to fire a single shot.  The whole regiment is taciturn and morose, some of them becoming absorbed in simple things like playing with the grass while they wait, amidst silence and cries for stretchers.  They've been inactive for eight hours, with constant fear of death and no food.  They're all pale and gloomy.  Andrew is pacing, thinking of nothing.  He'd tried talking to the men at first, to try to buck them up a bit, but it didn't help - they're all trying to mentally escape from what's actually happening.  A cannonball hits near him, and he sends out an order to tell the men not to crowd together.  A shell drops within two steps of him, near to the battalion commander's horse, terrifying it, which infects the men with fear.  The adjutant shouts at Andrew to get down as he himself drops to the ground.  Andrew doesn't, caught by the idea that he might literally die, right now, and caught by a passionate rush of love for life.  The shell goes off, heavily wounding him in the torso which is...not really compatible with life, in most circumstances on an 1812 battlefield.  He's carried away on a stretcher, still conscious, but a little delirious.  At least it's cured his ongoing depression - there's "something in this life [he] did not and do[es] not understand".

Chapter 37

We're still at the hospital tent with Andrew.  He's seen immediately, which a non-titled soldier complains about.  Andrew's having flashbacks to the piles of dead bodies he saw a few weeks ago, brought on by the naked and bleeding bodies around him now.  There are three operating tables, two of them already occupied.  One holds a Tartar who is being held down by four soldiers while a doctor cuts into his back.  The other holds a man who seems oddly familiar to Andrew, who is also being held down, with something painful being done to his leg.  A doctor orders Andrew to be undressed, bringing back memories of childhood, and then starts doing something to Andrew's abdomen which causes him to pass out.  When he wakes up, the splintered portions of his thighbone have been extracted and the flesh torn away.  I'm now confused about where he was injured.  Someone's sprinkling water on his face.  As soon as he opens his eyes, the doctor kisses him on the lips and hurries away.

Now all the pain has stopped, Andrew is feeling quite blissful, in a way he hasn't felt since his earliest childhood.  The man who seemed familiar is demanding to be shown his amputated leg and starts sobbing when he sees it, which, tbh, seems like a very reasonable reaction.  It turns out it's Anatole.

(The joke there is that Anatole is a classic Rake).  Andrew is still quite delirious and it takes him a minute to figure out that he knows Anatole because of Natasha.  He remembers the first time he saw her during that ball in 1810 and his heart overflows with pity and love for Anatole.  He starts crying as well, and thinks that he finally understands the word of god that his sister tried to teach him, of love for his brothers.

Chapter 38

We're back to Napoleon, who normally likes to look at the killed and wounded, considering it a test for his strength of mind.  Today, it horrifies him and he rides away, feeling dejected and powerless.  While he's sitting there, an adjutant informs him that his last order did not succeed in stopping the Russians, despite killing quite a lot of them.  He gives the role to continue fire, not because he wants to - all he wants to do is run away and be free of all this - but because he has to, because he's the Emperor.  Besides, it's already being done.   Tolstoy doesn't seem to like Napoleon at all, which, again, does not seem like a totally unreasonable response.  He states that Napoleon had to repudiate truth, goodness, and all humanity because his actions were so far from them and he forces himself to find joy in them.  He finds reasons to rejoice that there are five Russians dead for every Frenchman, and that he's looking over a battlefield of fifty-thousand corpses.  I'm reminded of another Discworld quote here, specifically one from Jingo.

“It is a long-cherished tradition among a certain type of military thinker that huge casualties are the main thing. If they are on the other side then this is a valuable bonus.” 

Tolstoy then quotes a letter Napoleon wrote on the island of St Helena, where he later went to write an account of the great deeds he had done.  Apparently, Napoleon felt that the Russian war should have been "the most popular war of modern times".  Basically, as Tolstoy summaries, Napoleon "predestined by Providence for the gloomy role of executioner of the peoples, assured himself that the aim of his actions had been the peoples' welfare".  Napoleon also does some quite complicated algebra.  Basically, since the army he lead into Russia only included about 140,000 people who spoke French, he only actually lost around 50,000 Frenchmen, while 4x as many actual Russians died.  Note that here Napoleon has discounted - as Tolstoy and Napoleon listed - Austrians, Prussians, Saxons, Poles, Bavarians, Wurttembergers, Mecklenburgers, Spaniards, Italians, Neapolitans, Dutch, Belgians, men from the borders of the Rhine, Piedmontese, Swiss, Genevese, Tuscans, Romans, men of the Thirty-second military division (the areas of the lower Elbe), of Bremen, of Hamburg, and so on.

Note that Napoleon has not discounted the non-Russian soldiers from the Russian death-toll.

Chapter 39

This chapter is a description of the battlefield.  The "grass and earth were soaked with blood for a space of some three acres around".  The men are beginning to feel doubtful and whether and why they should continue slaughtering one another, especially since they're all hungry and tired.  Still, they carry on.  Tolstoy attributes it to an ineffable act of God.

Anyone looking at the battlefield would have assumed that either the French nor the Russians could have won if they'd found it in themselves for one final push, but neither side does.  The Russians don't because their goal isn't to attack the French, it's to block the way to Moscow.  They've done this, even though they've lost ONE HALF of their army (capitals are Tolstoy's).

According to Tolstoy, some historians believe the French could have won if Napoleon had sent his Old Guards, which were completely intact.  Tolstoy feels that this was an impossibility, that Napoleon did not send his Guards not because he didn't want to but because he couldn't - because the flagging spirits of the troops wouldn't permit.  Every member of the French army felt the same terrible, sudden, impotence that Napoleon did when they suddenly began losing, when they faced an army they had half killed who still kept coming at them.  Their moral force was exhausted.  The French lost because they believed it was inevitable once when the Russians didn't stop.  In Tolstoy's opinion, the Russians had a morale victory over the French.  Tolstoy adds that the French army were able to reach Moscow, but died without further Russian effort because of the wounds received in Borodino.  The fall of Napoleonic France hinges directly on the victorious morale of the Russians at Borodino (according to Tolstoy).  I feel like this is the thesis statement he wrote the entire book to make.

...and that's the end of part 10!  I'm 67% of the way through!  I have 7 parts left to finish, split into 136 chapters.  At the rate of one chapter per day, I'll be done by the 17th of January next year, so that's my upper limit.  Two a day would only take to the 11th of November, three to the 18th of October, and six to the 25th of this month.  The next part, 11, consists of 34 chapters and will take me to 76%, more than 3/4 of the way through the book.  The chapters should, on average, be slightly shorter than in this section - each one contributes approximately 0.26% of the book, compared to 0.28% for section 10.  On average, the longest chapters were back in part 3 - each one contributed an average of 0.37% to the book.  All of the other sections are between 12-20 chapters long, and, tbh, it's the large number of chapters that puts me off.  Like the French, it's a morale-loss.  For that reason, I'm going to try to get through at least 6 chapters per day until I'm done with part 11.

In Which We Discuss War and Peace, Part 8, Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6

Chapter 1

Pierre learns of the death of Joseph Alexeevich and of Natasha and Andrew's engagement at the same time, and is suddenly much less enamoured with his new Masonic lifestyle.  He stops keeping his diary, avoids meetings, starts drinking again, and generally begins to live his bachelor life again.  Helene tells him off about it - and, honestly, fuck her - but Pierre goes to Moscow to avoid upsetting her.  Moscow is "warm and dirty" to Pierre, like an old dressing gown.  His purse is always empty, because it's open to everyone, and Moscow society loves and welcomes him for that.  He comes to realise that all of society is hypocritcal, even his masonic brothers who spout ideals but don't act on them, and even himself.  Whatever he tries to do, he sees the essential falsehood and insincerity beneath it.  "Drinking became more and more a physical and also a moral necessity".  Basically, as Terry Pratchett would put it, he's become knurd - so far out of the other side of sober that he needs two stiff drinks just to be comfortable.   He's read that soldiers will often seek some trivial pursuit so they don't need to focus on what they're actually facing, and he thinks everyone is a little bit that way.

Danger walks the deck, we say what the heck We laugh at the perils we're facing!
Every storm we ride is its own reward
And people die by falling overboard
People die by falling overboard!

Chapter 2

It's the beginning of winter and Prince Nikolai Bolkonski - the elder - and Maria move to town.  I'm going to go back to call Maria 'Mary', as the text usually does.  I like the name Maria, so I've been trying, but she really is such a Mary.

Prince Alexander is now less popular, and people are very patriotic and anti-French.  Prince Nikolai is therefore very popular, because he's never like Alexander, or the French, and he's very much a relic of a bygone age, with his big old-fashioned house, gruff manner, religious daughter, and pretty French hanger-on (Amelie Bourienne).  However, he's aged very much and become a little senile.  Also, the visitors are present for only two hours of everyday and don't witness what goes on the other 22, which basically involves Mary getting to do none of the things she enjoys - talking to pilgrims, wandering around Bald Hills in solitude - and having to care for her father, so she doesn't get to experience the joys of city life, like going out to dinners and parties.  I think we're basically at The Private and Intimate Life of the House, from Great Comet.

I think that song's actually set a bit later, but the description is taken from here, sometimes line for line.  Mary no longer as any hope of getting married, having seen how her father treats her possible suitors.  She's no longer friends with Amelie, who has "become unpleasant to her", no other explanation given.  Possible it's the Anatole thing.  She's corresponded with Julie by letter for years, but when they meet in Moscow they don't get along at all.  Julie's now a very rich heiress and surrounded by suitors, and also at the age where she needs to decide who to marry quickly.  They meet every week, but Mary misses having someone to write to, and the conversations aren't the same.  She's supposed to be preparing her father for Andrew's marriage, since the year is almost up, but hasn't been.  The old Prince throws a tantrum every time Natasha Rostova's name is mentioned.  Mary's also finding herself getting irritable with her six-year-old nephew, Nikolai, in a way that reminds her uncomfortably of her father.  They both cry when that happens.  Her father's also become much more cruel, and also more intimate with Amelie Bourienne.  Apparently, he liked the joke he made about marrying her, and has decided to go with it.  One day, Mary tells Amelie off for taking advantage of her father's weakness, but that only prompts her father to show Amelie more favours and force Mary to apologise.  She hates him, but when she sees signs of his age - looking for his spectacles and not seeing them right in front of him, taking a false step and looking round to see if anyone notices, falling asleep at dinner - she feels sorry for him, and hates herself.

