part two

our hero warren finds himself near the battle front somewhere in Germany where his commanding officer wants to review the troops. though initially dirty and tired the troops are told to put on clean hats and smile to show how tough they are(bizarre really).It is here that a friend of warren's gets his first taste of combat and decides that he is in fact a complete coward.Warren is sent the German capital Vienna to report to the Kaiser that the Russian army has given bony what for but is received somewhat bluntly, as well as being hell, war is, inconvenient,if, your allies do slightly less badly as you do. the powers that be decide to send a small (several thousand) detachment of soldiers to hold back the french while the rest of the Russian army run like scared children from a blood drenched wolf with a chainsaw. Like a true hero (though not really knowing why) warren asks to be sent along knowing that the odds point to certain death.
Luckily enough certain death misses Mr Peace but catches many other men cannons and horses, the old maxim that war is hell is as true then as it is today, only more confusing.The Russians through some fault of there own escape certain death and live to run away another day

war and peace for those to lazy to read it (part one)

The book starts with a bit of too-ing and fro-ing. Our hero Warren a bachelor(and a wag with a few drinks in him), attends a party or two in russia with the clever set. A few people whinge about stuff, Warren cares not. Then Warren's dad dies and he inherits the lot. A short time later Warren joins the russian army and ,leaving his young pregnant wife with his father and sister leaves for the war.
Part two will follow (our hero is in germany with the germans, preparing to gove Bony what for).

Happy saints day to all .Even those over 5'6"

I have been reading this book for a short while, i have nearly finished part one yet have still to read about the hero, Warren. I have done a bit of research about him and discovered some jaw dropping facts; he was a friend and dancer for David Bowie, is also a bunny sanctuary whose blog can be found at http://wpbs.blogspot.com/ Warren Pleace is a well known comic artist, war and death is a vaguely amusing woody Allen film.

For your education entertainment and spiritual viewing pleasure:

Name days:The following Name days are real and celebrated in the countries shown, though are culled from various religions.
CARA
English Cara April the 13th (little is known about saint cara other than the fact that she is a saint whose day is celebrated,in England , on 13th april. Much more is known about Irene Cara, star of flash dance whose extensive film and music career is viewable at http://www.irenecara.com/homepage.html

CHRISTOPHER
English Christopher July the 25th

(apparently no longer an actual saint, the Vatican dropped this tall fellow after their 1969 reform of the liturgical calender. Ranging in size from 18-27 feet, yes feet, it was decided by the powers that be that this holy one man sea bus was just too made up to be possible)

DENISE
English Denise October the 9th
French Denise May the 15th
Latvian Denise October the 7th
Swedish Denise August the 7th

Denise was brutally whipped by the authorities, and her young son witnessed this spectacle. Denise, however, exhorted her son to remain strong in his faith.She was then, with her sister and son, burned alive. Charming family day out

MARTIN
Bulgarian Martin March the 1st
Czech Martin November the 11th
English Martin November the 11th
Estonian Martin November the 10th
French Martin November the 11th
German Martin November the 11th
Slovak Martin November the 11th
Swedish Martin November the 10th
Spanish Martín April the 13th
Spanish Martín November the 11th

Apparently saint martin had the ability to fly and shoot laser beams from his eyes. He had super strength that he used to fight crime, or that could be superman

PATRICIA
English Patricia August the 25th
Hungarian Patricia August the 25th
Slovak Patrícia July the 6th
Swedish Patricia April the 16th
Spanish Patricia March the 13th

Her blood, like that of Januarius, the other, more famous patron saint of Naples, is also said to liquefy periodically.The associated legend states that after Patricia died, a zealous man pulled out one of her teeth, causing the body to hemorrage. Patricia's followers collected the blood and exposed it. It then liquefied. Her blood is said to turn to liquid on her feast day of August 25, and on every Tuesday morning. Which is nice.

