“Yes, love, ...but not the love that loves for something, to gain something, or because of something, but that love that I felt for the first time, when dying, I saw my enemy and yet loved him. I knew that feeling of love which is the essence of the soul, for which no object is needed. And I know that blissful feeling now too. To love one's neighbours; to love one's enemies. To love everything - to Love God in all His manifestations. Some one dear to one can be loved with human love; but an enemy can only be loved with divine love. And that was why I felt such joy when I felt that I loved that man. What happened to him? Is he alive? ...Loving with human love, one may pass from love to hatred; but divine love cannot change. Nothing, not even death, can shatter it. It is the very nature of the soul. And how many people I have hated in my life. And of all people none I have loved and hated more than her.... If it were only possible for me to see her once more... once, looking into those eyes to say...”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
I might not have had time for much time for writing or other creative endeavors this past year—I submitted and published very little—but I did read a fair amount, most of my reading revolving around Leo Tolstoy’s gargantuan novel War and Peace. In fact, I consider it one of my biggest accomplishments over the past year (besides, of course, surviving the tripledemic + the daily shenanigans of 1.5 and 4.5 years old). I started reading War and Peace as part of a Substack reading group called “The Big Read,” last January. It turns out War and Peace has roughly 360 chapters which, I’m no math expert, but I think equals out to reading roughly one chapter a day in order to finish the novel within a year (and most of the chapters were a reasonable five to seven pages).
A major reason I initially wanted to read War and Peace was to escape from the realities of modern life in the year 2022. War and Peace is not a fantasy novel of course, but it is set in a much different time. I thought that sounded nice. To read about horses and snow and old battles and good old Russian fatalism. However, as I would come to my find out, one of the tragic and yet reassuring things reading the novel was how, when it comes to humans, pretty much nothing has changed. There are still the rival families, the political squabbling, the power-hungry politicians, the poor pawns, the out-of-touch rich aristocracy, the deaths, tragedies, dangerous liaisons and so on that have existed always. But wow! What a sweeping look at the many twists and turns and ups and downs of life. It really was life-changing reading experience in that it changed my perspective of life and the search for meaning that has felt so elusive to me (much like the character Pierre in the novel). Tolstoy really does covers it all—birth, death, marriage, loneliness, love, war, peace, monotony, the meaning of life, religion, etc. Most novels are forced to focus on just one or two of these themes—It would be impossible and often ill advised by one’s writing group/editor to cover all of them—but that’s what Tolstoy does. The main characters go through not one or two, but multiple character arcs and transform into multiple different people throughout the novel, which is how life is!
This is the true virtuosity of the novel—the rich characters Tolstoy creates and how he complicates the previously straightforward ways in which historians covered the Napoleonic invasion of Russia. Fun fact for my fellow nonviolence friends—though we see it all the time today—Tolstoy was one of the first writers to write about war as not glorious. The characters in this novel are filled with the same contradictions, flaws, strengths, and missteps as we are. It shouldn’t be surprising I guess, but it is comforting in some way, that even while we have been living through “unprecedented times” as of late, none of it is really new, unfortunately. The people in early 1800’s Russia were struggling with all the same things—plagues, war, economic downturns and inequities, respect of one’s family, searches for greatness, love, meaning etc.
War and Peace is a mostly traditional novel, but also interspersed with an historical account of the Napoleonic Wars in Russia in the early 1800’s from our narrator, i.e., Tolstoy. Tolstoy felt that the historian of his day who had covered the events too often ended up revering Napoleon or certain Russian generals and had no sense of the chaos and unpredictability of war. For instance, he often points to our base human instinct of self-preservation/survival which tends to determine the outcome of history and warfare more than any “great” leaders do. Long story short, the Russians defeated Napoleon not by some great battle, but by withdrawing further into Russia during the onset of winter, essentially extending Napoleon’s supply line too far out and forcing them to retreat. But none of it was necessarily planned that way, it was just the easiest course for the Russians at the time. This comes to be one of Tolstoy’s main themes in the book, there are no “great” men influencing history, life unfolds and it would unfold in certain ways or others no matter what. There is a certain fatalism to the novel in a way, in that life happens and all we can do is appreciate the present moment, not much of it is up to us to decide.
Yet if anything, after reading the novel, I’ve come to see that while technology has recently drastically changed our society (for good and bad, even driving us to more polarized extremes) our modern healthcare system (while still flawed) is really the crowning achievement of our current civilization! Or maybe that’s what I thought after reading through all the deaths and illnesses and thinking how many of them would be avoidable today because of modern medicine. But anyways, trying to keep this short.
