Tolstoy:War’n’Peace,passion,and magazine subscriptions.

[AccuTron]

(Such interwoven life.)

 

 

I’ve been reading Tolstoy’s War And Peace.  I am into the epilogues.  I treasure all his detailed descriptions of people’s motions and motives.  The first half of the book requires a bit of will to read, but after Napoleon invades Russia and Smolensk, the game is afoot and I stayed right with it.  I’ve read tons of military history, yet Tolstoy allowed me to “get it” at such fresh and full levels, that I felt like I’d never before read anything of significance.

 

If you’re a military history buff, and haven’t read the book, consider doing so, even if you just pick it up at the French invasion.

 

 

 

 

A quick glance of my book’s brief Tolstoy bio revealed a mention, but not explanation, of a novella, which can be read here:

The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories, by Count Leo Tolstoi

 

The bio indicated that Tolstoy named a novella after a bit of Beethoven he didn’t like.  Odd thing to do.

 

Then I found out why.  It’s the problem of stirred yet unfinished passion.  Tolstoy points out that a stirring military march music finishes when the march finishes, and it’s all wrapped up.  Same thing with sacramental music, the music and sacrament both wrap up, no inner loose ends.  

 

But Tolstoy asks, what about Beethoven’s passionate piece?  The listeners’ bodices and waistcoats go up a few degrees in temperature, and it’s not because of the ventilation, and when the music ends, where’s the End Of File for those warmed bodices? 

 

Like a modern concert might do, warmed tank tops would then go out into the unfettered expanse of cool nighttime sky, and maybe somebody has sense, and maybe they don’t.

 

As I write this, it occurs to me that these points highly resemble the points I was struggling to make in a previous forum topic about gang rapes at a Swedish festival by certain immigrants.  #36, etc.

 

 

 

 

 

Two days ago I was still in the main chapters of War And Peace.  Main characters had died, a slew of them, and the forced passions of loss abounded.  In this mental place, my doorbell rang.

 

It was the selling of magazine subscriptions for disadvantaged…etc.  I never do anything at the door, and had denied the previous neighborhood sweeps of this sort of thing. 

 

Yet this time I engaged, and wrote a check, and the next day I stopped the check and mailed the cancellation form on the receipt with the fine print I didn't read.  

 

Dope slap, what was I doing?  I could recall most of the salesperson’s speech, and it was straight from the book of manipulation.  Did I cave in because of reading that part of Tolstoy?  

 

Lesson:  If you are reading or viewing a passionate piece, splash cold water on your face before answering the door or phone.