NANCY
English Nancy December the 1st
Patron saint of electrical engineers

SANDRA
Czech Sandra August the 23rd
English Sandra August the 24th
Estonian Sandra April the 19th
Latvian Sandra November the 8th
Latvian Sandra September the 15th
Swedish Sandra February the 17^th

An anagram of saint Sandra is- Satan drains. saint sandy?-and is nasty

Miscellaneous information:

Napoleon was reckoned to be 5'6", perfectly average height for a Frenchman of his time period, the mix up comes from the fact that the British and French used different measurements. In French feet he was 5'2"

an anagram-A Beanpole Not Prone

Getting into the Opus

OK everyone, I'm well into Part Two, but not without a lot of effort!

First, the introduction seemed to present every reason in the world NOT to read this book, (the writer refers to those who say it is considered dry, tedious, unnecessarily detailed etc.). What a way to launch into War and Peace - this did nothing to assuage my anxiety about ever getting through the thing. How many pages?

Then, as I arrived to the first paragraph, I discovered all that tri-lingual text. You need to become comfortable turning yourself into a bobble head, because the translation for the French and German is footnoted. Thank God for that, BUT . . . as you read through your eyes are constantly bobbing up and down the page in an effort to capture the translation of the elongated, foreign language text in the main body, from the teeny weeny english language footnotes at the bottom of the page. Up and down, up and down. Anyone sick yet? So the first lesson of War and Peace for me is get some gravol, because this Tolstoy chap is no Danielle Steel, or is that the other way around?

As and aside I should say I feel vindicated by Tolstoy because I have always been taught to write short sentences. "Keep things short and succinct" some marmy teacher used to screech at me in composition class. Tell that to Leo. I love his elongations, a man after my own heart, though I'll defer to him for the expertise required to craft such beautifully detailed sentences - and some are beautiful.

Also, I found I had some initial trouble keeping track of all the characters who so quickly swarm in and out of the opening chapters. This was due to a lack of familiarity with Russian names that in some ways begin to all sound the same, but of course they are not! So, I printed out a smart chart of character descriptions (thanks for that Denise) and then lo and behold, by the beginning of Part 2, and our introduction to the war front, there was rhythm and a story that has now grabbed hold of me. Just work through it and you will click into things. And, by the time you get to the part where you discover the outcome of manoeuvres to block Pierre from inheriting his Father's vast fortune, you're hooked!

Already I feel deprived because it basically took all of Part One for me just to 'get into' the novel. No time to really consider the role of character, structure, and the infinite number of literary layers Tolstoy has initially employed to give birth to the story. Oh never mind, I'm now actually enjoying the story.

The other fast-emerging reference need (aside from the character chart and my Cambridge dictionary) is some kind of map to help identify key sites and locations referred to throughout the novel. Well, I have discovered a wonderful google map that provides this which is searchable. Want to know where the fortress of Braunau is? Got to the map HERE and search! I've also included it with the list of links related to this blog.

Since we began this four other folk have joined our little adventure bringing our total to seven. Perhaps they'll post soon. There has even been an invitation to a get-together too, mostly as an excuse to have vodka, but what the hell?

Until next time,

Chris AKA Boris

This marvelous website includes audio files for Russian name pronunciation.

http://www.fredonia.edu/faculty/emeritus/edwinlawson/russiannames/

Bush learning on job.

This must truly be a joke because we all know the boy can't read.

Yeah, me and Princess Anna Mikhailovna Drubetskoya

The mere mention of reading ‘War and Peace’ usually makes people tune-out or at least wrinkle their nose in confusion as to why a person would do that (which in a library, does add to one’s concern…). So before I could begin, I had to try to figure out: ‘What’s the big deal?’ I’ve discovered a few interesting things: 1) There is a ‘progressive metal’ band called ‘War & Peace’, but I haven’t had much luck finding an online sample of their music…2) It’s been made into operas, movies and TV mini-series, as recently as 2007 (so if all else fails, I can watch the movie and hope that no one notices I haven’t read the book)… 3) There seems to be a great deal of discussion around why this is such a hard read. Even Oprah has multiple links on her website called, ‘How to Read War and Peace’.

