'War and Peace' by Leo Tolstoy (Review)

After flying through a whole pile of short translated fiction recently, I was left with a lot of reviews to write - meaning that I needed a book which would give me time to catch up with my blogging duties.  Hmm, a big novel that I've been meaning to reread for some time...  I think I might just have the right book for the job ;)

*****
Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace (translated by Rosemary Edmonds) is, by any definition, a big book.   It is a great novel about a great war, at the time one of the biggest and most destructive ever.  The novel starts in 1805, and the first book (125 pages) introduces the reader to our dramatis personae.  The second book then takes us through their experiences at and during the Battle of Austerlitz - and that's just the start.  We then follow our characters through the the years of an uneasy cold war until Napoleon attacks Russia in 1812, which is when the story really begins.  Finally, Tolstoy adds an epilogue of seven years to tell us how our friends fared after the defeat of the French - plus some philosophical musings to finish it all off.

As I said, it is a big book ;)

War and Peace is an epic, and its scope allows us to follow Tolstoy's creations across a decade as they grow up, grow old and (in some cases) change.  We see Natasha Rostov as a sprightly girl, then as a beautiful young debutante.  Later she matures, learning from mistakes and hardened by the necessities of the war, finally achieving motherhood in the epilogue.  Another of the major characters, Pierre Bezuhov, appears on the stage as a plump, naive buffoon, but the war gives him the opportunity for him to show his true colours; by the end of the novel, he is a familiar, middle-aged friend.

Although the characters change in many ways, just as in real life, they only change within the constraints of their personalities.  Those who turn out to be disappointing people have the germ of this disappointment in them from the very start.  The writer merely allows time to bring out what is initially partially hidden.  Boris' snobbery, Sonya's sanctimoniousness, Petya's impetuosity - they are all there at the start of the novel for any reader to see.

But what is War and Peace actually about?  The answer is that it is a book about everything (which is, perhaps, why it is so long...).  Tolstoy, through his characters, ponders the big question of the meaning of life, and he uses his 1400+ pages to explore various answers.  Pierre and Prince Andrei wonder if it is about work or personal development; Maria tries education and the care of others; Boris works for his own gain, while Dolohov merely has fun wherever he can find it; Petya longs for glory, but his sister, Natasha, is aching for love.  Somehow though, nobody seems to be able to find the right answer.

Pierre is especially troubled by existential matters (when not overcome by marriage problems) and spends years looking for a reason to live.  At one point, he muses:

"Sometimes he remembered having heard how soldiers under fire in the trenches, and having nothing to do, try hard to find some occupation the more easily to bear the danger.  And it seemed to Pierre that all men were like those soldiers, seeking refuge from life: some in ambition, some in cards, some in framing laws, some in women, some in playthings, some in horses, some in politics, some in sport, some in wine, and some in government service. 'Nothing is without consequence, and nothing is important: it's all the same in the end.  The thing to do is to save myself from it all as best I can,' thought Pierre.  'Not to see it, that terrible it.'
p.636 (Penguin Classics, 1982)

You will have to read the book to find out how (or whether) Pierre is ever able to find what he is looking for...

Much of what I have said so far applies more to the 'peace' side of the book, but large parts of the novel are (of course) devoted to the war.  Tolstoy paints a masterful picture of the conflict, ranging from the delusions of the commanders looking down from the heights of their posts to the experiences of the peasant soldiers on the ground.  While there is no doubt that we are on the Russian side (constant mentions of 'our line' and 'our troops' ensure we never forget who we want to win), there is no hint of jingoism or revisionist reporting - the writer is as critical of his own side as he is of the enemy.  He describes how the majority of senior officers are only interested in their own affairs, seeking to discredit rivals and ensure their own advancement.

Despite the multitude of Generals, Tolstoy believes that things happen the way they do for a reason - and that military commanders have very little to do with how wars unfold.  Despite the appeal of the 'Great Man' theory, the impossibility of free will and control means that the soldiers fighting hand-to-hand (or running away...) have more influence on the course of a battle than any command Napoleon might give.  In the chaos of war, letting things run their course is the only way to go...

...and this is exactly the way another of Tolstoy's major characters (a real-life one) handles affairs.  General (later Prince) Kutuzov, the man who saved the Russian army from annihilation after Austerlitz, is recalled in his country's hour of need - but he is not exactly the epitome of a knight in shining armour.  He is an old man, in need of sleep and a good meal, and he is unwilling to rush things in the way his advisers would like him to.

However, it is this reliance on 'patience and time' that eventually brings success.  The General allows events to happen as they should and prevents people from doing stupid things for no reason - which is perhaps the best thing a commander can do.  In part then, War and Peace is just as much a demand for the reappraisal of the actions of the much-maligned Kutuzov as it is a novel.

