Big Book 2019

Tolstoy the Historian vs Tolstoy the Storyteller

Throughout the book I have found myself thinking a lot and writing a few blog posts about the nature of Tolstoy’s writing. What I mean by this is I often find myself struggling to discern between Tolstoy’s true historical research and work, and Tolstoy’s biased opinions on the French. On the other hand, there have been moments in the book where I have been frustrated by Tolstoy’s explicit, obvious hatred for Napoleon as a leader and a human. As I’ve written before, I now find it difficult to view Napoleon as anything but a fictional character in War and Peace. As of right now, I am not entirely certain as to how I would approach this topic of bias in Tolstoy’s writing and the effect it has on the audience, as this is such a broad topic and would easily fit much more than just five pages.

Villains

Another topic that one of my previous blog posts was about was the concept of villainy and villains in War and Peace. If I chose this topic I would like to explore the way that Tolstoy develops the “villainous” characters and the way he crafts their interactions with the other major characters of the book. I find it very interesting that for each major character, we are given some insight into their mind. Much of the book is from the perspective of our main characters. However, for characters like Helen or Anatole, we are not given so much as a peak into their deeper intentions. These two can fit into the name of “villain”, and we are forced to form opinions of them solely through their external actions. What is even more intriguing is that Napoleon may be the greatest villain in this book, and we do get much insight into his mind and thought process. Perhaps for a paper on this topic I could explore the ways in which Napoleon as a villain differs from Helen and Anatole.

Death

After our discussion in class today I also wanted to add this possible topic to my list (morbid I know). I found the contrast between Andrei’s and Petya’s deaths quite compelling. Perhaps it might be interesting to dive into all the major deaths in the book and compare and contrast the ways in which Tolstoy approaches each death. I could look at how the different styles of writing and the actual scenes of each death affect the reader differently. I know it might be too much to dive into every major death in the book, there have been quite a few, but perhaps I could look at Andrei, Petya, Helen, and Platon.

Alexander vs Napoleon

I may be interested in exploring the characters of the two major emperors in War and Peace, Alexander and Napoleon. The way that Tolstoy describes these two historical figures and the way they are compared both directly and indirectly has consistently intrigued me as we’ve been reading. However, I am not as keen about this topic, so of all my ideas this is the least likely.

This is Sydney’s blog post I am just posting it for her bcs her wifi wasn’t working

After today’s discussion in class, I’ve decided to write about Tolstoy’s handling of Death in War and Peace, primarily relating to the three male deaths that we’ve seen: the old prince, Andrei, and Petya. I’m not entirely sure what I’m going to write about in my introductory paragraph, but it will ultimately end in some kind of thesis that’s gets to the point that the reader’s perception of death (and how much they’re impacted by it) is dictated by the people around the person who has died reactions and by the insights we glean directly leading up to their death (treatment of other characters, spiritual revelations, physical ailments, etc.).

While I’m not sure what order my body paragraphs will go in, they’ll be something like this:

The Old Prince

• Poor treatment of Marya lessens our sympathy for him, even as we see him become increasingly weak
• Sickness/old age — we were expecting this death
• People around him their reactions — especially Marya’s hoping that he would be dead (our sympathies lie more with her)
• Doesn’t die alone
• Peaceful death
• We have a lot of insight into what the old prince’s life was like living with chronic pain and becoming increasingly forgetful

Petya Rostov

• Lots of emotion
• Talk about the people around him (Denisov v. Dolokhov) and how they handle his death
• Age
• Prior thinking about death (none) — discuss his magical visions of war
• Everything he had ahead of him
• Family’s response
• Dies alone on the battlefield
  • Comparison to Gavroche in les miserables (??)
• Arguably the saddest death in the book

Andrei Bolkonsky

• Like with his father, we were expecting this death
• We get a lot of what Andrei was thinking
• Natasha and Marya
• Doesn’t die alone
• He has had these spiritual revelations that influence how he sees death (and how we feel watching him die)

