Well worn

I've decided that I can't get rid of my copy of The Book.

The main reason for this is that my current plan for getting rid of my books is selling them off, and trust me, no one is going to buy my copy of W & P. Let's start with the fact that a whole chunk of the beginning, the about Leo page through about page 80, just plain fell out. That was a while ago. I used that chunk of pages as a bookmark through much of my reading, in fact.

So, since I can't sell it and might as well add it to the select few books I am keeping, I thought I'd go a little over the top and find some deeper meaning in keeping it.

I mean, I'm still claiming to receive cosmic messages from it and all. This week I have been in agony of indecision and I keep hearkening back to Kutuzov's wise advice to Prince Andrei to "when in doubt do nothing." (Can we talk about how I am STILL in love with Prince Andrei?) I do feel compelled to point out, though, Kutuzov buddy -- this is the SAME ISSUE about which I had this indecision in February. So, um, it's great advice and all, but you'll note that what it really leads to is the same issue still being around five months later. Maybe it's time to try something new.

But I really liked the idea I had the other week of looking at the page number as a date and seeing what insight I could glean from that page. Maybe I will open it to today's "date" and see what it tells me. Maybe I will do that, often.

Am I treating it like scripture? Well, maybe. Why not? The other day my roommate and I were riding the bus and she was talking, very matter-of-factly as my pagan roommates are wont to do, about the recent tarot card reading she'd done for herself. As an afterthought she asked me, "You don't really do the tarot much, do you?" To which I replied, um, no because I do not believe in it. (Sometimes she needs gentle reminders about these things.) She met my skepticism head-on though, with a comment about finding the things we need from various places and how I am always talking about receiving "cosmic signs."

I considered this. Apart from the fact that this roommate often takes me literally and it drives me up the wall, and that 99 time out of 100 my tongue is planted firmly in my cheek when I utter the word "cosmic" and the other time it's planted loosely in my cheek -- and that is quite a feat, by the way, saying "cosmic" with your tongue in your cheek -- it really is true that we humans looking for meaning have more in common than we care to admit.

And what it really got down to was I proceeded to theorize out loud and surely to the dismay of the girl in the seat in front of us about how what's the difference, really between prayer and tarot, or between being inspired by a Bible verse and thinking a song coming on the radio at the right moment is telling me something?

So why NOT keep Tolstoy by my bed and look for meaningful passages when Ihave to make life decisions? Huh?

In light of the above story, this on-line quiz thingy was interesting:

Which freaky subway person is Linda Napikoski?

The guy that sings to himself at the top of his lungs.

'Which freaky subway person are you?' at QuizGalaxy.com

Go on, use "finical" in a sentence

"'Mon cher,' Princess Marya might say, entering at such a moment, 'little Nikolai cannot go out today; it is very cold.'
'If it were not,' Prince Andrei at such moments would dryly retort, 'he could go out in just his smock, but as it is cold, you have only to dress him in the warm clothes that have been designed for the purpose. That is what follows from the fact that it is cold; not that a child who needs fresh air should be kept indoors,' he said with finical logic as if to punish someone for all the secret, illogical forces at work within him." --- p. 513

OK, I love Prince Andrei. I just do. He's even quoted now on my other blog. Now that I'm back from the East and all, I changed my quote over there. Anyway, I went through a lot emotionally when I was in Korea reading about Natasha and Andrei, and I just want to say that I love him. I relate to him, often. I totally and completely rooted for him, even when I was sure (rightly so!) Tolstoy was telling me there was seriously something between Natasha and Pierre. I just knew that Natasha's dalliance couldn't be it between Natasha and Prince Andrei. I just knew it.

Have I mentioned how many parallels there are between Natasha and Andrei and a certain real-life relationship with which I am very familiar?

I digress. So here we have Andrei's sister fretting about his little son Nikolai going out in the cold. Now, as someone who has been a firm believer that the "you'll catch cold" nonsense is no more than an old wives' tale, until I recently acquired pneumonia for which I thoroughly enjoy blaming Ding Ding Dang forcing us to march up a mountain in a cold, spring rain, I passionately agree with Andrei here. Put a coat on the kid and let him go outside, eh?

The larger point is logic, however. How many times do we (I) declare that something is so wholly patently illogical etc. rant rant when trying to squelch the illogical forces within?

I was pondering this quote when I looked down and noted that the page number was 513, and 5/13 is of course my birthday (that's May 13, American style, for you Euro etc. types who write date then month. Sorry!)

I thought, how fun! People could open War and Peace (my edition, recall, is ISBN: 0451523261) to the page whose number "is" their birthday and see if it contains a profound cosmic message for them!

The other day as I was going through all of my books to get rid of them, one of those I felt compelled to keep was an oversize paperback Stars-Birthday-Astrology type guide that has 366 entries telling you all about you based on your birthday. It's just so FUN to look up people's days and see how they compare. I thought maybe I could use The Book like that, too.

