War and Peace | Part 4 - April Reading
Hello! Welcome to April’s reading of War & Peace. In this episode, Shari and Rhea do a deep dive in the contrasts and companionships continuing to form in W&P. They spend considerable time talking about Pierre and Andrei: their arguments about what matters, their individual directions and efforts, their loves, lusts, and greatest desires. They discuss Andrei’s turn toward life after his strange and shocking encounters with beauty. They wonder why Pierre can’t be happy despite walking diligently in his Freemasonry faith. They discuss what Tolstoy is doing with Rostov and Denisov’s story, namely, pointing a finger at the corruption and injustices found in Russia’s Army, as well as the hypocrisies found in high offices.They also discuss the romances—and continued coldness—between partners: the budding love affair between Andrei and Natasha, the continual struggles between Pierre and Hélène, Berg’s marriage to Vera, and the way Natasha sees Boris as narrow like the dining room clock—narrow, and grey-like, while she sees Pierre as blue, dark blue, and red…. and square. References and mentions in the show:* The quote on beauty by Pope Benedict XVI, in his 2009, Meeting with Artists:“Indeed, an essential function of genuine beauty, as emphasized by Plato, is that it gives man a healthy “shock”, it draws him out of himself, wrenches him away from resignation and from being content with the humdrum—it even makes him suffer, piercing him like a dart, but in so doing it “reawakens” him, opening him afresh the eyes of his heart and mind, giving him wings, carrying him aloft.”* Quote from Screwtape Letters, Letter 23; by C. S. Lewis:“The thing to do is to get a man at first to value social justice as a thing which the Enemy demands, and then work him on to the the stage at which he values Christianity because it may produce social justice. For the Enemy will not be used as a convenience. Men or nations who think they can revive the Faith in order to make a good society might just as well think they can use the stairs of Heaven as a short cut tot the nearest chemist shop.” * The Gospel in Tolstoy, edited by Miriam LeBlanc, published by Plough Publishing House. This is the book mentioned by Shari near the end of the episode in connection with Tolstoy’s own complicated relationship with Christianity. From the intro “To the Reader”:“What though, is the ‘gospel in Tolstoy’ — is such a title even defensible? After all, this was a man who lost his traditional Christian faith as a teenager, and spent much of his career attacking the Russian church of his upbringing. Despite a sincere conversion and his self-description as a Christian, his views fall well outside the usual norms of Christian orthodoxy—after all, he rejected most articles of the Nicene Creed, and even compiled a version of the Gospels from which anything miraculous, including the resurrection, is left out.Yet with all his rationalism, Tolstoy remained a man haunted by Jesus of Nazareth.” —The Editor (p. ix-x, Miriam LeBlanc)* The Ethics of Beauty, by Timothy G. Patitsas, 2019, St. Nicholas PressThanks for listening to this edition of The Reader & the Writer! Be sure to hit the ❤️ button and share it with a friend.The Reader & the Writer is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support the literary work we’re doing, become a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to The Reader & the Writer at thereaderandthewriter.substack.com/subscribe
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