UPDATE ON WAR AND PEACE

If my memory serves me right, Anne Morrow Lindbergh enjoyed reading War and Peace so avidly that she found herself indulging in this pleasure even in the morning, whereas she ordinarily reserved the evening for such. Perhaps I just haven’t got to that addictive part of the story but I suspect I will, but without free time for reading it. It has taken me this long (how long?) to get through the first two books of the 15, but that is enough for drawing certain conclusions.

Plot and setting are not important aspects of this novel by Count Leo Tolstoy. In fact, they hardly count at all for this story. He seems to stress something about life, anyone’s, almost as if one was born for the purpose of dying, a continuation of life that goes on eternally. Book 2 sees several deaths on the battlefield in this Napoleonic war of 1805, but not drawn with emotional fervor, nor with even realistic detail. In modern parlance he is telling, not showing. We see officers and even royalty discussing what’s happening, and we anticipate some action based on our understanding of what war is like garnered from other sources. Then the battle is over without much of a show but Frenchmen and Russians lie dead. It seems as if the author is a bystander purporting to be a reporter. At times he says “we” and “our” as if he, Tolstoy, is there in person. He may see himself in the character Prince Andrew who is an entity as contrasted to others involved. He rides up on his horse alone to look over the venue for the next battle. After the cessation of firing, he returns, checks the outcome and then pronounces it satisfactory or not. It seems His Excellency is infallible and always right. In the author's mind, is the Prince really Tolstoy who was only a Count in real life? 

Occasionally Tolstoy surprises us with a superb sentence and we might ask, “Why doesn’t he write like this all the time?” But later chapters will probably illustrate this quality more profusely, proving Anne Morrow Lindbergh knew what she was talking about.  ♥