War and Peace Read-through: Day Two

Pseud.

I identify with Vera. Hold me Veeky Forums.

Principal Characters and Guide to Pronunciations from the OWC ed.

So what was up between Boris and Pierre. Boris was like "I'm not a gold digger like you think." and Pierre was like "I wasn't thinking that bro." Am I missing something?

He actually got the coat of arms wrong according to my endnotes.

iktf

>Boris: I'm not a gold-digger. But...
>Pierre: Ah, I see. You ARE a gold-digger. Shame I can't pay you shit. [later] what a nice young man.

I really like Pierre so far. He's so earnest in his idiocy. It's endearing.

I couldn't tell if Prince Basili was grieving for the Count or his inheritance. In any case it seems he's quickly moved on to his next plan with the talk of matching Anatole with Princess Marya.

That goodbye between Andrei and his father was quite touching. And the goobye between Andrei and his wife was hilarious.

>He actually got the coat of arms
Yeah, well, not according to his thoughts though man

>He's so earnest in his idiocy.
I don't buy it. His Napoleon-roleplay reminds me of me though.

>when Pierre is alone and pacing up and down the room fantasizing about being Napoleon

This is me. Literally me. No other character can come close to relating to me like this. There is no way you can convince me this is not me. This character could not possibly be anymore me. It’s me, and nobody can convince me otherwise. If anyone approached me on the topic of this not possibly being me, then I immediately shut them down with overwhelming evidence that this character is me. This character is me, it is indisputable. Why anyone would try to argue that this character is not me is beyond me. If you held two pictures of me and this character side by side, you’d see no difference. I can safely look at this character every day and say “Yup, that’s me”. I can practically see this character every time I look at myself in the mirror. I go outside and people stop me to comment how similar I look and act to this character. I chuckle softly as I’m assured everyday this character is me in every way. I can smile each time I get out of bed every morning knowing that I’ve found my identity with this character and I know my place in this world. It’s really quite funny how similar this character is to me, it’s almost like we’re identical twins. When I first saw this character, I had an existential crisis. What if this character was the real me and I was the fictional being. What if this character actual became aware of my existence? Did this character have the ability to become self aware itself?

>Despite the excellence of the Maudes’ War and Peace translation and annotations, their edition has drawn a certain amount of justifable criticism: in particular, critics have noted ... the translation of the French passages into English

>This new redaction ... French passages have been completely restored

but why... it really hurts the readability and enjoyment of the OWC version for me to have to swap to footnotes all the time.

Were the French passages readable without footnotes by Tolstoy's original audience?

I really hope zat zat German Colonel isn't very prominent.

Probably yeah.

I didn't mind it up till the part where that entire letter was in French. Trying to read that print is fine in small doses but Jesus that letter was way too long for print that size

Yeah the whole German dialect things is irritating. Is this represented in the Russian, or did the Maudes add it in?

>Have had War and Peace on my shelf for like 3 years
>Want to get in on this
>Already behind on pages and have a lot of work to do over the holidays

Fuck, how long does it take you guys to do your daily reading?

Today was a longer one than yesterday. Took me about two hours I think (didn't do it in one sitting).

It's up to you man, but you should read it whether you do this read-through or not. It's good shit.

Yeah I intend to, I could probably easily do it if I didn't spend like eight hours a day on Veeky Forums

That's...exactly how I imagined Pierre.

Classic Paul Dano.

Man, I wish I were not too busy to read along. Enjoy the reading lads, 'tis truly a great book.

iktf man

It's only day two user. You can catch up. Don't give up the opportunity. It's worth it.

"I'll never catch up" isn't a valid excuse on day fucking 2.

Don't worry, it's a long, but easy read.

I'd prefer a short but hard one. That would be easy.

> Is this represented in the Russian
Yep. It is somewhat uncomfortable to read as well.

>Were the French passages readable without footnotes by Tolstoy's original audience?

I didn't find info on whether the first two editions had translations in footnotes, but he was criticized rather harshly for the novel having too much French in it and it being inaccessible to the more poor and less educated. The third and the fourth edition was released with no text in foreign languages in them. After that he relegated all the publishing to his wife and French passages were put back with translations in the footnotes, right after it they released another much cheaper edition, on shittier paper, with everything translated in place, for poorfags. The thing is, Leo himself definitely wanted French passages to be in the book, in his response to the critics he defended this literary instrument comparing people who criticize him for it to people who focus too much on a portrait's individual brush strokes to the point of ignoring the depicted face.
Take that as you will, heh.

I think it's pretty obvious that the French bits are essential.

Yeah it's so important to the working of the book that the elite speak the language of the country they're at war with. And just that the elite literally speak a different language from the people

It's hard to get a read on Boris. I found that I was viewing him favourably without really being able to justify why. Maybe he just comes off well in comparison to Nikolai, who seems a little juvenile.

And that certain people can speak it fluently, others only badly.

Prob 'cause Boris lovingly kissed a twelve-year-old on the lips.