Chapter 3

In this chapter, we meet Metivier, a handsome and popular French doctor living in Moscow.  Old Nikolai has also ridiculed medicine, but on Amelie's advice, he receives the doctor as all the best houses do.  On December 6th, which is St Nicholas' day and the prince's name day, all of Moscow tries to visit but he refuses to allow anyone in, except for a select few.  Metivier arrives early, to find the old Prince in one of his worst moods.  Mary's been waiting for the inevitable explosion, but it hasn't happened yet, not until Metivier walks in.  Old Nikolai accuses him of being a spy for Napoleon and chases him out of the house, before directing his rage at poor Mary because Metivier wasn't on the list.  He tells her she must leave, insists that he hasn't said it in anger, and rails to the sky for a fool to marry her.

The invited guests include Pierre and darling Bory.  Bory's had arrived a few days before and impressed the old Prince so well that he broke his rule about receiving bachelors in the house.  Bory is pleased about this because, while the gathering is not fashionable, the other guests are very far above him in social station and those who are invited would not miss it for the world.

The party is mostly gossip, but it's about politics so they don't call it that.  No one approves of anything, but they also don't go as far to directly criticise the Tsar.  Napoleon is claiming more and more land - one guest describes him as a pirate.  A thing called 'the Russian note' which is critical to Napoleon has gone around European, but the guests are not impressed with the phrasing, particularly with how many clerks are in the army.  Old Nikolai gets on to describing how he kicked Metivier out for being a French spy.  Then they do more armchair-generaling and complain about how women these days are not keeping up to the old Russian ways.

Chapter 4

Princess Mary doesn't pay attention to the dinner talk, except to wonder if anyone has noticed her father's hostile attitude.  She doesn't even notice Bory's attempts to court her.  

After the dinner, Pierre asks to stay a little longer, and asks Mary about Bory and whether she likes him.  She says she finds him agreeable, and Pierre points out that, when young men behave as Bory has been doing, he's usually trying to marry an heiress.  Pierre has noticed that Bory appears torn between Julie Karagina and Mary Bolkonskaya.  The whole time, Mary is wondering whether to confide in Pierre about how her father treats her.  When he asks if she would marry Bory, she bursts out that, at times, she would marry anyone, just to get out of the house., and bursts into tears  Pierre is very concerned and tries to get more out of her, but she backpedals, and insists that her only worry is how her father will react to Andrew's second marriage.  There's no way to improve matters now, but she does hope she can be friends with Natasha, and begs Pierre to tell her about her.  Pierre picks up that Mary is hoping he disapproves of Natasha but can only answer that he finds her enchanting but can't explain why.

Chapter 5

Bory has indeed been courting both Julie and Mary.  He likes Mary more, but he finds courting her awkward - he knows she wasn't listening to a word he said at the dinner party.  Things with Julie are going better.  She's now convinced that she's a beautiful woman, which isn't objectively true.  However, she is now very rich, and she's also of an age where bachelors can hang around freely without worrying about offending her virtue or making promises to her.  She's become very melancholy, as if some great tragedy has happened to her, like her lover dying at sea, even though nothing of the sort has.  She likes the men who indulges her melancholia best, and Bory's very good at it.  He draws pictures of tombs and writes mournful French poetry beneath them, which she likes a lot.  I think Julie Karagina might have invented Goth, and Bory is playing the romantic and deep poet.  His mother is also carefully inquiring about Julie's dowry - two large estates - and explaining how sensitive Bory is and that his soul has finally found a home.  The only thing that keeps him from proposing is the fact that he just really doesn't like Julie.

Sometimes, Julie notices that Bory just isn't that into her, but she's still pretty sure she's gorgeous, so she ignores it and convinces herself that Bory is just that shy and sensitive.

Julie decides to make a play for Anatole Kuragin, to make Bory jealous.  Bory is jealous.  He really doesn't like the idea of Julie's estates - the income from which he has already spent, in his mind - falling into someone else's hands, especially Anatole's.  He also doesn't like the idea of wasting all the time he's spent pretending to be a dark and brooding poet.  He resolves to propose to her, but almost loses his nerve looking into her face.  He pushes through - with thoughts of the estates and the idea of not marrying an heiress - and they begin planning the wedding.

Chapter 6

All of that happened in the winter of 1811.  We're now caught up to January 1812, and old Count Rostov is coming to Moscow with Sonya and Natasha.  They're staying with Marya Dmitrievna Akhrosimova, Natasha's godmother, because their Moscow house has not been heated for the winter.  Marya lives alone - her daughter is married and her sons are soldiers.  She reminds me a lot of Old Nikolai - very opinionated, with strict routines.  When the Rostovs arrive, they get on with greeting one another and organising their visit, and Marya catches them up on gossip - mostly fashions and Darling Bory's engagement.  She gets a chance to talk to Natasha alone, and warns her about the old Prince, while also explaining that Mary is looking forward to meeting her, which will happen tomorrow.  Natasha doesn't enjoy the conversation, because she doesn't want mortal concerns around her great love, but she thanks her godmother for her advice.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 28th Year, Weeks 36/52

Five books last week, since the Forbidden Game is a trilogy!  The only new one, and the only non-audiobook is The World of Poo, a defictionalised Discworld book.  I borrowed that from the library.

