War and Peace Group Read 2011 - Vol 1, Part 2 spoiler thread

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I've just finished Part 2 and really enjoyed it, although I found it much denser reading than Part 1. Last time I tried W&P (back in 2009, also with a group read in this group), I think I got stuck near the end of this Part because I started going too slowly.

One thing the P&V translation doesn't have is a map, so I used Google Maps a bit near the end to see where Znaim and Krems were in relation to Vienna. It helped a lot to fix them in my head. And there were plenty of words I still need to look up... like "besom" . At first I thought something was lashing the squadron as if with a broad bosom... but no, it wasn't.

Prince Andrei is my hero (still don't know how he married Lise), and I love how Tolstoy has him expecting that war will be some glorious thing, then at the end of Part 2 has him seeing the lies and butt-covering of the other officers.

Who else is finished Part 2? Janet and Nathalie, I suspect you are but are too busy to post. I've been sick for the last week so am going to try to speed up and get to part 3 in the next day or 2. I'll post a thread for it tomorrow.

I'd also say that Part 2 required more concentration, but in my case I thought it was mainly a language issue (many new battle related words). Less dialogue than part 1, so my 10 daily pages felt much longer.

Something is wrong with my head because I kept confusing Prince Andrei and Nikolai Rostov throughout that part. Okay, so little Rostov was wounded, right? I felt so sorry for him by the end of the last chapter, he is so young and feels so lost and alone...

I am 30 pages into part 3 by now. No need to hurry with the new thread, Cushla - at least not for me. I am drowning in work, not really in a good way. I hope you are feeling better?

You're right, Cushla, I have finished part 2, but only just. May have time to post later today, otherwise tomorrow.

I just finished the second part and I really like that it works like a counterpart to the first one. There Tolstoi showed us what happend in Russia and the society was just talking about war, but now he takes us directly into the military events on the battlefield. (And did you notice that he makes clear on which side he is :D - at some places he wrote "our" when he referred to the Russians.) Somehow it's funny to read about all those geographic places, because I know them.

Here's one quote from chapter 20 which I liked a lot:
Das seelische Schwanken, welches das Schicksal der Schlachten entscheidet, hatte hier augenscheinlich zugunsten der Furcht entschieden.
(The moral hesitation which decided the fate of battles was evidently culminating in a panic. - Somehow it sounds better in German.)

Well, and there was one thing I didn't really understand: There's one scene when it's mentioned that the dead and wounded soldiers should be left behind... I guess I have another idea of the military... maybe I watched too many movies... but that somehow hurt me.

Cushla, I noticed the same thing about Andrej. Moreover Napoleon serves as an example to him (he wants his own "Toulon") and he dreams of this kind of success. But soon he has to realize that war isn't child's play and disillusionment is inexorable.

Nathalie, yes, Rostov was wounded. I'm not sure about him... Of course, he's young, but then he acts like a little child moaning that noone cares about him. ...people around him are dying and he... hm, I don't know.

I also stumbled over the leaving behind of the wounded... and then I thought "but where should they put them?". Those classical battlefield wars must have been so different. I watched the movie "Elizabeth" on DVD last weekend and I noticed that the English had also left their wounded and dying soldiers on the French battlefield - and some French soldiers had the job of 'finishing them off'. If you couldn't walk you were lost.

About Rostov: somehow I felt for him. When parents are spoiling their children they usually end up either arrogant or over-sensitive, and the latter seems to be the case with Nicolai Rostov. I have to think of the nice German word 'verzärtelt' (leo says 'pampered'). He shouldn't have gone to war at all. I don't remember right now (and haven't the book with me) if he went voluntarily or if he was sent. Certainly his family expects him to excel which adds to the pressure. I fear I'd be like him. Certainly not a Boris or an Andrei.

That explains it, of course. I just had the idea of carts loaded with wounded people... but it would have never been possible to take all of them home – especially when war is still going on.

As far as Nikolai Rostow is concerned I might be to strict with him. It was just that scene where he complains which made me sceptical. He talks about his life as a soldier in the first part, chapter 12: "It's not at all from friendship," declared Nicholas, flaring up and turning away as if from a shameful aspersion. "It is not from friendship at all; I simply feel that the army is my vocation." (... ) "I have already told you, Papa," said his son, "that if you don't wish to let me go, I'll stay. But I know I am no use anywhere except in the army; I am not a diplomat or a government clerk.- I don't know how to hide what I feel."
So, I guess he went partly voluntarily, partly because of his friendship to Boris, and partly because of his conscience (because if you see all other young men going to war, there's for sure some kind of pressure).

(Just a footnote: When Nicolai says “I am not a diplomat or a government clerk.- I don't know how to hide what I feel.” I had to think about Talleyrand who was one of Napoleon’s important ministers and who had a club foot. There was a popular saying about him: “The lie limps around the country”)

To me, this first “war” section was about two main things – the meaning of “honor”, and its particular applications within the army context, and the unreality, tedium and chaos of war.

Honor seems more important than truth – people will lie to protect their honor (seen particularly at the end of this section, when all the officers claim to have done better than they actually did, even to the detriment of the one guy who really did do a great job - Tushin), or the honor of their regiment (as in the Rostov/Denisov/Telyanin theft episode). As usual, there is one rule for officers and another for men – rather than cover it up as they did with the officers, the poor soldier caught stealing from his comrades is beaten badly (seen by Andrei), even though they surely need him for the forthcoming battle. Also, there are clearly unwritten rules about what help it is “honorable” to accept – Zherkov’s offer to help Dolohov regain his commission is rejected, as is Rostov’s offer to help Denisov financially.

As the main characters encounter the reality of war, their true characters start to be revealed. I love the way that some are brave and honorable and some aren’t, and it’s not totally predictable based on what we learned about them in the first section. Andrei, for example, emerges as the most honorable and brave of all, when he hadn’t seemed particularly so at home. His gradual realization that not everyone is as honest, brave, honorable as himself is really sad, I think. Zherkov, on the other hand, does follow true to form, compounding his generally unpleasant peacetime behavior by showing himself to be a coward, afraid to take orders to the front even though he must realize he is condeming innocent men to death. Dolohov is really interesting, starting the section having obviously done something stupid to get himself relegated to the ranks, but finishing by being really brave and capturing a French officer. I will be interested to see how he develops. Finally, Rostov, not sure about him yet. He is young and idealistic, and wants to be brave and honorable (as in the Telyanin episode), but maybe doesn’t know exactly how, nor how hard it will be. I didn’t understand the nature and extent of his injury, so not sure yet if he is just being a whiner, or if he is really badly injured.

As for the unreality/tedium of war, Tolstoy portrays this brilliantly, even when he brushes right past it, as for example in the very first section, when he casually remarks that this army has already walked 700 miles. Such a lot of “nothing happening” in that one sentence. Whenever characters aren’t right in the thick of the battle, it’s as if the war doesn’t even exist (Andrei’s trip to Brunn, for example, or whenever we see soldiers sitting around eating and drinking) – and then, out of nowhere, cannonballs fall, or they see the French advancing, or the army is retreating.

The Russian army seems so badly disorganized and ill disciplined most of the time, especially by contrast with the glimpses we get of the French. Yet some of the officers (Nesvitzky, Bagration, Prince Andrei, Tushin) do seem to know what they’re doing, and eventually they do do very well in their battle, protecting the main army – I was surprised by this, given all the chaos and stupidity leading up to it.

Finally, I loved the scene where Dolohov speaks with the enemy soldiers, after which a Russian soldier pretends to speak French and both sides share a laugh about it. Tolstoy pulls us back, though, from finding this too charming: “But the guns remained loaded …… and the unlimbered cannon confronted one another as before.”

Oh, and I also loved that Prince Andrei stopped off in Brunn to stock up on books for the campaign!

I started a new thread for part 3 here:
http://www.librarything.com/topic/109929

#8: I was wondering how long those 700 miles must have taken them - and all that in just one pair of shoes and certainly not too many clothes to change. No wonder they arrived in Austria in such a bad state.

And yes, that scene with Dolohov was great, and so human.

Continuing my very belated comments: I think I got more bogged down than others with the battle scenes. When I'm reading I generally like to be able to visualise exactly what's happening and I struggled to do that here. I think I need to just keep going and not worry so much about whether I've understood precisely what's going on!

My main impressions:

Both Prince Andrei and Nikolai were naive in their expectations of what war would be like, though in slightly different ways. I admire Andrei and feel sorry for Nikolai - he's very young still. I liked reading about Prince Andrei's growing disgust with the disorganisation and the deceit and cowardice shown by some of his colleagues. I particularly liked the contrast between the diplomats' and soldiers' experience of the war.

I was interested to read about the lack of harmony between the Austrian and Russian commanders and amused by the scene between Andrei and Emperor Francis II. The inspection scene at the beginning of this part also tickled me.

I'm starting to develop a real dislike of the Kuragin family!

I wish I could have written something more incisive or eloquent about this section of the book like everybody else above me, but I struggled with it slightly. Happily, I'm now well into part 3 and finding it much easier!

Just thought I'd add that the following site helped me digest part 2.

#12: It's difficult for me to comment on your comments without spoiling anything. But I remember this was the part where I still had the time to read the wiki entries regarding the battles and to look at the maps. I wish I could have done that in volume 3 as well.

I just had a glimpse at that website - it is indeed helpful and I think I am going to read the whole thing within the next days (at least to get some background information in easy words of what I have been missing in volume 3).