War and Peace, or War: What Is It Good For?, or Having Your Face Bludgeoned with 19th Century Russian Literature Across Continents, Time, and Space

       Back in September, CP had the inspired idea of reading War and Peace, Count Leo Tolstoy's hulking, monolithic novel of love, war, Russian identity, religion, and pretty much everything.  The book spans 1356 pages of dense, explorative, sometimes enlightening and most of the time infuriating prose.  Framed by Napolean's thwarted invasion of Russia in 1812, the book contains roughly 1000 distinct characters, multiple digressions on topics ranging from societal politics in 19th Century Russian Aristocracy to the meaning of life, with a grave emphasis on the prior.  Some would say that the short, glimmering moments of profundity outweigh the endless expositional narrative one must transverse in order to arrive at them, that this endless, vexing trudge on the way to self-actualization is a fitting metaphor for life, but if CP has to read, especially after the furious exactitude of Madame Bovary and the ceaseless allegory of Camus' The Plague, about the existential conflict that choosing whether or not to attend Liza Bezukov's ball or not entails, he will blink into non-existence.

       But it's important to finish what you start.  CP doesn't regret quitting Ranney School or the Cello, but seeing those things to their painful culminations could have forged a stronger, more resilient Carmen.  But that Carmen would have been a homogenized, soulless ninny that played the cello, and instead the world gets the partially insane Carmen that reads War and Peace for fun and nearly gets reduced to tears watching Starcraft 2 Battle Reports and has professional grade guitar amplification equipment.  Sometimes you have to do things for yourself despite yourself.  Sometimes you have to quell your Attention Deficit Disorder and bear down and accomplish something.  Gut shortsightedness.

Upcoming Posts, to Follow the Completion of W&P:

Caligula: The Greatest Historical Figure Ever, EVER

Bob Dylan: How A Jew That Couldn't Sing Wrote the BaJesus Out of A Zillion Songs

Carmen's Top Ten Albums of All-Time (A Ten Part Series)