In my conclusion, I think I’m going to pivot and talk a bit about the women’s death in the book, primarily focusing on Helene and Andrei’s wife and how their deaths were treated similarly or differently to the men. I’ll be looking at how, as Andy mentioned, the little princess wasn’t given a mourner in her death scene, nor was she really talked about (except in terms of Andrei’s guilt) ever again. In terms of Helene, I’ll talk about how she died by suicide, how her death was the talk of St. Petersburg, and how Pierre took her death. Indeed, neither of the women were given mourners, but it is curious how Andrei felt guilty, but Pierre felt a weight had been lifted much like how Marya felt when her father died.

Tolstoy’s Role as a Historian:

Historical truth and Tolstoy’s use of history and its interactions with the narrative.

Is there a purpose beyond creating fiction to Tolstoy’s work? How does Tolstoy use his role as a narrator in a historical fiction to create his version of history? How has the meaning of Tolstoy’s work changed reading it now versus reading it in the time he wrote it in?

Tolstoy’s essays in the beginning of chapters. Characters provide a framework for viewing history. Tolstoy frequently repeats his ideas about the real people in his work.
Tolstoy focuses on the character of individuals as well as positing a framework for the natural order and interactions of people with the natural world. The intent of history frames the importance of individuals.

Napoleon vs. Alexander vs. Kutuzov. These three characters are the main focus of Tolstoy’s historical clarification. There is a lot of a focus on both their characters and actions, but all of them are depicted very differently. The summation of their intents, actions, and results determines whether they were good or successful people.

What is the purpose of his revision of history? Tolstoy uses little evidence for his theories and tends to just state what he sees as truth. What is the difference between historical fact, the way we interpret the actions of individuals, and fundamental truths about humanity. Interpretation of action seems to be the most important to Tolstoy as a way to access truth.

How can we evaluate the truth of an event or the intentions regarding it from secondary sources? Many history books clearly seem to contradict what Tolstoy is writing about. What would qualify Tolstoy to write about these events from a historical perspective?

Helene:

How are women treated in society through the lense of Helene’s experience? Why are certain exceptions made for Helene?

Is Helene truly intelligent? We see a lot of contradictions in her being seen as intelligent but is this skewed by Tolstoy’s opinions about the real merits of intelligent women.  
Helene is definitely seen as scheming and bordering on the edge of promiscuous. What was Russian life for women like at the time and how does this change how we view Helene’s actions and life?

Tolstoy has weird opinions about intelligent women. The value of women as evaluated in the context of men – his idea of the ideal women being able to fully listen to men. Helene’s exploitation of religious changes and using the company of men to advance herself. To what extent can Tolstoy’s depiction of women be trusted to show their true nature’s and how does his narration cloud an objective view of the women in War and Peace with his own idea of the ideal woman?

Is Helene a successful person or an ideal woman? The way that Tolstoy depicts Helene and directs our opinion or her seems at odds with society’s view of her. There is clearly a difference between societal values of early 19th century Russia and Tolstoy’s values. Which values align more closely with more modern ideas of women’s roles? Can we see past Tolstoy’s opinions of women when evaluating Helene?

I don’t think it comes as a surprise that I will be writing about the natural world and its relationship to characters throughout the book. I’m not sure what angle I’ll be taking yet, but I definitely want to focus on nature. My idea at the moment is to talk about how nature offers crucial pinch/pivot points for our characters throughout the book. My first post I talked about Natasha and Nikolai finding joy in the simplicity of their Uncle’s country abode. I will have to double check if there is something near that scene where Natasha or Nikolai has a big/significant life event. I am then planning on talking about the Battle of Borodino, and the descriptions of nature when Pierre sees the battlefield looking like a painting. I will also talk about how the landscape is used as a contrast to the blood and gore that is described when the land tells the men to “come to their senses” and tie that in to what we have been learning in Environmental History. Last, I am planning on talking about Pierre and his interactions with Platon. I will talk about how Platon as an amalgamation of the natural world brings Pierre back to life and makes him more human. I am not sure if I will have a concession, I don’t think I will, but if anyone knows any parts where it seems nature is harmful to the characters that would be helpful. I want to talk about the part where Moscow is compared to the beehive, and Aeneid, but I’m not sure it relates enough to what I want to talk about.

