Monday, January 16, 2006

"Quelle terrible chose que la guerre!"

now reading: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

It makes a person think:

In War and Peace, the troops are battling. Characters we know are getting wounded, and Napoleon has ridden into the scene. Those who sit at home are in agony, awaiting news of their loved one, their beloved Nikolushka or whatever other soldier.

Sometimes it is a strange thing to sit halfway around the world from all that you know.

Today I read:


"Instead of the new life which he had hoped to lead, he was still living the old one, only in different surroundings." --p. 459

I have found it interesting that Napoleon's dramatic entrance into the scene presents him in a pretty good light, and that (spoiler alert!) (if it can count as a spoiler only 1/4 of the way through the book!) the first character we really know and care about who dies doesn't even die in battle.

Or is life the battle, and that's the point?

I'm also aware that I am possibly the only person reading the book -- even the initial slew of people who said they were interested have almost all bailed -- but I like to think a lot of you are reading this blog anyway, just for the hell of it.

I hope to be able to post something more insightful soon. It's been a rough couple of weeks. But I have started reading around 30 pages a day. I now take W & P with me to the coffee shop across from work every day on my afternoon break. It's a wonderful ritual.

I must also confess that I took another pause from reading it over the weekend because the universe delivered Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods into my hands and it in turn delivered to me some cosmic signs and the synchronicity of it all is unbelievable.

Come on, y'all. A little Tolstoy never hurt anybody... *smile*



No comments: