Det ryska samhället krig och fred

Whatever else inom am, inom am the type of individ who reads classic novels out of a sense of obligation. Also, inom must admit, out of a sense of vanity. My ego, after all, fryst vatten as fragile as a goldfish and requires the constant attention of a newborn baby. Every once in awhile, it needs a little boost, and the intellectual utmaning of Dostoevsky or Dickens can really work wonders.

Now, I’ve been told that forcing myself to read books inom don’t necessarily like fryst vatten a fruitless waste of time (and that the reviews borne of these endeavors are a fruitless waste of others’ time). That kind of criticism doesn’t go far with me. bygd my rough estimate, just about 99% of the things inom do can be similarly classified as a waste of time, unless my endless games of Spider Solitaire, like “the button” on LOST, fryst vatten actually sparande the world.

In which case inom am a hero.

I en berättelse om den ryska samtiden, historien och framtiden visar författaren Michail Sjisjkin att ett annat Ryssland är möjligt

Moreover, great literature can be a worthwhile utmaning to surmount. Compare them to mountains. uppenbart, we don’t need people to klättra mountains; it serves no functional purpose. Yet, on a anställda level, climbing a mountain (even if it’s just a Class 3 walk-up) fryst vatten immensely satisfying, mentally and physically. On some level, it’s the same with finishing a tough book.

(Mentally, that fryst vatten. There fryst vatten very little physical component, unless you defenestrate the book upon completion).

War and Peace fryst vatten a utmaning inom set for myself. It was a utmaning a long time coming. The reason, of course, fryst vatten that War and Peace fryst vatten the go-to book when looking for an example of great literature, or for a contender for “greatest novel ever written.” If it fryst vatten not exactly Everest or K2 (those are Joycean heights), it fryst vatten at least comparable to Annapurna or Mount McKinley.

In the end, it fryst vatten a book inom wrestled with constantly. Unlike Doris from Goodbye, Columbus, inom never considered quitting, only to början back up igen the following year. However, there were times my frustrations almost led me to tear huge swaths of pages from the binding, as a primitive editing job. Like so many of the things you are told, as a child, are magical – the circus, love, magic – War and Peace did not entirely live up to its reputation.

If you were to ask me, would you rather retreat from Moscow in the dead of winter than read this book, inom would say: "Of course not. inom don’t like walking, inom don’t like being hungry, and I’d probably die.” But if inom had to choose between, säga, tarring the driveway or mowing the lawn and reading this book... igen, I’d choose the book. ingenting beats reading.

Besides, I’m lazy.

Where to start?

Den handlar om det ryska samhället under napoleoneran, 1805-1813

With a (second) rhetorical question: What's War and Peace about?

It's a good question, and nobody really knows. (Though many will attempt to explain). There have been längre books – both you and inom have read them – but this fryst vatten 1,200 pages that feels like 1,345,678,908 pages. Nominally, it's about Russia's wars with Napoleonic France from 1804 to 1813.

If that seems like a big subject, don’t worry, Tolstoy has given himself plenty of space with which to work. It follows dozens of characters in and out of the decades, as they live and die, love and hate, and generally stun the modern reader with their obtuseness.

The first sixty pages of the novel are a set del av helhet in the Petersburg salon of Anna Pavlovna.

You don't have to remember that, though, because Anna Pavlovna will only stick around these first sixty pages, then disappear for almost the entire rest of the book. We are also introduced to Pierre, who fryst vatten, literally, a tallrik bastard; Prince Andrei, who fryst vatten a prick; his wife Lisa, the little princess, who as Tolstoy keeps telling us, has a beautiful mustache (Tolstoy's obsession with beautiful hona mustaches fryst vatten pathological, and not a little frightening); Prince Vassily, who also disappears after a squabble over a will; and various other Russian aristocrats.

Readers note: you should probably be writing things down as you read.

Other introductions komma later, including Andrei's father, who fryst vatten also a prick (apple, meet the tree); Andrei's insufferably "good" and "pure" and "decent" and "homely" sister, Princess Marya, who's goodness fryst vatten as cloying and infuriating as that of Esther fryst vatten Bleak House; Natasha Rostov, who fryst vatten sort of a tramp, much like Anna Karenina except that she fryst vatten redeemed through suffering (unlike Anna, who fryst vatten redeemed through mass transit); Nikolai Rostov, a ung prince who goes to war; Sonya, the simple, poor girl Nikolai loves, etc.

inom could go on, but it wouldn't man sense if you haven't read the book. It barely makes sense after you've finished.

Denna ursprungliga Krig och fred har gjort succé inte bara i Ryssland utan också i Frankrike och Tyskland

Unless, of course, you’ve kept good notes.