That triggered a desire to read more Discworld books; I actually wanted to reread Witches Abroad, but I can't afford to buy new audiobooks at the moment, so Maskerade it was.

I'm trying to use a schedule to cope better with my ADD, and it includes time for blogging, so hopefully my entries will get a little longer than they have been recently!

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 28th Year, Week 4/52

Three books last week - 3rd to the 9th of September.  All books I'd read before, two audiobooks, and one on Kindle.

Play or Die was the kindle book, and it's one of the few I've actually reviewed on Goodreads. Undercover Economist is a non-fiction work on how economics can explain everyday things, while The Fifth Elephant is the last City Watch book before Night Watch.

A thought occured to me the other day; the City Watch series (or, loop) from Guards! Guards! to Night Watch is a stable time loop, a la Final Fantasy VIII, and it's the story of Vimes becoming a self-made man.  He's first influenced by the original John Keel.  Some of it sticks - he never lets the Beast out - but it's not enough, and he slumps into an alcoholic depression for the next thirty years.  In Guards! Guards! he's inspired by Carrot; he wants to live up to Carrots ideals, and the Watch finally has the power to start being the kind of force he wants it to be.  Vetinari begins to take an interest; begins to use Vimes as another instrument to focus the city how he wants.  Finally, after a few years of those two, Vimes influences his own younger self.  Only once he has reached that point can he move on with his life; his son is born immediately afterwards.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 28th Year, Week 3/52

Five books last week! That’s the 27th August to the 3rd September – and yes, I realise I’m writing this on the 7th of September! I’m moving to Manchester in eight days, which involves a lot of wrapping things up. For instance, returning my last West Midlands library book. I’d returned all the books I’d borrowed from Sandwell, Dudley, and Solihull, so that only left House of Leaves to go back to Birmingham. I finished rereading it this week and then took it back. It was a little anti-climactic, really.

I feel like I took in more of the book this time; I noticed little things like the substitution of the word ‘heal’ for ‘heel’. A few notes from my journal;

- If Johnny is the minotaur then his footnotes are the roars, echoing around the House of Leaves. This also indicates a communication through time, a la For the Time Being.
- Navidson doesn’t feel that the tapes really capture the true scope of the house. Really, films not capturing the fullness of a ‘house of leaves’ (book)?

I finished rereading (listening to) Feet of Clay and Jingo this week. Both books in the Ankh-Morpork City Watch sub-series of the Discworld.

Some comments from my diary about Men at Arms; Dorlf reminds me a lot of Simony from Small Gods. They’re both the kind of atheists who spend a lot of time thinking about god. I also spent some time wondering if Cheery is trans, since her genitals are never discussed. She might be; it’s totally irrelevant what genitalia she has, both in and out of universe. She wants to present as female, so she does.

I nearly cried when Big Fido died, the poor mad bastard. He so desperately wanted to be a fallen angel rather than an ascending ape, a la Science of the Discworld. That’s what his wolf thing was about.

In the alternate timeline of Jingo, Vimes dies on the barricades of Ankh-Morpork. Since he’s not yet seen it from the other side, as he will in Night Watch, he’s likely having flashbacks to the first one and watching Keel die, especially when his fellow Watchmen start dying around him. TV Tropes also points out some specific tearjerkers in the order in which the characters die; Detritus immediately after Cheery, as if he waded into a group to avenge her. Visit alongside other Watchmen, finally accepted. Carrot immediately before Vimes, as if he took a the blow for him.

Reg Shoe as well; imagine the flashbacks he’ll be having to the Glorious 25th of May.

Pretties is the second in the Uglies series, another one which I’ve read before. I do like Shay, and it’s a pretty good version.

Bag of Bones I’ll be writing a longer post about later.

In Which We Discuss Wizard and Glass and the Little Sisters of Eluria

Wizard and Glass and Little Sisters of Eluria are a novel and a short story set in the world of the Dark Tower. Wizard and Glass was published in 1997 while Little Sisters was published in the Legends anthology in 1998.

I actually read Legends way back in 2004 or so because it also included the Discworld short story, The Sea and Little Fishes. I hadn’t read any of the Dark Tower books at that point, so it didn’t make a huge impression on me, aside from creeping me out a little. The one that did make an impression was Terry Goodkind’s Debt of Bones; maybe I should actually read his Sword of Truth series!

Both stories are set in Roland’s past, for the most part; Little Sisters entirely, and Wizard and Glass almost entirely, apart from the opening and ending. At some point in Wizard and Glass the characters travel to the world of The Stand, while the titular Little Sisters speak in Tak’s language at times.

After this point, King took a brief break from the Dark Tower; the next book in the series, Wolves of the Calla, wasn’t published until 2003. So, the next book I’ll be reading – or listening to, rather – is Bag of Bones, another book I’ve read before.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 28th Year, Week 1/52

10 books last week!  Well, slightly over a week; the 11th to the 19th of August.  This was a leap year, so my birthday was on the Friday not the Thursday.

Six rereads.  I'm reading (listening) to the City Watch books of the Discworld series in order, starting with Night Watch which adds a sad poignancy to the first few.  Poor young Sam.  It's interesting to observe that Sam is a man made by Keel, Carrot, and Vetinari, and then, ultimately, by himself.

How to be Good is one of my favourite of Nick Hornby's novels.  For a man who writes in a genre known as "lad lit" he writes excellent women.  Which kind of indicates that the people who try to gender genres are idiots.  I've also listened to The Upside of Rationality before; it's one of the first audiobooks I ever owned.

I started listening to Yes Please the other day when I walked the Birmingham-Worcester canal, from Birmingham to Worcester.  30 miles.  I also listened to Guards Guards during this trip.  The wisest line in the whole book is "your divorce will be like your marriage".  I've never been married or divorced, but that's certainly true in my experience.

The Silkworm is the second in the Cormoran Strike series.  I got it for Christmas and only just got around to finishing it.  I'm trying to get books off my unread pile before I move so I don't have to carry the bloody things!

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar is my favourite of Roald Dahl's works, with some competition from Danny the Champion of the World.  I did notice some interesting similarities with The Great Gatsby.  Henry Sugar is like the Benjamin Button version of Jay Gatz; a playboy who finds a goal, devotes all his time an energy to it, and finds he's a better person with a meaningful existence.  As opposed to starting as poor and ambitious, finding a goal, devoting all your time and energy to it, and becoming a playboy.

Unseemly Science is the second i the Gas Lit Empire series.  I'm re-listening to them all, eventually.

I read Cursed Child in the first hour of my birthday.  Cried five times!

Little Sisters of Eluria has a slightly longer post to come.

Finally, Men Explain Things to Me.  Very short, took about an hour and a half to read.  For my feminist bookclub; definitely good for bringing righteous feminist anger.  The next book is Atlas Shrugged, which I really look forward to discussing!

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 26th Year, Week 49/52

Only two books last week - 14th July to 21st July.  Mirror Dance, which was new to me, and The Wee Free Men.

The Wee Free Men I have read before, though this was the first time I'd listened to the audiobook.  I quite enjoyed it.  I'd like to listen to the rest of the Tiffany books (all of which I've read before).  I'm not allowed to buy any more until I've finished the 5-6 I've not listened to, though.

Mirror Dance I read for a bookclub.  Which was on the 14th, two or three days before I actually finished the damn book.

It started a little slow, and I do feel like part of that was because it was the 9th in the series.  I liked it a lot more when it picked up and Mark really came into his own, though apparently he's not in many of the other books.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 26th Year, Week 32/52

Three books last week, all new.  Raising Steam, The Girl Who Just Appeared, and The Steerswoman.  Two of them I bought very recently.  The third, Raising Steam has been on my to-read list for a while.  I read it last week because it seemed like the right time.

Knowing the circumstances under which it was written may be affecting my opinion, but it seems somewhat flimsy at times.  The jokes are cruder and more obvious.  It feels like the tone of the book is trying too hard to mimic earlier instalments.

The Girl Who Just Appeared is about a woman who was adopted.  The only hint to her birth family is the name and address on her birth certificate.  When that address comes up for rent she decides to move in and finds an old diary under the floorboards.  Great beginning, interesting book.

The Steerswoman is about a guild of truthtellers.  A steerswoman - or man, though they are rarer - is bound to truthfully answer any question they are ask, as long as their questions are answered in return.  The second you refuse to answer a steerswoman's question, you are under their ban and they will never answer a question for you again.  The book follows one specific steerswoman, who is investigating strange crystals that were strewn across the landscape some thirty-thirty-five years before.  Late eighties feminist hard sci-fi heavily disguised as fantasy, which happens to be my favourite genre (see Jinian Footseer).

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 26th Year, Week 28/52

Seven books this week!

I finished the original Last Vampire series.  There is a sequel, published in 2010.  The last of these was published in 1997, which gives you an idea of the gap.  I can only assume the vampire zeitgeist was responsible for this, especially since they were all republished in matching binding at the time.  They were pretty good; more actiony, less heart-rending than my favourite Pike novels, Remember Me and The Midnight Club.

Herland I reread for a feminist bookclub recently.  I was hoping to revive the group by choosing a short, sci-fi-ish book.  It's 120 pages, and we had a really good discussion about it.  It lasted two hours, which meant we could all have sat in silence and just reread the entire book, which says a lot about the ideas in it.

Maxiumum Willpower is a book I've been reading at a chapter a week for the past month and a half.  It's about all the things that can test our willpower, and contained some interesting tips for holding out against it.  Definitely worth reading.

Finally, Maskerade.  I've read it before, when I was thirteen or fourteen.  I stole my original copy from my school library.  It was the third or fourth Discworld book I read, depending on whether I got my hands on it before or after Wyrd Sisters.  I enjoyed the audio performance, though I'm a bit baffled as to why the witches all have slightly London accents.  It makes a sort of sense for Vimes, but surely they should be a bit more West Country?

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 26th Year, Week 25/52

It's my half birthday next week, which means I've been doing this for nearly six months.  Huh.

Snuff is a Discworld novel - number 38, and the 8th Watch story.  The second Discworld book I ever read was Jingo, as I believe I mentioned last month, so Vimes holds a special place in my heart.

