Whoa…what the hell happened to the first half of 2010? Like I always say, the days are long and the years are short…Anyway, I’ve got a little mid-year milestone to announce: I finished reading War & Peace yesterday.
What, you may ask, possessed me? Well, I had been toying with the idea since reading the fabulous Pevear/Volokhonsky translation of Anna Karenina (as recommended by Oprah) last year. Was inspired to start W&P when my peripatetic college friend announced that he had downloaded the whole thing on his iPod Touch. (I’m not into the electronic reader thing so bought a used copy of 2007 translation online). The timing seemed to be right. We were rolling into a new decade, and this would give me something else to add to my (rather pathetic) list of accomplishments before turning 40. I even recruited a few friends and friends of friends to join an online discussion group. This, unfortunately, was a total flop (apparently 1200 pages is a little too much for people who actually have lives...) but I decided to hang in there and go it alone.
I started on New Year’s Day and gave myself 6 months. And now, almost exactly 6 months later, I’ve turned the last page. I’ve actually been almost finished for about a month. But the last 36 pages of the epilogue (Tolstoy’s closing treatise on history, freedom and necessity) have been dragging on. I was tempted to give up on page 1178 once the narrative was over. But I had to Finish. The. Book. And so I did.
The ever lovin’ had two questions: Was it worth it? Yes, absolutely. And did they all die in the end? No--a few important characters die, but they pretty much wind up living happily ever after. Anyway, I was digging the rich characters (loved nerdy Marya and was totally cheering when she snagged Nikolai in the end), the drama and the society intrigues. The battlefield narrative and Tolstoy’s reflections on history and historians were a little snoozy but (except for those last 36 pages) not torturous. I had a little Napoleon fixation in the early 90s while living in Paris (you really can’t get away from him if you’re an art lover in Paris) so it was interesting reading someone’s attempts to get inside his head.
Anyway, now that that relationship is over, it's time to move on. So what’s next on the Petits Choux summer reading list? For some reason, I find myself turning to women’s confessional memoirs. I’ve never really gone there before, but for some reason I get the feeling they’re what I need/want to follow this epic. (Is Elizabeth Gilbert somehow the anti-Tolstoy?) Someone lent me Eat Pray Love (which I started while slogging through that final chapter) and I’m finding it enjoyable if a little annoying (or maybe, as a Swede I used to hang around with once said, I’m yust yealous…). Have also been feeling compelled to read Mary Karr’s entire life in three volumes. I’ll take some chick lit to the beach next month. And then maybe some Barbara Kingsolver. Still haven’t gotten to Animal Vegetable Miracle, of which I have somehow wound up with two copies, and saw her latest novel on the new books shelf at the library. I’ve been invited to join a few local book clubs and have been considering picking one to join. I’m sure I would enjoy the social aspect, but my own reading list is getting long. Plus I’m not wild about the idea of having to host at my house. So I’ll probably just do my own thing. Maybe some Dostoevsky to start out 2011?
