The steppe which had mystery but no meaning.
Daily Archives: April 3, 2016
page 68 of 198 of The Tartar Steppe
Beautiful dream scene with Angustina as a child whom the phantoms take away. Is he dead in real life? A premonition?
page 62 of 198 of The Tartar Steppe
The singing is not human but the water dripping down the mountain. Sad but beautiful. Is this all language is? Ice and stone?
page 61 of 198 of The Tartar Steppe
“How much time there was before him!”, “… death, which everyone knows about but which is quite absurd and cannot possibly concern them.”
page 57 of 198 of The Tartar Steppe
“Four months passing with the monotonous rhythm of routine duties had been enough to entrammel him.”
page 56 of 198 of The Tartar Steppe
So he’s seen something out the doctors window and now wants to stay at the Fort. But what? He imagines his city as being dull but here there is “destiny”. Maybe he imagines that there just must be something here. There has to be. And the thought of leaving what is growing comfortable is hard to argue with.
page 44 of 198 of The Tartar Steppe
It’s as if the tailors uniforms hanging on the walls were ghosts, or vessels ready to imprison another soldier, Drogo, for example.
page 38 of 198 of The Tartar Steppe
About as depressing as Pink Floyd’s song Time. I wonder if people on other planets feel life is sort of absurd, too? Living on a giant oblate spheroid means you never really can get to anywhere, everywhere and nowhere is here.
page 35 of 198 of The Tartar Steppe
At a distance he can’t tell his mother how he feels. And this is the lie we all tell, “How are you today?”, terrible, sick, “I’m fine. You?” How much of the world has been made in only the image we think others think it is and want it to be?
87% done with War and Peace
320of364
BOOK 15 (a few chapters ago)
It’s no so much time that heals wounds, but how use we make of that time: by loving and allowing to be loved we live. Honestly, the whole point of the novel can be summed up with that statement
Her mother, however, will not really recover. Though she has Nicholas and Natasha, she will never get over the death of her youngest. And she’s only 50, too.
87% done with War and Peace
319of364
“Her persevering and patient love seemed completely to surround the countess every moment, not explaining or consoling, but recalling her to life.” This is what we do for each other, this is what it means to live and to love. Without each other there is nothing, and Natasha recognizes this and immediately comes back from the precipice to recall her mother back to life.
87% done with War and Peace
318of364
“One thing would be terrible,” said he: “to bind oneself forever to a suffering man. It would be continual torture.” This is true not only to Natasha, but to Maria as well as it was when she stayed with her father. And is was true for Pierre as well when he looked away from Karataev.
87% done with War and Peace
317of364
I really should read something from the French point of view on this subject. The Diary of a Napoleonic Foot Soldier by Jakob Walter could give some insight.
86% done with War and Peace
316of364
“And there is no greatness where simplicity, goodness, and truth are absent.”
This is the first chapter where Tolstoy comes right out and mentions Christ. He is plain about his intentions, about what standard he believes men should be held. And he’s also wagging his finger at historians who have always gone on and on about how great Napoleon was. He has no use for those who deify any man.
page 35 of 198 of The Tartar Steppe
Humanissimi Viri Francesci Angloisi virtutibus. I can’t translate this but maybe something like civilized men with the power of angels?
A fake Sabre carved into the wall.
I love the image, “He put out the lamp; little by little the pale rectangle of the window emerged from the dark and Drogo saw the stars shining.”
It’s sort of Dr Strangelove the way the password system works, but without the humor.
page 30 of 198 of The Tartar Steppe
Fort Bastiani
Of course he’s pretty much free to go, just a few minor inconveniences is all that stand in his way, just a vague notion others will be disappointed in him And he feels a draw to what lay beyond.
“… an extremely stupid landscape. “
page 27 of 198 of The Tartar Steppe
“A slight breath of wind made a flag, which before had hung limply entangled with the flagstaff, billow out over the Fort.” Everything is lethargic but maybe there is at least a breeze? The soldiers walking the ramparts seem like mechanical toys
Many things when seen up close are not very impressive, especially in the military. But is that because so many things are fake or because we take them for granted?
page 25 of 198 of The Tartar Steppe
“Now they say the frontier is dead – they forget that the frontier is always the frontier and one never knows.” For most of human history it was not unusual for suddenly an immense army of thousands to suddenly appear out of nowhere and rain destruction. And these armies represented nations of perhaps a million people totally unheard of.
page 21 of 198 of The Tartar Steppe
Seingority is counted double here, as if time moves differently here.
You really get a feeling of how small they are against these mountains. It’s like a Roerich painting.
page 18 of 198 of The Tartar Steppe
This is like The Castle that you can’t reach
“From time to time the horse pawed the ground with its hooves in a strange, disturbing manner.”
“The two roads became one.” he’s crossed over now. But to what?
The captain does not know him. Not surprising
page 14 of 198 of The Tartar Steppe
I like how he thinks about his room being shut up, with only dust and the streaks of light getting in. As if this would await a happy return. It’s just stillness. Everything changes, he’s an officer, his best friend is now fat.
Shift in POV : we get a someone telling us to look at Drogo, not the usual 3rd person. We are told how small he appears against the mountains. Shadows chase him.
page 7 of 198 of The Tartar Steppe
What city? It’s unspecified. It doesn’t really matter.
I like how he looks annoyed at himself in the mirror, having giving up so many of his youthful years for something he now can’t define how he feels about it..
Quiet, tired, deserted… then ‘miraculous birth of the sun.’ everyone is to preoccupied to see how beautiful the world is