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Tolstoy in Ashland, Part Deux

So, I was in the process of contemplating death (for my paper, mind you), and I was thinking about free will, and I remembered the play Fences by August Wilson if you want to read up on the play, you can do so here–> http://www.sparknotes.com/drama/fences/index.html) that we saw in Ashland this year. The play follows ex-con and former negro league baseball player Troy Maxson throughout the last 7ish years of his life (although about 3 or 4 are skipped). Anyway, he was one of the best players in the negro league, but by the time the major league was integrated he was too old to play and therefor never got the chance to play MLB, which is something he’s never really gotten over. He has long monologues about seeing the devil and seeing death and fighting off death, and how “death will come get [him] when [he’s] good and ready”. In the last scene (if you’re planning on reading the play and don’t want to know the end, now would be the time to look away), his wife Rose explains to her son how Troy was swinging his baseball bat, got one really good swing and smiled as he collapsed, dead. This just reminded me of Tolstoy’s attitude towards death and free will, and how much free will we have in our death. Because in both situations we are left to interpret: are the people who are dying in these situations simply delirious or are they actually at peace and have they actually accepted death?


Did that make sense at all?

Posted 02 May 2008 † hschurman § Uncategorized ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged:

THE ARMY IS FOR LAZY PEOPLE

Tolstoy has some very interesting views on the service and the type of people who enlist.
The Bible legend tells us that the absence of labor- idleness- was a condition of the first man’s blessedness before the Fall. Fallen man has retained a love of idleness, but the curse weighs on the race not only because we have to seek our bread in the sweat of our brows, but because our moral nature is such that we cannot be both idle and at ease. An inner voice tells us we are in the wrong if we are idle. If man could find a state in which he felt that though idle he was fulfilling his duty, he would have found one of the conditions of man’s primitive blessedness. And such a state of obligatory and irreproachable idleness is the lot of a whole class- the military. The chief attraction of military service has consisted and will consist in this compulsory and irreproachable idleness.
(Part 4 chapter 1 in my book)

i can imagine i would be a drag to join the army hoping to stand around and do nothing while at the same time feeling good about yourself but them get called into war. major suckage.

Posted 29 April 2008 † rkeenan § Uncategorized ‡ Comments (1) °

Just a random, un-thought out thought

Maybe I’ll take the time to think about this more carefully later and do a real post, but for now I’ll just throw this out there.

Tolstoy talks about how we must have some degree of freedom because time expands infinitely in both directions and thus we cannot conceive of complete “necessity”. However, if time is cyclical rather than linear, as is suggested by many oral cultures (and I presume at least a few Western thinkers?), then our actions could conceivably be entirely pre-determined by the past, which is the future. No? (It may be no…it is past 1AM I am tired).

Posted 21 April 2008 † jrosenthal § Uncategorized ‡ Comments (2) °

WWII and the French retreat

A random observation: I thought it was very interesting to compare the tactics and practices of the Russian army of the Napoleonic wars with those of the Soviet Union during World War II. As we’ve seen, Kutuzov’s commanders perform illogical, unnecessary, and wasteful “flanking actions” against the fleeing French. Likewise, during World War II, the Soviets did the same thing, pursuing and harassing the fleeing Germans, at great loss of life. In fact, the Stalin was so transfixed with capturing Berlin before the other Allies, that he created a competition between the Soviet generals to see who could get to Berlin first. The actual “Battle of Berlin” cost the Soviet army 80,000 casualties, many of which could have been avoided. In both wars, many of the casualties that the Russians suffered came from incompetence of commanders, which is really the sad thing.