Another reason I loved War and Peace is that it’s a brilliant look at the monotony that happens in times of both peace and war. You know, there’s all this history happening around the characters, but everyone’s still worried about practical and even petty things—their cultural cache and status.
Even in the end Tolstoy refuses to let any character off the hook and send them off into the sunset so to speak. There’s an epilogue, two actually, the first of which takes places seven years after the novel ends. Natasha, once the young romantic beauty and basically the center of a long love triangle, finally marries a decent guy, but, then, then, fast forward and she has multiple children and is a bit plump and has no time for anyone or any social event other than raising her children, ha! The movie version would have just ended with the marriage. This guy Andrey dies of course but he was hard for me to relate to (as a current stay-at-home-dad) as Andrey basically is an aloof general in the war and then travels the earth for a couple years, leaving his sister to raise his only son after his wife dies. He comes to some sort of conclusion about love and the meaning of life and gets some glimpses of the stars in the cold night that seem to reveal to him a deeper truth, but he’s still kind of distanced guy who I think will only really be missed by his sister and almost-lover. Does anyone else like him? Pierre goes through the most transformation and I related to him the most. At first, he’s a bit of a clumsy goof, a large guy who’s always rather awkward. He then becomes rich and respected but finds it meaningless so then he turns to hedonism, drinking and eating and so on. But one day he questions this hedonistic course of life and decides to turn towards God and moralism spends a couple chapters where he becomes a Freemason (we’ve all been there, right?). Then the war happens, Pierre joins somewhat, inept as he is, becomes intent on assassinating Napoleon but is soon taken prisoner and becomes deeply acquainted with suffering. At the end, Pierre reaches a sort of enlightenment as he realizes that he was searching for the meaning of life in all the wrong places—in managing his wealth and estates, in love and in war, and what is it he was it all about? Well, as Tolstoy says, it was right under his nose, it was simply loving other people. The presence of life around him. Paying attention to it.
Now, would I recommend reading this? If you’re an avid reader and fan of history and rich characters, absolutely, yes. But if you’re not big reader and short on time, then no. The first 100 pages are hard to parse through and I found myself flipping back and forth to the glossary to remind myself who all the characters were and which families they belong to. Tolstoy’s historical commentary can also sometimes become tiresome. Then again, it was nice to take my time, knowing that I had a whole year to read it. If you are interested I would recommend the Briggs translation which translates all the French into British English instead of having a bunch of French sentences with footnotes you have to look at (which is how Tolstoy wrote it but makes for an even more challenging read). The Briggs translation reads more seamlessly.
Other notable books I read this year:
Two of the best books I’ve read this year are ones I just started—Rob Delaney’s A Heart that Works and Jonathan Franzen’s Crossroads. I’ve been a Delaney stan for a while now and this book is just incredible. A candid, extremely funny, and heartbreaking memoir of grief, parenting, and losing a child.
I stayed away from Franzen for a while after, trying to read more diverse authors and expand my horizon beyond my early young man lit days of DFW and Eggers and so on, but I gotta say, Franzen absolutely kills it in this novel. Crossroads is a complex look at family dynamics in the days of a reverend’s family in the midwest leading up to Christmas in 1971. Each chapter is told from a different member of the family and each character is at a “crossroads,” or, as the book jacket says, “seeking a freedom that
Other books I enjoyed were John Darnielle’s (of the The Mountain Goats) Murder House, Sequoia Nagamatsu’s “How High We Go in the Dark, Isaac Fitzgerald’s Dirtbag, Massachusetts,
What did you read this past year that inspired or stayed with you?
Maaaaaaan I haven't read any Tolstoy in a long time and you're swaying me with this. I read quite a few things in 2022, but Klara and the Sun (Kazuo Ishiguro) stuck with me the most. I don't want to say too much for fear of spoilers.
But for fun, lighter reading from 2022, Grady Hendrix! The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires, We Sold Our Souls, and My Best Friend's Exorcism were a hoot. I find myself leaning toward more horror these days, as I think it distracts my brain from the real life struggles going on.
anxious people by Fredrik Backman is the book in 2022 that stayed with me the most, these lines in particular:
“Have you ever held a three-year-old by the hand on the way home from preschool?"
"No."
"You're never more important that you are then.”
I also loved the thursday murder club books 1 & 2, trying to read 3 now but my brain is still slow going on reading right now. I enjoyed the newest Cormoran Strike book a lot too.