And it was even better.
The 19th-century British writer and critic Matthew Arnold wrote that “a novel by Tolstoy is not a work of art but a piece of life.” I turned to “War and Peace” after 40 days of isolation to feel connected to people and, yes, life, once again … to feel reunited with friends.
Rereading it I was struck by subtle shadings of character development that I missed the first time and by Tolstoy’s thematic linkage of the war sections and peace sections. Tolstoy wrote long philosophical sections proposing that history (focusing on 1812) cannot be defined as the result of the actions of great men, as professional historians are wont to do. Tolstoy makes a case that stuff happens – for reasons that too innumerable and complex for mere mortals to grasp. Reading the novel this time, I was struck by how Tolstoy's model applies as well to the interactions of the main families in the tale, whose marriages, scandals, spats and affections look equally whimsical to anyone seeking causations. As Vonnegut would say, so it goes …
One of my main memories of reading “War and Peace” the first time was laughing out loud at Tolstoy’s sly characterizations, often with a simply parenthetical aside. His expositions of personalities are succinct and generally humorous. Take this moment in Part One when Berg, a seemingly one-dimensional officer, is making small talk at a salon. He is speaking of the raise he just received:
“… I get two hundred now,” he said with a joyful, pleasant smile, looking at Shinshin and the count as though it was obvious to him that his success would always constitute the chief goal of everyone else’s desire.
So what jumped off the pages to me this time was Tolstoy’s detailed description of an opera, especially hilarious when you consider that opera is huge and noisy and lurid in comparison with salon small talk. The primary action of this chapter in which protagonists attend an opera concerns the social life in the boxes, the flirting and jealousies and longing glances. But he intersperses the social dynamics with these precise operatic observations:
The floor of the stage consisted of smooth boards, at the sides was some painted cardboard representing trees, and at the back was a cloth stretched over boards. In the center of the stage sat some girls in red bodices and white skirts. One very fat girl in a white silk dress sat apart on a low bench, to the back of which a piece of green cardboard was glued. They all sang something. When they had finished their song the girl in white went up to the prompter’s box and a man with tight silk trousers over his stout legs, and holding a plume and a dagger, went up to her and began singing, waving his arms about.
First the man in the tight trousers sang alone, then she sang, then they both paused while the orchestra played and the man fingered the hand of the girl in white, obviously awaiting the beat to start singing with her. They sang together and everyone in the theater began clapping and shouting, while the man and woman on the stage—who represented lovers—began smiling, spreading out their arms, and bowing.
Hungry for more? Later he provides more details:
In the second act there was scenery representing tombstones, there was a round hole in the canvas to represent the moon, shades were raised over the footlights, and from horns and con-trabass came deep notes while many people appeared from right and left wearing black cloaks and holding things like daggers in their hands. They began waving their arms. Then some other people ran in and began dragging away the maiden who had been in white and was now in light blue. They did not drag her away at once, but sang with her for a long time and then at last dragged her off, and behind the scenes something metallic was struck three times and everyone knelt down and sang a prayer. All these things were repeatedly interrupted by the enthusiastic shouts of the audience.
It was as if a Mars rover was seeing opera for the first time. As a longtime opera critic, I couldn’t wait for the third act!
The scene of the third act represented a palace in which many candles were burning and pictures of knights with short beards hung on the walls. In the middle stood what were probably a king and a queen. The king waved his right arm and, evidently nervous, sang something badly and sat down on a crimson throne. The maiden who had been first in white and then in light blue, now wore only a smock, and stood beside the throne with her hair down. She sang something mournfully, addressing the queen, but the king waved his arm severely, and men and women with bare legs came in from both sides and began dancing all together. Then the violins played very shrilly and merrily and one of the women with thick bare legs and thin arms, separating from the others, went behind the wings, adjusted her bodice, returned to the middle of the stage, and began jumping and striking one foot rapidly against the other. In the stalls everyone clapped and shouted “bravo!”
Save the bravos for Tolstoy! I can’t imagine any satirist writing a more hilarious send-up of opera than Count Leo.
(Note: The opera excerpts are from an uncredited online version. I recommend the Peaver and Volokhonsky translation.)
