Daily Archives: March 16, 2016

41% done with The World of Yesterday

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Karl Haushofer learned the hard way how academic ideas can be used to twisted ends. His geopolitics was first studied by Hess who then passed it to Hitler who ‘pumped it dry’ (First we will conquer Germany and then the entire world.)

From Wikipedia: Lebensraum (“living space”) refers to conceptions and policies of a form of settler colonialism connected with agrarianism that existed in Germany from the 1890s to the 1940s. One variant of this policy was supported by the Nazi Party and Nazi Germany. Karl Haushofer provided the Nazis with the rationalisations (intellectual, academic, scientific) for Lebensraum, transmitted to Chancellor Adolf Hitler, by way of Rudolf Hess, who was Haushofer’s student.

69% done with War and Peace

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ma pauvre mere (my poor mother)

For the first time Pierre talks about and admits to his love for Natasha. And he does so with the “enemy” whom he’s supposed to hate. They talk of love, they tell their life stories, they share their experiences with each other. They talk about what they should be doing – loving, not killing. And implied in Ramballe’s stories are how me misses home.

69% done with War and Peace

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And not just because Pierre is a good man that he looses his will to kill Napoleon, but because he made friends with the enemy. Captain Ramballe is the first Frenchman we really meet other than Napoleon (there was that drummer boy earlier and Nicholas’ captured officer, but we never get to know them). Here now is the enemy before us, and though arrogant, he’s a good-natured man. Pierre can’t kill now.

69% done with War and Peace

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Pierre wants to be incognito but he’s too honest and when Makar Alexeevich nearly kills the French officer he immediately becomes his true Pierre. Pierre cannot help but be who he is: a good, confused man.

The limp of the French officer is a nice touch, it shows how wounded the whole French army is.

The arrogance of the French officer is not cruel or mean spirited.

69% done with War and Peace

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Again, Tolstoy uses Makar Alexeevich as a mirror to physically show the turmoil inside Pierre. Though unlike Pierre, Makar Alexeevich will actually get a shot off, even if it is as a madman.

“in the now silent corridor the sound of several hands knocking at the front door could be heard.”: I love this sentence, you can actually hear that sound. But it’s in a way the sound of people trying to reach Pierre.

68% done with War and Peace

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Tolstoy makes a good argument for what really started the fire in Moscow: carelessness in an abandoned wooden city. And while I understand why the Russians would be angry at the French for burning down their holy city, tactically it’s a brilliant move for the Russians. The French want Moscow? Burn Moscow. And this is literally why you can’t invade and occupy Russia.

68% done with War and Peace

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“Who these men were nobody knew. “Clear that away!” was all that was said of them, and they were thrown over the parapet and removed later on that they might not stink.” That line sums up the lack of humanity that prevails in all war, but it also underscores how men who hate each other feel about the other’s worth. “Clear that away”. Andrei would recognize this when he saw the men in the water: fodder.