I am still undecided on what my paper will be about, though there are several topics that I am interested in.

One is further examining the idea of using a naive outsider to explore a specific concept. We see this used when Natasha first visits the opera, and Tolstoy uses her to explain what the opera actually looks like, setting the scene, and then soon after using her to call out specific features of the opera as fake. We also get to see how Natasha is rapidly absorbed into the in-group, clapping along with everyone else when just shortly before she was feeling embarrassed about how fake everything looked. The technique is also used when Pierre visits the Battle of Borodino. The usage of Pierre to set the scene is less noticeable here, since Tolstoy was never one to shy away from explaining how a battle would work. However, we still get to see all the ways Pierre, someone with an entirely fantastical idea of what a battle consists of, reacts to what I believe is the bloodiest battle of the war. Just as Natasha rapidly became part of the in-group, so did Pierre rapidly form an opinion, but in the opposite direction, declaring the whole battle barbaric. Finally, we also see a naive outsider in Petya, particularly in the scenes leading up to his death. We get to see his viewpoint right after Tolstoy has gone on and on about how terrible the conditions were, and it is quite the contrast, instead filled with hero worship for leaders and a burning desire to fit in. We never quite get to see the result of Petya’s experience as he dies before the conclusion of the battle. Overall, these all share some significant similarities, but also differences, which should make them interesting to analyze. I could talk about how each character is used to provoke a reconsidering of what would otherwise be taken for granted. It could also be taken as a variety of cautionary tales, from Natasha being swept up in something she doesn’t understand to Petya’s needless death. Additionally, I’m fairly confident I could write a full paper on this topic, since I have already written a two page blog post on the opera scene.

Another option is looking at the usage of animal metaphors, which I believe was brought up in class. There are many, with perhaps the most memorable being the bee one, but we have received several recently. One is the metaphor of ants and a kicked over ant hill, used when describing how Moscow rapidly recovered after Napoleon was pushed away, even though it had been burned down. Another was the usage of bees again, this time to describe how something can have many aspects and purposes, and one person could never hope to see them all. More distant connections could be the usage of the animals in the hunt scene, seeing as it is at least partially a metaphor for war. Overall, I could analyze how Tolstoy uses each metaphor to support his own points, or the overarching themes.

Finally, the last option I have considered would be examining either Dolokhov or Denisov. I think both are very interesting characters, with varying roles to play in the book, sometimes as antagonists, such as when Dolokhov duels Pierre, or as more positive characters, such as when Petya is shown to look up to the two. Interestingly, and something I could possibly explore beyond their dual uses, is how alike they sometimes feel in my mind. Both have relatively similar names, starting with the same letter and having the same number of syllables, and both serve in the army. Additionally, they both aren’t really shown as a part of the nobility, being much more at home in the military. Overall, as characters with interesting but relatively focused roles in the war, either one would be good to examine.

Overall, I lean the most towards the first option.

One of the things that’s continually struck me about War and Peace is how different it is from any other book I’ve ever read. More specifically, I am constantly surprised by how Tolstoy refuses to be confined by a single genre. Throughout the book, he moves from war novel to argumentative philosophical essay to historical fiction to math theory without blinking an eye. For my essay, I might be interested in thinking about how Tolstoy is able to do this. I’d provide examples of each type of writing that he does, and then hopefully find the common themes/ideas/messages that tie them together into the larger book. I would also want to talk about how the different genres allow the book to be enjoyed by a really wide audience with obviously different interests (I’ve noticed how everyone in our class has a favorite type of scene, whether that’s a battle or a soiree or one of Pierre’s existential spirals). Finally, I think it would be interesting to tie in other works from different mediums (maybe TV or movies?) that have attempted to blend genres in similar ways.

