War & Peace and Russian Soul

Up to now the book has been, with the exception of recounting scenes of war, somewhat dry: we linger in the salons of Petersburg and Moscow society, where snobbery and currying favor dominate, with jockeying for advantageous marriages and alliances that will lead to better positions. Tolstoy shows us how stultifying it all is - Pierre, now a Mason, walks through this phony maneuvering with the social clumsiness of a man who cannot conceal who he is.

But in Book II Part Four, Russia herself comes to life: Andrei Bolkonsky, whose wife died in childbirth, falls unexpectedly in love with the 16-year-old guileless Natasha Rostov, who in her enthusiasm, spirit and heartfelt honesty represents true Russia. The reader wants to stop the future for these two because their love is so painfully strong and direct - surely tragedy is drawn to such fortunates. Having secured her promise to marry, he goes abroad for a year in deference to his disapproving acerbic father.

Young as she is, she cannot stay gloomy waiting. And so we have the hunt: her brother Nikolai's passion for wolf-hunting galvanizes the household, and though it is not proper, no one can keep Natasha from joining in. She rides well, she doesn't impede the serious hunters, and afterwards they end up at the humble country place of their uncle. She eats the plain peasant fare with gusto, she dances a Russian peasant dance no one has ever taught her, she sings and plays guitar -
"She did [the dance] exactly right, and so precisely, so perfectly precisely, that Anisya Fyodorovna, who at once handed Natasha the kerchief she needed for it, wept through her laughter, looking at this slender graceful countess, brought up in silk and velvet, so foreign to her, who was able to understand everything that was in Anisya and in Anisya's father, and in her aunt, and in her mother, and in every Russian."

As though Tolstoy himself is enchanted by the vibrant young women of the Rostov household, he then gives us Christmas, when the young people join the mummers who come calling. With everyone in disguise, Nikolai Rostov, on leave from his regiment, sees his cousin Sonya distinctly as if for the first time, in her disguise as a Circassian man with a moustache drawn on her face in burnt cork. He is dressed as an old woman, and this pair who have grown up together fall completely in love. Though it is a disaster for his parents, who counted on him to rescue them from penury by marrying a wealthy woman, he must have penniless Sonya.

The joy we see in Natasha's vivacity and Nikolai's unabashed passions are tempered by their sense that never again will life be so wonderful. As readers, we have a similar dread: that not quite halfway through the novel, we have seen its most joyous moments. From here, surely tragedy and grief await us.

War and Peace

I'm at the 200 page mark, and had my first taste of battle.
For Tolstoy, leadership has to do with morale more than strategy -
The Russian general Bagration rides among his few thousand Russian soldiers as they prepare to face the main body of the French army. He agrees with what they say they're going to do (while his aide Andrei Bolkonsky, who has spent time and effort prior to this review taking the grand view of battle, envisioning troop movements, feints and counter-attacks, worries about his commander's casual and apparently thoughtless acquiescence to the fusiliers, the infantry and the cavalry). "Owing to the tact shown by ... [General] Bagration, Prince Andrei [Bolkonsky] noticed that, in spite of the chance character of events and their independence of the commander's will, his presence accomplished a very great deal. Commanders... became calm, soldiers and officers greeted him merrily and became more animated in his presence, and obviously showed off their courage before him."
At the far end of the deployment, two officers, one Russian and the other Austrian, engage in a personal squabble, ignoring the battle; their soldiers are disorganized and fearful, their training forgotten. "The troops... both infantry and hussars, sensed that their superiors themselves did not know what to do, and the indecisiveness of the superiors communicated itself to the troops."

Meanwhile, Nikolai Rostov is struck by an artillery shell, his horse killed out from under him. He wanders in a daze, unaware of his own wounds except that one arm is useless. In many ways he is still the child of his soft upbringing. "Something must be wrong, " he thought, "it's impossible that they should want to kill me... Me, whom everybody loves so?"
But the soldiers the general has encouraged in his uncommanding way, meet battle with cooperation and fortitude. The artillery gunners fight valiantly while their fellows die around them, creating diversions they have thought of themselves (setting the town behind the French lines on fire, which draws off French soldiers to battle the blazes) and displaying that unhesitating courage a general can only dream of.

This small detachment holds off the French, enabling the main body of the Russian army to escape being cut off from its allies and annihilated by Napoleon's troops.