Posted 16 April 2008 † schao § War ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged:

Pierre=Me (At least on page 1013)

Aaron just wrote about how cool Pierre is, and how he noticed similarities between Pierre’s experience and his own. I am like-minded:

On page 1013, we see into Pierre’s mind. A prisoner of the French in Moscow, he has come to realize the great value of simple comforts, of the sensuous experiences and honest human interactions that in fact give us the greatest pleasure. He realizes the joy of life’s choices, and wishes for nothing more than the opportunities of the future:

“All Pierre’s dreams were now turned to the time when he would be free. And yet afterwards and for the whole of his life Pierre thought and spoke with rapture of that month of captivity, of those irrevocable, strong, and joyful sensations, and above all of that full peace of mind, that perfect inner freedom, which he experienced only in that time”. (1013)

He spends his time wishing for his freedom, without realizing that the PRESENT is the best time of his life. A few summers ago, I went on a trip with NOLS, a backpacking organization, for a month in the wilderness. I had a great time, but nonetheless during the trip I constantly caught myself daydreaming about getting back to civilization: all the food I would eat, the people I would talk to, the movies I would see, the music I would listen to. Like Pierre, every little experience in the “freedom” of civilization seemed enormously better, and I scorned myself for having taken those experiences for granted throughout my life. When I got back to civilization, my friends and I all went and got good food, listened to music, went to a movie (You, Me, and Dupree–not a good choice, but better than nothing), and initially these things all seemed amazing, and the good food truly never tasted so good. But within a matter of days, I of course began to stop savoring my experiences, began taking them for granted once again. To quote Tolstoy here, “a superfluity of life’s comforts destroys all the happiness of the satisfaction of one’s needs” (1013, of course). Indeed, even on the first night back in town, I was hanging out in a hotel room with my two best friends from the trip, and we were all pretty quiet. After a while,  one of my friends said, “You know, the steak was good. And the Radiohead was great. But for all that, right now I’d still rather be back in the mountains, sitting around the campfire”. Now, this had as much to do with the Nature vs. Civilization debate as it does with living in the present moment, but it is still similar to Pierre’s feeling that in captivity, he was truly free. If you’ve read this far, thanks for indulging my personal reflection. 

Also, I’d just like to note, on the NEXT page (1014, for dummies), there is one of my favorite descriptive passages in the whole book, that I’ll copy here just for the sake of making this already long post just a little bit longer. And I think you’ll enjoy it:

“When, on the first day, having gotten up early in the morning, he went out of the shed at dawn and saw the at first dark cupolas and crosses of the Novodevichye Convent, saw the frosty dew on the dusty grass, saw the heights of the Sparrow Hills, and the wooded bank meandering along the river and disappearing into the purple distance, when he sensed the touch of the fresh air and heard the noise of jackdaws flying across the field from Moscow, and when the light then suddenly sprayed from the east and the rim of the sun floated majestically from behind a cloud, and the cupolas, and the crosses, and the dew, and the distance, and the river, everything began to play in the joyful light–Pierre felt a new, never yet experienced feeling of the joy and strength of life”. (1014 baby)

Posted 14 April 2008 † jrosenthal § Uncategorized ‡ Comments (0) °

The End (Why I love Pierre)

As I near the end of this book, I am becoming really sad. This book has been part of my routine for the past 4(ish) months. The extremely poignant epilogue is tugging at my heartstrings, and I have not been let down at at all. All the questions/ conflicts are being cleared up. One thing that makes me exceedingly happy is how Pierre turned out.

For so much of the book, Pierre was subject to the whims of a multitude of nasty, corrupt social climbers. He was on a path that he could not get off, and at many points almost fatalistically surrendered to the parts of his life he despised most. However, his experience with the war destroyed his previous comfort and stagnation, and allowed him to flourish. Instead of a bumbling, curious fatso, Pierre is described by Nikolenka as “learned and intelligent and kind”, everything Pierre wanted to be (1161). Even moreso, he has become someone’s role model, perhaps the last example we will see of a character entierly submitting themself to somone they think is superior. Unlike the way Boris or Hélène or Dolokhov attatch themselves to characters, here we see one person recognizing “significance” in another for all the right reasons. Honestly, I thought Pierre was going to be subject to Andrei’s fate, never able to reconcile his beef with humanity and doomed to a lonely and monastic life. Perhaps Pierre’s triumph resonates so much because I have similarly experienced the feeling of being locked into an undesirable path with no way off. Pierre learned that the key to breaking the paradigm was not as much in his every day actions or even abstract, spiritual devotion, but in how he experiences and copes with the world around him. I learned a similar lesson. However, I must say I’m glad my lesson didn’t come from a huge war. That would have been lame

Posted 14 April 2008 † akhandros § Characters § Pierre ‡ Comments (1) ° Tagged: , ,

Pierre, Kutuzov, and the Totality of All Actions

Sorry about the posting rampage, this is the last one for today (promise!).