I enjoyed Snuff.  I've been putting off reading it because, due to Pratchett's illness, Discworld novels are now finite and I didn't want to use them up too early.  I'm glad I did read it, though.  It's about slavery in the same way that Jingo and Monstrous Regiment is about war and it repeats the Pratchett habit of bringing a formerly mook-enemy into the light as a protagonist.

The Last Vampire is a series by Christopher Pike.  It's not my favourite of his books - that would be Remember Me and The Midnight Club - but they're okay.  About a vampire who believes herself to be the last of her kind, but rapidly finds out that she isn't.  I have all seven of them, all in sets of two apart from the last one, so I just read the whole book through.  My mother gave them to my grandmother along with all the Horror High and a few other Pike novels, so I claimed them.  It has the traditional Pike tropes of blonde and blue-eyed Hindus.

The Lost Mind is another one by Pike.  It's about a girl who wakes up with no memory, lying next to the corpse of her best friend.  It's barely 200 pages long, and has the usual Pike tropes of mysticism and murder.

Daddy Long-Legs is a book I read on wikisource after finding out that it's one of my friend's favourite books.  I quite liked it.  It's about an orphaned girl who is given the funds to attend college by a mysterious benefactor whom she is required to write letters to.  The book is made up of her letters, though he never writes back.  I like the heroine, Judy/Jerusha Abbot.  She's strong and determined and sensible and very much knows her own mind.  I think I'll probably read the sequel, Dear Enemy, which is not on wikisource but which is on Project Gutenberg.

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August is science-fiction.  Harry August lives his life over and over; every time he dies, he wakes up in his newborn baby body, right back at the start of his life.  At the end of his eleventh life, a young girl shows up at his bedside and tells him that the end of the world is a thousand years away and getting faster.  Interesting start, no?  I felt the ending wrapped up far too quickly; it was justified, but it was a little anti-climactic after all the build-up.  It was a good read though.

Finally, Why Evolution is True.  Non-fiction, and a very good, thorough guide to evolution.  It's written in opposition to creationism and "intelligent design", which I already think is ridiculous and requires a lot of anti-scientific thought and outright burying your head in the sand, so he was very much preaching to the choir there.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 26th Year, Week 24/52

Six books this week!  Two rereads, four new.  Four library, one kindle, one audible.

Sisterland was new to me.  I borrowed it from the library a while ago.  Saw it there on my lunch break, realised I'd left my purse at the office.  I asked the librarian if there was anyway she could help me; she offered to sell me a new library card, the cheeky cow.  I realised, as I was on my way back to work, that had she bothered to look up from her book for more than a minute, she could simply have looked up my library card number.  I could have typed that manually in to the self-service machines; since I know my pin, all I needed was that number.

Anyway, I went back after work and got it then.  No lazy librarian is keeping me from my books.

I quite liked it.  It's about twin sisters, both of whom had a vague psychic gift.  One has suppressed it and become a suburban mom, the other has embraced it and become a complete hippy.  The latter makes a public prediction of an earthquake to hit St Louis, triggering various plot shenanigans.  I didn't like it as much as Prep, which I read in late 2006/early 2007.

Couch Fiction was another library book, one I picked up along with How to be a Heroine, The Rosie Project and some sheet music when I returned Sisterland.  It's a graphic novel showing a therapy session, with little footnotes and thoughts on what both therapist and client are thinking, and possible issues which are raised.  Incredibly interesting.  I realised I do the opposite of what the client does; instead of suppressing emotions and ignoring any hint my childhood wasn't idyllic, I suppress emotions and ignore any memories of my childhood that weren't relentless abuse or misery.  I find it hard to feel like the good bits count, in light of the rest.  And I guess if I acknowledge that there are good bits, that means something must have changed, which my mother says is my fault.

The Secret of Platform 13 is an old favourite, which predates Harry Potter by three years.  I mention that because it involves a secret door opening in King's Cross station.  The author has said she is not going to sue Rowling.  Behind the door is an idyllic island kingdom.  They lose their prince on the surface, wait nine years for the gump (the secret opening) to reopen, and then mount a rescue mission.  It's lovely.

How to be a Heroine is a book about reading.  It's written by a woman who loved various literary heroines in her adolescence and went back and re-examined them as an adult with a feminist consciousness.  Very interesting.  I'd read about half of the books she mentions, and I'm enthusiastic to read the rest now!

The Rosie Project is about a Sheldon Cooper style character meeting a manic-pixie dream girl.  I am in admiration of Don (Sheldon Cooper)'s organisation skills.  I make a fortnightly meal plan with shopping delivered every fortnight, and lots of meals made in advance and frozen.  He made a weekly meal plan long ago and hasn't varied it, allowing him to perfect his weekly shop and the time it takes to prepare food.  I tempted to try this.  I am aware that I am missing the point of the novel.

Finally, Jingo.  Jingo was the second Discworld book I ever read, after Colour of Magic.  I have a bit of a soft spot for it, and for Vimes specifically.  I listened to it as an audio book this time.  Not sure I quite see a Scottish Detritus and an Irish Sergeant Colon, but it works okay.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 26th Year, Week 16/52

Six books last week!  Two of them - The Second Sex and Piano & Keyboard I'd been reading for a while.  Three of them - Monstrous Regiment, The Afterdark Princess, and Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? - were audiobooks.  Finally, The Flavours of Love had been hanging out on my unread pile for a while.

