War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (1869)

Obviously I won't recount plot. It has been 14 months in the reading. And I guess the overweening conclusion coming from that is the question of whether or not it was worth it. I wouldn't be without the experience on the one hand. On the other, there is a serious question in my mind as to whether the net result feels like it has enough inherent inspiration to justify the time spent. I'm pretty sure it doesn't. That is built of a couple of things, again two sides of a coin: on the one hand, it was never completely uninteresting, and managed to keep up a low hum of basic worthwhileness; on the other, there were things like what I would call 'foreshortening' of character in it, where no-one felt particularly compelling. Almost all the characters are only mildly interesting, with perhaps the exception of Pierre, who occasionally reaches to higher heights. One is certainly not rooting for anybody overly, but then again that may be the effect of the Russian approach to literature, which is one in the classic sense at least of no character being anything other than mixed, and their 'negative' aspects being well marked. I wonder whether this foreshortening of which I speak is also influenced by the broader notion of "the epic", and its inherent constraints. Because we have to look at such a wide scene, is there also a somehow necessary lowering of individual height in the characters? Are they 'seventy-five percenters' by dint of their breadth of background? There are, however, moments of concentration where normal novelistic intensity is approached, which are wonderful. One in particular I remember is the scene of the shooting of some prisoners in burning Moscow after the French have conquered. Powerful stuff. But those moments are comparatively rare. Also to be mentioned is the last section of the book, the second epilogue, which is a philosophical treatise on the understanding of history, and leaves all the characters, and fiction, behind. Tolstoy's instincts here are brilliant, in terms of his wish to break down how we understand history and therefore what we see as its motive forces. He does this with as much atomising as was possible in his times I think, with many of his lights and their terminology reflecting those of philosophical works I have read, even quite recent ones. Some of his conclusions are quite wobbly, though. Whether this piece belonged in a work of fiction is a moot point, I guess, given that it appears that he was all about breaking down some of the distinctions between types of writing. An experience, but a highly flawed one.

Commonplace Book

'...Pfuel was one of those hopelessly and immutably self-confident men, self-confident to the point of martyrdom as only Germans are, because only Germans are self-confident on the basis of an abstract notion - science, that is, the supposed knowledge of absolute truth. A Frenchman is self-assured because he regards himself personally both in mind and body as irresistibly attractive to men and women. An Englishman is self-assured as being a citizen of the best-organised state in the world and therefore, as an Englishman, always knows what he should do and knows that all he does as an Englishman is undoubtedly correct. An Italian is self-assured because he is excitable and easily forgets himself and other people. A Russian is self-assured just because he knows nothing and does not want to know anything, since he does not believe that anything can be known. The German's self-assurance is worst of all, stronger and more repulsive than any other, because he imagines that he knows the truth - science - which he himself has invented but which is for him the absolute truth.'

from War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (Book 9, Chapter 10)

Commonplace Book

''Uncle' sang as peasants sing, with full and naive conviction that the whole meaning of a song lies in the words, and that the tune comes of itself, and that apart from the words there is no tune, which exists only to give measure to the words. As a result of this the unconsidered tune, like the song of a bird, was extraordinarily good...'

from War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (Book 7, Chapter 7)