Illogical forces are currently at work within me. To whom am I dryly retorting when I should be attending to the fallacies of my days?

Ordinary?

I believe I quoted this passage a few months ago when I read it. Now, home in Medford, I revisit it:

"The one thing Pierre desired now with his whole soul was quickly to get away from the horrifying sensations he had undergone that day, to return to the ordinary conditions of life, and to sleep peacefully in his own bed in his own room. He felt that only in the ordinary conditions of life would he be able to understand himself and all he had seen and experienced. But these ordinary conditions were nowhere to be found." -- p. 1007

So - yeah. I am back in Boston. I am back in the U.S. and back from Korea and no longer teaching rugrats, and I just think, listen, Pierre, Natasha, really? Is it possible? Can I just make this little thing called life work out?

Returning from another country is a great way to process The Book. I have had several meltdowns and a few wig-outs in the last two weeks as I've been galavanting about the Northeast seeing the people I need to see and answering the questions I need to answer.

And I didn't even see a battlefield in my "tour of duty"! (Unless you count the day we went to the DMZ.) But those classes, those screaming children in the hallways, those incessant orders of advance and retreat from the Ding Ding Dang powers that be, were all a lot like what the armies went through. You know, in a very melodramatic metaphorical way.

This book, this life -- they're bigger than us all! Bigger than I can get my mind around! But "these ordinary conditions were nowhere to be found" doesn't quite do it. On the contrary, I've come back to my house with the girls and the balcony and the Orchard Street treetops and the 96 bus and the woman at my local Dunkin' Donuts on Boston Ave who after nine months remembers me AND MY MEDIUM ICED COFFEE CREAM NO SUGAR ORDER!!

I think even Pierre might agree with me that in the epilogue, the ordinary conditions are to be found. They just might be right there waiting for you. Right where you left them.

It is finished

I have returned from Korea.

I finished reading War and Peace on the plane, somewhere over the Pacific Ocean. Now, wouldn't you know that my seatmate to the right on that long flight would be a man from Serbia with some Russian heritage who was most intrigued to see me reading Tolstoy, and to learn that I had read other Tolstoy as well as other Russian authors. I thought - really? Are we known as such plebes that we aren't even thought to have read phenomenal Russian literature? I'm such a fan of Russian lit. Dostoevsky and Nabokov and then there are gems like The Master and Margarita by Bulgakov...anyway, I digress.

I finished the book!

I also finished my stint in Korea.

The Serb/Russian man asked me what one main point I would take from the book. One? I was incredulous. But I said, after a moment's reflection, you know, it's that there is something bigger than us all guiding this whole thing (life).

And it's not simple. It's not simply "God." Tolstoy, they say, did come to terms with Christianity in his way. But I mean, the epilogue just went on and on about this philosophy he's been sprinkling throughout the book about historical events; the free will or lack thereof of kings, generals, and so forth; the interconnectedness of it all; and how the farther we get from events in history -- or in our lives, I daresay -- the more sense they make.

Needless to say, I had a fabulous plane ride home. Sooooo much thinking. I can honestly say, between the comfy seat (in the big middle five-seat row, but the bulkhead gave some leg room) and the many things I had to contemplate contending with upon arriving back on U.S. soil, that I wanted that journey to never end.

Drawing near the end

I love Natasha! Why? I don't know!!! Pierre, too. And I LOVE the philosophizing Mr. T continues to engage in as the French army flees and falls apart and the Russian army falls apart too, for good measure.

I have a mere 160 pages left to read.

I have a mere 16 days left in Korea.

Restructuring

Besides this, the entire staff of the Russian army was now reorganized...Very serious consideration had to be given to the question whether it would be better to put A in B's place and B in D's place, or to put D in A's place and so on--as if anything more than A's or B's satisfaction depended on this. - pp. 1183-1184

I dare say that reminds me of a Borders restructure or two!

Lately some of my friends and co-workers here have seen me with my tattered copy of The Book again, and this makes them ask the perfectly logical question: "Aren't you done yet?" Well, perhaps not perfectly logical, seeing as if I WERE done I likely wouldn't be carrying it AROUND now would I? But yeah, today was the first day in weeks and weeks --like maybe six or seven of them--that I've taken the book to work with me in my backpack and had time to read a bit in the coffee shop during my afternoon break. And there probably were things I could have been doing for the play as I sat sipping my cappuccino, but I read instead.

Also, I have received my first official "I'm done" from a friend back home who took the plunge, and that's scary. He totally kicked my butt! I still have 200 pages to go! I would like to point out that he needs to comment a bit on here though, now that he's DONE.

But only comment up to page 1200! Don't tell me what happens!!!

I'm the decider!