So, I hope we have all noticed Tolstoy’s tireless reminders that no person determines their own destiny or the destiny of any group of people (the army, a country, etc), but rather that we are products of the totality of all our actions and the actions of others. And at a certain point, I have to say, I started just skimming over them. However, it is interesting to note that the only two characters who ever actually recognize this are the two characters that Tolstoy holds in highest regards, even though judging by their actions we might judge them to be fools. Kutuzov recognizes that he is not the end all and be all of the army, and for that Tolstoy deems him a good general. Pierre is a bit of a bumbling fool until his march to where the french soldiers kill 7 people in front of him, when he realizes all the injustice around him, which leads him to realize that the outcome of certain events are bigger than any one person, and from pretty much that exact moment on we see him become wise and happy.

Just an observation.

Posted 14 April 2008 † hschurman § Characters § Pierre ‡ Comments (1) ° Tagged: ,

Tolstoy & La Fontaine

http://www.aesopfables.com/cgi/aesop1.cgi?jdlf&i22ms

So, I know this wasn’t in the last few nights’ reading, but if you
will bear with me for just a few moments, I’d like to go back to
Volume II, Part 3. While reading about Andrei’s contemplation of and
conversation with the dying oak, I couldn’t help but feel that it had
to be more than just the Prince’s musings about his petty emotional
state. The oak tree has been a symbol of strength and nobility in
literature, and I think that Tolstoy was referencing this image. This
scene made me think of a Jean de la Fontaine poem called “Le Chene et
le Roseau”, or the Oak and the Reed.

The Oak and the Reed

The Oak spoke one day to the Reed
“You have good reason to complain;
A Wren for you is a load indeed;
The smallest wind bends you in twain.
You are forced to bend your head;
While my crown faces the plains
And not content to block the sun
Braves the efforts of the rains.
What for you is a North Wind is for me but a zephyr.
Were you to grow within my shade
Which covers the whole neighbourhood
You’d have no reason to be afraid
For I would keep you from the storm.
Instead you usually grow
In places humid, where the winds doth blow.
Nature to thee hath been unkind.”
“Your compassion”, replied the Reed
“Shows a noble character indeed;
But do not worry: the winds for me
Are much less dangerous than for thee;
I bend, not break. You have ’til now
Resisted their great force unbowed,
But beware.
As he said these very words
A violent angry storm arose.
The tree held strong; the Reed he bent.
The wind redoubled and did not relent,
Until finally it uprooted the poor Oak
Whose head had been in the heavens
And roots among the dead folk.

There’s also the matter of the allusion to government and great historical figures. Read into that as you will.

Posted 14 April 2008 † hschurman § Uncategorized ‡ Comments (1) ° Tagged: ,

Petya’s death

So, I don’t know about you guys but I definitely cried when Petya died. We discussed Petya’s death in class today and a large reason that his death was so jarring was because of how sudden it was; however, another big part is that we still see him as a child. There are a few big scenes with him in the first 800 pages of the novel (where we see him with his mother and/or his siblings, where he’s clearly the youngest child). Then, when he comes back from war, his mother treats him as a baby even though he’s 16, and Tolstoy mentions that he’s grown up a little bit but his growth goes surprisingly unmentioned. In the 50 pages before he dies, he seems like the tag along kid, trying to get in on the action and clearly way over his head. When he dies, it’s not like Kutuzov, Old Bolkonsky or Old Rostov where they’re quite old, quite sick and we know will die, nor is it like Andrei where we’re somewhat prepared for 800 pages and actually know he’s going to die for 150 pages before he dies in his 30’s. He’s the only main character who we see as a child (besides Nikolenka) and he’s the only person we see die in battle.

