quick review -- I'm reading tolstoy's war & peace and taking exhaustingly extensive notes. then I pick through them to discuss recurring themes, great passages, and very foreshadowing (credit: doge), and report back here. also, there are a lot of spoilers. this is your only warning.
- - -
BOOK 2 PART 4
okay, for the record: nikolai and natasha are the best sibling couple. I think I should add them to my list of favorite friendships. srsly. love those two. I could so be related to them.
not much happened in this section, at least that stood out to me. I'm guessing more will make sense as the book continues -- I mostly had postulations and questions for this part. it focuses a lot on the rostovs and nikolai; mostly nikolai, and his character continues to develop. he's come back from fighting, and despite his longing to be led, he's now stepping up a little and making his own decisions.
actually, he makes a huge decision: he's going to marry sonya. and when his mother is unhappy ("she's a penniless orphan!") he stands by her in the face of his parents' wishes -- not praising him either way, except that he's not being led anymore. nikolai is deciding for himself.
it's another contrast between nikolai and boris, actually. countess rostova talked to boris, too, after he was somewhat infatuated with natasha (again, years later renewing a childhood interest), but boris took that to heart and immediately stopped coming to the rostovs'...and we'll find out how he went about pursuing marriage in the next part. sorry, I already read it, so I already know. ha. ...okay, little hint: his marriage is going to be a total ambition move for him.
but like I said, complete opposite of nikolai, who's being swayed by his emotions again. boris is totally calculated -- and pretty unlikable because of that. nikolai may be inclined to romanticize things, but he's at least a sweet guy.
relationship tracker:
LURVE
nikolai + sonya
andrei + natasha
"vera + berg" (quotes, because their only goal is to look just like everyone else. there is zero reality here. SO IMITATION VANILLA Y'ALL)
ACHY-BREAKY HEARTS
pierre (over natasha. ?!?! < yeah, sorry, more foreshadowing. I happen to remember this part.)
helene (over pierre. and by "pierre" she means "pre-separation social status".)
natasha (over andrei. she misses himmmmmm)
boris (over natasha. he feels a little tear starting-- oh wait, it's gone.)
soundtrack - rutting moon, rogue valley; lightning tent, wildlife
No comments:
Post a Comment
by all means, leave a comment if you have something to share! please keep your language clean, respectful, and polite.
staying on topic would be nice, too, but I know that can be hard sometimes.