Napoleon, with his usual assurance, not that what was right was right, but that whatever entered his head was right, wrote to Kutuzov the first words that occurred to him, though they were utterly meaningless. - page 1182

Of course, then the exchange that follows between them does nothing to bring about peace. But Moscow and the citizenry and the army -- and Tolstoy -- are still regrouping and reckoning with Borodino and the march of historical events. It's taking me an exceedingly long time to read this part. I'm on the page-a-day plan. I am just too busy. My afternoon coffee shop time is now entirely given over to doctor appointments, play preparation/rehearsals, or some combination of these. At night I fall into bed and am lucky to get through one page before falling asleep! So maybe I won't even finish The Book before leaving Korea!

But don't we all know someone like Napoleon?

Or, as Ani puts it, "everyone is a fucking napoleon." Well, not to put too fine a point on it:

Now you think, so that is the way it's gonna be
That's what this is all about
I think that that is the way it always was
You chose not to notice until now
Yeah now that there's a problem you call me up to confide
And you go on for over an hour 'bout each one that took you for a ride...
- Ani DiFranco, 'Napoleon'

Her song is actually about the music industry, although it's also about a lot of other things, of course.

We expats over here are intrigued by tales of massive immigrant protests and political uprising back in the States. I heard on the AP Radio News a wonderful Bush sound bite. In response to the new Spanish version of "The Star-Spangled Banner" he was saying people who want to be U.S. citizens ought to learn English. He said, "And they should learn to sing the national anthem in English!" And the way he said it was just so classically -- Bush! Faux folksy, adamant, a slight feel of bewilderment. I couldn't help wondering if he can sing the national anthem. No one can sing the national anthem! Or if he knows all the words. I remembered Ramona Quimby's "by the dawnzer's lee light" as she puzzles over it and decides a dawnzer must be a kind of lamp.

And so time marches on, as do we all. Armies are on the move; emperors are born and emperors die, and their empires often do the same, if it takes a bit longer.

To recap for those who missed it, I would like to point out that, yes, I have just quoted Leo Tolstoy, George Bush, Ani DiFranco, and Beverly Cleary in one blog post. Imagine all four of them as guests at one dinner table!

Wow...

Oh my goodness! Prince Andrei! What?!?! Andrei...Natasha....wow. So amazing...pages 1172-1177...so amazing...

"The man who will not give his name"

Pierre felt himself to be an insignificant chip fallen between the wheels of a machine whose mechanism he did not understand but which worked smoothly. - p. 1149

So, the question is, will it be Sonya and Nikolai or Natasha and Andrei?

I personally think - I think? - it will be Natasha and Andrei. Not that my personal parallels and cosmic signs I've been taking from this book have anything to do with that, who, me? No! ; )

But if that's true, I do hope Mr. T. has something waiting in the wings for Sonya. I feel bad for her.

I named one of the girls in my advanced conversation/writing class "Natasha" last week. It wasn't particularly a War and Peace thing, but I do love that name. In German class in high school, my name was Natascha, a slightly different spelling. Well, last week the kids in this class, whom I adore and will miss terribly when I depart and who have great conversation skills and write me fantastic compositions every time, asked me for new English names. They were bored, after years at Ding Ding Dang, with their "Tony" and "Tom" and "Carol" and whatnot. Like, every single class I teach has a "Sally" and a "Jenny" and a few "Joey"s and we foreigner teachers are ALWAYS trying to get them to let us pick more original English names when we start up new classes, but it's always this whole long drama and "Oh, they're too hard, the kids can't say them," whatever.

But my advanced kids can say a lot of things! And I teach them many things! And they love me! And I love them! So I was only to happy to give them new names: Torrance, Everett, Wayne, Donovan, Daphne, Angelina, Gisele, Meredith, and Natasha. I looked at them, pondered their personalities, and made my choices. Overall, they're pleased.

But I digress. Oh, Natasha. Everyone in this book seems so special and comfortable to me right now.

When Pierre was on trial, the little riff about trials and interrogations being less concerned with seeking the truth than eking out a desired result was good food for thought.

There are six days left in April. Just thought I'd mention that.

(It may seem this post was not about The Book, really. And yet it was, it was...)

"They saw everything upside down..."

Poor Ellen! Poor Moscow! And the poor Emperor!

I've slowly but surely been resuming my reading. Dipped a toe in here, done a wrist-deep splash there. This book has truly been my Korea companion. I've gone into hiding, I've gone into a haze of foreigners and activities and late nights, I've gone into a full plate of artsy activities, I've gone into give-work-your-all mode. And with each plunge headlong the book has been with me, mirroring my steady progress. The war keeps marching along, and the peace is always there waiting in the wings.

Moscow's inhabitants have fled to distant provinces and Tolstoy comments that people looking back at that historical period think everyone was engaged in heroic acts. People looking back do not see the personal human interest stories of the moment.

And yet actually those personal interests of the moment are always so much more significant than the general issues that because of them the latter are never felt -- not even noticed, in fact. The majority of the people paid no attention to the general course of events but were influenced only by their immediate personal interests. And it was just these people whose activities were of the greatest service at the time. Those who endeavored to understand the general course of events and hoped by self-sacrifice and heroism to take part in it were the most useless members of society...The law forbidding us to taste of the fruit of the tree of knowledge is particularly manifested in historical events. Only unconscious action bears fruit... - pp. 1126-1127



This book is full of riches. Hoping to take part? I've done that. "Unconscious action bears fruit." Indeed.

Well, Happy Easter! Go in peace.

Sparkling & Quivering

Napoleon sits on a hill contemplating Moscow, the city he is about to roll into as the citizenry evacuate. He thinks:

"'Yet there she is, lying at my feet, her golden domes and crosses sparkling and quivering in the sunlight. But I will spare her. On those ancient monuments of barbarism and despotism I will inscribe the great words of justice and mercy....And that above all will make Aleksandr smart, I know him.' (For Napoleon the chief import of what had happened lay in his personal contest with Aleksandr.) 'From the heights of the Kremlin -- yes, there is the Kremlin, yes -- I will give them just laws , teach them the meaning of true civilization , and make generations of boyars remember their conqueror with love." -- p. 1046

It's nice when theories turn out correct in life, eh? Such as mine that I would read War and Peace and discover a lot in common between Napoleon and George W. Bush. Hello!

I can hear it now, my trusty copy of The Book crying, "Linda, why hast thou forsaken me?" I can't quite believe it's been more than two weeks since I read and blogged. I'm only 46 pages past where I was then (1000), too. I've been really busy. I have concocted a lot of activities for myself and when I don't have something to do I have been disappearing into the haze of the foreigners watering holes and my English teacher friends and just generally trying to forget the things in life making me uncomfortable. I also have to finish reading the awful book we are doing for our reading group, which meets in two days and I have 200 or so pages to go.

But I just wanted to check in and let the world know that I have found this whole the-wounded-into-the-Rostovs'-house thing fascinating. I am on the edge of my seat about Natasha and Prince Andrei. You had to know it was going to be him.

And besides, my slacking off gives you slowpokes a chance to catch up!!

Must hitch up, time to hitch up!

I paused my War and Peace quest this past week. Hitting page 1000 made me realize that I've really been progressing through it at a steady clip, and it will be over before I know it. I am going to miss this little world that I've entered, and I will miss the characters I've come to know, and I will truly miss gaining all my little insights from it. But mostly I will miss just being in it, experiencing it finally after years of considering taking the plunge.

You are welcome to read the above paragraph as if it is about Korea instead of War and Peace. It might well be.

Today I brought the book with me to work, and thus had it with me after work, reading it on the subway to and from downtown this evening. I feel like I'm getting reacquainted with Ellen and Pierre and everyone. Pierre basically left Borodino shaking his head and asking "What the...?" Boy is he going through some emotional-philosophical upheaval!

Tonight on the subway I met a guy from Afghanistan. ! I mean, who ever meets someone from Afghanistan? It was really, really interesting to talk to him. I hope we can become friends. The weirdest thing -- apart from the very fact of having a conversation with someone from Afghanistan -- was that we automatically had something in common being foreigners in Korea. That's how bizarre it is, at times, to be here.

Naturally, the conversation at one point touched on Bush and American soldiers. (Those being two VERY different things, of course.) That was interesting, too.

So Pierre has left Borodino and seems to be ready to just say, what IS this? What are we all doing, and why, and how? Count Rostopchin gets into it with him about the proclamation, and Pierre simply stands there, his expression not changing. I imagine after what he's just witnessed, a little thing like this bigwig warning him off seems utterly ridiculous, although he likely will have to disappear.

Prior to that, with no room at the inn, Pierre dozes in his carriage dreaming of sitting at the table with his benefactor and many others, epiphanic wisdom floating into his brain. Tolstoy captures so well that sensation of waking up and then trying to get back into your dream, and how disappointing it is when the scene changes.

I feel bad for him about his crazy wife, but I did like that he didn't seem to care one whit about indulging in conversation about it. He's so over it. He's so over so many things, but he's still seeking, too. At long last, I can relate to Pierre. He's just being bombarded by insights and life. He can't help it.

"The one thing Pierre desired now with his whole soul was quickly to get away from the horrifying sensations he had undergone that day, to return to the ordinary conditions of life, and to sleep peacefully in his own bed in his own room. He felt that only in the ordinary conditions of life would he be able to understand himself and all he had seen and experienced. But these ordinary conditions were nowhere to be found." -- p. 1007

1000!

I've reached it. Page 1000. It's all downhill from here.

But I really won't want it to end! And I've even found myself holding back this week: I have slowed my reading pace, because I feel like War and Peace is a little world I'm inhabiting and I'm not ready to move.