Tolstoy uses such phrases as "Pleasant buzzing and whistling noises were heard rather often" (they're being fired upon); "his face expressed that concentrated and happy resolve"; "Prince Andrei felt that some invincible force was drawing him forward, and he experienced great happiness"; "there was established in [the artilleryman's] head a fantastic world of his own, which made up his pleasure at that moment. In his imagination, the enemy's cannon were not cannon but pipes, from which an invisible smoker released an occasional puff of smoke."

Tolstoy's soldiers love being in battle.

War & Peace

Since it now feels like winter (temp never got out of the 30s today) I have undertaken War & Peace, in the new translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky.
My 4th year Russian class was supposed to read it, but the Soviet (showing my age here!) powers-that-be sent copies of Resurrection instead. So we read that, but it wasn't the same. Who knows if we would have made it through this tome? Guess I missed my chance - by now my Russian vocabulary is so buried I have to read it in English.



This pair of translators promise a more accurate rendition than their predecessors. Where Tolstoy liked to repeat words and phrases, translators took it upon themselves to "clean up" his sentences by minimizing the repetitions. But surely we can admire Tolstoy the writer enough to believe that his technique was deliberate. Pevear and Volokhonsky have decided he knew what he was up to, and respect him enough to leave his phrasing intact. Thus, I detect the flavor of the Russian through their English text.

I came late to Tolstoy - my first love among Russian writers is Dostoyevsky, followed by Solzhenitsyn (particularly The First Circle and Cancer Ward). But when I named a character Anna Karenina Brubaker, I had to find out who she was. Soon after, I read Hadji Murad, a beautiful novella about a warrior chieftain in the Caucasus - and if War & Peace is too daunting, I highly recommend you read this fine book.

Some years ago the American Film Institute in Silver Spring, Maryland, screened the 7 hour Soviet War & Peace (released 1967-69) in its entirety, on successive evenings. When it was made, it was said to be the most expensive film in cinematic history, employing tens of thousands of extras in nineteenth century battle garb, arrayed for vast panoramic shots. Now a film studio would use CGI for those armies (which, yes, would make them look like video game images). It's a breath-taking epic, though the ending was politicized in heavy-handed Soviet fashion - "oh, the heroically suffering Russian people, oh the vain and stupid French invaders" - but even at 7 hours I knew I was getting just a taste of the book. When I heard about this translation, I decided "it's time."

Time is what it takes - so tag along as I post my progress.

The Russians invented editing because they lacked film stock - they had to splice pieces together after they'd been shot, and a new way of storytelling was born. Eisenstein's famous scene of the killing of a bull intercut with the slaughter of peasants, revolutionized film-making.
But there was more to the Russian sensibility - an improvised survival and dignity versus murderous odds. Imaginative directors found symbols useful when straightforward dissatisfaction could end their careers. Andrei Tarkovski's great films - Andrei Rublev, The Mirror, Stalker - told stories that both dodged the censors and celebrated the Russian feat of survival. Sergei Bondarchuk's magnificent four-part War and Peace, released in 1969 after 8 years of filming, was the most costly film ever made (over $100 million then, around $700 million today), with a running time just over 8 hours. The first two parts are as beautiful as Tolstoy's language. The third and fourth parts bow to Soviet triumphalism - but make a magnificent work nonetheless.
And along the way there are humble films - The Ascent by Larisa Shepiko follows a group of WWII partisans hiding in the forest. When two are captured (one robust and cheery, the other weak and moody), we think we know which will betray his fellows under torture. But the story plays past the ending we expect, searing our spirits.
This year's How I Ended This Summer by Alexei Popogrebski is another gem in the rough-cut Russian style. A seasoned man (Sergei) tends a coastal Arctic weather station, assisted in the summer by a bored youth (Pavel/Pasha). While Sergei meticulously records and transmits weather data, Pavel amuses himself in childish fashion: stalking a rabbit, leaping from one empty fuel barrel to the next, playing video games on the station's computer, listening to rock on his headphones. He seems like any happy-go-lucky youth making the best of a dull situation. But when the moment arises to give Sergei some bad news, he lets every circumstance deflect him. As the secret looms larger between them, Pavel fearing the older man's wrath cannot bring himself to reveal it. The burden unbalances Pavel's restless mind, tilting the pair toward violence. Dwarfing their human troubles are the vast tundra, icy sea and immense sky. While our sympathies start with the young man enduring desolation, as the story progresses we realize the true hero is Sergei, who tends this weather station as his life's purpose. Even his contempt for Pavel's sloppy work is subsumed in his love of the place - he cannot hold a grudge.