War and Peace

Over the last several years, even many years ago, I resolved to read some of the great classics,  Don Quixote, The Count of Monte Cristo, Jane Eyre, Moby Dick and others, but none more daunting or monumental than the hefty War and Peace.  I honestly find it hard to remember when I started to read Tolstoy's masterpiece, just that I started reading.  Page one seems like such a long time ago.  Was it September?  No, surely not, it must have been in October, perhaps November even.  Yes, certainly, I would feel much better about myself had I started in November.

Several factors apply for readers when considering such a work as War and Peace, but I'll mention just two that come to mind.  First, the sheer size of this book alone is off-putting to most.  It is assumed that something that large couldn't possibly be fully engaging the entire time.  Large and dull seem coequal, and besides, Tolstoy is a Russian, so I probably won't even understand it even in translation.  Secondly, many readers prefer fantasy and escapist literature rather than the linear narrative historical fiction provides.  One preference is not superior to the other, yet the purposes conflict.  Tolstoy brilliantly captures our differences in the following highlight from War and Peace:  "At that meeting he was struck for the first time by the endless variety of men's minds, which prevents a truth from ever presenting itself identically to two persons."

Here are some more notable segments from the book.

"All we can know is that we know nothing.  And that is the height of human wisdom."  Tolstoy seems to strongly believe this, as over and over again, he reminds us that what we think we know (about history, for example) is based often on faulty information.  In the epilogue of the book, he spends a great deal of time asking his reader questions like, "What is power?" and "What forces move nations?" Most entertaining throughout the book is his description of Napoleon, and his inexplicable rise to power.

Probably the most intriguing character in the book is Pierre, and at one point in his life he seeks after God by joining the Freemasons.  His mentor describes how to find God by saying, "He is not to be apprehended by reason, but by life."  Pierre's conversion takes place here less than one third of the way through War and Peace, and it is here you realize Tolstoy is a genius.  Melville's great achievement in Moby Dick is describing the color white, here Tolstoy achieves the same by describing God and man's constant struggle of reconciliation.

Humility is also on display in a later passage when Pierre acknowledges his battle with ego and self-glory.  "My God, I cannot get on with him at all.  The cause of this is my egotism.  I set myself above him and so become much worse than he, for he is lenient to my rudeness while I on the contrary nourish contempt for him.  O God, grant that in his presence I may rather see my own vileness, and behave so that he too may benefit."  Moments of brilliance like this one in War and Peace will have you doing a quick self-examination of how you treat others.

In another scene, Princess Mary is thoughtful concerning eternal values and the stuff of life.  "The longer she lived, the more experience and observation she had of life, the greater was her wonder at the short-sightedness of men who seek enjoyment and happiness here on earth:  toiling, suffering, struggling, and harming one another, to obtain the impossible, visionary, sinful happiness.  And they all struggled and suffered and tormented one another and injured their souls, their eternal souls, for the attainment of benefits which endure but for an instant.  Not only do we know this ourselves, but Christ, the Son of God, came down to earth and told us that this life is but for a moment and is a probation; yet we cling to it and think to find happiness in it.  'How is it that no one realizes this?' thought Princess Mary."  Certainly this is a universal commentary on the pursuit of love, the cause of war, or our own self-indulgence.

Do we deceive ourselves?  Perhaps not consciously, yet this deception is widely accepted.  Consider the following rant by Pierre:  "Helene[his wife], who has never cared for anything but her own body and is one of the stupidest women in the world," thought Pierre, "is regarded by people as the acme of intelligence and refinement, and they pay homage to her.  Napoleon Bonaparte was despised by all as long as he was great, but now that he has become a wretched comedian the Emperor Francis wants to offer him his daughter in an illegal marriage.  The Spaniards, through the Catholic clergy, offer praise to God for their victory over the French on the fourteenth of June, and the French, also through the Catholic clergy, offer praise because on that same fourteenth of June they defeated the Spaniards.  My brother Masons swear by the blood that they are ready to sacrifice everything for their neighbor, but they do not give a ruble each to the collections for the poor, and they intrigue, the Astraea Lodge against the Manna Seekers, and fuss about an authentic Scotch carpet and a charter that nobody needs, and the meaning of which the very man who wrote it does not understand.  We all profess the Christian law of forgiveness of injuries and love of our neighbors, the law in honor of which we have built in Moscow forty times forty churches---but yesterday a deserter was knouted to death and a minister of that same law of love and forgiveness, a priest, gave the soldier a cross to kiss before his execution."