As mentioned in my main blog I read a chunk of The Book, specifically the Borodino battle scenes, while sitting in the back row of the random sweat-smelling auditorium where we will hold preschool graduation this weekend and where on Thursday we had a rehearsal that purported to be a run-through but was more like a disaster. Needless to say, it was a strange juxtaposition of the mess of 5-year-old children delivering speeches, poems, songs and dances and the mess of soldiers delivering cannon fire, messages to their commanders, prayers. One was a chaotic battle gone awry but nonetheless destined to go down in history, and the other was great literature!

I'm definitely worried that Prince Andrei is going to die. He's spending a lot of pages feeling that he's about to die. And it's interesting to see how it makes him grapple with life, including the reminiscence about Natasha delightedly telling him a story one evening and him truly understanding her. It made me wonder--again--why did their relationship have to be doomed? Or, was it not, and she just sucks for screwing it up? I really related to Natasha and saw so many echoes of my falling for a twit in their falling for each other.

You may recall that while I've meant to read this book forever, part of what has re-sparked my interest of late is what I can gain from it vis-a-vis the current political situation in the U.S.A. Specifically, Napoleon=Dubya. Well that was ringing true in this week's reading! Things fall apart for Monsieur l'empereur and he just sits there atop his horse kind of shocked: Wait, I can't lose a war! Everyone's supposed to be admiring me! What's going on!

"This man, predestined by Providence for the deplorable, ineluctable role of executioner of peoples, persuaded himself that the motive of his acts had been the welfare of peoples, and that he could control the destinies of millions and do good by the exercise of his power!" - p. 981

In fact, that quote would be perfect, except I don't give Bush as much credit on that score as many analysts do. I think he's far more insidious than misguided. (And he's plenty misguided.)

"He boldly assumed full responsibility for what had happened, and his beclouded mind found justification in the belief that among the hundreds of thousands of men who lost their lives, there were fewer Frenchmen than Hessians and Bavarians." --p. 982

Tolstoy grappled with war, I know. It brought a lot of things to his life, not the least of which was wisdom that influenced this very masterpiece. But in this turning point scene, he reiterates how very senseless it is, how absurd to slaughter our fellow men, and how it is still more folly to think we actually understand history.

His mathematical-philosophical-historical motion musings at the start of Book Three Part Three are utterly brilliant. In fact, I hereby urge all of you, absolutely regardless of whether you're reading this book now or ever will, to go directly to your nearest bookstore, do not pass go, do not collect $200, and pick up the Signet Classic paperback ISBN 0451-52326-1 edition and read pages 985-991. Mr. T. is brilliant.

"Ah, with head all mazed, Living in a foreign land..."

I have definitely, officially got into a routine, which can be remarkably similar to a rut. A mere o-i-n-e away, in fact. I realized this today when I went, as usual, to the IKEA cafe (remember, it's just a cafe, no furniture store) in the shopping plaza across from my work. After the woman greeted me and I ordered my cappuccino, I turned and decided to sit at the second table from the counter instead of at the first table, and in the big comfy couch facing the door instead of the big comfy couch facing the kitchen and espresso machine area. I don't know why; I used to bounce around the tables in there but in the last couple weeks have sort of taken a liking to "my" spot on that particular couch. Well, I went for a new one today and I realized there are decorations on the wall that was in my new line of sight that I have literally never observed were there, including a very amusing one of the back of a witch and dangling broom that look like she has flown into the wall.

Isn't that pathetic? That I've been that unobservant? I've gone there two, three, four, sometimes five days a week for more than a month. I'd observed the other three walls, notably the one with the quote (in English) from Frost's "The Road Not Taken" along it. It was weird.

I must say that I like having this comforting little ritual for my reading of The Book, though. I do occasionally read bits of it elsewhere -- the subway, my bed. But my subway rides in Daegu tend to be short, so we're talking a page here and there, and lately I've taken to reading other things on the weekends and goodness knows that late at night I read about three sentences before fading off to sleep.

So, Rostov and Princess Marya, huh? I like this, but I really hope Mr. T's got something lovely in store for Sonya. I feel sorry for her. She's been so loyal and true while Natasha falls in love with someone new every five seconds and swears it's for life.

And hey! Borodino! Remember when I was babbling about "the" War and Peace battlefield in Nelson DeMille's The Charm School and swore soon enough I'd know what I was talking about, when I got to it in W&P? Well, it was Borodino (I think!) And the battle is about to happen! I've just finished the chapter where Tolstoy delineates how entirely NOT according to plan the whole thing was, despite historians' assurances to the contrary, assurances designed to make Napoleon and or Russian military commanders look brilliant.

