26 March 2011

"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...

1 comment:

  1. Hello Foxworthy!,
    Excellent synopsis of the death of Nikolai Andreevich Bolkonsky. I was just discussing these scenes of his last illness with my son and his intellectual friend, and how moving they were. The ambiguity and the internal mental torture of Mariya Nikolaevna were so beautifully depicted. I am going to try to read Tolstoy in Russian soon, as I have found that translations do sometimes wreak havoc with one's general impression of the emotional nuances of a work. To wit: I was reading a late translation of _War and Peace_ put out in the 70-80's and had to go back to an earlier late Victorian because its use of Russian and French were more sensitive and "Russian" seeming. The newer one had translated ( poorly and non colloquially) a lot of the French phrases thrown in throughout the text. This would be akin to taking English phrases like " Whazzup?!" or " How you doin?'" and translating them as "How do you do?" and " Greetings!" Literally perhaps defensible but divesting the whole piece of color, and flavor. I guess it is expecting a lot for a modern reader to have a good grasp of simple French small talk but it really adds to the flow ––so I began to suspect the Russian as well.
    I was tremendously happy to find your blog because I am just in the middle of _War and Peace_ ( I read it once for plot only more or less at 12) and have just got to this death scene and the aftereffects.
    My father died of a stroke and other things last month so I must confess it is all rather a catharsis.

    Best regards!

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