Volume III, Part I of War and Peace starts with a new genre or a new strand of writing: the essay. So far, we've had the peace strand and the war strand, and I've tried to point out the many ways in which they are not separate phenomena, but are actually interwoven and connected to each other. Now, in addition to pure fiction, we have the essays, and so in addition to seeing how war and peace combine in the novel, we should try to see how fiction and essay correspond as well.
In many ways, it makes sense that Tolstoy would introduce a new genre right here, right at this point. Volumes I and II have been the "pre-history," so to speak, but Volume III brings us right into the year 1812 itself - that year that was so fateful (or "fateful," with the quotation marks, depending on your point of view) for both Russia and Napoleon. Previously, we had had large chunks of the novel dedicated to peace (all of Volume I, Part I), then war (all of Volume I, Part II), then the two started to become mixed together, then when there were some lulls in the war, peace (or "peace" - if you consider duels, betrayal, and cruelty to be peace) predominated. The characters have always appeared and disappeared, but usually we have had some sort of measure of consistency: we focus on Nikolai and Andrei for quite some time, then Nikolai disappears and Pierre comes to the fore, then we follow Pierre and Andrei, Andrei and Natasha, Nikolai and Natasha. A few characters predominate for several chapters, then disappear for just as many, but in more or less comprehensible chunks. But in Volume III, everything changes - war scenes and peace scenes follow each other in quick succession, the characters pile on top of one another pell-mell. Here, we have it all: war, peace, Nikolai, Pierre, Andrei, Natasha, Marya, Napoleon, Alexander, Vilna, Smolensk, Moscow, Boris, Petya. The chaotic nature of the war is reflected in the chaotic nature of the book itself. Any dividing lines that may have once existed between war and peace are gone, so why not throw in a new form of writing for good measure?
When Napoleon actually crosses the border into Russia, all borders disappear. The Russians can no longer avoid the war. It literally appears on their doorstep as we watch Smolensk burn to the ground and Princess Marya and her father abandon their ancestral home in retreat from the French. Before her father's death, Princess Marya does not pay attention to the war and does not understand it fully. After he dies, this becomes a luxury she can no longer afford. Andrei once again visits his family's estate at Bald Hills - but not to see his wife give birth to their child and then die, and not to wallow in depression, but because his military detachment has retreated as far as Bald Hills and he wants to be sure his loved ones have left the area. I had mentioned in an earlier blog entry that War and Peace seems in many ways to be based on circles, but that the circles are often broken. Andrei's circular return to Bald Hills is an example of this, and Bald Hills becomes a meeting point, an intersection, of war and peace.
I wonder if Tolstoy is rolling over in his grave right now and gnashing his teeth because I wrote "When Napoleon actually crosses the border into Russia"? If we think about the phrase literally, it conjures up an image of Napoleon, alone, atop some kind of white horse and wearing his tricorne hat, galloping jauntily along the Russian plains by himself. But of course, Napoleon didn't arrive alone - he arrived together with his Grande armee, with the Polish uhlans who are so ridiculously ecstatic to die in front of the Emperor's eyes while he's not even watching them. Tolstoy probably would have hated the phrase I just used because it runs counter to one of his main points: "When it comes to events in history, so-called 'great men' are nothing but labels attached to events; like real labels, they have the least possible connection with events themselves." Actually, maybe he would have liked my phrase because it proves his point: Napoleon didn't cross the border alone, and he didn't invade Russia alone, but his name has become a label for a particular historical event. He is nothing but metonymy; he is just a literary device or a figure of speech.
"Kings are the slaves of history." Tolstoy must have loved writing that phrase - almost as much as I love reading it. As Prince Andrei watches the machinations of the competing military interest groups, he as a fictional character realizes what Tolstoy states in his essays: that great men (or "great men") really have no control over the historical events going on around them, even though we (and they) like to think that they do. In another essay at the beginning of Volume III, Part II, Tolstoy writes that even though the participants in historical events think they are acting according to their own interests and free will, in fact "they were actually nothing more than unwitting tools in the hands of history" and that "this is the unavoidable fate of all men of action, and the higher they stand in the social hierarchy the less freedom they have."