The amusing part of today's reading was Julie -- she rather reminds me of a homecoming queen -- finding it so hard not to speak French and her guest the militia officer crying "Forfeit! Forfeit!" each time she slipped. It seems that with the newfound loathing of all things French the Russians in the rich nobility circles pay a little fine to the "Committee for Voluntary Contributions" whenever they slip up or utter a Gallicism. That in particular kind of reminds me of the "Voldemoort Swear Cup" at Cambridgeside Borders. The whole thing actually reminded me of my students, especially my pre-schoolers, who are just so delighted with themselves all the time that even though they know they're supposed to be speaking English and not Korean in my class, they can't help bursting forth sometimes. It was great fun, that chapter.

I guess Pierre's off to ride with the regiment now, for real. Maybe he finds meaning in his life at Borodino; I'll know soon. He's got to be the thinly veiled "fictional" representation of Tolstoy, with all his seeking and being an outcast with a healthy dose of dumb luck, religious inquiring and genuine good will, and so on. I think Tolstoy writes about him with a more disdainful tone earlier on in the book and then grows to like him because he probably did the same thing with himself.

As I sat in my couch facing a different direction today, getting a much needed new perspective, I received a bit of inspiration from The Book. Cosmic sign? Perhaps. I was stressing -- crying, even (good thing I'd sat facing away from coffee girl, you see) -- about a personal emotional decision, and then Kutuzov gives his sort of pep talk to Andrei about patience and time being the answer.

"'I'll tell you what to do, and what I do. When in doubt, my dear fellow--' he paused, 'do nothing.' He spoke with deliberate emphasis." -- p. 896

I needed that.

Lovin' the Tsar

now reading: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

"Pfuhl was one of those inordinately, unshakably self-assured men -- self-assured to the point of martyrdom, as only a German can be, because only a German bases his self-assurance on an abstract idea: science, that is, the supposed knowledge of absoute truth. A Frenchman's self-assurance stems from his belief that he is mentally and physically irresistibly fascinating to both men and women. An Englishman's self-assurance is founded on his being a citizen of the best organized state in the world and on the fact that, as an Englishman he always knows what to do, and that whatever he does as an Englishman is unquestionably correct. An Italian is self-assured because he is excitable and easily forgets himself and others. A Russian is self-assured simply because he knows nothing and does not want to know anything, since he does not believe in the possibility of knowing anything fully. But a German's self-assurance is the worst of all, more inflexible and repellent than any other, because he imagines that he knows the truth, science, which is his own invention, but which for him is absolute truth." - pp. 770-771

I wonder what, if anything, Tolstoy might have added if he had written 100 years later, or 50, about the a U.S. citizen's self-assurance? Perhaps nothing, but perhaps something. How would Mr. T's world view have been different even thirty years later? He was so observant. If he had written 50 years later, it would have been a time when the U.S. had become a major player in European war (namely, World War I). Man, I'd like to hear from him today.

I like the way he wryly analyzes the German's self-assurance. I frankly like the way he questions just about everything. I love his scene of the generals and important people who influence the tsar trying to outdo each other with their brilliant strategies; people latch on to their opinions creating factions, but most people just shift their allegiance to the trendiest theory, the guy who's got everyone's support at the time.

Rostov has come of age, and Pierre, despite the passage of time, is still just a bit lost, but he means so well. Natasha saw that really early on, too, so she must be destined to be with him! The latest freemason nonsense to take hold in his brain is the numerology assigning the number 666 to L'empereur Napoleon and Pierre's subsequent desperate attempt to make the numbers work for his name to assign himself a pivotal role in the Apocalypse revelation. Oh, Pierre. Le pauvre! He has to find meaning somewhere, in something, and why shouldn't it be Natasha, you know?

So I failed. I did not even come close to writing daily this week as I aimed to. Maybe next week. But Napoleon is pushing deep into Russia, and things are getting intense! When the Tsar blows back into town and gives his speech, throngs pack the square; they hang on his every word, or even pounce upon a scrap of food dropped by him from the balcony. And the people of the rich nobility party circuit are now rejecting France, the French language, etc., and anti-French fervor is sweeping Russia where French was the thing to know a few years earlier.

And so it goes, and so it goes...

"A king is the slave of history."

now reading: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

The war is on again as Book Three begins. I love the first chapter of Book Three, Part One, which is entirely a philosophical musing on whether historical events, and any events, are fated to be. No act, no politician's idea, no emperor's mistake, no general's accomplishment is the cause, that elusive "cause" of a war, something that the historians nevertheless seek, Tolstoy suggests.

"We inevitably resort to fatalism to explain the irrational phenomena of history (that is to say, phenomena the reasonableness of which we do not understand)." -- p. 731

And isn't the temptation to fatalism a great one? I have been indulging in it a lot lately as I try to puzzle about my life and why I came to Korea, and why now, and why I stayed working for Borders as long as I did, and how I wouldn't have met the people I met and had the experiences I had if it had been any other way. So many decisions that I couldn't explain to myself at the time I made them led me to the place where I am. Who could blame a person for sometimes thinking it must have been meant to be this way? It just must have! Logically I should have done so many other things so many different ways!

