My Tolstoyan Year in Review ...or... Lessons Learned from my Life with Leo

"She... always considered herself completely in the right before me, and I, in my own eyes, was always a saint before her."

- Pozdnyshev ('The Kruetzer Sonata' xvii)

Tolstoy Final Day Count: 365

Tolstoy Final Page Count: 2279

I got a chance last week to spend some time with two of my literary friends - two men I used to teach with, one an English teacher, the other, my literary mentor David - and, as things often do in our discussions, the topic turned to books.

"Well," I told them, more than a little chagrin in my voice, "I think I fell off the Tolstoy wagon."

"What do you mean?" my friend David asked.

"Well, I had wanted to get through The Death of Ivan Ilyich [and Other Stories] before the end of the year, and it doesn't look like I'm going to be able to make it," I said, taking a sip of my drink. "Looks like I kinda failed, huh?"

David looked at me in unbelief. "Stephen," he said, "you cannot think of yourself as a failure. You read War & Peace and Anna Karenina this year - how many other people can say they've done that? So you didn't finish as many short stories as you wanted. You've still read two of the greatest novels ever written this year. I don't care who you are - that's a success story!"

While the conversation may not have gone exactly that way (I've slept since then), it was along those lines. And, true, I've only managed to read 200 pages in the last 3 months, but when I look at the wealth of information, knowledge, and experience I've gathered over the course of the last year I've spent with Tolstoy, it's difficult to think of this year as a bust.

One year ago, I set out to read Leo Tolstoy's War & Peace in its entirety before this date (12/31/2011) and not only was I successful, but I managed to read Tolstoy's amazing follow-up, Anna Karenina, in its entirety as well. Below are some lessons I've learned from my year with Leo:

1. The Importance of Being Realistic 

"How do you eat an elephant?" my father often asks me when I am faced with a task that seems more than a little insurmountable. "One bite at a time," I reply, either with a wry grin or a shrug of surrender (or, on occasion, both). 

When I set out last year, I had one thing in mind: finish War & Peace. I know myself pretty well. I tend to get busy and/or distracted relatively easily. Sitting down to read a book is, with my schedule and attention span, a luxury I am often not afforded. So, by setting myself the realistic goal of read a 1200+ page book in the span of a year, I was setting a goal that I knew would ultimately be attainable. I was completely unprepared for how engrossing and engaging a story about an ancient war would (of even could) be. 

By setting for myself a realistic goal, not only was I able to finish, but able to take on an even more ambitious one - reading through the whole body of Tolstoy's work. This goal, as it turned out, was unrealistic. As I got busier and busier with a new job, plays, etc. and as the year began to steadily vanish into the realm of the past, I began to realize that this goal was unattainable. Had I stuck to eating the elephant that is Tolstoy's oeuvre one bite at a time, the disappointment that haunted me at that table with my friends would likely not have been so great. By setting attainable goals, I allow myself to finish them. Easily.

2. Big Books Aren't Scary. At All.

There are times, especially as a teacher, when I weep for the younger generation (as I'm sure my teachers wept for me and mine once upon a time). Reading, it seems, is a rarity anymore in our culture and, from my observations, the average American teenager seems incapable of reading anything more involved than a text message or a Tweet (butchered spelling and syntax and all) or, on a good day, a tabloid magazine. "Reading is boring," they say. "I don't like it." It is at this point that I systematically grab my chest and, with a look of forlorn and chagrin, say to them, "That hurts my heart."

And it does. People often ask me how I know certain things or how I got to be "so smart." (Their words, as I tend not to think of myself as anything more than slightly above average in the intelligence arena - mainly because I have several brilliant friends.) The answer, in short, is reading! The idea of culture and knowledge comes directly out of art and literature. If one does not immerse oneself in art, it becomes difficult to engage ones culture at a meaningful level.

That being said, one of the reasons I think people - particularly of the younger generation - are daunted or bored by reading is the length of a particular book and the amount of time it takes to complete it. It is at this point that refer them back to the elephant-eating scenario above and the importance of the realistic goal. By taking ones time to digest the book and to enjoy it for what it is (rather than, as is our habit, speeding through it and onto the next thing), one is better able to appreciate the artistry inherent within the text itself. By breaking Tolstoy down into manageable, bite-sized chunks over the course of the year, I was better able to appreciate and understand not only his individual occupations per book/story, but his larger meta-narrative.

3. Paying Forward Inspiration

I have made absolutely no secret of the fact that my Year of Tolstoy journey was prompted by the passion and reading of my literary mentor, David (whom I've mentioned a number of times in this blog and in this very post). His inspired reading of War & Peace in the fall of 2010 is what inspired me to read through the works of Tolstoy this year. Since the beginning of this year, I have made very public my progress and reading - tweeting individual quotes and impressions, talking about it in the course of general conversation, and blogging here (when I had time to do so).

One of the blessings and pleasures from having made the decision to read publicly and using social media as a platform for discussion is that I've found I've inspired the literary journeys of some others along the way.

The first thing I heard when I told my grandmother that I wanted to read War & Peace was "I want to read it when you're done!" My grandmother, who reads often, but typically popular mysteries and religious fiction, was not the type I thought I might inspire when I started out. However, not only did she voraciously devour the book (she finished in about two months!), but we managed to have some great discussions about it in the meantime. I remember calling her after she was done and talking with her on the phone for about forty-five minutes gathering her impressions and thoughts on the text as a whole. It was fantastic to get to connect with her that way!

Another one I found myself inspiring fairly early on was my friend Kyle, who resolved to read through the entirety of James Joyce's Ulysses and blog his research at Unraveling Ulysses. While the constraints of job, family, and extracurriculars eventually put a stop to the project somewhere around March, he still managed to put forward some great insights in those first few months of his project. My hope is that he will one day pick it up again and run with it 'til it's through. :)

My friend Sherri came up to me after a play a few months ago and announced, quite matter-of-factly, "You've inspired me!"

I was taken aback. "I've... what now?"

"I've decided that next year, I want to read through the works of Shakespeare!" I was mildly shocked and extremely proud of my friend and the conversation immediately started on which plays she would read and in what order. (The Year of Shakespeare is a plan I want to attempt sometime in the next few years as well!)

Somewhat more heartwarming for me is the joy in watching my students undertake their own literary pursuits. Although often at the behest of their teachers, it has been a joy recommending books to students and watching the glee in their eyes as they realize that they are reading something that I haven't and are having an enjoyable, enriching experience in it. This, for me, has been one of the greatest things about this year.

4. The Spirituality of Secular Art

As I've mentioned earlier in this blog, I lost my job earlier this year, but was blessed enough to find a new one. One of the many things that makes applying for a job at a Christian or church-run organization interesting is the volume of questions like Briefly describe your devotional life or List three books you've read recently that have helped you grow spiritually. In fact, both of those questions appeared on my last job application and, initially, it felt really weird listing War & Peace as a book that helped me grow spiritually. After all, it's a book that deals with a battle among the Russians and the French in the early 1800s. What's so spiritual about that?!

However, if you've read this blog faithfully over the course of this year (which, I realize, puts you in a very exclusive club!), you know that Tolstoy deals with topics that every human being focuses on - loss, love, loneliness, joy, betrayal, pain, and fulfillment. His dealing with these issues almost always involves faith on some level. Be it the pious Marya in War & Peace, the searching Levin in Anna Karenina, the dying Ivan Ilyich, or even the repentant Pozdnyshev in 'The Kreutzer Sonata,' faith and religion lie at the heart of each of Tolstoy's characters.

