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  Plus, none of the plans are working because they're all out of date by the time they get to the troops and/or someone wants to do something a bit more dramatic.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 War and Peace, Part 10, Chapters 18 and 19

Chapter 18

Pierre's reading a newspaper which states that the French will most definitely not enter Moscow, but it's a good thing that the ladies and tradesmens wives are leaving.  From this, Pierre understands that the French definitely will enter Moscow.  There's also a bit about how the French are definitely defeated, but weapons are being made available for the inhabitants of Moscow just because they want them so much.  Pierre feels like the great thing he has been hoping for, the destiny of his soul, is drawing close.  He mentally debates whether or not he should join the service, and tries to make a deal with the game of patience he's playing to show him his destiny.  He's not yet decided what will indicate what when he's interrupted by his eldest half-sister, who I don't think we've heard from since book 1.  Pierre takes this as an omen that he should join the army even before inviting her in.  She's come to beg to leave Moscow, preferably for St Petersburg, because she's convinced Napoleon will win.  Pierre isn't, but lets her leave anyway.  He shows her the broadsheets he's been reading to try to comfort her, which is an interesting choice since he took the opposite message from them.

Later that day, Pierre's head steward tells him that raising a regiment will ruin him, and that he needs to sell an estate just to afford their equipment.  Pierre tells him to sell, because they can't back out now.  Pierre is pleased with the catastrophe, because he's pretty sure it's all about his great destiny, and the making of him as a man.  Everyone has already left town, including Julie and Mary.  Only the Rostovs remain.

Pierre takes a day trip out to a nearby village, and, on the way back, interrupts the flogging of an accused French spy.  He demands to know what's happening.  When the Frenchman begins crying, he runs back to his carriage and demands to be taken home.

Pierre leaves Moscow on the 24th.  While travelling, he learns of a great battle that evening (the battle of Shevardino) but no one can tell him who won.  The next day he arrives at Mozhaysk, which has soldiers quartered in every house.  As he moves further into the warzone, he feels more and more alive, and as if he is involved in something very important and greater than himself.

Chapter 19

This chapter zooms out again, to a broader view of the war.  Specifically the battles of the Shevardino Redoubt, on the 24th of August, and the battle of Borodino on the 26th, with peace between them.  The battles made no sense for either side; it made both the destruction of Moscow and the destruction of the French army more likely.  Tolstoy criticises the way many historians look for evidence that what happened was what was intended all along.  He theorises that Russia's win was more about dumb luck than intentional strategy.  He also criticises attempts to fit the Greek one-Hero narrative onto modern warfare, which isn't about single heroic people and events, but more about a whole crowd of different wills.  He summarises the historians position, that the Russians retreated from Smolensk and looked for the best position for a general engagement, which was Borodino.  They then purposefully fortified it in preparation for the war.  Tolstoy says this is bollocks (paraphrased), and that there was no evidence of fortification in the places described.  Before the 25th of August, there's no evidence anyone thought Borodino would be the site of the battle.  Tolstoy cites the reports written by Kutuzov, Barclay de Tolly and Bagration as evidence.  There is evidence that a site was fortified, and it was a site nearby, and much better in every way, except for the fact that it didn't happen to be where the battle occured.  Tolstoy labours on this for another page or so.  I understand that this was the book Tolstoy wanted to write, but, much like the multipage essay on trees in The Princess Bride*, it makes my eyes glaze over.

*The general conceit of the Princess Bride is that it was a history first written by S. Morgenstern, with William Goldman cutting out all the boring bits, like the essays on trees.  

In Which We Discuss the Fact That I Wish More People Had Read the Princess Bride

For me, The Princess Bride isn't about Buttercup and Westley.  Does that surprise you?  It's about little Billy, struggling through pneumonia and having a story read to him by his father, and their finally forging a connection.  It's little Billy taking that experience, realising that he truly loved stories, and growing up to write and create his own.  As an adult, he tries to use that original story to forge a relationship with his own son, and then with his grandson.  The story that's being shared is the one about Buttercup and Westley, and I don't want to give the wrong impression; that story is told in full. But in-between that story, in the imaginary 'boring bits' that first the fictitious Goldman senior and then the semi-fictitious William Goldman cut out, is this story, about how we relate to stories, how we love them, and how we share them with others.

The movie then, isn't a remake of the book.  It's a different version, a different grandfather sharing the same story with his grandson.  You can almost view it as a sequel to the book, another story about how we interact with stories.

I first read the book fifteen years ago, shortly after the 30th anniversary edition was released.  That edition has more than the original book, in an odd blend of fiction and reality.  While William Goldman is real, his father isn't Florinese, and he doesn't have a son.  Nor is Stephen King Florinese...but the story about casting Kathy Bates in Misery and her asking if she could tell her mom is true.  And so is all the little trivia about getting the movie made, and the rehearsals.  Like Mandy Patinkin slapping Andre the Giant across the face and saying "faster, Fezzik!", or the director recording all of Andre's lines for him verbatim, so he could try to lose his French accent before filming.  I feel like William Goldman is really interested in showing the man behind the curtain, especially in light of his work, Adventures in the Screentrade.

