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.  ♥

   

WANT TO LOSE WEIGHT SWEETLY?

You may recall a book mentioned here earlier by the title The Coffee Trader. Perhaps there is also one called The Chocolate Trader that gives the history of the cacao bean and its place in world commerce.Today's AOL lists 10 things you probably didn't know about chocolate. I will not furnish all that information for you, but I will tell you two of them that I had suspected to be true. One is that dark chocolate helps reduce body fat and the other one is it helps the memory. I've already told you it is a fast-working stimulant. The only drawback I can find is that dark chocolate is expensive but much less expensive than if you learned this through a doctor's appointment. Whatever, don't over-indulge. Three of those wrapped bites make a serving.

HORRORS OF THE TIME

If your computer works like mine, you can get the latest news before the day breaks, seldom something to share at the breakfast table, especially if little children are present. Where I live, few people keep up with the news of the world and so in the dining room, I tell my table the highlights that I learned by computer. This is not in the morning but at lunch or dinner.

The other night I went to bed early, at midnight, and could not get to sleep. Finally I got up and came to my computer, for I felt there was something important to hear. Indeed there was: the ISIS had taken over a major city in Iraq, not far from Baghdad, and had killed 500 people, and thousands were running to get out of that town. Strange it may seem, after that information, and after some fervent prayer, I got to sleep around 4:00 a. m. and slept till after 9:00. I wrote an e-mail to a granddaughter-in-law to tell her what I had just read for she was soon to fly to the Middle East with her two youngest children, still just babies, to be with her husband, my grandson, who was already there. I will not say what country is to be their home for the while. Since there has been no reply to my e-mail, I can only presume she had already left.

This grandson is the third male member of my immediate family to live and work in the Middle East, with their families there with them. In addition a nephew-in-law, a medical doctor, has spent time in that part of the world on several missions sponsored by Medical Teams International, without his family there with him.  I am always glad to know when they are safely back in the States. I am firmly convinced this tragic event in Iraq would not have occurred if American troops had remained there much longer. We need some really intelligent and patriotic leaders heading our country.

One good thing we seem to be doing right is accepting the boat load of refugees from Rohingya and Bangladesh. This incident reminds me of a work of historical fiction about the time of World War II, by a young couple who wrote several of these stories, but I can’t recall their names at the moment, but one thing I do remember was a large ship of Jewish refugees that no country would accept. So, the ship just kept sailing. That was heart-breaking for this reader. I am glad we are doing the right thing in reality, not just in a work of fiction.  ♥