Synchronicity is a very appealing doctrine, of which I have become more and more fond of late. When I was working in Chestnut Hill I turned around one night after picking up all of the books to be reshelved that had been strewn around the psych & social sciences sections, and suddenly another book had appeared in the middle of the floor. I swear no one had come by, no customer, not even an employee who could have dropped it. It quite literally came across my path and I picked it up. It was Deepak Chopra's then-new-in-hardcover The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire. I read the inside flap and the mild irritation of "where did this book come from?" fast became curiosity as I noted the book was about finding the meaning in the coincidences in one's life. I clearly had to take the book home and read it that night!

It was a good book. I've given the idea of trusting in so-called coincidences a lot of thought since then. It's not supernatural, per se, but it just strikes me as too metaphysical for the agnostic foundation I have laid for myself. But I find myself going with the flow so often in life, and that flow guides me and does not seem to come from any idea I generate within myself.

"Consciously man lives for himself, but unconsciously he serves as an instrument for the accomplishment of the historical, social ends of mankind." - p.732

Now, this is much like the Lewis Thomas - Noam Chomsky sort of notion that humans are working toward some greater end we can't see or possibly conceive of. When you watch the ants build the anthill, isn't each ant carrying its weight, pursuing its own individual struggle, although we from above see it as clearly a group effort producing an end result? If you haven't read Thomas' The Lives of a Cell, do so. It's brilliant. So the anthill functions like an organism, he says. And Chomsky, who is obviously just brilliant beyond brilliant at all times, has theorized about this with regards to humans' development and use of language, that we are furthering some end we don't, we can't know about.

"History, that is, the unconscious, common, swarm life of mankind uses every moment of the life of kings as an instrument for its own ends." - p. 732

I'm rather fond of this philosophy. It's hard to resist its pull. I had no idea I was going to come across it in Tolstoy. Yet, it seems that I'm not sure how much I agree with Tolstoy here. It's hard to wrap my mind around the inevitability of historical events; don't you want to think things like, say, September 11th could have been avoided?

He does say that, though. If Napoleon hadn't taken offense at Russia's demand of withdrawal, there'd have been no war. If there hadn't been a French Revolution, this war wouldn't have happened. If the sergeants had refused to serve a second term, no war.

"And so there was no single cause for the war, but it happened simply because it had to happen. Millions of men, renouncing human feelings and reason, had to move from west to east to slay their fellows, just as some centuries earlier hordes of men had moved from east to west slaying their fellows." - p. 731

Isn't it also inevitable, then, that we wonder why?

Enabling (the good kind)

now reading: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

All right, so I still haven't exactly figured out why Tolstoy was a revolutionary and Dostoevsky wasn't, and it's been how long since Michael's comment? (I've been pretty crappy about posting to this blog.) But I offer you this:

1. Coretta Scott King and Betty Friedan have died. What icons! What amazing pillars of womanly strength! or strong womanhood! or something. What made them revolutionary?

2. This weekend I attended a workshop with Amnesty International Korea (I have joined the "foreigners chapter"). At one point we discussed "activism." I should say that they discussed, and I followed along through the help of my able interpreter, Eun Mi/Joanne, who is the leader of my foreigners' group and my new favorite friend. Anyway, it was hard for them to come up with an exact translation in Korean, so they were talking about the meaning of the word. It was summarized to me thus: "Not activity itself but the power to enable activity."

And so it is, I think, with the revolutionaries. I haven't actually bought into the Dostoevsky-wasn't-a-revolutionary thing, but I'm just putting that out there in general. And you know, Mr. T really did have a lot to say about Christianity and he never relegated women to some random 'other' status, that I can see. I would love to have beers with the guy.

Pierre is so random. He just crops up in the book every once in a while and we get to check in and see if he's feeling depressed, and if so what he will do about it: tie a policeman to a bear, or join the freemasons? In the mid-600s (pages) depression seems to set in thanks to his buddy Andrei falling in love with Natasha. Now, I had been relating to Natasha's and Andrei's strong pull toward each other, until I started getting a sense of foreboding and began delighting in Sonya and Nikolai's love instead. And sure enough, Natasha has gone and locked her eyes on yet another man, just when you thought Andrei was supposed to be her one and only. He still might be, for all I know, but she has sent the letter to his sister so she may have done herself in. I wanted to shout Girlfriend! ALWAYS reread your letter/e-mail and see if you really want to send it at this time! I, the passionate letter-writer, stand by that statement.

And now I'm on page 706 and Anatol and his friends are about to whisk her off into god-knows-what fate.

So, this is the thing about War and Peace. Or perhaps A, not THE thing. Tolstoy has brought these people into my life. I've been reading approximately 700 pages for approximately eight weeks and I do feel like I have spent that time getting to know these people. And you know, you can get to find out rather a lot about a person in eight weeks or so.