One more thing that War and Peace is known for though is the second half of the epilogue, forty-odd pages of metaphysical ramblings that sum up the ideas Tolstoy has just spent 1400 pages setting out.  In that sense, it is akin to putting up a ten-foot barbed-wire fence on the home straight of a marathon race, expecting the reader to increase their mental efforts just when they were hoping for a nice, easy jog to the finishing line.

It is important though because this is where Tolstoy tells you what it is all about ('it' being everything, of course).  I won't claim to have understood it all, but the main focus is on the idea of free will versus necessity, and you begin to get a sneaking suspicion that Tolstoy's answer to all of his questions happens to be God.  Which is great if you are a Christian.  If you are not, it is a bit like reading a murder novel and then finding out that the killer is never revealed...

I will let Tolstoy finish this off for himself though, as after all that writing, he probably does it better than I could.  The very last sentence of the novel reads:

"In the present case it is similarly necessary to renounce a freedom that does not exist and to recognise a dependence of which we are not personally conscious." p.1444

My last sentence?  War and Peace is actually a very readable and enjoyable novel - don't let my review put you off ;)

72 - 'Anna Karenina' by Leo Tolstoy

So, why is this book called 'Anna Karenina'? No, really, I don't get it. Rich girl marries older man, gets bored, snatches younger man from the marital wishes of a younger girl and then regrets it, just one strand among many in Tolstoy's great novel. 'Anna Karenina' (or 'AK' as I like to call it - it has a certain ring to it) is a wonderful book; Anna Karenina, on the other hand, described on the back of my edition as "one of the most loved and memorable heroines in literature", is a needy whinger who gets what she deserves. Ah, I hear the knives sharpening in the distance already...

The book was written in the mid-1870s and portrayed contemporary Russian life in its three main locations: Moscow, Petersburg (St. Petersburg to you) and elsewhere (which, in a country like Russia, contains a lot of possibilities). The eight books switch back and forth between the settings, following a host of characters interconnected by friendship, family ties or societal relations. There are two main plots (although the idea of a plot is rather loosely used here): Anna Karenina's affair with the dashing young soldier Vronsky and landowner Constantine Levin's search for both happiness and an answer to his questions about the meaning of life. Although the two stories begin with the same pivotal event (Anna's meeting with Vronsky at a ball), the two pivotal strands actually play out quite separately, only loosely tied, as mentioned above, by the fact that the two main protagonists move in the same social circles and, hence, come across the same people at different times and in different settings.

Levin, loosely based on Tolsoy himself, is on a voyage of discovery,wanting nothing more than to marry the woman he loves and, once that has been (eventually) achieved, to find out what exactly he has been put on this earth to do. The reader follows him through his eventful courtship through the great cities of Russia and back to his home territory in the country, where he tries to take out his existential angst on his farming (as good a way as any of dealing with it, I suppose). Through his eyes we see the bureaucratic, staid streets of Moscow and the hedonistic, socialite sets in Petersburg and wonder, with him, whether everyone else knows better or whether his way of life is a good one. Being a Tolstoy creation, fulfilment naturally comes with religious enlightenment, but more in the sense of a belief in a divine entity than in the steadfast committal to the teachings of any church.

The treatment of the church, what little of it there is in this book, led me to compare the background of this novel with that of another great nineteenth-century power, Britain. I've now read a fair bit of Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy which allows me to make comparisons between the situation in Russia at the time with what, for example, Trollope was describing in England. In terms of religion, the Russian version seemed more vibrant and personal, but also more separate from everyday life. It would be hard to imagine any of the Shcherbatsky sisters marrying a priest (even were it permitted!), but in the world of the Barchester Chronicles and the Palliser novels, a vicar can be quite an acceptable catch. Even where marrying into the church would be considered a little beneath your standards, the clergy were also considered good company and part of the social setting, especially in the country and the provinces.

Other scenes in 'AK' which led to comparisons with Trollope were the election chapters and the scene in the great club. Obviously, Russia, only having abolished serfdom relatively recently, could not be expected to have attained the levels of Westminster proceedings by this time, but the rowdy events of the elections in 'AK' have more in common with the petty electioneering of paid agents in Dickens, Eliot and Trollope than with the almost sacred precincts of the Houses of Parliament as described in, say, 'Phineas Finn'. Similarly, the contrast between the styles of gentleman's clubs was striking. In 'AK', the London-style small, exclusive home away from home, just for a few dozen like-minded men, is replaced by a cavernous roman-style amphitheatre of luxury for the man about town. While still exclusive, all entertainments appear to be on a much larger scale - and, of course, in place of the claret and port, the drink of choice is vodka...