Tolstoy uncovers how war really works and inquires if leaders in power influence the tides of war, or individuals collectively, inevitably, involuntarily determine the course and outcome.  "They were moved by fear or vanity, rejoiced or were indignant, reasoned, imagining that they knew what they were doing and did it of their own free will, but they all were involuntarily tools of history, carrying on a work concealed from them but comprehensible to us."

War and Peace also has more than one love story.  These rich portions of the book will anchor your soul to the one you love.  The times of absence due to the war allow Tolstoy to explore fully the definition of love even when invaded by doubt.  The transforming power of love is evident especially with the female characters, and  Tolstoy vividly displays a scene where Princess Mary sees her lover return:  "It was as if a light had been kindled in a carved and painted lantern and the intricate, skillful, artistic work on its sides, that previously seemed dark, coarse, and meaningless, was suddenly shown up in unexpected and striking beauty."

Tolstoy's insight into the human condition may be unparalleled.  I was moved by his description of the experience of loss, especially of a spouse, amplified by the nearness of death itself:  "After the deaths of her son and husband in such rapid succession, she felt herself a being accidentally forgotten in this world and left without aim or object for her existence.  She ate, drank, slept, or kept awake, but did not live.  Life gave her no new impressions.  She wanted nothing from life but tranquility, and that tranquility only death could give her.  But until death came she had to go on living, that is to use her vital forces.  A peculiarity one sees in very young children and very old people was particularly evident in her.  Her life had no external aims--only a need to exercise her various functions and inclinations was apparent.  She had to eat, sleep, think, speak, weep, work, give vent to her anger, and so on, merely because she had a stomach, a brain, muscles, nerves, and a liver.  She did these things not under any external impulse as people in the full vigor of life do, when behind the purpose for which they strive that of exercising their functions remains unnoticed.  She talked only because she physically needed to exercise her tongue and lungs.  She cried as a child does, because her nose had to be cleared, and so on.  What for people in their full vigor is an aim was for her evidently merely a pretext."

There's so much one can say about War and Peace, but I mostly wanted it to speak for itself.  It's a wonderful, moving novel, and uniquely tethers you to the story even upon completion.

A Day at The Post Office: The True Account

0700  Start your day by standing in line to swipe your always reliable card through the always reliable time clock.  After several attempts, your card will be accepted and you are now ready to get your vehicle keys and begin your day.  Follow your eager uniformed colleagues outside for a vehicle inspection.  Attempt to start your LLV(Long Life Vehicle).  The starting ability will directly correspond to your level of health and temperament.  Four inflated tires and an emergency brake that isn't frozen in place will have you whistling a happy tune on your way back inside with the same uniformed colleagues, some of whom need post-vehicle inspection counseling, judging by the frequency of words starting with the sixth letter of the alphabet.  Once you reenter the building, you'll want to assess the workload.  Your evaluation will have you well-prepared when your boss comes by to ask you for a commitment.  He or she will be looking for a departure time and a return time for your assigned route.  Keep your responses monosyllabic and try to gaze off in the distance.  Mastering this approach to management will keep you off the radar, unlike the sixth letter guy who has just been called to the office over the intercom.  While you're sorting your mail, you'll want to listen attentively to the daily accident report, a list of yesterday's unfortunate injuries.  Imagine the hit TV show Wipeout as an audiobook narrated by Ben Stein.  Actual reports have included bee stings, cat attacks, and paper cuts, all of which usually require four to six weeks of bed rest.  These mishaps might explain the lack of manpower represented in your office in the last quarter, requiring you to adjust your nose a little closer to the grindstone.  Asking yourself questions about why you showed up today is inadvisable, just take comfort in knowing that you'll be able to claim a medical restriction for that hair transplant surgery you'll need in your fifties.

Now that you've sorted your mail, you are ready to hit the streets.  Bundle up in preparation for the horizontal snow that just blew in from the mountains of Moria.  Balance your temperament before braving the cold, because inevitably some well-intended pedestrian will quip, "Neither snow, nor sleet, nor hail . . ."  The thousandth time you hear this will be the one thousandth incorrect variation of this famous creed, but try not to let it bother you.  Soon it will be summer and this friendly greeting will be replaced by the ever popular postal motto, "Hot enough for ya?"

1750  Clock out repeatedly until authorized to leave for the day.  Congratulations on completing a grueling 10-hour shift at the post office.  On your way home, consider reporting dry skin conditions as a work-related injury, then you won't have to fill in for the co-worker who took last year off to recover from stepping on a pine cone.  Also, remember to bring your leaf blower to work tomorrow. Maintenance hasn't dusted your workstation in a few months, and power tools do save time.

Les Miserables, The Hobbit, and Moby Dick

The book really is better than the movie.

First of all, it's simple economics, considering the astronomical cost of viewing the latest overhyped, well-reviewed, Oscar-nominated 3-hour masterpiece.  I like to plan ahead, so I tapped into my 401K so I could see Les Miserables and The Hobbit.  I would have seen The Hobbit in 3D, but apparently even retirement loans have a threshold.  Still, I felt a little better when the soda sommelier cheerfully informed me that I was entitled to a complimentary refill.  Later I realized her insincerity after failing to finish the first liter.  Once I was settled in my theater seat, I endured 15 minutes of tantalizing trailers urging me to come back and have loads of fun watching the only two people left on the planet figure out that they're not alone after all, followed by 5 more minutes of upcoming crowd-pleasers that would probably appeal to me if my brain consisted of Redi-Whip.  Finally, I was able to relax and enjoy Gandalf singing "Bring Him Home."  That's the way I remember it, but I admit that my movie comprehension has never been precise.


As far as books go, I'm actually reading Moby Dick.  I usually read at least one classic each year, and this is the year of the White Whale.  Did you know that Herman Melville spends an entire chapter describing the color white?  Who does that?  Who even thinks of doing that?  He also has an entertaining chapter titled "The Sermon" in which the minister delivers the finest account of Jonah you'll ever encounter.  I'm still only halfway through the book, which means I've invested about $1.50 of the $2.99 I paid on my Kindle.  As a bonus, I get to read a well-reviewed masterpiece without any other authors vying for my attention, and fill my brain with vocabulary while sipping my favorite drink by the fireplace.  If you'd care to join me, I'll get you started.  Call me Ishmael.

Vapid Words of Torpidity

My wife has an extraordinary love for language, a love enhanced when she recently received the genius edition of Magnetic Poetry as a gift.  Magnetic Poetry is the whimsical refrigerator wordgame requiring you to form fun and imaginative sentences so the occasional refrigerator-reading guest in your home can exclaim with delight, "My, you are so clever!"  The genius edition contains words that require a thesaurus within arm's reach unless your last name is Melville or Twain.  I nibbled at the edges of intellect as I tried to form sentences of brilliant depth and meaning.  "Hence, the arid boor expunged fecund platitudes" is just one example of my tiny efforts.  As you can tell, successful word blends require careful consideration and deliberate thought.

What if each word we said was handpicked carefully, piecing together sentences with as much deliberation as a celebrity chef selecting the right spice?   I have to admit, I'm discouraged by our verbose zeal.  Eager to make our opinions count, we weigh in with haste, slathering the tongue with temerity.  The real national tragedy is the obtuse fusillade of weightless words in the midst of heartbreak.

This might just seem like a pithy admonition for "Argue less, listen more," but isn't it better stated "Talk less, listen more?"

In the Book of Job, Job's friends said a mouthful oblivious to God's context.  In 2013, why not resolve to be slow to speak?  Now that's a tough resolution for us all!

Purging

My wife and I were discussing our upcoming 20th wedding anniversary about a month ago.  The topic centered around the need to purge almost everything we own now that we've reached this milestone. Neither one of us tends to hoard or packrat.  No, our problem seems to be the ability to purge as we go.  I recently donated a dress to Goodwill that was last worn to a banquet in 1993.

One problem with purging is relatives who are also purging.  These well-intentioners have more than once transferred at least 100 pounds worth of purged paraphernalia from their homes to ours.  Of course, you just smile and gladly acknowledge that you are certain that a place can be found for that large painting and those antique fly rods.

Our conversation strayed quickly from all the work necessary to tackle purging, into the desire, want, and potential happiness found in all the fun of replacement materials.  "Let's get a different house."  "Yeah, that'd be cool."  "Our van is getting kinda----boring."  "Yeah, let's purge that too!"  "I need a new wardrobe."  "Yeah, no kidding, I can't keep going out looking like this."

Conversations like this one are energizing and I was mobilized.  I decided it was finally time to replace the carpet in the living room and office space.  After the carpet was successfully installed, I decided that the office needed new paint, a new window, a new office desk, a new file cabinet, a new trash can, and  so much more.  Planning an idea when you are energized often leads to apathy in the execution.  Our office has been empty for almost a week now, the computer is set up on a card table, and books are stacked in the bathroom awaiting re-entry.  On the plus side, I found some really cool photographs.

Invisible Empires

Of the writing of blogs there is no end.  All of the blog titles are catchy, creative, and as fresh as the latest cliche containing the word "fresh."  Stories are shared, misspellings are ignored, and editing is absent.  Nevertheless, the words march forth building invisible empires,  phonetic Towers of Babel.

The goal of this blog will be to embrace the derivative, hug the well-worn narrative, and by sheer accident ramble into originality.

Enjoy