catapult magazine

I’m really glad I took the time to plod through this classic by Tolstoy. The author really starts kicking it into high gear around page 837 or so.

I know it’s a long shot that anyone else is reading this right now too, but I’d love to talk about it here. I’ll just put the hook out there for anyone to bite. It’s an excellent book to read at this or any other time in our history.

read it several years ago, definitely a good book but tolstoy does to much moralizing for my tastes about the inability of the characters to see and control the future. i just ended up skimming about half of the narrators commentary on the characters because i thought it interrupted the flow of the story. something to be said for such a discussion simply not the time or the place, it seems counter-productive to mix a philosophy of history in such a pointed way into a novel.

Although I would argue that the commentary on the historical events is necessary to the overall story of War and Peace (I especially liked Tolstoy’s version of how Napoleon came to be called “great” by sheer “accidental” circumstances!), I definitely do agree that it was a bit much, especially the final epilogue. Tolstoy seemed to go back on one of his main claims—that historical theories don’t tell the whole story—by offering one of his own theories at the end of the book. Though the content of Tolstoy’s theory was consistent with the rest of the book, it was as dry and difficult as the historical treatises he was trying to undermine. The story of the individual character’s lives had already clearly showed what Tolstoy was trying to tell in the Second Epilogue. But I loved the fact that Tolstoy combats history (which supposedly belongs to academia) with a novel (which is typically considered a medium for the masses). Tolstoy argues with history by taking history to the battlefield, to the lives of real flesh-and-blood people struggling in the times and places history only theorizes about.

ah, alas my opinion on the appropriateness or usefulness of arguing a philosophy of history inside of a novel couldn’t be more different than your. in a sense you are right tolstoy does take history to an arena, or at least is perceived to rarely go, the real, flesh and bone world of hardship and struggle. unfortunately by using history in the venue of a novel, the history is questionable because the circumstances, characters actions and opinions, and the outcomes are at the mercy of the author, i.e. this is a work of fiction no matter how one puts it, the facts are manipulated by the author to say specific things. whereas, one hopes, or perhaps it is dillusional of the historian to believe such, that the historian is at the mercy of the facts. so the historians tale recounts actual historical events, real peoples accounts, beliefs, and actions, accompanied by hard physical evidence that one is held accountable for if it does not match up with the research of others. whereas tolstoy’s story does include an actual war and places, and some actual people remains a work of fiction because the work is still very much a product of his imagination. those considerations make me wonder whether one can then seriously consider tolstoy’s philosophy of history as genuine? it may meet certain standards for a philosophy but can one really attempt to use it in an historical situation?

Slightly Modifying the topic of conversation…

The most impressive attribute of WandP was, for me, the exposition of the Russian culture. Mother Russia and her people are so completely dedicated to each other, to the forwarding of culture, sovreignty of the Russian ideals, etc. Yet, society is inundated by central European flavor, specifically those of the French. High Russian society was thoroughly taken with French culture, to the point of speaking only French in transactions with one another. Tolstoy posits this identity crisis wonderfully in both Anna Karenina and WandP.

Suzannah

Yeah, I did appreciate that aspect of the novel too: the use of French among the nobility in Russia. By showing this aspect of Russian society, Tolstoy was able to display just how important the Napoleonic war was to the European identity, as a whole.

I also wanted to comment that Tolstoy’s historical novel reminds us that we shouldn’t think the only place to get important history lessons is from the science of history. History as a science only tells one type of story, the one about “facts”, as crlynvn admits. But if the science of history omits imagination, or neglects the human element, it handicaps its own research capabilities. And it gives us a distorted picture of the events as they actually occured in human lives and as people experience events. One often gets the idea from historical science that human beings are only motivated by new technologies, socieo-economic conditions, population variation, governmental structures, the outcome of wars, the threat of diseases etc. What a distortion of the richness of human history!

What Grant just wrote reminds me of something I wrote while studying Margaret Atwood’s Robber Bride.

“History itself is constructed and promotes a different reading by each new viewer. Each person who reads or writes history takes one path, neglecting the others. A particular interpretation is gleaned by each reader, never allowing the whole picture to be seen.”

Even the most ‘objective’ historiographer has as his/her basis a human subjectivity. No matter how sterile a historical fact may be, the conditions surrounding it will somehow intrude on the telling and re-telling. Tolstoy shows this in his meshing of personal narrative and historical ‘fact’. We see him, as the author, inbueing significance and the roundness of human experience into the history of Russia by integrating objective fact with personal story.

to begin with the main problem that i brought up still remains with the argument that tolstoy’s novel has historical valitidity. as far as i know, by all means correct me if i am wrong, tolstoy’s novel is only loosely based on historical events and people, for example, napoleon, war of 1812, and one of the families is suppose to represent his own family, but largely the dialog, ideas, and actions of the characters remain a product of his imagination.