Indeed, 'The Death of Ivan Ilyich' reminded me of nothing so much as the Book of Job. Both Andrei (W&P) and Levin's (AK) respective searches for meaning ended only when the two men accepted that there was something larger than themselves and submitted themselves to it. The wretched Pozdnyshev rides the train, telling his story to anyone who will listen in the vain hope that someone will grant him absolution for his heinous crime.

Secular art that deals with human emotions - like those found in Tolstoy - can be every bit as inspirational and soul-feeding as "Christian" art, even more so in my experience. When we eliminate those "secular" works from our view in favor of something that speaks to us overtly and often of our Creator, we limit the ways in which our Creator may wish to speak to us. For my part, I have grown not only as a scholar, but as a human and a Christian from my reading of Tolstoy. May it be for you.

*          *          *          *          *

There are many other things I could write and other experience I could share, but I will spare you the additional reading. Suffice it to say, however short I may have fallen from my final goal of reading ALL of Tolstoy, this year can be considered nothing if it cannot be considered a success.

Thanks are owed to many who have influenced me over the course of this year. To David, thanks for starting me on this journey. To my family, thanks for humoring me and allowing me to be late to a few important family gatherings because I was engrossed in Tolstoy. To the various friends, students, and loved ones who have allowed me to attempt to put my love of Tolstoy and literature into words for them over the course of this year, the word 'thanks' hardly seems adequate to express what those myriad conversations have meant to me. To David & Kyle W, thanks for joining me in my reading of Anna K - discussing it with you helped me process it more than you can know.

So... what's next?

As I mentioned last time, 2012 will be the Year of Hugo. I will begin by reading Les Miserables, a book I've wanted to read for some time, and, if I have the time and energy to do so, I will also read Notre-Dame-de-Paris (more commonly known as The Hunchback of Notre Dame). Starting tomorrow, the name of this blog (and the corresponding Twitter feed) will be renamed accordingly. But, should you decide to continue to follow my efforts, I will continue to post my thoughts and findings whenever I am able. Thank YOU, dear reader, for accompanying me on this first leg of my journey and for sticking around for what comes next!

I remain your literary companion, your comrade-in-books,

~ Stephen E. Foxworthy

Coming in January: Hurdling Hugo

I've been remiss in updating this blog and, for that, I apologize. Indeed, since my life has picked up with the busy-ness of late, it's been difficult not only to find the time to update, but also to continue reading Tolstoy. While my neglect and my schedule HAVE diminished any possibility of getting through a fourth Tolstoy text before the year is over, I still hold out hope that I will be able to finish the book of his short stories that I began a couple months back. I've finished "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" and moved onto "The Kreutzer Sonata," which is a downright interesting story with echoes of Plato's Symposium and hints toward Capote's In Cold Blood. Sometime soon, I will have to review them for the blog here.

However, in the meantime, I have an announcement to make. It was a little over a year ago that I announced my intention to read Tolstoy's classic War and Peace. From that simple announcement, a journey of two novels, several short stories, and a literary awakening sprang forth. I came to a realization before I had even finished War and Peace that there were a great many fantastic works of fiction in this world and so few that I had ever actually bothered to read. I resolved myself then and there to change that for myself. I wanted to read those books, to better myself in the process, and discover why these classics are considered 'classics' in the first place.

After I had dedicated a year or my life to the work of Tolstoy, I challenged myself to dedicate each and every new year of my life (for as long as I'm able at least) to reading one classic author and their best-known and best-loved work. There came to be so many great authors that began to vie for their place on my bookshelf and in my hands: Joyce, Dumas, Dostoyevsky, Cervantes, the Brontes, Dickens, and many, many others. It was difficult to decide where to go next.

However, after giving it a goodly amount of thought, I found myself coming back to one author (and, indeed, one text) over and over again. For most of my young life (since my junior year of high school if I'm quite honest), one story has followed me. I first experienced it as a film starring Liam Neeson, Geoffrey Rush, and Uma Thurman, then as a musical written by Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil. About the only way I have NOT experienced the story of Les Misérables was the way it was originally intended to be experienced - by reading the original novel.

So, my main story was set and, with it, my author for 2012: Victor Hugo. Reading massive novels did not really fill me with feelings of dread and apprehension like they did before I started reading War and Peace. As such, tackling a novel even bigger than that epic tome is not as daunting as it once might have been. In fact, I find the prospect rather exciting. So exciting, in fact, that I'm not ending the fun and excitement there! I've decided that, when I finish Les Mis, I'll take to reading Hugo's original masterpiece, The Hunchback of Notre Dame a.k.a. Notre Dame de Paris (provided, of course, that I can find a good translation of it).

While I am still excited about the prospect of finishing Tolstoy, I am anxiously anticipating beginning this new chapter in my literary journey! I would welcome any and all of you who have not read Les Mis (or even those of you who HAVE) to read it with me! I would love to discuss it with you as I go!

ALL NEW! The "Tackling Tolstoy" Vlog!

"And the candle by the light of which she had been reading that book filled with anxieties, deceptions, grief and evil, flared up brighter than ever, lit up for her all that had once been in darkness, sputtered, grew dim, and went out forever."

- Leo Tolstoy (VII.xxxi)

Total Tolstoy Day Total: 245

Total Tolstoy Page Count: 2079

I discovered a webcam on my laptop (I have a better one at home - I just didn't have it when I wanted to film this video) and so I opted to record my thoughts on finishing "Anna K" and what was coming next for my "Tackling Tolstoy" project.

It was slightly less time consuming than writing out an entire blog (but only slightly as I didn't get an acceptable take until the third one). If you like it, I'll do more. If not, I'll chalk it up as a failed experiment and never try it again. So, give it a watch:

(Sorry for the lack of audio/video synchronicity. As I said earlier, I was using my laptop webcam and not my GOOD webcam, so that'll be something for next time - if there is a next time.)

Any feedback you guys have would be appreciated! Thanks for stopping by!

Where Has the Time Gone?: My Summer Alone on an Island of Perspective

"When I doubted, it was hard for me, but easier than now. When I doubted, there was hope; but now there is no hope and even so I doubt everything."

- Alexei Karenin (IV.xii)

Anna K Day Count: 43

Anna K Page Count: 405 
Total Tolstoy Day Count: 192

Total Tolstoy Page Count: 1629

(The title of this blog is dedicated with a nod and a wink to my good friend and brother-in-literacy, David Trujillo.)

Two months after finishing War and Peace. A month and some days since I started Anna Karenina. Life continues to charge steadily onward. As it turns out, there is life after War and Peace and not only is it busy, it is filled with all manner of responsibilities, demands, obligations, and diversions. I am still reading Anna Karenina, though I feel I've read far less of it at this point than I had really intended to. In honesty, I'm about halfway through the novel when, according to my lofty hopes posited at the beginning of reading, I expected to be done (or darn close to it) by this point.

Here are some things that are keeping me from that goal:

• Summer is one of the few times in my life where I get 'me-time' - that is to say, time for Stephen to do the things he desperately enjoys and wants to do. While this certainly does include reading Tolstoy (nerd that I am), it also includes being a part of theatrical productions. Before the school year had even ended, I got a chance to be a part of a great two-man show called Greater Tuna at Spotlight Players, a local community theater. The show was very well-received (read a review of it from a local community theatre goer/reviewer/actor/director here) and may be one of the best productions I've ever been a part of to date. After that show wrapped, I headed down south of Indy to Martinsville, IN to do the third part of a trilogy (I had been involved in the other two parts as well and wanted to complete my character's arc). That show will wrap after school is already started, so - needless to say - my summer has been theatre-packed.
• Summer is also a time where I try to supplement my income by picking up a part-time job. Before I taught, I worked as a head cashier at a local Barnes & Noble, and over the last couple of years, they've been kind enough to let me come back and take on the role of a bookseller during those long summer months. It's a good gig and I love the people I work with, but it is often time-consuming when you're working four-to-five days a week.
• A [now] former co-worker's interest in the new Battlestar Galactica prompted me to start rewatching the series. This just in: It is [still] pretty awesome!
• Not that this has been especially time-consuming, but many of you contacted me after my last post, so I thought it would be worth a mention - I found a new job teaching here in Indy! God has been good and I'm glad to be able to do what I feel He's called me to do.