Now, I admit that some of the connections I see tend to be a bit of a stretch, but on this one I can’t help but think it was intended. I really think that Tolstoy is trying to show the horrors of war with this scene. There’s a child dying on the battlefield. What more effective way to make an anti-war statement then that?

Posted 14 April 2008 † hschurman § Characters § War ‡ Comments (2) ° Tagged: ,

Tolstoy in Ashland

Both Hanna and I were in Ashland last weekend, and we had some really interesting Tolstoy moments. A couple of the storytelling traits that we’ve identified as Tolstoyan popped up, and it was interesting to see what worked and what really didn’t in terms of theater. The first one was Tolstoy’s habit of giving us a little bit of closure, and then immediately switching to some other aspect of the story. We’ve talked about how that particular strategy keeps the reader interested and engaged with such a long book. That technique was mentioned to us specifically in regards to a new play, but it got me thinking on how universal it was to good storytelling. All of Shakespeare’s plays have multiple story-lines which intertwine and fit into each other in a way that keeps an audience hooked. Probably the most blatant example of this is “A Midsummers Night’s Dream”, which we of course were in but also saw in Ashland. The three sets of characters- the fairies, mechanicals, and athenians- are of course in contact, and their stories interact, but they also all have their own conclusions. With Tolstoy, his societal characters are of course deeply involved in the war, and their lives are dependent on its progression, but they are also separate stories.

The second Tolstoy-esque quality we noticed was the idea of “real time”. I remember some Tolstoy commentator noting that War and Peace seemed to happen in real time. Whether it was a dig at the enormous length of the books or a compliment to the unusual nature of his prose, I think it’s very true. It may also be that we’re reading in such consistent intervals, but I feel the passage of time as if it is very real, although the setting jumps around by years at a time. A similar comment was made about a play, “Welcome Home Jenny Sutter”, we saw in Ashland. What with the slowness of actual events and the periods of silence, it also felt a bit like real time. What interested me was that with Tolstoy, it works for me, but with a play it drove me crazy. Firstly, the play felt like it was far too short (as little actually happened) and the audience kept waiting for some action. Prose is much more an art for the patient- in Tolstoy, I admire the different type of storytelling, and accept the “real time” as stylistic. With this play, I just thought it bad writing.

Another thing Tolstoy gets away with much more easily in prose is repeating himself. We saw August Wilson’s “Fences” our second day in Ashland, and Mr. Barankin and I later had a conversation about how it was really a tad overwritten. The content of the play, and the way it was expressed, was absolutely incredible. The problem was that no speech ever ended- in addition to the incredible moments, speeches, and story-lines there was all this repetition. It reminded me a lot of Tolstoy’s essays about war and history. To be honest, I found the first couple really interesting and worthwhile, but after time we end up a bit out of patience with him for his inability to shut up once he has said something.

I remember something Andy said about us needing to accept Tolstoy’s repetitiveness as part of him. If I recall correctly, it was that we shouldn’t separate Tosltoy the storyteller from Tolstoy the loquacious philosopher because it would be untrue to him. In effect, I agree; I’ve learned not to roll my eyes when the next war politics section appears, or when the phrase “countless coincidences” is repeated 13 times. The thing with prose that is obvious is that if the going gets too hard, you can put the book down. We’re reading in 20 page sections. Because, unlike a play, a book isn’t meant to be read in one sitting, an author has an incredible amount of wiggle room. Tolstoy can bore us to a certain point without losing us completely, and can repeat himself without us feeling like it’s a waste of time. Though August Wilson, a brilliant playwright, really only repeated himself minimally, it was infinitely more annoying and inorganic feeling because we were watching a piece of live theater and couldn’t just take a break.

 

  

 

 

Posted 10 April 2008 † rsmith § Uncategorized ‡ Comments (2) °