Another thing that’s interested me throughout the book is the way that Tolstoy depicts the different female characters. I think an essay exploring beauty, femininity and womanhood would be interesting. I’d like to devote a paragraph or so each to Natasha, Marya, and Helene, and then maybe mention Sonya and Vera for comparison purposes. I’d write about their personalities, social habits, and character development over time. Natasha’s increasing maturity, Helene’s fall from grace of sorts, and Marya’s relationship with her abusive father are all interesting character arcs, and I think it would be really cool to compare them to each other in the context of their somewhat shared experiences as upper-class women in the 19th century. I think that through examination of the individual characters, I might be able to draw some conclusions about how Tolstoy characterizes and portrays women.

In reviewing recent readings and looking for topics it has become apparent that nature and animals have become commonplace in Tolstoy’s writing. Instead of describing situations in conventional methods Tolstoy has in recent readings utilized metaphor to compare human activities to those of animals found in nature. I first recognized this style of writing when Moscow was described as being akin to a beehive without a queen. As a beekeeper, it was unexpected to hear with surprising accuracy how Tolstoy wrote about the behaviors bees in their final days within emptying hives. Down to every detail, he outlined the lifeless walking of bees unable or unmotivated to fly, the crumbs of wax and dead bees lining the hive, robber bees coming and going, and more. This use of animals in order to vividly convey the story is not isolated. In part 4, volume 4, chapter 14 Tolstoy starts another chapter with “Just as it is hard to explain why and where ants hurry to from a demolished anthill… so it would be hard to explain the reasons that made the Russian people , after the departure of the French, crowd into the place which was formerly called Moscow”(Tolstoy 1108). Again he uses the behavior of animals to describe the movements of the Russian people in times of panic and war, this time ants after their anthill has been destroyed to describe the Russian people’s return to Moscow after the departure of the French. Even more recently in the Epilogue, Tolstoy has used the behavior and practices of sheep and their herders in order to further explain his views on the relationship between genius and chance. In the final passage of our most recent reading in the epilogue bees and their behavior returns for Tolstoy to compare and use as a model for the relationship between historical figures and people. It appears to be a trend, at least within these last few hundred pages and without looking back further yet, that Tolstoy has taken up the practice of using similes to tell the story specifically when describing human nature and behavior. At each occurrence of these animals Tolstoy has been discussing the behaviors and mindsets of people. As I look further into topics for our final paper I hope to re-examine our previous readings to find more of Tolstoy’s use of animals and hone in on the usage and this aspect of his writing.

While reading this book, all of the different military leaders were really interesting to me. They all had different leadership styles, and Tolstoy’s occasional commentaries on his philosophy on wars were thought provoking. I want to write my final paper on the role of military leaders on war and use both Tolstoy’s commentaries and research some history. I will have a thesis and use the novel’s characters and history as case studies for my paper. I want to focus on writing on what it means to be a leader on the battlefied, and what it means for the people fighting wars.

One of the main reasons why I am writing a this is twofold. First, I will be attending Annapolis next fall, where I will be training the next four years to commission as an officer in the Navy. Knowing that military leadership will be part of my career path, I want to get inside the heads of those who have gone before me, like Napoleon and Kutuzov. Second, I actually do have some experience with military leadership, as a cadet in the US Naval Sea Cadet Corps. I want to tie in my personal experience at the end of the paper, and write about what I could learn from military leadership in the future. It will be like a literary/research paper with personal commentary at the end.

For my essay I want to focus on more of the characters that could be considered “secondary” in War and Peace by explaining what I think their significance is to the plotline and how they allow us to see the different sides of the main characters.  I am trying to focus on four characters who have pivotal scenes with one or more of the main characters in the book and who impact the relationships that the main characters have with one another.