All that being said, I've still managed to get about halfway through Anna K. I realized early on that my projected hope of getting through fifteen pages everyday was an unrealistic pipe dream, but I read when I could and noticed a few similarities and differences between War and Peace and Anna K.

To start, it took me longer to engage with Anna Karenina than it did with War and Peace. W&P drops you right into the middle of a crowded party, enabling you to meet several characters at once and see how they interact within society as a whole, giving you instant insight into their various characters. With Anna K, we are dropped into the middle of some action - the impending division of the Oblonsky family due to infidelity - but we are not introduced to multiple characters all at once. Rather, we are slowly introduced to the various characters one by one: first Stephan Oblonsky, then his wife Dolly, then his friend Levin, et cetera, et cetera. In fact, nearly a hundred pages (or so it seems - it's actually just a page or two over sixty) have gone by before we are even introduced to the titular character.

And speaking of Anna's introduction - allow me to take a sidebar to say that it is, quite possibly, one of the best character introductions that I have ever read in all of literature. Tolstoy draws us into the lure of Anna Karenina through the eyes of the young Count Alexei Vronsky, who is captivated by her instantly. His captivation is ours as Tolstoy begins to describe the most alluring, enchanting woman. So enthralled are we (and Vronsky) by her that it is only after a page of description of this sort (which I absolutely devoured, by the way) that we realize that we don't even know who this woman is! Tolstoy has yet to tell us her name; in fact, so ensconced in her beauty and presence are we that it is only when Tolstoy tells us that this woman - yes, she - is the titular character we have been waiting for the entire novel thus far. That realization, I daresay, captivates us all the more. From that moment, we - like Vronsky - are flies in her web, pawns in her chess game.

One device that kept War and Peace consistently interesting and engaging was Tolstoy's constant jumping around between his various characters and plot points. One minute we would be in a salon at a society party hosted by Helene Bezukhov or Anna Pavlovna, the next we would be whisked off to some battlefield alongside Andrei Bolkonsky or Nikolai Rostov. After that, we might be taken out of the narrative altogether and treated to a dissertation by Tolstoy on his theory of history or war. Not knowing what was coming was part of the fun - we were on our toes and ready for anything.

Anna K follows a similar track in some ways as Tolstoy is constantly leaping between his characters - most notably Anna, Vronsky, Karenin, and Levin. However, unlike War and Peace, Tolstoy does not leave the narrative to wax philosophical. Rather, he places his own words, thoughts, and rather obvious attacks on the intelligentsia of his time into the words of his characters. Most of the time (if not all the time), this happens with Konstantin Levin, a character many scholars believe to be the closest character Tolstoy ever wrote to himself. (Levin does, even to the casual observer, share much in common with War and Peace's Pierre Bezukhov - a character that many scholars view as the closest character to Tolstoy in that book.) While these philosophic and politic 'breaks' are written into the narrative, it often becomes tiresome (at least, it does to this reader) in that they take away from the action of the narrative and, in many cases, can bring it to a grinding halt. While, yes, they do serve to tell us something of certain characters (most notably Levin, Oblonsky, or Karenin), they seem to do very little for the overall story.

One of the things about Anna K that struck me very early on was the similarity between many of the characters there and in War and Peace. Indeed, in his introduction, Richard Pevear takes note that many of the characters in Anna K (with the exception of Vronsky and Anna) were based on people that Tolstoy himself knew (he, of course, was Levin while his wife, Sophia, was Kitty). Still, I found some interesting connections between characters in War and Peace and in Anna K:

• Konstantin Levin (Anna K) = Pierre Bezukhov (W&P)
• Kitty Shcherbatskaya (Anna K) = Lize Bolkonskaya + Natasha Rostova (both W&P)
• Prince Alexander Shcherbatsky (Anna K) = Count Ilya Rostov (W&P)
• Alexei Karenin (Anna K) = Prince Nikolai Bolkonsky (W&P)
• Alexei Vronsky (Anna K) = Anatole Karagin + Nikolai Rostov + Boris Drubretskoy (all W&P)
• Stepan Oblonsky (Anna K) = Vassily Denisov (W&P)
• Dolly Oblonsky + Varenka (both Anna K) = Marya Bolkonskaya (W&P)
• Betsy Tverskaya (Anna K) = Helene Bezukhov (W&P)
• Yashvin (Anna K) = Fyodor Dolokhov (W&P)
• Nikolai Levin (Anna K) = Platon Karataev (W&P)

It stands to reason that a writer writes what he knows. It makes sense that if Tolstoy were looking for interesting characters, he wouldn't look much further than the ones right around him. And it makes sense that if his base characters are the same, there are bound to be similarities. I'm not saying that these characters are by any means identical. Far from it. But there are certain similarities of habit and character that I find too glaring (at least in my mind) to overlook.

Of course, these are only my observations from having read the first half of the book. There is certainly more coming that may do much to change my perceptions of these characters and they may end up being very different people by the end. Who's to say? (At this point, not me.) I just thought the similarities between these characters were interesting.

That being said, the Anna K reading group (which has withered down to only a few of the mighty group who started out) is planning to meet within the next couple of weeks. I'll let you know how it goes (I hope).

Until next time, true believers...

Looks Like We Made It...! ...or.... Reminiscings Upon the Completion of "War and Peace"

"There was always a provocative side to Tolstoy's genius, and it was most often what spurred him to write."

- Richard Pevear, from his Introduction to Anna Karenina

Day Count: 147

Page Count: 12--

Last week, on Monday, May 16, 2010, at about 6:00am - 136 days after I started my journey through War and Peace - I read the final sentences of Tolstoy's epic and joined the ranks of the people I consider to be among the "literary elite." I feel very accomplished - like I can (and very likely will) read anything and everything I set my mind to. No book is 'off-limits' or 'too difficult'... because I have waded into the sparkling waters of Tolstoy's Russia and emerged glistening from the other side.

In the weeks preceding my finishing of the book, my pace began to slow considerably as the stresses on my life became more and more demanding. Since my last post on April 17 (and even in the days preceding that), a lot has happened that kept me away both from this blog and War and Peace. In the last month, I've lost my job, started looking for a new one, attempted to finalize my end-of-the-school year things, auditioned for a play, gotten cast in said play, and begun attending three-a-week rehearsals.

While some of this has been great (play stuff) and some has been most unnerving (job/school situation), I felt myself drifting from Tolstoy with only a scant 120 pages to go. Determined, I rallied my resolve and managed to plow through over a hundred pages in a single weekend (besting even my most impressive early reading schedule of 100 pages in a week) and finished that morning while waking up to get ready for my last two weeks of school.

Some reflections on my time spent in War and Peace:

• Tolstoy's prose is absolutely captivating. He inspires your imagination and pulls you into his confidences as he invites you into his world. In many ways, you are his guest - a fellow traveler on the road of life who he welcomes into his home and, as he feeds you with a peasant meal of hearty kasha and strong vodka, regales you with a story that is at once timeless and universal, while still very much a product of its own time and place. When you finish, he sends you on your way, sated, fulfilled, and ready for the journey ahead.
  
• To call Pierre Bezukhov, Natasha Rostova, and Andrei and Marya Bolkonsky some of my favorite literary characters seems like a disservice both to them and to Tolstoy. They have, over the course of these last few months, become closer than that to me.
  
  Pierre has become a good friend and stalwart companion, in many ways a mirror in which I see myself, and an inspiration and hope for my own future. In Natasha, I see a feminine ideal - joyful, encouraging, so full of life and energy that it is contagious and all who encounter her, from the most virtuous to the most vile and debased, love her instantly. Andrei is a close friend and something of a hero, but a tragic hero whose longing for something more fills me at once with sadness for his plight and guilt for my knowing that I have often felt the same. Marya is a rock, a woman whose piety and grace have led her to become so much stronger than she might have been without her faith. Because she is moored in the steadfastness of Christ's love, she remains an anchor for her father, for Andrei, and for Nikolai.
  
  To call Tolstoy's characters 'characters' demeans them. They are people. They age and grow and mature and gain wisdom and understanding and break right in front of you. You see them at their best and at their worst. Even the best of Tolstoy's characters is deeply flawed. Even the worst of Tolstoy's characters is made to have redemption, even if in some small way. By the end of the book, they are no longer vague, fledgling caricatures, such as those that emerge from most novels I've read, but fully-formed people with thoughts and hearts and lives all their own.
  
  And you relate to them! When they mourn, you find yourself in tears. When they are jubilant, you cannot help but grin from ear to ear. When they are heroic, you heart begins to pound in your chest as you begin to read of their exploits, swelling with every action they take. When they are peaceful and content, you suddenly forget that the world around you is falling to pieces and rest in their serenity.
  
• Even after spending four-and-a-half months inside the world of War and Peace, I'd be hard-pressed to tell you exactly what the book is about. I know that some would answer briefly with "the Napoleonic Wars" or "life in Russia in the early 1800s" or (perhaps more ironically and with a healthy dose of sarcasm) "war and peace," but I don't think those answers are adequate enough. While, on some level, this book is certainly about both of those things, it is so much bigger than just those minute descriptions.
  
  War and Peace is an epic - perhaps one of the greatest epics ever written. It is certainly about war, but it is also about heroism, violence, depravity, redemption, loss, consequences, and coping. It is absolutely about peace, but it is also about life, brokenness, love, longing, growing up, forgiveness, joy, and mistakes. And it is about so much more than just that! This book speaks to the subject of life, touching on every aspect of the human experience and expressing it in the most genuine and honest terms. Tolstoy very rarely tells; he shows! And it is that fact that separates War and Peace from other books - his ability and willingness to show you just how human you are by showing you just how human he is by showing you just how human they [his characters] are.

It has been a difficult transition to make after stepping out of the world of War and Peace. Life just seems a bit less adventurous, a bit paler, and a bit more dull without the joyous smile of Natasha, the brilliance of Marya's glance, or the resolute objectivity of Andrei. To attempt to recapture some of that, I have read one of the short stories in The Death of Ivan Ilych and Other Stories, 'The Prisoner of Caucasus,' which was written in the period of time between his writing of War and Peace and Anna Karenina.

Written as a part of a children's reader for a group of students Tolstoy had been teaching, 'The Prisoner of Caucasus' tells the (semi-autobiographical) story of a young hussar officer taken prisoner by the Tartars during the Crimean Wars. While in captivity, he plots his escape as he befriends a young girl and attempts to gain the trust and acceptance of his captors.

What interested me most about the piece is Tolstoy's treatment of the relationship between Zhilin (the titular 'Prisoner') and Dina (the thirteen-year-old girl he befriends). Despite the fact that Zhilin is imprisoned by the Tartars, never once does his relationship with Dina seem disingenuous or false. Never once during the course of the story does Tolstoy suggest that Zhilin is using Dina to gain the upper-hand over his captors, to use the girl as leverage, or - perhaps most horrifyingly of all - beginning some sort of romantic relationship with her. The audience can feasibly see any of these outcomes if he is reading the story with honesty and earnest.

However, Tolstoy not only never even breaches the possibility of these outcomes, he makes the relationship between the two - a relationship of good nature and good humor, in which Zhilin makes the girl laugh by fashioning dolls for her out of old rags and Dina providing the prisoner with extra food whenever possible - seem like the only plausible relationship these two can have. Herein lies the magic of Tolstoy - he does not go in the direction you would expect, but instead takes you in one that is better just for the way he tells it.

This weekend, I'll be beginning my reading of Anna Karenina and am looking forward to it immensely. I read Richard Pevear's introduction last night before bed and it managed to fill me with the same level of profound excitement I experienced before reading War and Peace! This time, I am thrilled to be joined on my Tolstoy adventure by two of my colleagues - my department head whose reading of War and Peace inspired me to begin my literary journey and the first place, and a new friend and fellow-teacher who has been meaning to read Anna K for a while now. I am excited to share this literary journey with the two of them (and, of course, with you, gentle reader)!

Keep checking my Twitter feed (@TweetingTolstoy), as I will be updating it as I begin reading through Anna K with great quotes and my own brand of insight! ;)

"So... What's Next?" ...or... Inching Toward the Finish Line

"He had to remain in Moscow, concealing his name, meet Napoleon, and kill him, so as either to perish, or to put an end to the misfortunes of all Europe, which proceeded, in Pierre's opinion, solely from Napoleon."

- Leo Tolstoy (III.3.xvii)

Day Count: 107

Page Count: 901

Yes, I am still reading War and Peace! No, I have not finished it yet (though I am getting closer every day)! No, I have not given up blogging (even though my posts have been non-existent for the better part of this month)!

Reading War and Peace has been like a marathon, pacing myself so as not to try to do too much too quickly. I'm certain that I could have tried to sprint right through it, but there is so much going on - so many amazing characters, so much history recounted through such floral prose - that to take it any faster would mean to miss so much more than I'm sure I'm missing now on my first read. (In my experience, most nuance can't really be sussed out until later readings.)

Still, my initial goal of reading War and Peace in a year should be met relatively easily. In fact, it's my hope that I'll have the book finished by the end of next month... which brings to mind the question of what I'll do next. After all, did I not say in my very first post that I was devoting all of 2011 to the reading of War and Peace? (I went back and checked just to make sure - I did say that.) What am I going to do when I close the book - literally - on War and Peace and am left with nothing to read (particularly at the beginning of the busy "summer reading" season)?!

Fret not, faithful readers (all few of you)! The end of War and Peace will not be the end of my readings in Tolstoy! In fact, I've decided to keep this blog going for a while longer and devote it not just to War and Peace, but to the writings of Tolstoy in general. I will be "Tackling Tolstoy" on a much larger scale than originally planned.

After War and Peace, I'm planning on picking up the Pevear/Volokhonsky translation of Anna Karenina (which I do own: a gift from my department head):

Again, I've chosen the Pevear/Volokhonsky translation (which won the PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Award and, perhaps less impressively, was chosen as an official Oprah's Book Club selection) because of the level of enjoyment I've gotten out of reading their translation of War and Peace. Now, Anna K has far fewer pages than War and Peace (which is a 1215 page book, while Anna K sports only 864 pages), which means I'm not anticipating another 5 month ordeal for reading that one. Maybe four. So, what then? Those are the two most important of Tolstoy's works!

