War sucks

Hello,





I made this deadline just like Shannon, the first time this year. (See Tanya I told I would not give up on.)

Well I must the book has been moving along at a good pace.

But I think the war parts are just playing boring. Yuck unlike my fellow friends I simple do not about the battle scenes. That being said I due care about the characters and I don't want them to get hurt but the strategy parts bore me.

So reading Miss Shannon and Miss Tanya post's scare me. I have nothing nearly as deep or interesting to say. I guse one thing that I have been thinking about is how Tolstoy focus so much on looks. With Prince Andrei's sister Tolstoy focus on who un-pretty she is and with Andrei's wife he focus' on her moustache. I feel like these characters lack anything but there psychical false. I have loved the book, the descriptions of place and scenes are amazing , however with these two charters he needs to flush them out and make them more then just their looks.

I wonder what is going to come next for our charters? On to the next Volume!!

Bye for now,

Sonja

Winning the war, keeping the peace

Yes! So for the first time this year I've actually met one of the reading deadlines! I'm all caught up now.

I felt like a lot happened in this section, especially concerning the character's love lives. I liked all the different ways that the characters perceptions of themselves and each other changed, from Pierre falling in 'love' with Helene and getting engaged through no real effort on his part to Rostov's over-the-top worship of 'the sovereign.' The last one is nicely mirrored by Prince Andrei's own feelings towards Napoleon. When he first went off to war, his feelings toward old Boney were similar to Rostov's crush on the Alexander (only a lot more toned down and a lot less hilarious). Even though Bonaparte was the leader of the enemy, Andrei still revered him as a great military strategist and held him in high (if grudging) respect. But then Andrei actually goes to war and sees all kinds of horrible stuff, so much that everything that seemed important before seems small and insignificant, including his admiration for Napoleon. When we last left Andrei, he was going through a major mental break down. Unfortunately for the poor guy, he was also going through a major physical break down at the same time, having been severely wounded while acting all brave and stuff. C'mon Andrei, according to the character sheet your wife is going to have a baby boy! You have to pull through to meet little (checks sheet) Nikolai!

I like the parallels between Rostov/Alexander and Andrei/Napoleon because I think it's part of the many ways Tolstoy contrasts the two characters. While Rostov is blindly, madly in love with his leader, Andrei's admiration for Napoleon fades once he actually experiences war. To me this is a way of showing how Andrei is a much more level headed character than Rostov, who is an idiot. Another fine example of this is when the two of them have their little face-off in the bar, in which Andrei acts coolly while Rostov is once again, an idiot.

Also, speaking of relationships, did anyone else breath a sigh of relief when Marya didn't marry whatshisface? God, what a douche! Still, it was a troubling chapter in that none of the woman seemed to catch on to what a jackass the guy was: they were all just giddy just to have a man around. Blargh.

I feel like the book is really gearing up now. I'm curious to see if the book can keep up this kind of twistyness for the next thousand pages.

No Pierre

Hello,

Ok so as miss Tanya made a point I have not posted or committed on the blog in while. Sorry!!!
I'm a bad blogger.
Well I'm still being the turtle and I have not finished the second part of volume one. Though I'm almost done it. I have to say though that I'm not enjoying the war part of the story as much. I want to go back to Russian society and Pierre, I miss Pierre. I miss Pierre and all of hist stupid antics, like the police officer and the bear. So funny.
Though not matter what the writing still amazes me. I was sitting at school today and reading. I could almost smell gun powered and hear the sounds of horse hooves as the Russian army was retreating.
Ok well this is all for now, I have to go to work.
I will be taking it with me on my trip to Bermuda.

{{{HUG}}}

Sonja

W&P soundtrack

I like to know what others are listening to while they read (if you guys can mentally multitask. I can't always).

Somehow, I think because of the Emperor Franz, and King Ferdinand (do I have this right?), Franz Ferdinand's song Bang Bang popped into my head while reading, and it's now W&P's unofficial theme song, at least to me.

What songs, if any, have you associated with W&P? Weigh in ladies!

Volume 1, Part 2- Tanya's Thoughts

In response to Shannon's observation about the lack of footnotes in "War, part 1", as I like to call it: I really think it just because there is less conversation, and most of what conversation there is deals with battle, how scared everyone is or is not, who is dead or bleeding, and what the officers are wearing that day. We get back to the footnotes once we return to salons where occupants are gossiping about current affairs, where we need to know more background about the topics of the day.

I know that there is the handy-dandy character list at the beginning of the novel, but man, is anyone else finding it hard to follow who is who? Also, does anyone find that some of jokes just don't translate well? I think its more of a cultural thing than a linguistics things, but they are just not funny. Except when Prince Andrei's father plays on the German love of combining 18 words into one (i.e. Hofkriegswrath) along with some old national sterotypes, coming up with Hofs-kriegs-wurst-schnapps-rath. Too good! (FYI: This example was taken from Vol 1, Part 1).

Also, does anyone else notice how negatively the high society is portrayed, ESPECIALLY women? I'm not too happy about that, Tolstoy. Like, all they want to do is chat about nothing or play other people like pawns, or get married to rich men if they have titles, or titled men if they are rich. I don't know, maybe that's all they were interested in.

Vol.I Part II ALREADY?

What?! We're already supposed to be done vol.1 part II? Who came up with this stupid schedule?

Oh, that's right, I did. Ahahaha.

Really, I 'm not that completely far behind, maybe sixty pages from reaching today's deadline. I'm really enjoying the 'war' sections of the novel. One weird thing that I've noticed is that once Tolstoy gets into the action, the historical footnotes go the way of the passenger pigeon. Did the translators just get swept up in the fight scenes, or is there really no little historical asides that need clearing up? Or maybe I'm the one getting swept up in the battles, and I just haven't noticed the footnotes like I did before. Anyone else care to weigh in?