Is it the length? That doesn’t seem daunting. I prefer series literature so that I have more to read. Is it the language? It’s been translated repeatedly – at least one of the translations should resonate with potential readers. Is it the content? In an era where war/battle/soldiers/shooting is a much sought after theme in entertainment mediums such has movies and video games – I can’t imagine that our collective consciousness is too delicate for the subject matter. Maybe it’s all the accolades the work has received. Could potential readers be frightened off by the works’ status?

Before I started reading, through the introduction and first 15 pages I was definitely of the notion that this task was too daunting and for every reason I’ve mentioned and more importantly, fear of appearing ignorant to my fellow reading group. I undertook my initial reading like I was studying for an exam. I scrutinized every detail, searched for hidden meaning, tried to consider in depth the consequences of character dialogue; this was wrecking the book. It became a chore and not wanting to fail, I had to change my approach or begrudge every moment with this text.

Normally I love reading fiction. I sail through it eager to see the story play out. So why should this be any different. Simply put, it’s a work of fiction and I am now treating it as such. With this new approach, the rest of my reading (and social life) has gone very well. I no longer feel like yelling at the other ballet mothers, ‘Keep it down!’ ‘Can’t you see your concerns about child development and social integration are nothing in comparison to my reading War and Peace!?!?’

Anyways, the washing machine has shut off, so I must return to my mommy-duties (yeah, me and Princess Anna Mikhailovna Drubetskoya). See you all in the land of War and Peace (and Vodka baby!!!)

xo,

denise

PS – I’m going to try and make us a genealogy chart asap :)

End of Month 1 approaches

We're creeping up on the last week of the first month of the year. In theory, I have read nearly 60 pages of W&P, but in fact I've read the first fifteen pages about 4 times. I'm determined to get back on track though -- by changing my reading time. At the moment, I've been reading The Book at the very very end of the day: after the Pumpkin Princesses (aged 2 and 4) are all tucked up in bed, work for the day has been done, homework, housework... you get the idea. By the time I'm ready to settle in and read, I'm often confused by the lack of sparkly vampires and their half-human spawn in The Book. Which perhaps shows that it's time to make some time to read when I've half a brain to imagine with.

First Post - about this blog

A few of my colleagues at the North Vancouver City Library and I were chatting about books we wanted to read but never seemed to have enough time for. That led us to some chitty-chat about War and Peace, and an initial decision on my part to read the thing during the winter of 2009. NOT!

Early in the new year, the shame of not following through with my initial commitment compelled me to revisit the conversation with these same colleagues and we asked 'why don't we do this together', embark on this literary right of passage as a team? We can support each other, pretend, even, that we understand the thing and delight in having scaled the narrative summit of all narrative summits (at least that's what one pundit suggests). And we are, after all, a group of avid library users (and workers), but of course, we would need some rules. So in short order we came up with some and yes, here they are . . .

1. Membership is open to anyone at any time during the year (2010), but you have to catch up and commit to complete the thing in time for seasonally-appropriate libations expected at the end of December
2. We will read the Richard Pevear, Larissa Volokhonsky translation (available fairly inexpensively at the local bookstore).
3. We will attempt to cover 150 pages a month (that should take the year) and allow those of us with developmental reading difficulties enough time to get through, while also allowing for other leisure, work, or academic reading requirements to be met while attending to the general pacing of our lives.
4. No snobbish approaches or reproaches to the read, just honest reactions by way of posts and moderated comments (cranky or oppressive 'bookies' need not apply)
5. And, if we feel compelled, we will call on one another for support to get through, one transliterated sentence at a time.
6. Any thoughts of turning the experience of this blog into another 'year-of' movie, gets permission from all the authorized members of the blog first, who will share joyously and equally in any profits realized.

So, there we have it, and we embark on a year of War and Peace. Now, for the experience . . .

Chris