There's that, but he wants to wait for his loli to grow up, which should be anathema to Veeky Forums.

Yeah, I think his slight reluctance to fit in with his mother's plans is part of that. He's willing to do what she is asking him to, but there's that hesitation that renders him more sympathetic than her (her being utterly convinced her social climbing is justified)

Not that his mother is unsympathetic; we can understand her actions quite well as well. But still, I think the contrast between Boris and his mother does contribute to our picture of him as more trustworthy

How about you start using spoilers in the OP post so everyeone who isn't reading the book can scroll through the Veeky Forums page without getting a bunch of spoilers???

You really haven't read War & Peace if you think those are spoilers.

Also what's important isn't the plot

This is only the first hundred pages. But I take your point. Will do in future.

I also decided that Uncle Shinshin is a homosexual.

>tfw the French dialogues are rekindling my interest in learning French
>tfw know I'll start trying to learn French again but will stop after either becoming busy or bored
Maybe one day I'll be able to persevere to the point of fluency. Until then, I'm stuck being functionally monolingual.

Don't enable him.

Holy shit. I was literally thinking the same thing as I was reading today. I'm gonna try again in the new year. Give it a good shot user at least

Eh, his point stands for some things. I don't think its a spoiler to say >Intro to the Bolkonsky family, but it'll become worth doing once main plot characters start being killed and people start getting married and shit like that

>Haven't read the book
>Tell everyone that I have read the book and just get by with knowledge of the BBC version and Veeky Forums threads
>Everyone I know is an even bigger pseud than me so I never get called out

Nah, only plebs read for the plot.
So was I. Although, translating 'em is what's causing me to take so fucking long.
If you're out-pseuding pseuds, they're not bigger pseuds than you.

>not feeling self-humiliated by that pseudency

Look man, it's not so much reading for plot that's pleb as requiring a plot to read. There are plenty of plotless books that are worth your time, but there are also books, like War and Peace, where the intricate and beautiful construction of the plot over so much time is one of the things that makes it as great as it is. And it'd be a shame if someone couldn't experience that fully.

I guess you're just a pleb.

Thanks for looking into it and sharing. I'm surprised a full Russian version was released in his lifetime.

As a poorfag who just wants to read and understand the novel, I find it easier to read from the Gutenberg ebook which is all in English. It's interesting to know the French is there, but the footnotes are mostly a burden.

I guess I haven't lurked enough, but what's a "pseud"? Pseudo-elite? Pseudo-erudite?

>50+ pages a day

Fucking autists, normal people don't read that much

It's an actual word my man.
>en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/pseud

Apparently it's short for pseudo-intellectual, according to merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pseud

I thought it might have been a Veeky Forums invention, but I guess Brits in the 1960s got there first.

The book has an easy pace, it's not hard to read 50 pages a day,

Prince Vasili is clearly keeping Pierre away from the Count, in the hope that the Count could disinherit Pierre because of his supposed absence.

Vasili is just in for the inheritance, that's what i get from something he talks in the first chapter about the girl matched with his son.

>"She is rich and of good family and that’s all I want"

Done with the day's reading.

Words read on day 2: 27,937
Time taken: 74 minutes

Total words in book: 563,286
Approximate total reading time: 25 hours

>tfw still on page 15

Wish me luck lads, lets see if I can knock out 100 pages

"Our duty, my dear, is to rectify his mistake" wow, Vasili is such a dick

You can do it man, we believe in you

OP, you planning to make a new thread every day? Not sure it's necessary, but I'm not a long time lurker on Veeky Forums so.

Your image still has a typo: "this motherfucker could do still do like 80 pullups"

no one cares

Yeah, I just thought since it's only 25 days, it's not too much of a stretch to have one everyday. Plus fifty pages gives more than enough content for discussion.

thanks for doing this OP :)

Yeah Pierre at this stage of the book is our guy, but (im ahead) later in the book I think Veeky Forums will overall find Prince Andrei far more relatable

Wow way to ruin my imagination of what Pierre looks like.

Tfw you learned French in school and can read at least 70% of the French without needing to consult the footnotes.

tfw you took French in school but the only thing you remember is J'adore l'ecole.

I enjoy how every character has some degree of uniqueness (I hesitate to say autism) to them. Except that fucking German colonel him and his quirk can drown in a canal with a bear on their backs.

Just to clear something up, Boris was 14 the last time Pierre had seen him before leaving Russia, and Pierre earleir had said he was gone for ten years. So does that make Boris 24, and his waifu 13?

so what you're saying is... i'm lost

iktf desu

If Tolstoy were alive today would be browse Veeky Forums?