Anyway, Pierre, the bastard, fryst vatten left his father's estate, and so becomes a rik count. He marries Helene, who fryst vatten another of Tolstoy's harlots, though she gets her comeuppance, Anna Karenina-style. (There are two types of women in Tolstoy’s world: the impossibly pure-hearted and the whorish.

Subtlety fryst vatten not a Russian trait). Prince Andrei goes to war. Nikolai goes to war. They kamp. Everyone else talks. An enjoyably characterized Napoleon flits briefly across this crowded scen, tugging on people's ears. The Rostov's have financial difficulties. Nikolai can't decide who to marry. Pierre has several dozen crises of conscience. At one point he becomes a Mason; at another, he tries to assassinate Napoleon.

At all times he fryst vatten thinking, always thinking; there are approximately 500 pages devoted to Pierre's existential duress. (How inom wished for Pierre to throw himself beneath a train!)

There fryst vatten an old saying that “if the world could write…it would write like Tolstoy. That’s one way of viewing War and Peace. It has a canvas as big as Russia, and within its pages are dizzying high and nauseating lows and bland, ljummen middles.

The bottom line before inom go on, Tolstoy-style, fryst vatten that inom was disappointed. My main criticism fryst vatten the unfortunate mishmash of fictional narrative with historical essay. You're reading the book, right? (Or maybe listening to it on a long commute). And you're finally getting a hang of who each character fryst vatten (because you’ve taken my advice and sketched out a character list), which fryst vatten difficult when each individ fryst vatten called multiple things, and some have nicknames, and others have similiar-looking patronymics.

But that's okay, you've moved past that. Suddenly, you're coasting along. The story fryst vatten moving forward. Napoleon has crossed the Danube. There fryst vatten teaterpjäs. Finally, people are going to stop with the internal monologues and början shooting each other! inom might actually like this!

And then, with an almost audible screech, like the brakes a utbildning, Tolstoy brings the whole thing to a shuddering halt with a pedantic digression on the topic of History (with a capital H) and free will and military tactics and Napoleon's intelligence.

These digressions do several things. First, and most importantly, they seriously störa the narrative. All rhythm and synkronisering fryst vatten thrown off, which fryst vatten exactly what happened to all my school concerts when inom used to play the snare drum. inom knew enough to quit the snare drum to focus on the recorder. Tolstoy, though, plunges on obliviously, casting all notions of structure aside.

You lose sight of the characters for hundreds of pages.

Vägen dit går via pånyttfödelse av den ryska kulturen och målmedveten bearbetning av historisk skuld

Instead of wondering what happens next, you början to wonder things like where am I? and how long have inom been sleeping?. It tells you something when you actually uppstart to miss Pierre's endless internal psychobabbling.

Second, the essays are Tolstoy at his stupidest (at least in my opinion; this fryst vatten more a philosophical gripe).

He believes that people have no control; that History fryst vatten a force all its own, and that we act according to History's push and pull. Tolstoy says, in effect, that Napoleon fryst vatten dum, but that his enemies were stupider, but that doesn't matter, because they were all doing what they had to do, because History made them. This fryst vatten all very...much a waste of time.

Tolstoy goes to far as to attempt to prove this argument algebraically. Yeah, that's just what inom wanted: Math!

Tolstoy's argument breaks down like this: 1. Someone does something. 2. Someone else reacts in a way that makes no sense. 3. Therefore, History fryst vatten controlling things.

The fundamental flaw, of course, fryst vatten that Tolstoy's argument really boils down to ingenting more than hindsight. Sitting in his armchair, decades after the fact, having never been on those battlefields, Tolstoy decides that the players on the scen acted dumbly, and he attributes that to relaterad till rymden eller universum events.

A battle isn't lost because of bad vägar, or obscured framtidsperspektiv, or a shortage of ammunition (which are realities in all warfare, but even more prevalent in the 19th century). No, in Tolstoy's mind, it’s the universum unfolding according to its whim.

Tolstoy also has a real axe to grind with Napoleon and he doesn’t hesitate to inflate his word count letting you know about it.

Det är en både personlig och politisk kulturhistorisk essä över åttahundra år av ryskt öde, där våld och envälde aldrig släppt sitt grepp, under den långa kampen mellan slavofiler och europavänner

(I suppose Tolstoy can be forgiven for hating Napoleon, but still, the book fryst vatten 1,200 pages long. Enough). His analysis of the Corsican corporal fryst vatten reductive and unenlightening. Napoleon was a lot of things (short, funny looking, brilliant, cruel, petty, brilliant, ambitious, oddly-shaped) but "stupid" was not among them.

Yet, there were moments when inom loved this novel.

