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Lori Selke's avatar

I think Joyce and Bertrand are jealous :P

No, I'm being sarcastic. But they do seem a little overly harsh in their judgements to me. I'm OK with Tolstoy riding his little hobby horse for a couple more chapters. I am intrigued by the portrait of Napoleon in this book beginning as a smart, quick-thinking general and devolving into a dude who likes the smell of his own farts, to put it crudely. And yet he remains human even in Tolstoy's eyes, and sometimes if you squint you can even pity him at this point. He's just human, like the rest of us.

Kutuzov is more fun to read, though. Maybe because I am old and tired too. And the almost slapstick disorganization of the battle of Tarutino -- except it's also still war, and still deadly, and the disorganization and petty motives and things just enhance the ultimate tragedy.

I mean, anyone who thinks writing about the absurdism of war began with WW1 literature (and I have seen this suggested, so this isn't a straw argument) needs to revisit Tolstoy.

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Mary Vermillion's avatar

Thank you for the links. Saving Hadji Murat for later but dove straight into “Consider the Hare.” A lovely — and informative! — piece. “‘The cat of the wood,’ Heaney calls them. ‘The stag of the cabbages.’ If there is magic in this world, some part of it lies with them. So if you are reading this, my love, I don’t need flowers, or jewels. Please, bring me a hare.” Finding little moments of magic (the campfires among Tolstoy’s ranting) kept me going in this week’s reading. That and your generous notes. Thanks, Simon.

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