sawyl: (Default)
The Guardian has a couple of good pieces, one in today's G2 and the other in the Books Blog, on Leo Tolstoy. The reason? This year marks the hundredth anniversary of the great man's death and, to mark the occasion, Jay Parini, the author of the blog entry, has made a film about the days leading upto Tolstoy's death in a railway station in the middle of nowhere.

Intriguingly, in his piece, Parini mentions Berlin's famous essay, The Hedgehog and the Fox, but his conclusions really don't accord with my rather hazy memories of what I thought Berlin was getting at in his essay. I thought that Berlin classified Tolstoy as a fox who wanted to be a hedgehog; as someone fascinated by many different ideas and interpretations who, against his natural inclinations, wanted to be shaped by a single big idea. But this is just a minor quibble.

More significantly, I also seem to have misread Berlin's interpretation of Tolstoy's driving wannabe-hedgehogism. I thought that Berlin's view was that Tolstoy was principally interested in the sweep of history; how small, apparently inconsequential events were picked up and used to form a historical verdict on events, whereas events were actually driven by individuals who were true to their essential natures. Hence the significance, in War and Peace, of Napoleon and his marshals, who are determined to control every aspect of the war from their central positions, while General Kutuzov has so much faith in the Russian people and so little regard for his Prussian aides, with their love of tactics and strategy and order, that he falls asleep in staff meetings.

But Parini says that Tolstoy's big idea was actually about God. Which is not completely incompatible with my memories of Berlin's comments about history, but it isn't what I took away from the essay. I would go and reread Russian Thinkers but, unfortunately, it's towards the bottom of a big stack of books, just under Michael Frayn's The Human Touch and immediately on top of Anna Karenina, and I can't be bothered to dig it out.

Still, I can't disagree with Parini's final sentiment: "Tolstoy was a writer who could not write a line that did not come from a deep centre. He wrote with power and conviction, and his work is everlasting." Plus, of course, Lev Nikolayevich was also a vegetarian...
sawyl: (Default)
I've just discovered that BBC7 is repeating the excellent dramatisation of War and Peace that Radio 4 first ran a decade or so ago. Hearing it again, I remember how much I liked Simon Russell Beale as Pierre Bezukov and made me realise how much his performance has coloured my reading of the novel — my mental image of Pierre and my idea of how his voice sounds are both based on Russell Beale.
sawyl: (Default)
I seem to be making good progress with War and Peace, having just finished Volume I. Here are a few initial thoughts.

The story in July of 1805 with a sophisticated St Petersberg soiree attended by the great and the good, including Vasily Kuragin, Andrei Bolkonsky and Pierre Bezukov. Anna Mikhailovna Drubetskoya also attends, but only in order to get Prince Vasily to pull strings for her son Boris. The soiree is Pierre's first venture into society following his return to Russia after having been educated abroad and does not acquit himself well. After the soiree, Pierre and Anatoly Kuragin disgrace themselves by tying a bear to a policeman and heaving the pair of them into the river.

In Moscow, the Rostovs are celebrating the nameday of Countess Natalia and her daughter Natasha. A steady parade of visitors passes on the latest gossip: Count Bezukov, the third richest man in Russia, is dying and Vasily Kuragin is hovering over his deathbed like a vulture. The reception is briefly interrupted by the arrival of the Rostov children, including Nicholai, a future hussar, Vera, the icy and unlikeable elder daughter and Natasha, the spirited younger daughter. Following the nameday party, Anna Mikhailovna, worried that Pierre will be disinherited by Prince Vasily and that Count Bezukov will not remember his obligations to his godson Boris, takes a hand in things and prevents the destruction of a letter that legitimises Pierre.

By October, both Nicholai Rostov and Andrei Bolkonski have joined the army and been dispatched to Austria to serve under General Kutuzov. Both are involved in the Battle of Schöngrabern under Bagration's command, Nicholai on the front line and Andrei as aide to an artillery unit.

Back in Russia, Prince Vasily's plans are preceding apace. He has managed to maneuver Pierre in such a way that his beautiful daughter Helene and the new Count Bezukov have become inextricably linked in the minds of Russian society. Even though Pierre knows, deep down, that marriage to Helene would be a disaster, he also feels that there is no way he can get out of it. Kuragin's other plan, to marry Anatoly to Marya Bolkonskya, has gone rather less well. Despite visiting the Bolkonskys in the country, Kuragin is unable to secure a marriage, partly because old Prince Nicholai Bolkonsky doesn't like him and partly because Anatoly dedicates himself to seducing Marya's companion.

By the middle of November, events in Austria have started to come to a head. Both the coalition emperors, Alexander and Francis II believe that Napoleon is weak — an idea reinforced by Napoleon's willingness to parley — and want to press the attack. Kutuzov and the old guard are not convinced — at one point, Kutuzov demonstrates his contempt with Weierother's battle by falling asleep during a pre-battle briefing — but they are overruled. During the Battle of Austerlitz, Nicholai, sent by Bagration to obtain new orders, wanders all over the battlefield and sees the tide of battle turn against the coalition. Nicholai, whilst attempting to grab some glory for himself, is knocked unconscious.

I have discovered, somewhat to my surprise, that there really is a reason why many people claim that War and Peace is the finest novel ever written. All the characters are superbly realised and wonderfully vivid. Within a few paragraphs of meeting him, you immediately know that Vasily Kuragin is an arch manipulator and puller of strings, that Andrei is desperately unhappy with his marriage, that he thinks his wife is rather stupid, and that he feels enclosed and contained by the facade he has to present to St Petersberg society. Pierre, in particular, is quite brilliantly imagined. A bear of a man, weak willed but with a good heart, someone who will go out of his way to be kind but feels himself to be at the mercy of forces beyond his control.

The plot, too, is moderately stupendous even if you're as profoundly ignorant of Napoleonic history as I am. The battles are presented from an interesting perspective, with Andrei's presence within the inner circles of command giving Tolstoy a way to describe the behaviours of Kutuzov and Bagration, while Nicholai's presence at the front provides a more soldierly view of the battles. After all that, I'm very much looking forward to Volume II.

Profile

sawyl: (Default)
sawyl

August 2018

S M T W T F S
   123 4
5 6 7 8910 11
12131415161718
192021222324 25
262728293031 

Syndicate

RSS Atom

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jul. 16th, 2025 07:00 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios