:: turmoil ::

vas happenin boys: I'm reading through tolstoy's war & peace and taking exhaustingly extensive notes. then I pick through them to discuss recurring themes, great passages, and everyone's favorite prince andrei, and report back here. also, there are a lot of spoilers. this is your only warning.

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BOOK 2, PART 1

things kick up a notch.

nikolai returns home, "again entered into the world of childhood and family" which includes his boyish...crush? on sonya. he thinks it's love, but it seems more like part of his younger identity, of a child playing the grownup. though they're both convinced they love one another, he's not bothered when natasha confides that sonya wants to set him free (a "noble sacrifice") and they drift apart.
   which actually may not be wise, because sonya is a gentle, loyal constant. he may regret this later.

rumors about dolokhov having compromised helene torture pierre. he has no proof for this suspicion except his dislike of the guy and D's past record as something of a rake. D does provoke pierre into a duel, which throws pierre into a mountain of remorse and navel-gazing. ultimately, he realizes his disgust with his depraved wife -- she looks cool and regal, but "then he recalled the coarseness and bluntness of her ideas, the vulgar expressions that came naturally to her". remember, this is the woman rumored to have had an affair with her own brother (incidentally, the marya-seeking anatol kuragin. does depravity run in the family).
   pierre still feels guilty over her wrongdoing, because he is the one who married her. there was no love, that's why "I felt that I was wrong," he reasons with himself, "that I had no right to do it."
 
but then he wonders if it should really bother him. "Is it worth tormenting myself when one only has a moment to live in comparison with eternity?" tolstoy points out that pierre, thought weak, doesn't require a confidant: he wrestles things out on his own. I don't know if this is a good wrestling-out, though -- pierre is so easily led, so easily confused, as he thinks these thoughts like a screw that goes around and around, not coming out, not going in. just spinning. in circles. indefinitely.
   hopefully we see character growth here, and I mean that seriously. I don't remember a whole lot on this thread (no pun intended) from my first read-through, though what I remember gives me hope :)
   possibly to expiate this sin, pierre gives very much of his property to helene and skips town for petersburg.

dolokhov was severely wounded in the duel, and his friend nikolai rostov takes him home, surprised to find that the "bullying, brawling Dolokhov lived in Moscow with an old mother and a hunchback sister, and was the most affectionate of sons and brothers." as D convalesces, NR -- as is usual -- comes to admire his high-flown sentiments and romanticize this friend. (nikolai has a habit of this. see his whole worship of emperor aleksandr.) D tells NR that he wants a woman of "angelic purity and devotion" and no other woman will do, and then promptly falls in love with sonya.
   NR tells her this is a great opportunity for her -- as a penniless orphan, this is true; but she assures nikolai she only loves him. he says he loves her, too (he's pretty sure), but doesn't want to lead her on.
   they part, mutually deluded.

dolokhov does his best to ruin nikolai at cards, in one of his freak, adrenaline-rush-seeking, near-psychotic moods. NR has to apply to his father for 43,000 rubles, breaking his word and his father's bank, but gets a little high on the music natasha sings that night -- intoxicated by sentiment as dolokhov is by danger and cruelty. I don't know that one is necessarily better than the other.

natasha has not only fallen out of love with boris, she's now in love with dancing and singing and declares she'll never marry (although she has a short romance with nikolai's friend denisov. but that ends fast).

remember how pierre feels he's mistreated helene by not being all he was supposed to be as a husband?
   andrei comes home one winter evening, recovered and different. they thought he was dead. he arrives to find lise giving birth, and marya notices a change in his face for the sweeter. he kisses lise on the forehead -- she doesn't recognize him -- he waits, she gives birth -- he comes back in to find her dead.
   in not treasuring lise like he should have (they parted in some irritation), like pierre, andrei feels his own remorse. but unlike helene, lise is gone forever.
   he names the baby nikolai andreyevich after his father.

relationship tracker:
SUNK SHIPS
marya + anatol
natasha + denisov
nikolai + sonya
pierre + helene
andrei + lise

death count: 2

so much sad. did I not warn you.

soundtrack - autumn leaves, ed sheeran