This seems to be Tolstoy's magic, as so many have pointed out: his realism, his understanding of the human condition. I don't really recall this dawning on me when I read Anna K years ago but I should have, especially when Patty had us writing essays analyzing it through the prism of M. Scott Peck's The Road Less Travelled. I kind of miss my little BGHS maverick new-age English department. It was so very Arizona.

Mr. T just peppers his book with these surprisingly astute analyses of people's thoughts, like: "'I'm at work, you see,' he added, pointing to the manuscript with the air of those unhappy people who regard their work as a means of salvation from the adversities of life." - p. 573 I also love it when he has an eccentric character repeat a phrase, as "Uncle" does during and after the hunt with "a fair field and a clear course," and Mr. T writes, "'I knew you wouldn't be able to resist--good thing you came out! Fair field, clear course!" (This was his favorite expression.)" - p. 600

Tolstoy really has the uncanny ability to make you think life is great and that we're all in it together, and also he kind of makes you wish you were alive at the time/place he's writing about.

Then again, I am in the 'peace' stretch...

Why we love Tolstoy

now reading: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

"The Bible legend tells us that the absence of toil -- idleness -- was a condition of the first man's state of bliss before the Fall. This love of idleness has remained the same in fallen man, but the curse still lies heavy on the human race, not only because we have to earn our bread in the sweat of our brow, but because our moral nature is such that we are unable to be idle and at peace. A secret voice tells us that we ought to feel guilty when we are idle. If man could find a state in which though idle he could feel that he was of some use and was fulfilling his duty, he would have discovered one of the elements of primeval bliss. And such a state of obligatory and irreproachable idleness is enjoyed by a whole class -- the military. It is just this obligatory and irreproachable idleness that has always constituted the chief attraction of military service." --p. 590

I am steadily progressing, now in Part Four of Book II. Slow and steady wins the race. I have lately realized that reading War and Peace really is a major life goal to be checked off my list. I mean, I have used that as the definitive thing-I-need-to-get-around-to-doing for so long that I wonder what will possibly replace it.

So, Natasha and Andrei. I'm not sure how I feel about this. I think Mr. T is trying to drop some hints that the relationship is destined for tragedy. At any rate, they are so ridiculously in love that as I sit in IKEA Cafe -- it's just a cafe, minus the IKEA furniture store -- across the street from work sipping my cappuccino and reading my daily dose of W & P, I get all warm and fuzzy and squishy-like feeling just thinking about it.

Pierre and his Freemasonry are a little wacky. Pierre is just lost. I'm not sure what to make of him. I do, however, think Mr. T is sassy about religion and a little subversive, but in a matter-of-fact way so people don't see him as confrontational and antagonistic. I adopt that approach sometimes, but not as well as him, methinks.

Rostov's gambling nightmare was painful, truly painful, to read. I know what it's like to have such nightmarish debts that some kind soul such as your parent graciously -- too graciously --bails you out of. You can only hope to make yourself worthy in the future. I also know what it's like to watch someone have that psychological power over you. It reminded me of Yvonne or something. Ahhh, my crazy past.

So Michael has posed some tantalizing and hard questions. I wish he would also post some *answers* to this blog--hint, hint. Well, now, how does one come to be called revolutionary? Even people who fight, or who are radical, aren't always revolutionary. Revolution implies turning the known world on its head, eh.

I think this requires some further discussion and thought. I shall get back to it. First, to think about Tolstoy v Dostoevsky for a minute. I think they're both great. I also think that Tolstoy has somehow cemented his place as "the most important," but I'm not sure exactly why that is. The sheer length of his tomes? I myself am a huge fan of Dostoevsky: Crime and Punishment and Notes from Underground ... phenomenal stuff.

This requires contemplation. Contemplate, I shall, but my time is short tonight. I'll try to post some revolutionary Russian author thoughts in (I hope) the next day or two.

"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*

Hibernation

now reading: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

I told you I would spend the entire winter reading this book. Now, I did have my unfortunate illness in December as well as taking my Christmas pause to read Dickens, but still. I'm pathetic. I'm on page two hundred something.

Sometimes people on the subway look at me reading it but unlike in the English-speaking world where I would secretly expect them be impressed (ha) I wonder if they know what it is or just wonder what the big book is. Then again, people stare at us "wei-guk" (foreigners) all the time even if we're not holding a 2,000 page novel in one hand and clinging to the hanging-hold-on-to-me-thingy with the other.

I'm reading about Prince Andrei running around with Prince Bagration's or whatever his name is troops after Napoleon was like, truce? Are you kidding?

I think Tolstoy was super sarcastic and would have been a fun guy to hang out with.

I love sarcasm. There is a distinct lack of it here in the R.O.K.

That's all right. Now that I've bought my new (to me, but really used) computer I plan to hibernate in my room the rest of my time in Korea anyway. <---slight exaggeration

Except if I was supposed to eat a lot to pack on some excess body fat before going into hibernation then I seriously failed in that regard.