While researching that, I noticed that there was a recent translation (by the Dynamic Duo of Russian Lit themselves) of Tolstoy's short story collection The Death of Ivan Ilyich:

Again, shorter than the previous two books, my hope is to have the three major works of Tolstoy read before the end of 2011, truly making this the Year of Tolstoy! (Plus, if I have some time at the end of the year - a week or two free, perhaps - I'd love to check out some of Tolstoy's religious essays like "The Kingdom of God is Within You" or Isaiah Berlin's essay on Tolstoy's view of history, "The Hedgehog and the Fox" as a way of rounding out my year.)

To that end (that is, the end of finishing War and Peace), it is my hope that by this time tomorrow, I will be over three-quarters of the way through Tolstoy's epic - another colossal milestone! - which is, at present count, a scant ten pages away (though math was never a strong suit of mine). I feel confident that my projection goals of finishing by May are both attainable and reasonable and I look forward to sharing my thoughts as I begin the last quarter of this adventure!

Coming soon (though, in reality, who can say when?): Part Three of the War and Peace and Religion series - featuring the Rostovs and the Bezukhovs!

"So... How's It Going?"

"It was strange for Princess Marya to think that now, at a moment when such grief filled her soul, there could be rich and poor people, and that the rich would not help the poor."

- Leo Tolstoy (III.2.x)

Day Count: 92

Page Count: 729

Last night, I went out with my friend Kelly and, while out, ran into some other friends that I had not seen in far too long a while. As the night went on, I was able to catch up with these friends and get to hear how their lives had been going and share with them what I had been up to. At one point, my friend Kari turns to me and simply says, "So... how's War and Peace going?"

I have to admit now that this question brought a smile to my face. While I had not seen Kari and her husband Richard in about a year, she has still been following my Twitter updates via Facebook. She hasn't checked out this blog yet (for shame!), but she admitted enjoying the direct quotes I'd been posting, which made me feel good. It reminded me of why I'm using the Internet in this experience in the first place - not necessarily for notoriety or kudos (though I wouldn't be adverse to those things), but for the accountability that reading something like this publicly provides.

This question led to a conversation about what it was that I really loved about War and Peace - which, at this moment, has be Tolstoy's overall realism. His characters are not caricatures or over-simplifications, but real people who struggle with real problems in genuine and believable ways. Someone like Lise Bolkonsky - the 'little princess' - who, in life, felt like the most frivolous and expendable human being imaginable, becomes, in death, a pitiable and heartbreaking individual. The same could be said for the 'old prince,' Nikolai Bolkonsky: in life, he was an irascible and cantankerous brute; in sickness and death, he softens, seeking redemption and forgiveness for his many sins. Even the ruthless brute Dolokhov, who cheats Nikolai Rostov out of the Rostov family fortune and has an affair with Pierre's wife Helene, is redeemed by his taking care of his ailing mother and deformed sister.

Even Tolstoy's greatest characters are deeply flawed. The heroic Andrei is constantly disillusioned with life, seeking fulfillment in people who ultimately let him down. The noble Pierre is a morbidly obese bundle of insecurities, easily swayed and struggling to find meaning wherever he can. The beautiful Natasha - as mentioned earlier, the 'paragon of femininity' - falls for the 'bad boy,' Anatole Kuragin, forsaking her fiancee, Andrei. The pious and righteous Marya loses her faith after her father's death and is often slave to her own petty thoughts and jealousies.

Tolstoy pulls you into his world. You feel as though these people are not fabrications of a man's imagination, but people who actually existed and went through these various obstacles and made these decisions. You want to know how things turn out for them - whether or not Andrei will ever find meaning for his life or Pierre will ever man up. They become more than characters in a book; they become people that you know and interact with on a personal level... and that is pretty incredible!

So, if you see me around and are looking to strike up a conversation, ask me how War and Peace is going... just be prepared for a good conversation to follow. :)

"War and Peace" and Religion: Part Two - Natasha Rostova and the Kuragins

"...[Natasha] listened to the words of the service, which she tried to follow and understand. When she understood them, her personal feeling, with its nuances, joined with her prayer; when she did not, the sweeter it was for her to think that the wish to understand everything was pride, that it was impossible to understand everything, that she only had to believe and give herself to God, who in those moments - she felt - was guiding her soul. She crossed herself, bowed, and, when she did not understand, only asked God, in horror at her own vileness, to forgive her for everything, everything, and to have mercy on her."

- Leo Tolstoy (III.1.xvii)

Day Count: 90

Page Count: 692

Much like my last post in this series, this post will include details about the overall plot of War and Peace. Many of you have not read this great book: if you wish to do so some day without major details regarding the plot revealed to you, you might want to skip this post; if you are living vicariously through my reading of War and Peace, or just don't mind spoilers, keep reading!

In my reading of Tolstoy - indeed, in my reading of literature as a whole, few characters have impacted and moved me quite as much as Natasha Rostova. The third of four children and youngest daughter of the noble Rostov family, Natasha has become something of my 'feminine ideal' - she is charming, lively, full of life, the quintessence of youthful innocence and vitality. While many literary women I know dream that Jane Austen's Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy (of Pride and Prejudice fame) were real so that he may sweep them off their feet, I have similar wishes about Natasha (that I might sweep her of of her feet, natch).

However, while she is first introduced as a plain child of thirteen, we are privileged to see her come of age throughout Tolstoy's saga, experiencing the various triumphs and pangs of youth which, regardless of where or when one grew up, seem completely natural and relatable under the watchful eye of Tolstoy. Perhaps the most defining moment for Natasha (at least, of the ones I have read so far) is the dissolution of her engagement to Prince Andrei Bolkonsky.

In many ways, Andrei is Tolstoy's 'heroic ideal' - he places duty before all else, believes fervently in that which he holds dear, and performs every task which he is given admirably and with gusto. While his inner turmoil and search for meaning remain one of the central conflicts in War and Peace, he is Tolstoy's 'man's man,' the hero that every character admires and desires to be. It is no surprise, then, when Andrei asks for Natasha's hand in marriage - after all, while he is the 'hero,' she is the quintessential 'female.' Their engagement enlivens Andrei from his seemingly constant disillusionment and he is more vibrant, joyous, and alive than we have seen him (no doubt a direct result of Natasha's influence).

It is during their engagement - but also during a prolonged absence which Andrei spends abroad - that Natasha meets Anatole Kuragin. From the start of the novel, Tolstoy predisposes his reader to dislike the Kuragin family. Patriarch Prince Vassily Kuragin is seen clamoring for a piece of Pierre's father's estate even before the Count has died, seeming to believe that he has some stake in it. His eldest son Ippolit Kuragin is a boorish simpleton who, for some reason or other, is quite popular in society. Vassily, in an attempt to get his hands on the Bezukhov fortune, practically whores his daughter Helene Kuragin to Pierre, who eventually marries him (despite her incessant infidelity - but more on the two of them in a later portion). 

Finally... Anatole. While Tolstoy does not say much about Anatole prior to our meeting him - save that he is popular with the ladies and a bit of a reveler - we are predisposed to dislike him because of where he comes from (the Kuragin family). After all, Vassily seems to have no morality to speak of, which has obviously trickled down and effected his children. Anatole, however, takes the cake - a womanizing playboy who spends much of his time gambling and boozing. Tolstoy reveals that he impregnated a Polish girl, married her (mainly because he was forced to do so), and abandoned both her and the child to continue his lifestyle of frivolity. In other words, Anatole is the quintessential 'bad boy' - the one girls love knowing full well he will only break their heart in the end. This is the man who sets his sights on sweet, innocent Natasha, the paragon on femininity and youthful innocence.