I am going to use what I wrote about Anatole in my second blog post but also focus more on how he brings out a different side of the people who interact with him.  The early party scene with Pierre where Pierre enters a drinking bet and the opera scene where Natasha is captivated by Anatole’s presence are two crucial scenes in which two main characters behave in unexpected ways around Anatole.  Although Anatole is often seen as a problem that needs to be fixed, I want to show that his reputation and the interactions he has with the main characters is important to the audience’s understanding of those characters.

I am also going to use what I wrote about Mlle Bourienne in my second blog post but also try to show more of how her interaction with Anatole creates a chain reaction throughout the Bolkonsky household and further disrupts Marya’s relationship with her father.  I also want to highlight how devastating it is for Marya to essentially lose her only companion in the house and I want to prove that Mlle Bourienne is more than just an instigator of romantic drama. Now that we have read more of Marya’s life after the death of her father, I think I should focus more on how Mlle Bourienne’s relationship with the Old Count affects Marya instead of how the initial spark between Mlle Bourienne and Anatole impacted her.  

One of the few scenes we get to see with Lise does not give us a very nice introduction to Prince Andrei and gives us a hint as to what their relationship was like.  The tension we see between them in the scene where Pierre and Andrei are meeting for the first time is later juxtaposed with the scene where Lise gives birth and Andrei does not know what to do with himself and the emotion he displays after her death.  Although her presence is infrequent, Lise allows us to see different versions of Andrei away from the battlefield and compare his relationship to her with his connection to Natasha later on.

I want to use Denisov’s relationship with Nikolai to show the significance of male friendship and mentorship.  Much of Nikolai’s time on the battlefield is spent on his entry into adulthood and him learning the hard truths of war.  Denisov is a bright spot in the war, and although he is described as being disheveled, his confidence on the battlefield helps Nikolai adjust to his new environment.  The comedic element that comes with his accent along with the care he demonstrates when he steals food for his soldiers serves as a point of relief for both the reader and Nikolai.  

I am planning on writing about the first soiree scene/opening scene and how it introduces the audience to themes/ideas that are further developed and understood as the book progresses. I will utilize the blog post I have previously written about the first chapter and will continue to reread and analyze the rest of the scene. After rereading I should have a better idea of which themes I want to highlight.

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Notes on First Soiree (to be used to create outline)

Chapter I:

-Use of french language > linguistic transformation, Russian identity?

-Conversation between Anna Pavlova (host) and Prince Vassily > introduced to his obsession with status

-Trying to advance son (name?)

-Setting up Anatole with Marya  

-Anatole as troublemaker > foreshadowing future rebellious acts

Why these two characters to start?

 

Chapter 2:

-Helene, the little princess/Lise, Prince Ippolit arrive

-Focus on Lise: beauty, brings needlework, mentions that Andrei is going to get himself killed at war (foreshadowing?)

-Ritual of the soiree: greeting the aunt

-Pierre arrives: no status, first time in society (which distinguishes him from everyone else + his size > doesn’t fit in)

-Does not understand what he needs to do at the soiree > 2 “discourtesies”

-“like a child in a toy shop” (10) > wants to hear everything at once, amazed at what is going on/being said. 

 

Chapter 3:

-Role of the host, mechanisms behind the soiree

-Helene is the center of a circle/remarks on her beauty, Pierre is interest in Helene at the end

-Description of Ippolit

-Story of Napoleon (How should we think about this in relation to what we learn later?)

-Pierre and the abbe have a conversation about political balance > gets too loud/animated for Anna

How do the ideas the abbe mentions relate the the course of action in the rest of the book/sequence of battles or war related events?

-Andrei arrives: finds the group boring and his wife annoying

-Enlisting in war because Kutuzov wants him for his adjutant 

-Only pleasant towards Pierre

 
Still to read: Chapters 4 & 5