Hi Friends,
I hope you are doing well. I was going to write something funny about how I have problem and my problem is eating carbs and how I can’t eat a meal without having a bagel or sandwich or pizza or pita bread or rice or something glutenous and full of carbohydrates, but I’m not feeling in a rather funny mood today. I’ve started a new job as a bartender for a zero-proof bar in Portland (i.e., no alcohol) which is fun (and a very important space to offer people) but it’s been a tough transition for the family and me and I am also exhausted from my girls not sleeping—and the state of the world in general.
I do however have some good writing news. I am thrilled to be a part of a recent Anthology that just came out called Keeping it Under Wraps: Parenthood Uncensored. I contributed a post you first saw here called Thirsty Penguins about becoming a stay-at-home-dad during the pandemic. If the title and subject matter of the anthology interests you however, I think it’s a great collection of writings and thoughts around parenthood.
I also contributed this fun piece to the Meow Meow Pow Pow blog called “10 Things I hate (and Love) About You (My Body).” It’s a body-positive piece about celebrating your body.
Now, for the main post.
At the beginning of January I set out to read something completely different. I was so sick of life in 2020 and 2021 that in 2022 I wanted to escape into a world that was nothing like the reality I was currently inhabiting. I was feeling bored with my TV options and thought I’d take another shot at a big novel (at the beginning of the pandemic I read, or at least skimmed, most of Moby-Dick). I picked War and Peace because I love Tolstoy, especially his nonfiction, and thought I’d try it. This Substack reading guide to War and Peace by Jeremy Anderberg called “The Big Read” also looked appealing to me as Anderberg gives a brief summary of each chapter and recommends the easiest to read translation. Anderberg offered this guide last year in 2021 because he realized there were some 360 chapters in War and Peace, which came out to about reading one chapter per day (around ten pages per chapter) and why not do something with all that extra quarantine time?
So, I thought I’d give it a shot—escape to 1800’s Russia in a world completely unlike our own. Well, turns out, history does repeat itself and another Russian war was just around the corner. Also, Tolstoy describes life in the world of 1800’s Russia so accurately in the book that it almost feels contemporary. The characters have the same worries, fears, passions, annoyances, complicated relationships, and experience living through the rhythms of life (i.e., war and peace, death and birth, love and hate) as we do today. It is not too far fetched to say that War and Peace covers almost every single aspect and minutiae of life and death.
But it is truly bizarre to be reading War and Peace while there is a Russian war. I’m only 300 pages in, ha *only* and the roles are reversed. Putin is now the zealous Napoleon waging war and expanding empire and, honestly, after seeing the bravery of Ukraknian President Zelensky as the leader of Ukraine these past couple days, I feel similar to one character (a young soldier named Nicholas Rostov) in his admiration for the Tsar and willingness to die for king and country (and I for many years could have cared less about any political leader in general, right or left).
At the same time, I think Tolstoy makes it clear that it’s regular people who suffer during war while the generals make decisions that effect the fate of millions from behind closed doors. Rostov also accuses another high up character, Bolkonky, of this, i.e., not fighting on the front lines as an adjutant.
It also proves that war is almost always complicated. Many young men fighting for Russia secretly idolize Napoleon for his strategic genius.
Since I am not a foreign policy expert or veteran, I will not offer my thoughts on here about what’s happening in Russia, but I do have a list of questions I am thinking through while reading War and Peace and paying attention to the news:
Now, Putin is a terror and egomaniac and his actions must be stopped or have consequences, don’t get me wrong, (this is without a doubt the most dramatic action taken on a world scale since World War II), at the same time, we can blame “Russia” for this invasion, but is it the Russian people invading? Not necessarily. In the end, war always comes down from the people at the top—in this case Putin. Do the Russian people support this war? Do they even have the access to news or a POV that is not state-sponsored? Still, Putin as leader of Russia has decided to invade another country and kill civilians and that is where we are. Russia invading Ukraine making nuclear threats to expand their empire and reclaim USSR glory days. The bombing is awful. Kyiv is beginning to look like Syria.
At the same time, why do we suddenly care about refugees from Ukraine and not say, Afghanistan? Or Haiti? is it because the Ukrainians are from a “civilized” “European” country? Because they look more like us? That’s not to excuse anything Russia is doing, just a look at possible double standards every country, state, and political ideology holds.
Also, didn’t the US invade a country and topple their government based on some dubious information? Several even? Also, aren’t there also military strikes going on in Yemen and Palestine as we speak. Why don’t we care more about those?
AND WHY ARE REPUBLICANS SIDING WITH PUTIN?! The simple answer I guess is that they like his strong-man techniques and belief in “traditional” values. Though I also think for all the Right’s talk of freedom and “American,” values they admire someone who can silence his oppressors through poison and it is no secret that the right would rather lean into fascism at this point than support anything “liberal.”
War is complicated and never good and often, when one takes into account the military-industrial complex, it is also a rather cynical, empire and wealth-building endeavor as opposed to anything morally based. I am very anti-war and this whole situation has got me down as to possible solutions and/or consequences.
At the same time, War and Peace is not a cynical or bleak novel at all. It is full of hope, the richness of life and relationships. In his post, 4 "Reasons to Read War and Peace in 2022, Jeremy Anderberg says reason #4 is that it causes us to ask the big questions in life, like:"
“How is “greatness” defined?
Do people shape events or do events shape people?
How do we view the tides and cataclysms of history when we’ve living in them?
What’s the point of life? What’s the point of love?
The questions are as big as they come and you’re guaranteed to have deeper ideas about war, history, and the meaning of life when it’s all said and done.”
I’m enjoying reading War and Peace for this reason, it’s given me a longer, more objective view of history so far, I think. We’ll see what other revelations are to come.