The Second Sex I read for my feminist bookclub, a meeting that never actually happened.  Everyone except me cancelled.  I'd only read half the book by the day, so I just carried on with it.  It's a brick.  An interesting read, but a long one.  It really surprised me how much of it was still current and still relevant, despite the book being written sixty-five years ago.  That's kind of sad.

Piano & Keyboard was a decent guide.  I picked up a lot of good tips and I'm glad I read it.  It really helped my musicianship.

The Afterdark Princess was a children's book I used to really like.  It was just over £7 on Audible, but I picked up three credits for £18 and decided to get it.  It's less than three hours long, so I played it through in my locker a couple of times when I was at work to try to get a few Audible badges.  Worked pretty well.

Monstrous Regiment is one of my favourite Discworld books.  Stephen Briggs is a great reader, but I really wish this book had been read by a woman.  A woman who could do great male voices.  I'd love to hear Monstrous Regiment read by a woman who could do great male voices.

I've only seen a bit of The Mindy Show and none of The Office, but I like Mindy Kaling.  And I like hearing autobiographies read by the authors, especially since they tend to be comedians or other performers.  So far, the best performance has been Michael McIntyre.  He did the best voices, especially his impression of his Hungarian grandmother.  Mindy definitely sounded like she was reading not performing, but she was reading so she can be forgiven for that.  And the book was pretty interesting.  I mostly read it while running, or while walking to work or round the supermarket.  I will not be adopting Mindy's revenge-fantasy method of exercise motivation.

Finally, The Flavours of Love.  I love Dorothy Koomson.  Her books are like chick-lit thrillers, two genres I love, and I love that all her heroines are black.  It's something that appears so seldom, which makes me sad.

I read Flavours of Love over a day; a few hours before bed, on the way to work, at lunch, while donating blood, and finished it before falling asleep the next night.  I really enjoyed it.

My unread pile is now at 102.  I'm going to try to have it under 100 on New Year's Eve.  Then, next year, my goal will be to get it to under 15, where I'll try to keep it.  That seems pretty amazing to me right now - I haven't had that few unread books in my possession since I was six or seven years old.  But I think I'll be happier when I don't have all those books cluttering up the place and making me feel guilty.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 26th Year, Week 14/52

Firstly, some news.  I'm on a final written warning at work due to absence.  Mostly it's because I took two months off in the middle of summer due to depression.  The straw that broke the camel's back was the recent five days I took off when I had such a bad cold that I nearly fainted one day, after not being to eat.  All very sad.

I thought of this when writing this post because it lasts for a year.  I'm already 14 weeks, or nearly three months, into being 26.  So maybe it won't be that long until I'm 14 weeks into 27, with a clear record again.

I listened to The Vagina Monologues rather than read them.  I really don't enjoy Eve Ensler's performance, not as much as I did seeing it performed last year.  I listened to it in the car with my new boyfriend.  He quite enjoyed it.  He grew up outnumbered by sisters, so he's already well broken in.

I read Perks of Being a Wallflower because it's been sitting on my kindle for ages and because the film got such good reviews.  It was awful.  Halfway through, it came as a shock to learn that the narrative character was supposed to be a highly literate, intelligent sixteen-year-old and not a slightly simple eight-year-old.  Writing like someone who doesn't communicate well can be used to great effect - for example, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time - but not when the character in question is being raved about by other characters for their writing skills.

Last Continent is another one I listened to.  A Discworld book, which I've read before.  I appear to be listening to all of the Discworld books, in no particular order.  I've since moved on to Monstrous Regiment, so you'll see that pop up in a week or two.  Nigel Planer gives an excellent performance, and his accent doesn't wander nearly so much as the Egyptian one he attempted for Pteppic's father in Pyramids.

Christine was part of my Stephen King Chronological Reading Project.  I really need to get a move on and write a proper post for that, I finished it two days ago.

I first read Christine in 2008.  At the time, I felt it had about half as much plot as the pages actually required.  I read it with less impatience this time, and enjoyed it a little more.  The next one will be Pet Semetary, which I've also read before, and which I'll pick up from the library tomorrow.

Big Girls don't cry is yet another old favourite.  I first read it at fifteen or sixteen and it blew me away.  One particular line has been adopted as my personal philosophy; get the foundations right and the building can go up anyhow it likes.  The line applies to underwear and clothing, but I think of it as applying to all beauty.  Master clear skin, well-cut hair and neat eyebrows, and don't bother to put make-up on everyday, is my philosophy.

Finally, Grimm Tales Made Gay.  Humourous verses based on Grimm's Fairytales.  I read it at work.  Short and amusing.

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 26th Year, Week 7/52

Tiger Lily I found because I was looking for a specific Peter Pan quote I've always identified with.

“Tink was not all bad: or, rather, she was all bad just now, but, on the other hand, sometimes she was all good. Fairies have to be one thing or the other, because being so small they unfortunately have room for one feeling only at a time. They are, however, allowed to change, only it must be a complete change.”