But, dear friends, let's not beat about the bush any longer; let's talk about old AK herself. What is it about her which people are supposed to love, and why do I just not get it? I promise you, I did try. I went into this vowing that I would forget my prejudices and try to see the positives in poor Anna, and I can see how the poor woman is trapped by circumstances, trying to navigate her way through an affair which would hardly have raised an eyebrow had the roles been reversed. In my previous post, I mentioned Tolstoy's view on the hypocrisy prevalent in attitudes towards male-female relationships, a view which is fully expanded upon, using Anna as his guinea pig. It's also true that she is written charmingly, leaving the reader in no doubt as to her allure and beauty; you can easily forgive the male characters, including Levin, for hastily revising their judgements of her on making her formal acquaintance. And yet...

Anna goes to a ball and carries on with a young man she knows is heavily involved with another woman (Kitty Shcherbatsky, ironically, the love of Levin's life); she rushes headlong into an affair with little justification other than that her husband doesn't understand her; she voluntarily runs away with her lover, leaving her son behind, choosing her own selfish satisfaction over her duties as a mother (something she admits herself); and as for her fickle, whinging, egotistical behaviour at the end of the novel... well, I had very little sympathy for it at all. I can understand that her position was difficult, but she seems to have made things as awkward as possible for herself at every step; the blame for her plight cannot be shifted onto the shoulders of her indifferent husband or her increasingly bored lover. As with many a character, fictional and real, a tragic end seems to distort our perception of Anna's true worth; certainly, I found her more of a distraction than the most important part of this great work of literature.

Putting Anna to one side though, the sheer size and scale of this piece of writing makes it difficult to compare 'AK' with many other pieces of fiction, contemporary or classical. One which comes to mind, despite the very different spheres in which the two novels are set, is George Eliot's 'Middlemarch', a work which also spends the best part of 800 pages exploring life's big themes (but in a much smaller setting). Like Eliot, Tolstoy uses the novel form to search for the truth behind our beliefs and the reasons we do what we do. That his arguments are still relevant today - and his thoughts on belief, family and society certainly are - is a reflection on how good his writing is.

Sorry. I still don't care much for Anna, though.

71 - 'The Death of Ivan Ilyich' (and other stories) by Leo Tolstoy

This will be short and sweet (and probably written over several sessions). You see, I have a very poorly back, caused by lots of typing at work (nothing to do with my blog!). On the down side, this means putting just about everything in my life on hold - work, studies, playing with my daughter (even the blog will be affected). On the up side, apart from sleeping and going to the physio, about the only thing I can do is read...

Anyway, I have recently finished the aforementioned Tolstoy collection, consisting of four novellas (or long short stories if you prefer): 'Family Happiness', 'The Death of Ivan Ilyich', 'The Kreutzer Sonata' and 'The Devil'. I can honestly say that these are not stories you should be reading if your marriage is on shaky ground (especially the last one). Let me elaborate...

In 'Family Happiness', a two-part story, a young woman falls in love with an older man, a friend of her late father (very normal for the nineteenth century, so I'm told), and we are led through her experiences - from first love, sweet courtship, marriage and honeymoon... to what comes after. Despite the minor hiccups she experiences, this is by far the cheeriest of the four tales.

Ivan Ilyich, as suggested by the title, ends up dead (and fairly early too). However, the story is concerned with how he dies and the reflection he undertakes on his life while waiting for it to end, leading him to conclude that his life (and marriage) was wasted. The next story, 'The Kreutzer Sonata', also tells us at the start how events are destined to unfold, but the skilful unveiling of the reasons behind a murder keeps the reader's attention until the very last page.

In the final story, 'The Devil', Tolstoy leaves us with two endings, allowing us to choose who (or what) the devil of the title is: is it the alluringly sexy peasant woman; or is it the sexual drive of the married landowner who cannot keep away from her, no matter how hard he tries? Either way, it doesn't end well...

The four stories reflect Tolstoy's views on love and marriage: his dislike of the 'cattle market' that the game of match-making had become; the double standards of wealthy young men sowing their wild oats while searching for a chaste, pure woman to settle down with; the evil, natural necessity of a sex drive, the removal, or repression, of which (according to Count Leo) would lead to the fulfilment of humanity. As you may have guessed, old Tolstoy wasn't very happy in his marriage...

Anyway, I'm going to leave it there: firstly, as it's very difficult to type standing up with a keyboard balanced precariously on the back of a chair; secondly, because, my interest having been piqued by these vignettes of Russian family life, I am going to have another look at the real thing. Book 72 will be Tolstoy's 'Anna Karenina', and the post will be appearing... well, let's just just say it will be appearing.