War and Peace, Book 2, Part 2, Chapter 9

[osprey_archer]

Things have been happening in War and Peace, and by "things" I mostly mean "Pierre," who clearly was not prepared for... anything really, but certainly not for inheriting a vast fortune and being thrust into the center of Petersburg society.

Since we last left him, he has accidentally gotten married, gotten into a duel with his wife's purported lover, run away from his wife, and been converted to Freemasonry during a chance meeting with a guy on the road. Pierre is very easily led and I am concerned where he is going to end up in life.

In other news, Prince Andrei is, as I expected, not dead! But his wife died in childbed and now he will never realize his errors and try to make them up to her.

My friend Emma tried to read War and Peace in high school but gave up when Tolstoy killed her favorite character twice, the death not having stuck the first time, and Prince Andrei's not-really-a-death has me concerned that he's the one. Prince Andrei is the worst! How could he be her favorite? Oh, well, literary taste is an inscrutable thing, and doubtless I had questionable literary favorites in high school.

But still! Prince Andrei isn't even romantic! He's just kind of there, being a bad husband and getting shot in a fruitless quest for glory. If you have to have a problematic fave couldn't it be Dolokhov? Dolokhov is at least wicked WITH STYLE. He just gambled Nikolai Rostov out of 43,000 rubles because Rostov's cousin Sonya turned down Dolokhov's wedding proposal (and 43 was the sum of Dolokhov and Sonya's ages), which is petty and cruel but nonetheless quite dashing.

...It also occurs to me that I still have a thousand pages left to go, so it is ENTIRELY POSSIBLE that there will be another character who dies except not really and then dies again for real.

Comments

[evelyn-b.livejournal.com]

I can see Andrei being a favorite. He's intelligent and aimless and unsatisfied; he feels like he doesn't belong anywhere; he loves his father and sister and doesn't feel like he can relate to them. . . . if I'd read W&P in high school, I think his unkindness to his wife wouldn't bother me nearly as much, and I would have found his surly dissatisfaction with society (and his affection for Pierre) much more appealing.

Oh, Dolokhov. :\ The scene where Nikolai has to break the news to his dad is another one of my favorites.

Pierre is so easily led and so prone to LIFE-CHANGING REVELATIONS that don't stick. Has he gone through the ridiculous Freemason initiation ceremony yet? <3

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think as a high school student I might have found his wife a bit annoying; she is awfully weepy. So I would probably have sympathized more with Andrei's refusal to even try to meet her halfway: why put himself out there just to get wept all over?

And yes, the scene where Nikolai has to break the news to his dad! He's acting all nonchalant about it while secretly dying inside, and his dad is just like, welp, better go find the money, and only then does Nikolai break down and start crying.

Pierre has gone through the Freemason ceremony! He found it DEEPLY MEANINGFUL, except for the one moment when it didn't feel meaningful at all, but then he prostrated himself on the floor and it felt meaningful again, phew.

I suspect that he may find true meaning in fighting Napoleon, but probably he has a few more life-changing revelations to go before then. I am excited for all the secret mystical societies he might join!

I also kind of want to see him try to convert Prince Andrei to Freemasonry. Pierre would be like IT'S THE ANSWER TO ALL YOUR PROBLEMS AND WILL GIVE YOU A SENSE OF BELONGING and Prince Andrei would just gaze at him in baffled incomprehension.

[inspirethoughts.livejournal.com]

Nicely written for the chapter review of the book. Very sad for Prince Andrei though.

QQ: Do you write reviews of a book one chapter at a time? That is so cool and you have so much patience.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

No, it's not a chapter by chapter review. I've been writing a weekly review of whatever I've read of War and Peace over the last week, and I mark it with the last chapter read so it's clear where I'm at in the book.

[inspirethoughts.livejournal.com]

Neat...Liked the idea though.

[heliopausa.livejournal.com]

Hello! I'm reading W&P too, though I think I'm doing it a bit more crabbily than you. Here's what I had to say at around about where you are now:

http://heliopausa.livejournal.com/#post-heliopausa-53049

(I try to write fairly spoiler-free, so I don't say much about who lives or dies.)