My recent post about War and Peace in Face Book's Russian Literature Appreciation Group got very good reactions, and someone requested a few passages  so I followed up with this detailed analysis.

So happy about all the interest generated by my War and Peace post. Someone has asked me to quote a passage. I have chosen a few passages from Book VIII, chapter XX, titled: ‘Pierre at the Rostovs’. My apologies if the post got to be a  bit long.

In this chapter, Natasha who has been very ill has recovered  enough to take up her singing, and she realises that Pierre loves her. This is a very crowded novel and many other things are happening, too, but what happens in this chapter is so significant.

Why’s that? In a 1352 page novel, it takes 734 pages before Tolstoi gives us some indication  that what we so eagerly want to happen, that Pierre Bezhukhov and Natasha Rostova should fall in love with each other. But it’s never as simple as that with Tolstoi. A few pages earlier, in chapter XIX, we are told in the title that the intellectually honest but spiritually tormented Pierre faces a life-changing moment -- ‘Pierre’s relation to life altered by his feeling for Natasha.’

But that still doesn’t quite amount to love. It’s exasperating. Tolstoi keeps us guessing, and waiting. He’s telling us that life flows, but at its own pace, with  ebb and flow. The result is dramatic tension. He doesn’t fall back on the cheap literary devices used by the blockbuster writers. This is why I find this book hard to put down.

Of course, there is the question if everyone wants the clumsy, somewhat indolent and overweight Pierre to be Natasha’s husband. Having rooted for the dashing Prince Andrei at first, I eventually settled for Pierre Bezhukov. Clumsy as he might be, I decided he was capable of loving her deeply and taking care of her.

Now let’s see how Natasha reacts to Pierre. This is like time travel. Love is eternal, but our perceptions change. This is not the place for a long analysis, but just look at how Tolstoi describes Pierre’s meeting with Natasha at the Rostov’s in Chapter XX, Book VIII. She’s practicing her singing exercises in the music room. I’m quoting randomly:

“’Count, is it wrong of me to sing?’ she said, fixing her eyes inquiringly on him.

‘No, why should it be? On the contrary….But why do you ask me?’

‘I don’t know myself’ Natasha answered quickly, “But I should not like to do anything you disapproved of. I believe in you completely. You don’t know how important you are to me, how much you’ve done for me…’ she spoke rapidly and did not notice how Pierre flushed at these words.”

This is not a modern woman. It’s very 19^th century. Yet, we continue read and become very touched by these emotions. But let’s look at Pierre’s reactions to her words.

“By association of ideas Pierre was carried back to the day when, trying to comfort her, he had said that if he were not himself but the best man in the world and free, he would ask on his knees for his hand; and the same feeling of pity, tenderness and love took possession of him and the same words  rose to his lips. But she did not give him time to say them.”

That’s not a modern man, either. There isn’t a trace of macho there. This isn’t the time to debate where our modern macho culture started. I personally think the movies (mainly Hollywood, sorry) are responsible for this, with the Westerns and thrillers (conversely, when the men are so tough, the women have to be tough, too). Even Orson Welles in Citizen Cane isn’t macho. He is humbled by love. Today, every country’s movie industry runs on macho heroes (and heroines). If you go French cinema, Indian cinema or Italian cinema up to the 60s, the heroes weren’t macho. Even in detective fiction, let’s not forget that Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot aren’t macho characters. Martin Cruz Smith is a modern thriller writer who uses this point very effectively. His character, investigator Arkady Renko of the Moscow militia, is the very antithesis of the macho stereotype. Renko is modelled out of Tolstoi, Chekhov and Turgeniev.

The point is that young people take their cues from the movies more than books. If we had a generation whose libido was fashioned by books such as War and Peace, love relationships would be quite different. In today’s context, no novelist would dare  give the following lines to a female character: “Yes, you…you…” she said, (to Pierre) uttering the word you rapturously, “that’s a different thing. I know no one kinder, more generous, or better than you; nobody could be! Had you not been there then, and now too, I don’t know what would have become of me, because…”

Anyone who writes like this nowadays won’t find a publisher. But this is precisely why I love reading classical Russian literature.

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