While looking for that, I wound up on this page, which has a number of quotes from Jodi Lynn Anderson's Tiger Lily.  It looked interesting.  One thing that always fascinated me about Peter Pan was the fact that every women in the original book was in love with him, and he had no way of understanding that.  It seemed like Tiger Lily explored that theme.  Plus, it's written from Tink's point of view, and who can not like that?

The book was pretty good.  Peter Pan was aged up to make the relationship a bit more believable, and I did like Tink as the narrator, and seeing more of Tiger Lily.  I didn't find it as magical as I might have ten years ago, though.

Speaking of ten years ago, Horrorscope is another book I first read as a teenager.  I don't know why I like it so much.  I guess I do like the conceit of someone murdering people in the order of their starsigns, and the amount of research into horoscope theory that's been done (yes, horoscope theory is a real thing).  I like the characters.  It's good comfort reading.

Player of Games I read at the last minute for a bookclub.  I've been meaning to read some Iain M. Banks for quite a while, so it seemed like a good opportunity.  I read it in two days.  It was okay.  A bit farfetched and unlikely. 

Pyramids is another book I first read as a teenager.  I got it as an audio-book.  It has so much in common with Small Gods that it seemed a natural choice, especially since I'm not particularly fussed about reading the Discworld books in order.  I know the series well enough that I can place relevant events in context.

Finally, A Wonderlandiful World is the third part of the Ever After High novels.  I watched the webisodes because they were on Netflix, and then I started reading the books.  They use some very clever language tricks and puns, especially in those novel when the narrator is infected with something from Wonderland and Maddie appeals to the reader themselves (yes you) in a nod to Peter Pan.  This book managed to make me like Lizzie Hearts, who I'd always found slightly irritating before.  It also brought out my soft spot for Duchess.  It's hard not to, considering her story, even if she is a cow.

In Which We Dicuss The Abortionist's Daughter

When high profile abortion doctor Diana Duprey is found dead in her home, at first it seems to be a simple accident; until, that is, the police find suspicious bruises on her body, and the case becomes that of a murder.

The book is told in third person, and focuses on a number of characters; significantly, the titular abortionist's daughter, Megan, Diana's husband Frank, and the police officers assigned to the case. It's a small town, and the various relationships that exist or begin between these characters effect the book and the situation in a myriad of ways.

One of the things I found most fascinating about The Abortionist's Daughter was the way in which so many themes are intertwined. At first, the main theme seems to be that of the relationship between mother and daughter, and this does remain relatively important throughout the book. But then, the themes which seemed merely subliminal at first subtly grow throughout the novel, and in a classic case of distracted attention, something the reader was only vaguely aware of seeps into ones consciousness and becomes the focal point of the novel.

However, this leads to a slight flaw; once the reader is aware of the true situation, and the story has become somewhat settled, it seems to be over too quickly.

It also leads to an interesting effect; normally, it is easy to say what a novel's about, but, in this case, it's far more difficult to articulate it so simply. One could say it's a novel about abortion, and that would be right, but it's hardly the full story. One reader could see it as being about the effects of keeping things from one's family, or about the problems with a lack of communication, even for the best reasons, and that would be right too. For me, the most important theme is that of obsession, and the dangers of it, although that isn't developed enough in comparison to other issues that one could claim it is the main feature of the book. The novel feels surprisingly fluid, and allows the reader to see in it what they will. That's an unusual effect in many novels, although the coming of age genre embodies it somewhat, and it's an interesting sensation. There are so many threads of plot, and so many ideas, and one cannot name which of them is the main strand, as each contribution is equally important.

It would be possible to draw themes of the law as relating to the protection of woman from the book – particularly the laws related to stalking, something which still isn't seen as a major problem in many parts of the world - but that would involve putting more stress than the author designed on those elements. The book isn't preachy, and if it aims to make a point, it does so with perfect delicacy. It's a story which shows a situation, not a moralistic tale.

The characters are likeable, for the most part, although none of them seem to be fully developed. It's not that they're two dimensional – more that there seems to be more to them than is displayed in the book. On the whole, this is more of a positive effect than a negative one; it feels like the reader is allowed a window into another life, and that there's more going on behind the scenes. Like the characters exist for more reasons than simply to walk on and off the page when it's convenient for the plot.

Terry Pratchett achieved something similar with his Discworld series, particularly the city of Ankh Morpork, which in many ways, seems like a real city, with people who would continue to exist and need feeding with or without the main characters getting on with the plot. The Abortionist's Daughter has a very adult feel compared to the Discworld books, however, which is not the say that the aforementioned series is childish. It's more that any book with the word "abortion" in the title has an odds-on chance of being particularly grotesque, as the subject itself is. The somewhat graphic descriptions are indeed slightly disturbing, although fortunately, they are relatively sparse throughout the novel, and are, for the most part, necessary to the plot.

The book doesn't really present a balanced argument of the pro-life/pro-choice debate, which isn't a bad thing. There are a number of situations showcased, and characters make different decisions; abortion is never an easy or comfortable decision, or even operation, and it's dealt with sensitively, yet without flinching away from the realness of it. The author expresses, through the characters, an opinion which I agree with as a solid pro-choicer, and for the pro-life campaigners, I respectfully suggest that this book isn't for you.