‘ok’ the non-historian says, ‘so what?’ ’isn’t the ‘historians’ work still a product of her subjective mind; so why shouldn’t i consider something that is admittedly a novel with historical overtones as valid as a ‘technical historical work’ if not better?’ i am no believer in the pure objectivity of the historian; the mounds of monographs presenting differing perspectives often on similar issues, and the various historiographical schools since professional history began in the 18th century speak to the influence that the differences of culture, time, place play in the historians interpretation of events. what about truth in history, or versimiltude if you will? grant you are right, imagnination is necessary and important for the historian, i thought that was implied in talking about the historian’s tale, my apologies. however, no matter how important imagination is for the historian to communicate effective to the reader the primary role of what is cannot be ignored if it is called history. no historian worth her salt would go around creating dialog between characters that she largely imagined. according to hayden white in the tropics of discourse essays in cultural criticism

tolstoy’s attempts in wandp at an historical novel, though i have problems with that catagory too, leave his work in the realm of what he wishes the world to be because he fails to restrain his imagination with what is.

crlynvn -

You have said it all in your first sentance: “…Tolstoy’s novel…” That is the form of the piece, it was not meant to be a historical account of the cultural visavis political happenings of Russia, but a story of humanity and relationships. There may be historical validity to WandP in that such events may have happened, such people may have existed as he describes them – but this is not direct validity, rather a validity of concept. Just as in any novel, the concepts are what bring truth, not the proper nouns used in the telling of them.

Tolstoy was not out to write the definitive historical survey of the wars and nobility, but to explore the relational interaction of humanity during that time period. Do we reject the C.S. Lewis trilogy because it takes place in other worlds? No – because Lewis never claims to be writing ‘history’ per se. Yet, his work has truth in it. Why would we denigrate Tolstoy’s book for having more than average historical context (context being the key word here, not history)?

Another one of Tolstoy’s objectives, which speaks to some of these arguements, is that facts and accuracy can not be relied on as truth. Why do we call historical science “true”?

Tolstoy challenges the historical descriptions of what took place during the battles by suggesting that the actual participants of the battle had no idea what was going on, and weren’t even quite sure who was winning? They didn’t have the luxury of looking objectively on what they were doing, as the historians do.

Human history is governed by “subjective” truth, by what goes on in the imaginations of people, not in the facts laid out for them. The facts should have told the Russian army that they were out-numbered at times and therefore didn’t have a good chance to win. But, as Tolstoy reminds us, there’s always other variables at stake, like the will of the small army compared to that of the larger one. The facts should have told Napoleon that heading into Moscow with winter approaching was not a good idea, but Napoleon, as Tolstoy describes him, was too hung up with the movement of his heart. These are all “truths” about the event that history does not account for, with its focus on troop movements, genius and mistaken strategies, geographical advantages and disadvantages etc.

to begin with i don’t ever remember rejecting, suzannahv, the truth of tolstoy, i am questioning the authority of what he says in the venue in which he says it. say if we were discussing charlotte bronte or jane austen, both period authors, we probably would not be having this disagreement. simply because neither of those authors, while making very clear statements about particular historical periods and characters; relating the ‘story of humanity and relationships’, conveying certain truths about life, are not imposing on the reader ‘this is the way that the world is’. anyway,i am not denigrating tolstoy; i happen to think that he is an amazing novelist. furthermore, suzannahv i said it was tolstoy’s novel because that is all i believe it is, but there is grant who is calling it a historical novel and tolstoy himself attempted to demonstrate in wandp an historical method/philosophy of history( you know the large sections in the book where he goes on about the inevitability of the destruction of napoleon, the characters blindness to plots and devices in this world that hold them down), that is what i am taking issue with. (just as a side note from a historical perspective, strictly speaking nothing in this world is inevitable, there is always choice) in addition, grant and suzannahv can go on about the subjectivity of the historian and the grand story of humanity and relationships, that does not change the fact that tolstoy’s concept, i.e. his philosophy of history is based largely on conjecture. i think i would have enjoyed the novel more if he stuck with the novelist’s art and not imposed on me his grinding and depressing philosophy of history.

as a second point i have not taken issue with tolstoy interpreting the reality facing the russian troops as murky and subjective or his method so much, but when one does that there should be material, such as the journals of russian troops, to back up such an account. grant, no contemporary historian expects the characters to see clearly all of the facts, to do so would judge others for their humanness unfairly. given that you seem to think that historians judge the characters, expecting them to see clearly, points to an overly simplistic concept of what the historian does and does not do, think, or write about.

in addition, grant i don’t know what history (troop movements, genius and mistaken strategies) you are refering to that that is all there is, but that is hardly the limit of the historians. if i remember correctly the books i have read about this period dealt mainly in the passions, ideas, culture, and society of the period, i.e. the decisions and very humaness of napoleon that drew him and he brought himself to destruction. i think the main problem is that you are focusing to much on a narrow field of historical work, i.e. military history, which one rarely if ever is discussed in say a survey history class of the early modern period.

also i have to wonder grant about the way that you characterize historical work as a science; you harped on about ‘historical science as true’.
strictly speaking it is not a science, nor have i claimed it to be. history often is considered an humanity and sometimes a social science, personally i consider it both; art and science. furthermore, i don’t believe that i claimed that it was true, but i mentioned versimiltude; an attempt to approach the truth. the historian, i would argue, sees in the mirror darkly, thus they see something resembling truth.