Summer Reading

Since my last post, I've gone on a whirlwind vacation to Gettysburg, Washington DC, and Philadelphia, and then returned to Massachusetts for the summer. I'm still missing my puppy a lot; I have to catch myself to not call to her when I walk in the door, and the house is so quiet without her. But, I'm getting used to it and my mom and I are working on the yard to make an area for the dogs, where we'll bury their ashes.

I've also started reading for fun, something I look forward to every summer. Jarrod and I have a tradition of reading massive books all summer; our first was James Joyce's Ulysses back in 2008, then Anna Karenina in 2009, last year was In Search of Lost Time (Jarrod didn't really stick to that one...), and this year, we're reading War and Peace. This is my second foray into Leo Tolstoy's literature, and I'm just as captivated the second time around. I love Tolstoy's characterization; every character has the inconsistencies and imperfections, the ugliness and beauty of humanity.

In the first book, I found the death scene of Count Bezuhov most fascinating, especially in comparison to the death scene of Nikolai Levin in Anna Karenina. Nikolai Levin's death spurred a deep meditation on mortality and a revelation of the fragility and mystery of life in his brother, Konstantin, but in War and Peace, the final sufferings of Count Bezuhov brought out only petty, ugly, undignified bickering over a will. The difference between a poor death and a rich death is striking in these two books. Nikolai died in a filthy hotel room, penniless, surrounded only by his mistress, his brother Konstantin, and Konstantin's wife Kitty. He was desperate to live and his death was terrible and painful. Count Bezuhov does not cling to life so fiercely, and dies in his massive estate, one of the largest in Russia, surrounded by his large family. A greater difference lies in the reactions of the spectators to the death throes, however; where Kostya is inspired with awe and terror, and contemplates his own mortality and the secret knowledge of death, the potential heirs to Bezuhov's fortune elide the mystery and horror of death. They fixate on what will outlive the Count, his enormous fortune, and fight with each other over the will with hideous cunning and selfishness. Their behavior was shameful, far more shameful than Nikolai Levin's desperation to continue living, his refusal to accept his fate.

A more direct confrontation with death occurs among the soldiers in battle at the beginning of Book Two; the young Nikolai Rostov experiences war and the imminence of death for the first time. I'll write more about this after I finish the second book, but for now, I notice a pattern in Tolstoy's writing, that people will use any means possible to avoid a confrontation with mortality and death, and so the only way to face it is to strip away all the distractions and view it in its naked horror.