Since the question was recently raised of why and in what way this book has had such an impact on me personally, I will again wax philosophical: Tolstoy is right. We like to think that political leaders or "great men" control events, but they really have less freedom than anyone else. I recently had a very interesting conversation with one of my students, who is taking my class on War and Peace this semester. This past summer, he had an internship in Washington, DC, working in the office of one of his state's Congressmen (for the sake of anonymity, I won't indicate which state, but it wasn't Indiana). During this summer's debt ceiling debacle, they were handed a document and told to basically "balance the budget." They studied the document but, he said, they came to two conclusions. All of their suggestions either a) would have made almost no impact whatsoever, or b) would have been so wildly unpopular that there was no way they could have suggested them to their constituents (like raising taxes), so there wasn't really anything they could do. I hate to become so pedantic that I see Tolstoy everywhere, but... well, come on! This has Tolstoy written all over it. We like to think that X political figure is completely in charge of events, that when things go bad, it's "all his fault," or when things go well it's due to "his genius." But the people at the top of the pyramid have to take into account such a myriad of different opinions, factors, and voices acting upon them that they end up having less free will in their decisions than anyone.
Tolstoy points out that it's not the will of great men that matters in history. "History" is sometimes defined by Tolstoy as "Providence," sometimes as "the amorphous, unconscious life within the swarm of humanity." Napoleon's desire to invade Russia is no more important than "the willingness or unwillingness of any old French corporal to serve a second term, for had he refused to serve, and a second and a third and a thousand corporals and soldiers along with him, Napoleon's army would have been reduced by that number and there could have been no war." This is one of the reasons why War and Peace is so long - it is the "amorphous, unconscious life within the swarm of humanity" that interests Tolstoy because that is what actually makes up history. If Andrei hadn't been so disappointed at being betrayed by a silly young girl and therefore hadn't decided to return to the military, if Nikolai hadn't found family life at home so complicated and confusing and army life so clear and soothing and therefore hadn't returned to his regiment, if Pierre hadn't been so intoxicated by the Tsar's presence, a new uniform, and some vague feelings of being useful to his country and therefore hadn't pledged to send 1,000 recruits, there would have been no Russian army, and hence no war with Napoleon. The Tsar can want war with Napoleon all he wants, and vice-versa, but if nobody shows up, what kind of war can there be?
At our last chat session, someone raised the question, after reading the essay at the beginning of Volume III, Part I, of whether Tolstoy was a pacifist. Yes and no. About a decade before writing War and Peace, he had fought in the military and had even taken part in the bloody battle of Sevastopol during the Crimean War. Decades after writing War and Peace, he became famous for his pacifism. Where exactly he was on that spectrum while writing WP I can't really say, but I am struck by the fact that the formula that shows up in his later works is already present here. There are two things that can put an end to the war between individual human beings: love and forgiveness.
Forgiveness is a major theme that runs through this section of the novel. It starts up in Volume II, Part V - we see it when Natasha slips and falls. Pierre, who is so disgusted by her actions, is eventually moved to pity for her and ultimately to forgiveness. Andrei cannot forgive her, and as a result is consumed by the desire for revenge against Anatole. He literally criss-crosses the Russian Empire in an attempt to "accidentally" bump into Anatole, create a new pretext for offense, and challenge him to a duel. He fantasizes about killing Anatole, about getting revenge on his enemy. Natasha eventually finds some kind of regeneration in religion - she begins to attend church services, and during the prayer service she fantasizes about having more enemies, more people her hate her, so that she can love and forgive them all. She thinks of Anatole not in Andrei's terms of revenge, but in the terms of forgiveness. So when the prayer passed down from the Holy Synod is read aloud, a bloodthirsty prayer glorifying war and requesting God to "Strike down our enemies and be swift to destroy them beneath the feet of Thy faithful servants," Natasha is confused. The narrator tells us, "she couldn't pray for her enemies to be trampled underfoot when only a few minutes earlier she had been wishing for more enemies to love and pray for." Public and private collide and can't be reconciled, so instead Natasha "prayed that everyone should be forgiven, including her, and that she and everyone else should enjoy peace and happiness in their lives." Forgiveness of one's enemies triumphs in Natasha's heart over the government's demand that she condemn them.
This is not a much of a spoiler, but a tiny spoiler it is: Andrei and Anatole will eventually meet up again. When they do, the moment begs the question: why here? why now? It is a moment that, in my opinion, bears reflection on the greater issues of the book: in spite of all of our desires to control history (like Napoleon or Alexander, or like Andrei chasing Anatole all over Russia), and in spite of our attempts to predict the future (like Pierre with his ridiculous - and grammatically incorrect - desire to see Napoleon as the Antichrist and himself as the anti-Antichrist), events work out in their own way, at their own time, and perhaps in accordance with a bigger plan that is beyond our immediate, imperfect comprehension.
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