Monday, October 6, 2014

Missing History

As we have discussed in class, Leo Tolstoy spent a lot of time researching the history of Russia (and Europe) in the early 1800s to write War and Peace. Some instrumental characters in the book are based on historical figures including Napoleon and Tsar Alexander. I would argue that one of the reasons War and Peace is one of the most influential and popular books ever written is because of its basis in history, allowing people to relate and giving the book context in events real people experienced.

The first three books of War and Peace, or over 250 pages of the book cover the year 1805. Although this is an extreme, every other year receives at least a major section of one of the books. On the other hand, 1808 is covered in one sentence (367). If the historical context of War and Peace is so important, why is Tolstoy able to cover a whole year in three lines? 

5 comments:

  1. This is a really interesting point and I didn't really notice it until you brought it up. I don't know very much about the history of this time period but I can only assume that it didn't directly involve Russia all that much. If some large important battle was fought we probably would have heard all about it in detail. It's also possible that Tolstoy wanted to give his characters a year or two to grow up before he wrote more about them. Natasha needed to be older in order for her engagement to Andrew to be acceptable so maybe it was just a well-place omission for development.

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  2. I agree with Carson. Tolstoy emphasized history, but he focused even more on character development and I feel he would make a lot of sacrifices to ensure that his characters develop in the way he wanted them too. I feel like he did skip this year because he wanted to develop his characters emotionally and to show this change he needed to have a large chunk of time pass in the novel.

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  3. Agreed, even though he relies on history to center the story, it's still a work of fiction that spends most of it's time focusing on individual characters. If he'd been more focused on retelling history then I don't think he'd have spent so much time going into detail about the peace parts of War and Peace, since they basically only rely on his fictional character's interactions and lives and aren't obviously impacted very often by big historical events. Even the war part of War and Peace isn't always totally relevant to whats happening in all the family drama.

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  4. I think this exposes how the time distribution in Tolstoy's novel is faulty. Although I agree with Carson in saying that he did this to give his characters time to grow up, I also think that perhaps this is just one of the novel's flaws. Tolstoy doesn't maintain consistency in how he covers periods of time; 1805 is covered over 250 pages, but the year 1808 receives just a cursory mention in 3 lines.

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  5. I think all of your points are interesting, related and important. I see what you Carson and Sydney are saying about the importance of character development, and I agree he thinks his characters are the most important part, which makes sense. Isa, I would disagree that although the plots of the peace parts are built mostly on the development of the characters, the history of the time is significant in these parts of the book also. Niks, I would not call it a flaw, so much as Tolstoy's deliberate choice of omission.

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