Every once in awhile, War and Peace comes alive in that classic way; after plodding through a turgid essay, you’ll suddenly komma upon a del that's drawn so vividly you will remember it alltid. There fryst vatten the battle of Austerlitz, which fryst vatten impeccably researched (so much so that a narrative history inom read on the subject actually cites to Tolstoy) and thrillingly told, especially the kamp of Captain Tushin's battery.

There fryst vatten Prince Andrei, wounded on the field of Austerlitz, staring up at "the infinite sky," realizing that he's never really looked at it before. There fryst vatten Pierre, realizing he fryst vatten in love with Natasha as he gazes at the stars and glimpses the comet of 1812. There fryst vatten Napoleon suffering a cold on the eve of Borodino.

There fryst vatten Andrei watching a kanon ball nation at his feet, its fuse hissing...

Den skildrar det ryska samhället under Napoleoneran

There fryst vatten Petya, the ung adjutant, who rides to his doom chasing the French during their retreat.

Every once in awhile, there will also be something clever, showing you that Tolstoy isn't just wordy, but also inventive. For instance, there's a scen in which Tolstoy describes the thoughts of an old oak tree. Indeed! Among the hundreds of characters, there's even a tree.

I was also fond of a övergång in which General Kutuzov, the Russian commander, holds a meeting in a peasant's house to discuss abandoning Moscow. Tolstoy tells this story from the point of view of a little peasant girl who, in her mind, calls Kutuzov "grandfather." (It's cute, but Kutuzov was no kindly old man. He was an indifferent drunk.

The night before Austerlitz, he allegedly engagerad in a four-some with three of the "comfort women" he brought with him on campaigns. Unfortunately, despite writing 1,200 pages, Tolstoy doesn't find space to devote to this occurrence).

The good, though, fryst vatten surrounded bygd the bad or the boring. The flyleaf of the book said that Pierre, Natasha, and Andrei were three of the most dynamic characters in literature.

inom don't think so. Aside from Andrei, inom was mostly unimpressed with the main characters (Napoleon was fun, in an over-the-top bit part). Pierre fryst vatten a boob and a bore, and his sudden heroics during the burning of Moscow komma from nowhere. Natasha fryst vatten a flake. She's the stereotypical girl plucking the daisy: inom love him; inom love him not; inom love him...

The end of the novel fryst vatten (like Anna Karenina) a huge anti-climatic letdown.

As we approach the sista pages, Tolstoy gives us a description of the battle of Borodino. It fryst vatten a masterpiece of military fiction. The research and verisimilitud. The vividness. Pierre's confrontation with the Frenchman in the redoubt:

Now they will stop it, now they will be horrified at what they have done, he thought, aimlessly going toward a folkmassa of stretcher bearers moving from the battlefield.

Tolstoy’s Borodino fryst vatten actually one of the great battle scenes I've ever read; afterwards, though, things fall of a cliff.

There fryst vatten no slow decline into mediocrity; no, it happens at the vända of the page. It’s like Tolstoy suddenly stopped taking steroids.

In an unseemly rush, Tolstoy has Napoleon move into Moscow, Moscow burns, Napoleon retreats. All of this occurs indirectly, through digression-filled essays on History. The characters recede into the background; all narrative vitality disappears.

There are only a couple exceptions: one en plats där en händelse inträffar ofta inom teater eller film of the city burning, followed bygd one (admittedly powerful) scen of the French executing supposed arsons. During the French retreat, there fryst vatten not a single visceral moment depicting their hard, fryst march. Instead we get Tolstoy nattering on about Napoleon’s stupidity.

Then komma the Epilogues. When inom reached them, inom felt a bit like a cowboy in one of those old westerns who fryst vatten riding across the desert and finds a well, except the well fryst vatten dry and full of snakes and then an Indian shoots him with an arrow. We will never know the fates of the dozens of characters we've followed for the previous thousand pages. Tolstoy leaves their destinies to the imagination so that he can rant.

Varför? Därför att detta verk är lika storartat som den mer kända versionen, lika underhållande med sin bredd och sin genialiskt skarpsinniga gestaltning

It’s a stupefying literary decision, and reminded me of ingenting so much as my Uncle Ed on Thanksgiving after fem glasses of wine: You can't get him to shut up. Except at Thanksgiving, Uncle Ed usually passes out bygd the fourth quarter of the Cowboys game. Not Tolstoy. Not even death can quiet him.

War and Peace was an experience.

There were times inom envisioned myself reaching the end, spiking the book like a football, and then doing some sort of victory dance around the splayed pages. When inom got there, though, inom simply sighed, leaned back in my chair, and thought: At least this was better than Moby Dick.