(I suppose what attracts Natasha to Anatole - other than his good looks - is his soul-capturing charisma. Tolstoy states that "looking into his eyes, [Natasha] felt with fear that that between him and her that barrier of modesty which she had always felt between herself and other men was not there at all" [II.5.x]. Anatole is the first man to look at her not as a girl or even a female, but as an object of desire. This signifies, I suppose, the moment when Natasha begins to lose her childlike innocence and wonder.)

I must admit that I cried when Natasha began ignoring the good advice of her friends and family who told her to ignore Anatole, when she made plans to abscond in the night and elope with this ruffian. Her failure to do so has more to do with Pierre and his putting his foot down than with anything else. In the aftermath, Natasha becomes a shell of her former self, broken, ailing, and weeping in her bed, unwilling and unable to receive anyone; Andrei returns to his disillusionment, forsaking both Natasha and everything she represented to him and returning to the military; Pierre, trapped in a loveless marriage, begins to realize his own love for the broken Natasha and recognizes the change that love makes within him.

"Uh, nice story, Stephen, but isn't this post supposed to be about religion?" I hear you asking. To which I reply, "Yes, I was just coming to that. Hold your horses."

Natasha, recovering from that 'bad boy phase' that every female seems destined to go through, seems lost within her own misery, so ill that her family are unable to head back to their home in Otradnoe from Moscow. As she begins to recover, the reader feels that she may never return to the vibrant young woman she once was:

"Natasha was more calm, but not more cheerful. She not only avoided all external conditions of joyfulness - balls, promenades, concerts, the theater - but she never once laughed so that tears were not heard behind her laughter. She could not sing. As soon as she began to laugh or tried to sing when she was by herself, tears choked her: tears of remorse, tears of remembrance of that irretrievable time of purity, tears of vexation that just so, for nothing, she had ruined her young life, which might have been so happy. Laughter and singing especially seemed to her a blasphemy against her grief." (III.1.xvii)

Then, a neighbor invites Natasha to go with her to take communion at the end of St. Peter's Fast and, upon going, the young girl is born anew. The quote that begins this post is taken from her experience at this service. Here, we see Tolstoy emphasizing through Natasha the power of God to heal the hurt and bitterness in a human heart. Natasha, once wracked by grief and misery at innocence lost, becomes rejuvenated once again: "But the happy day came, and when Natasha, on that Sunday so memorable for her, in a white muslin dress, came home after communion, for the first time in many months she felt calm and not burdened by the life that lay ahead of her" (III.1.xvii). We eventually see her regain her exuberance and love for life that seemed to have faded. Her faith brings her out of her grief and into new life!

I had also planned to highlight other members of the Rostov family here - Nikolai and Count Ilya especially - but I don't really have the time or the energy to do so at present moment. Instead, I'll sign off here and save the rest of the Rostovs for another post. Cheers!

Read the rest of this series:

• War and Peace and Religion: Part One - The Bolkonskys

My Russian Transformation

"During that year, Pierre had grown so fat that he would have been monstrous if he had not been so tall, so large of limb, and so strong that he obviously bore his corpulence lightly."

- Leo Tolstoy (III.1.xx)

Day Count: 87

Page Count: 671

Today, I would like to share with you a little something that's been happening with me since I decided to start reading War and Peace. In December, after I finished my role in MerryMAC Players' production of Christmas Belles, I decided to let my hair - both facial and regular-type - grow rather indiscriminately. The impetus for this decision was in an effort to look more like the characters I was reading about in Tolstoy's novel, 19th century Russians. Over the course of the last few months, then, my hair has been growing rather steadily, getting a little trim here and there as needed, but I am now the proud owner of a rather impressive beard. Here are a few transition pics over the last few months.

December 25, 2010:

The journey begins! Notice that subtle stubble around my chinny-chin-chin? Those are the early warning signs of the beard that is to come. At this point, I've only been growing the beard out for a little more than a week. More to come...

February 18, 2011:

Oddly, few acceptable pictures of me exist from during the month of January this year. That being said, the next two pictures were taken on the same day, though in admittedly different circumstances. This picture was taken in front of a classroom when I noticed I was having a particularly good hair day. The beard adds to that, methinks. :) 

February 18th, 2011:

A friend of mine was kind enough to invite me to her new place in Illinois to celebrate her birthday and I was more than happy to oblige! It was a great chance to cut loose, relax, unwind, and spend some time with friends I don't get to see very often. Thanks to both the angle and the lighting, the beard looks a bit thinner here, but I assure you, it's the same beard from above! :)

March 27, 2011:

Last night, I went with my family to a new favorite restaurant - Jockamo Upper Crust Pizza (if you visit, try their signature pie, the Slaughterhouse Five, named for Indy's own, Kurt Vonnegut!) - and I realized that I hadn't taken a picture of myself in a while. In a few short moments after taking these photos, this post formed in my head and I realized that I had to let my faithful readership in on this aspect of my War and Peace experiment.

More of the "War and Peace and Religion" series next time!

"War and Peace" and Religion: Part One - The Bolkonskys

"My calling is different... my calling is to be happy with a different happiness, the happiness of love and self-sacrifice."

- Princess Marya Bolkonsky (I.3.v)

"Prince Andrei understood that [something] had been said about him, and that it was Napoleon speaking... but at that moment, Napoleon seemed to him such a small, insignificant man compared with what was now happening between his soul and this lofty, infinite sky with clouds racing across it."
- Leo Tolstoy (I.3.xix)

Day Count: 85

Page Count: 666

Forgive me, readers, for I have sinned. It has been fifty-three days since my last Tackling Tolstoy post... and that is nothing short of 'wrong'.

Life has picked up and how since my last entry - travel, potentially bad news, plays, and all manner of other happenings and non-happenings have impeded any hope of steady or regular progress on this blog. As you can see (both from the page count above and the Twitter posts to the right of  this page), my reading of War and Peace has continued, but the pacing I'd originally wanted to maintain has slowed considerably. I am still considerably ahead of my initial "three-pages-a-day" pacing (by 411 pages, to be precise), but I still feel like I could be close to finished by this point had I kept up with my initial reading schedule. (Let's be honest: it was never going to last, but it's always fun to dream, isn't it?)

This post is intended to be the first in a series of (two? three? FOUR?!) posts chronicling Tolstoy's use of religion in defining his characters in War and Peace. Man's quest for God often directly parallels (and, perhaps, is driven by) his quest for meaning and purpose. In creating some of the most human characters in literature, the men and women in War and Peace each struggle on their own individual searches for meaning which bring them one at a time and rarely accidentally into contact with the Divine. Their experiences differ and the nature of their experiences helps to shape and define the people they grow into. It has been fascinating to watch their growth throughout this first half of the novel and I can only assume that Tolstoy will continue to grow and develop them over the course of the book.

Firstly, though...

As a general word of warning, this post is going to contain some details about the plot of War and Peace. For those of you among my readership who are either reading the book or planning to one day, you might not want to read this section. If you've already read the book or are living vicariously through my reading of it, then by all means continue. Thanks!

*Ahem* Now that that unpleasant business has been taken care of, we can get down to brass tacks. ("Oh, I didn't bring any. I drove.")


There are scads of characters in War and Peace - a fact that I address and then never re-address (as a logically-thinking human being might assume I would) here. Among those characters that are most influential to the overall story of War and Peace, they belong to one of three (or four, depending on whether or not you count the Kuragins) prominent Russian families - the Bolkonskys, the Bezukhovs, and the Rostovs. My hope is to take each family in turn and discuss the ways in which faith directly affects them and their development in the story. Let us start with the 'first family' of War and Peace, the Bolkonskys.

