First Impressions after reading Volume I, War and Peace

I finished the first volume of War and Peace the other day, and while it’s likely that my impressions will change as I continue through the remaining three volumes (about 1100 more pages in my edition), I thought I’d update my blog with some first impressions. I read the first volume faster than I expected, but that is most likely due to the fact that I took a ‘staycation’ this past week. I will not be able to continue apace in subsequent weeks, and so perhaps getting down some thoughts now about the earliest part will help me remember them. There will be SPOILERS in the rest of this post.

Volume One is made up of three parts, which are further divided into chapters. The first part shocked me with its accessibility. I know exactly why I was scared to start - this book’s reputation is well-known as a Big Important Book Only Read by Serious People - but after getting through the first part I had a good laugh at my own expense. Part I is all society people sitting in drawing rooms, talking about status, money, marriage, and court, like a Russian Jane Austen - but the Extended Edition, with four times the number of characters. I don’t mean to say Austen novels are not complex but just that I did not expect to be as entertained as I was by a big scary book - so, maybe it wasn’t that scary after all. 

If Stefon from SNL reviewed Vol 1, Part 1

That is not to say that part I is without difficulty. Firstly, I don’t want to rag on Tolstoy too much because I do think it’s a true testament to his commitment to realism that he has so many characters with the same first name. I was one of three Colleens from kindergarten through high school, one of five Colleens in my dorm in college, and in adult life, I have maintained best friendships with two Colleens. (I guess that’s what happens after seventeen years of Catholic school!) So, I suppose all of the other books I’ve read before Tolstoy were highly unrealistic, but I was too busy getting through them with the ease that comes with distinctive character names to notice. In War and Peace, there are a few Nikolays, at least two Annas, two Maryas (one who is sometimes called ‘Marie’), a family of Kuragins, and one single character with the last name Karagin (sheesh!). I guess I felt right at home!

Beyond the multiple characters with the same first names, Tolstoy also uses nicknames for some of them and can use titles, family names, and the patronymic forms of their names as well. I was flipping to the character page in the appendix often to ensure I kept people straight. But I have to say, like any book that takes place in a different country with names I am unused to hearing, I got used to the names eventually. Once you learn that -ovich means ‘son of’ and -ovna means ‘daughter of’ —  that’s half the battle.

In summary, the first part almost comes off like a pilot episode, where Tolstoy takes us around the cast of characters in Moscow and St. Petersburg, but also in the country estate of Prince Bolkonsky, as they confront the looming war of Russia against Napoleon’s army in 1805. 

Oddly enough, one of my favorite scenes in Part I is when Pierre Kirillovich, a bastard son to Count Bezhukov, who is good-natured but who does not understand how to behave in social situations, joins a group of young men who are out drinking, making bets, and acting recklessly. The minor character Dholokov bets an English soldier that he can sit in a windowsill and drink an entire bottle of rum without falling. I felt like I was holding my breath until he successfully completed the task. The next mention of Dholokov is that he gets demoted in the army because he and Pierre Kirillovich tied a policeman to the back of a bear. Instead of being ostracized or demoted, Pierre then inherits a lot of money and marries a beautiful society woman. There was an immediacy to the writing of the drinking scene that drew me in; and the fall-out after that with the uneven application of punishment for the bear hijinks shows how class functions in 1805 Russia.

Volume I, Part II Summary on IG

I’d like to say that the whole of Volume One was easy to read, and everyone should run out and get a copy now, but Part Two and most of Part Three conformed more or less to the idea I had of War and Peace before I started the book. Parts Two and Three focus on the ~War~ part of the book, where some of the characters introduced in Part One are now on the front, serving in the Russian army in various capacities. This part was a little more difficult for me to follow and to visualize. Luckily, my book has a map in the appendix, so I was able to flip back and forth and figure out where the armies were generally heading. And luckily, Tolstoy brings a sense of immediacy to more than just drinking scenes, as his omniscient point of view allows him access to the interiors of his characters’ minds. 

To be sure, a lot of this is a slog, though there is a point to getting through the grittiness, as characters get through the confusion and brutality of battle to experience almost a sort of ecstasy on the battle field. One in particular, Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, begins his war career looking to emulate Napoleon, seeking personal glory (his own Toulon!), but he must reconcile his ideas of military grandeur with reality, as he is injured at Austerlitz after trying to recover the Russian flag. His injury seems to change his understanding of his place in the world (and to elevate the place of the ‘lofty sky’ in this schema).

Part Three mostly takes place on the front, but there are a few chapters set in Russia. One of my favorite scenes offered some comic relief after all of ‘the war stuff.’ (SPOILER ALERT) Prince Nikolay Bolkonsky, father of aforementioned Andrei, is an eccentric man, who is also abusive to his daughter Marya (who I really like as a character, who I would be if I were a character in this book, but who also shows me that it’s much better to be a woman in 21st century). When his household learns that the Kuragins, an aristocratic family, are coming to visit their country estate, the servants clear snow from the ‘avenoo’ for the guests. Bolkonsky forces them to put the snow back because no one told them to clear the snow, and because, according to the Prince, they should not clear the snow for visitors if they don’t clear the snow for people who live in the house. I read this after personally shoveling several inches of snow from around my building and around my car, so I found it particularly hilarious.

I’m excited to continue with the next volumes, though I expect the next update will be well beyond a week from now.