>TFW I have been pronouncing Bonaparte as Bona-par-tay the whole time even though it should have been Bona-part.

the fight that prince andrew and his wife had in front of pierre was almost verbatim (except no war, lol) a fight my wife and i had two days prior—right down to my rational, exasperated indifference and to her insistence that i changed.

tfw when 21, married to a high school sweetheart with a daughter

it took me about 3 or 4 hours total to read from the beginning up to now.

my head is still ringing just from absorbing all of what tolstoy wrote—does anyone else experience this feeling? while reading, everything is lucid and engaging, but i struggle to recall the text's impact afterwards. my emotions ran the gamut from anxiety, sorrow, detached amusement, and hope.

i'd really like to discuss the story with you all, but damned if i don't know where to start.

The only thing I hate is this table. You should do something about it, because as I said in previous thread, natives have different quantity if pages.

What are your thoughts of the pineapple ice-cream fiasco?

Natasha is a loli slut desu, giving my man Pierre the eyes with Big Boy Boris sitting right next to him

Loli sluts are what we need, don't we?

> I have been pronouncing Bonaparte as Bona-par-tay

You mean in general or while reading the book? Cause the former pronunciation is the one people in the book refer to him with. They are using the Corsican form of the name to stress his relative foreignness to France, basically taking cheap shots every time they speak of him.

You're correct in a way that original puts it. In Russian book it is actually Bona-par-tay.

Tolstoy just doesn't seem to give a fuck about the ages. Boris is also the same age as Nikolai, making him both 19-20 (as Nikolai is) and 24 at the time Natasha is 13. At the same time her oldest sister, Vera, then 17 (next year - 20, and in three years more - 24), tried to behave like an adult, the 20-something year olds were frolicking around with a teenage girl talking about dolls and kissing. Shit's just weird man.

Didn't actually bother to look for quotes to calculate the ages myself, got this all from this work: philology.ru/literature2/blinkina-98.htm - fun read (it's in Russian)

He'd probably be a redditor to be honest with you sem.

Yeah, in the original it's right away obvious how they pronounce it from the spelling.
But also in the explanatory notes to the OWC edition, it's pointed out that they refer to him by the name he was born with and from the wiki:
>born "Napoleone di Buonaparte" (Italian: [napoleoŋe dj buɔŋaparte]
You can that the e is pronounced at the end
Also, here's the shitty quality audio it.forvo.com/word/buonaparte/

> Have you read any of Tolstoy's works before?
> Yes - 13 (40.6%)

What did you read guys? People who didn't read anything of his before, how's his writing style treating you?
I read Anna Karenina before and loved it, thought I got used to the style too, but still the part with the rustling dresses stumped me for a bit. There surely was a lot of rustling.

>People who didn't read anything of his before, how's his writing style treating you?

It's good senpai. Engaging, accessible. The narration has a sympathetic flavour to it but at the same time there's enough distance to show some of the nobility's more absurd social conventions for what they are.

I've read Anna Karenina, Death of Ivan Ilyich, and The Forged Coupon. I hated the first two but a poster here recommended the last one to me and helped me understand Tolstoy's writing style a lot more, so now I'm really enjoying him.

I read How Much Land does One Man Need?, which is probably the most common one.

The narration isn't set in any one style -- it moves and shifts according to whatever effect is necessary. But of *that*; that I like a lot. Reminds me of gossip, makes me feel like I'm being told the events a few months after they happened.

my preacher once did a sermon where he read "How Much Land does One Man Need?" long ago, and ever since i've been under the false impression that Tolstoy was overly moralistic.

my wife really liked Ivan Ilyich, but when i read it, i thought it was too... cheesy? i didn't get too much from it.

war and peace, however, is engrossing and fantastic. what a pleb i've been, and for so long...

What was the deal with the Countess Rostov just letting Anna Mikhail go and embarrass herself BEFORE going "lol I'll just throw money at you"?
>my wife
I thought I told you to get out.

Wait
>my preacher
I hope I am being memed on.

I guess the strange rules of their friendship dictated that it had to be the Countess offering rather than Anna Mikhailovna asking, and that could only be fulfilled if AM was seen to be exhausting all other options.

Everything is a bit of an odd dance in this high society.

natasha's 13, right? tolstoy wrote about how, although the guileless children defy the court's demand for upright and emotionless conduct, their life-giving qualities are appreciated by all.

in the maudes' translation, i like how pierre is described as "stout," but natasha just thinks of him as "fat Pierre." even without knowing the plot, it's clear that she and pierre both possess that hunger for truth and human connection above all else. they'll make a good couple desu senpai.

>not being raised methodist, reading nietzsche and being a teenaged atheist, then reading kierkegaard and being a romantic Christian
>not having a Veeky Forums wife pursuing a PhD in analytical philosophy from notre dame
also, tolstoy said that social capital has to be economized—something that anna m. failed to do. the countess loves her friend, but she also knows that she can't have the appearance of a welfare officer. their frustration with the whole game comes out in their regretful, shared tears.

Count Ilyá dancing.

I don't think I can do this, lads. I don't think I was built for focusing on one book at a time. Now I want to read Montaigne or the Iliad or Inferno. How do you guys manage to read so much of one book?
no that's moe dancing

hahaha

That was such a good bit. There are so many wonderful little scenes like that in this book so far.