Prince Nikolai Andreévich Bolkonsky is the patriarch of the Bolkonsky family, formerly an important person in society, now having withdrawn to his country home where he lives a life as regimented and orderly as a Swiss clock. He is cantankerous and bristling with most, set in his ways and either unwilling or unable to change for anyone or anything. His opinions are 'facts' and his word is bond.

It does not seem that he has a 'religion' or 'faith' to speak of, per se, other than what appears to be a belief in schadenfreude (which, for those of you who don't speak German - or haven't seen Avenue Q - is "pleasure derived from the misfortune of others"). Prince Nikolai's central preoccupation seems to be the torture of his only daughter, Princess Marya Bolkonsky. In fact, his entire life seems to revolve around making her miserable. Whether belittling her for taking longer than he would like at mathematics or becoming romantically linked to her young friend, Nikolai's behavior seems like an odd amalgamation of monstrous, contrary, and
senile.

Marya has become a favorite character of mine. While not as fully developed as others in her family, she is easily the most spiritual of all of Tolstoy's characters and bears the brunt of her father's attacks with more grace and humility than I've ever seen from anyone - real or fictitious. She is the soul of Christian charity - housing wandering believers (whom her father would just as soon chase away belligerently) and prays both feverishly and fervently over her brother when his own faith is shaken (which it almost constantly is - more on that later).

While she is plain, she remains an eligible bachelorette due to her father's sizable wealth (none of which he plans to allot to Marya); however, her desires are not for marriage. After a brief and unfortunate flirtation with Anatole Kuragin (the unrepentant "ladies' man" of War and Peace), Marya realizes that perhaps she is not meant to be happy within the bonds of marriage, but rather with a life lived through compassion, charity, and self-sacrifice. In fact, she does not seem to seek marriage after this point, spending her time teaching her young nephew and caring for her ailing (though increasingly irascible and irritable) father.

Her brother, Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, is one of the principal characters of Tolstoy's epic. In many ways, he is the most heroic character so far in the story and, in many ways, he is the most pitiable. Andrei appears at the beginning of War and Peace as a man who's faith has been shaken, if not entirely lost. While Tolstoy does not immediate give us the reason, it gradually begins to become clear - Andrei consistently misplaces his faith, i.e. he places his faith in people.

At the beginning of the novel, Andrei has become disillusioned with marriage, his relationship with his own wife having become frivolous and trivial, based on little more than mutual attraction. He becomes obsessed with the coming war and especially enamored with Napoleon Bonaparte. However, after a heroic display at the battle of Austerlitz - after which he is taken as a prisoner of war by Napoleon's men - Andrei becomes enraptured by the infinity of the sky, next to which even his idol Bonaparte looks pale and tiny.

This is the first truly 'spiritual' experience we see Andrei having. His disillusionment returns, however, after the death of his wife and the birth of his son. He withdraws into a deep depression, allowing his son Nikolai to be raised by his sister Marya. After a brief foray in politics, which serves to illuminate Andrei only for a season, he is disillusioned again until a chance encounter with Miss Natasha Rostova.

Natasha seems to remain Tolstoy's feminine ideal and she captures not only the heart of the reader, but of every male character in the novel as well. Andrei is no exception. Becoming enamored with her redeems him, but with Andrei, such atonement is often short-lived. While not going into too many details, Andrei's second chance at love ends with his now-typical disillusionment and his returning to government service for the first time since the birth of his son.

The Bolkonskys seem to be the second-most dysfunctional family in War and Peace (second, perhaps, only to the Kuragins), mainly because their spiritual house is far from 'in order.' Personally, I hope that Andrei and his sister are both able to find their peace in the end.

UPDATE (4/2/2011): As I was reading War and Peace last night and this morning, I realized that I was definitely able to make an update to this entry... so I'm making one.

Six days after the initial entry, I realized as I was reading that an update was necessary. Princess Marya Bolkonsky, easily the most pious and faithful person in War and Peace to date has had a major crisis of faith. Even in the midst of her most uncertain and trying times, Marya has always been able to take solace in the Lord and in prayer... until the death of her father. After suffering a stroke while attempting to organize his private militia against the French, Prince Nikolai Andreevich Bolkonsky died... but not without finally making peace with his daughter.

In what has been one of the most touching scenes I've read yet in literature, the old prince (as Tolstoy often calls him) calls his daughter to his side and, with much effort, communicates his love for her and his regret at his treatment of her for so long. Prior to this action, Marya had - in her most private moments - wished for her father's death, but in the face of this revelation, she felt closer to him than she had felt before: "She could not understand anything, or think about anything, of feel anything except her passionate love for her father, a love which, it seemed to her, she had not known till that moment" (III.2.viii).

Upon her father's death, with the imminent threat of Napoleon's armies bearing down on her location, Marya is wracked with guilt at her once persistent desire for her father's demise: "...her vague thoughts were concentrated on one thing: she was thinking of the irrevocability of death and of her own inner loathsomeness, which she had not known about till then, and which had shown itself during her father's illness. She wanted but did not dare to pray, did not dare to address herself to God in the state of soul she was in" (III.2.x).

In this moment, the pious Marya is confronted with her own humanity and, in the face of it, cannot bear the weight of her sin. Rather than crying out to God, as she otherwise might, she - for the moment - remains content (after a fashion) wallowing in her own self-pity and self-loathing.

Oddly enough, it is an act of charity that shakes her out of this stupor. At realizing the peasants (muzhiks) have been without food for awhile now, Marya rallies to attempt to share with them from the stores of grain her father left behind and urges them to escape the oncoming French armies by traveling with her to Moscow. To her dismay and surprise, the muzhiks refuse her charity - whether out of a sense of pride or something other, Tolstoy never overtly states. I cannot imagine this refusal of her charity will inspire Marya, but will likely further burden her.

As stated earlier, it is my hope that Marya is able to find peace...

The Tools of My Trade

"...stepping off the ferry, [Prince Andrei] looked at the sky Pierre had pointed to, and for the first time since Austerlitz saw that high, eternal sky he had seen as he lay on the battlefield, and something long asleep, something that was best in him, suddenly awakened joyful and young in his soul. This feeling disappeared as soon as Prince Andrei re-entered the habitual conditions of life, but he knew that this feeling, which he did not know how to develop, lived in him. The meeting with Pierre marked an epoch for Prince Andrei, from which began what, while outwardly the same, was in his inner world a new life."

- Leo Tolstoy (II.2.xii)

Day Count: 32

Page Count: 390

The first month of Project Tolstoy is over and much progress has been made! Thank you all for your contribution to making this blog great! I couldn't have gotten this far without you! Enjoy this post that I've been working on for the past week!

Right after I started this blog, my friend Kyle (of Unraveling Ulysses) asked me some specifics about the translation of War and Peace I'm reading - font, size, binding, etc. Rather than answer his questions in a comment, I decided to dedicate an entire post to answering his question... along with introducing some of the other tools I use on a daily basis in my reading and study.

The Book

 As I've mentioned elsewhere, I opted to use the Richard Pevear/Larissa Volokhonsky translation of War and Peace for numerous reasons. The main thing I was looking for in my edition was the language being used - was it accessible, easy to understand, while simultaneously taking as little as possible from the original Russian text of the book?

