"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. :)
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