There's also a little more to the Princess Bride story, including a little bit more about Inigo Montoya's past and the time he found true love, but gave it up because he was still in the middle of his revenge quest.  I love Inigo's story, and I'm sad that Domingo's part is so cut down in the movie.

I feel the same way about Peter Pan, though for different reasons.  Some of the movies do have the events of book in full...but they still fail to get across the darker, sadder undercurrent of children being "young and cruel and heartless".  Peter doesn't know how to care about anyone else.  Every single woman in the book is in love with him, and he doesn't comprehend it at all, but that's more to it than that.  He forgets Hook and Tinkerbell and even Wendy for a while.  He 'thins out' the Lost Boys when they get too numerous; for Peter, nothing has consequences and nothing really matters, and there's a certain horror in that that I've never really seen in the movies.  Lost Boy by Christina Henry takes it and runs with it, in a way that really works (though, I don't really recommend Alice and Red Queen by the same author in the same way; they're less about finding what was originally in the story and bringing it out, and more "how can I make every single element a metaphor for rape and/or torture?").

In Which We Discuss Books I Read in my 26th Year, Week 17/52

Eight books this week!  Two by Stephen King, though Cycle of the Werewolf is a very short novella.  You can read slightly more of my thoughts on those in this post, although, to be honest, I'm struggling to find anything original to say.  During this time of his life, King was struggling with addiction and that is reflected in the themes of his novels.  He also wrote more about children, presumably as he watched his own grown up.

Peony in Love was an interesting one.  A ghost story based in historical fact, it's about the three wives of The Three Wives Commentary, originally published in 1694.  The commentary in question was on The Peony Pavilion, a play about a woman who pined away through not being able to be with her lover, but was later revived through love and due to specific beliefs regarding the Chinese afterlife.  As Jeannie Lin points out in her blogpost on the book, the play was first performed in 1598 while Romeo and Juliet was written in 1597.

The three wives were married to Wu Ren; Chen Tong, the first wife, died before their marriage, but they later had a 'ghost ceremony'.  Chen Tong is Peony; Lisa See points out that 'Tong' means 'same' and has Peony adopt the name when she is engaged, since Peony is also her new mother-in-law's name.  Peony dies quite early on (this is not a spoiler - it's quite early on) and goes on to guide the second and third wives who come after her.

What Lisa See does really well is to show the misunderstandings and misinterpretations of her main characters.  Peony misses things.  She doesn't know what people are thinking or why they do things, she misses important things that they do, and she misinterprets why they do things.  Later, she has moments of revelation which the reader shares.  Sometimes, the reader is more aware than Peony.  For instance, it's fairly easy to predict Tan Ze's anger and to read her motivations.

There was an element of Peony in Love that reminded me a lot of The Lovely Bones.  To whit, a ghost uses the body of a living person in order to experience love-making.  In The Lovely Bones this rape is presented purely romantically.  In Peony in Love, the perpetrator is called out for their behaviour and comes to regret it.  Still not a totally comfortable plot-point, but slightly better done.

Gangsta Rap was written by Benjamin Zephaniah.  I picked it up because Benjamin Zephaniah lived near my primary school, and visited us occasionally to perform poetry.  It's not a brilliant novel; a fun and fast read, but clumsily plotted, and the dialogue sometimes seems slightly unrealistic.  It's predictable.  I did like some elements of it though; for instance, it seems the author is more intelligent than the characters, and when they do stupid things - like harass teenage girls because they know no other way to get attention - it's clear that the author seems the problem with this and doesn't condone the behaviour.  The women react realistically.

Further Confessions is a sequel to a book I owned in my early teens.  It's from Simon Mayo's radio show, on which he'd have people send in confessions of things they'd done and pranks they'd played, asking forgiveness from a panel including a priest, a nun, and possibly a rabbi, I don't know, I never listened.  Very much the sort of book to dip in and out of; the kind of book you leave in the bathroom.

The Hollow Hills is another book I read in my early teens.  It's the second part of a series, so earlier this year I borrowed the first part from the library and had another crack at it.  It's a retelling of the Arthur legends, all from Merlin's point of view.  I like it, as much as I like any of the Arthur stories.

As You Wish was an audio book; it's ostensibly by Cary Elwes but has chapters from the other actors involved in The Princess Bride as well as Rob Reiner and William Goldman themselves.  Most of these actors also show up to read their own sections.  It's really more of an interview session on the making of The Princess Bride hosted by Elwes than any sort of biography of his.  Kind of fun.  I'm wishing I'd gone to ComicCon at the NEC this year; he was there selling autographs for £20.  Not sure what I would have had him sign, considering I have The Princess Bride on Kindle and this on Audible, but I do know I would have asked him to write anything other than 'as you wish', just to see what he'd have come up with.

Finally, Stress-Proof Your Life.  A book with some interesting tips.  I tried one yesterday; a day with no chores, no demands, no social media or anything that makes time move fast.  Just a day of relaxing, drinking water, eating vegetables, reading, drawing, writing and napping.  It was nice.  I didn't like coming back to reality today, and it was hard to fully relax, but it was really nice spending an entire day with nothing to do but read and sleep and eat.  I may do that again next month.