As a Greek minor in college, I know that often times, translations have little of the specificity and nuance of the original text, which is why the best way to read a work is in the original language. As I wanted to read War and Peace before the end of the year, I had neither the time nor - let's be honest - the inclination to learn the entirety of the Russian language. Having researched a number of translations, I decided on this one for a few reasons:
(1.) It's the latest translation currently available on the market (released in 2007 - Andrew Bromfield's translation came out earlier the same year), which says a lot for its overall accessibility. I would not necessarily need to sit down with a dictionary or a thesaurus at hand, waiting for an archaic or out-of-use word before I flung the other book open and began my feverish hunt for a definition. It was written in something as close to the vernacular as possible.
(2.) The Pevear/Volokhonsky combo has already made a name for themselves in the literary community with their translations of Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov and The Idiot and Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. Not only were those translations widely said to be quite readable, but they also had a unique way of translating that took into account a lot of the nuance of the original Russian text.
(3.) My department head told me that his wife had received a call from her old college professor shortly after this translation was made available saying that she "had to read it." It had renewed his excitement for a book he knew all to well. That, for me, was the final piece - I needed this translation.

After I received this translation, I began to notice that there were a lot of other wonderful things about this book:
- The French: When War and Peace was originally written, Tolstoy wrote a vast majority of the book in Russian. However, there was a percentage of the text (something like 1% or 2%) that was originally written in French. While I have discussed my thoughts on Tolstoy's use of French already, I found it interesting that Pevear and Volokhonsky opted not to translate the French into English in the main body of the text, as most (if not all) other English translations have done. (Instead, the pair translate the French at the bottom of the page in footnotes - sometimes for pages at a time, which can get interesting.) I found this immensely helpful (especially considering that Tolstoy doesn't always mention that characters are speaking in French unless he himself is writing in Russian) in figuring out which characters are speaking and in understanding just how immersed in French culture the Russian people were at this point in history.
- Endnotes, Appendices, and Indexes: Pevear and Volokhonsky clearly did their research for this text, providing over fifty pages of supplementary material, including chapter summaries, exhaustive endnotes useful for providing context, an index providing information on the real life characters in War and Peace, and even Tolstoy's own thoughts on the book. At first, it was a bit daunting having to switch back and forth from the main text to the endnotes, but after the addition of a second bookmark, I find I barely notice anymore. These tools are fantastically useful for the casual reader like myself.
- The Difference is Readability: One of the best things about this edition of War and Peace is the ease of reading. The typeface is an easily-recognizable Times New Roman in a medium-sized font that is just right for my eyes. Not too big as to be ludicrous, but not too small to involve squinting or cartoonishly large magnifying glasses.

The book itself is paperback. Generally, I prefer hardcovers - particularly for classic books like this, as they look so pretty on my bookshelf - but I opted for the trade paperback for the purposes of portability. "Portability," I suppose, is something of a subjective term in this case, as the book is 6"x4"x1.5" and weighs roughly two-and-a-half to three pounds. It's not always conducive to lugging around under my arm wherever I go, but it does fit nicely in my computer case for my treks to and from school, Panera, Mom & Dad's... wherever!

The Notes

I've been a fan of Moleskine journals since the first time I started working at Barnes & Noble back in 2006. I loved the aesthetic of them - the sleek black cover, the heavy (but not too heavy) lined pages, and the professional vibe that it gave off to those around me. As if to say, "Back off, pal! I'm a writer/thinker!" So, needless to say, I have several Moleskines laying around my apartment, many of them half-full (or half-empty for all you Andrei-esque pessimists out there!) of thoughts, story ideas, random doodles, quotes... you name it, I probably scribbled it into a Moleskine at some point!

When I began teaching a Comparative Religions class at the high school where I work, my department head (that man of wit and wisdom who started me on this journey in the first place) recommended that I have my students record their thoughts in these journals, as a sort of commonplace book. I found myself using one as well and thought it to be a most worthwhile exercise for organizing my thoughts and making a note of quotes, ideas, and lists of various sorts. (In an effort to decorate my commonplace book, I placed an old Superman window sticker I'd gotten years ago on the cover. It looks pretty rad, as you can see below.)

I've been using this tool to jot down some of my favorite quotes from War and Peace (many of which have appeared on the tops of various posts I've made here at "Tackling Tolstoy") and also for early brainstorming on an endeavor I plan to bring to this blog very soon! Stay tuned for that!

The Internet
Honestly, it almost goes without saying, but two of the most important tools in my ongoing reading of Tolstoy remain both this blog and my Twitter feed, @TweetingTolstoy (which appears on the right-hand side of this blog). This blog, as I mentioned at the very beginning, is a means of keeping me accountable - hence the day and page counts at the beginning of every post - and really helps me digest and process a lot of the various things I'm thinking about while reading War and Peace. My Twitter feed, thanks to the magic of cellular telephones, gets updated far more frequently (including just a second ago). Mainly, it allows me to record small blurbs of text that I want to share when I'm not near my blog or the Internet. Still, in this digital age, I'm using the Internet to my full advantage in my Tolstoy reading!

The E-book (sorry, B&N - I can't bring myself to use 'nookbook'...)

For my birthday last fall, I bought myself (with some generous contributions from my parents and my sister) a Nook, Barnes & Noble's e-reader - comparable, but in my mind, better than the Kindle. (This was, of course, five months or so before the release of the Nook Color, so I'm stuck in black and white, but that's no big deal - I'm not that picky.)

Since getting my Nook, I've enjoyed reading all sorts of texts on it, including (but not limited to) a number of Kurt Vonnegut texts like Slaughterhouse Five, Breakfast of Champions, and Mother Night. When I got it into my head to start reading War and Peace, though, I was sure that I wanted the feel of the book in my hands (I suppose as a way of legitimizing the experience) and, at that point, the Pevear/Volokhonsky translation wasn't available for the Nook yet.

However, still being a big fan of my Nook, I wanted to use it somewhere in the process. So, when I decided that I needed something to help supplement my reading of War and Peace, I looked no further than Sparknotes!

Barnes & Noble owns Sparknotes and they have a wide variety of teaching tools available for all manner of topics (not just literature). I've never been a big fan of reading guides (except the time I needed to read Pride and Prejudice in high school), but I thought that a book with literally hundreds of characters and all manner of settings would require I find some additional assistance.

I'll be honest - as yet, I've not really needed this all that much. I estimate that I may change my mind once I get to the part of the book where Tolstoy begins talking at length about his thoughts of the nature of time and history, but until then, I'm having no trouble following both the arc and the scope of the story. Consider this e-book my back-up plan!

The Pencil

 I had a number of teachers in high school (many of whom I've had the privilege to work alongside in the last few years I've been a teacher) who insisted that, in order to be a good reader, I needed to carry a some manner of writing utensil along with me at all times in order to write in whatever I was reading. (I have always preferred pencil to pen or highlighter, as I feel that, once I have hold of something permanent, Murphy's Law dictates that I'm bound to make a mistake!) This is a rule of thumb I followed all through college on theology and philosophy texts - a number of my books have all sorts of pencil markings in them - but never thought to apply to fiction until within that last few years.

Since then, I've been unstoppable! The last several fiction texts I've read - The Magnificent Ambersons, East of Eden, and To Kill a Mockingbird, to name a few - have all been subject to the mighty blows from my pencil of justice!

I prefer Bic mechanical pencils, as those are the ones I've been using since high school. I like using the 0.5mm leads as well, as it gives me more precision when I'm writing things down. Typically, I run out of those fairly quickly and have to end up using the 0.7mm leads, but I'm generally okay with that. My pencil is, generally speaking, the one thing I am never without, making it an indispensable tool in my literary arsenal!

The End
So... that's probably far more information than you wanted to know about my reading habits, but there it is! Hopefully this gives you some insight into my thoughts and attitudes about reading and about what goes into writing a post for "Tackling Tolstoy"! Thanks for reading, true believers! We'll see you next time (whereupon I will have cracked the 400-page mark - BELIEVE IT!)!