War and Peace:
Loose Ends Not Tied Up
Tolstoy tacks an epilogue onto his
long work of art. The second part of the epilogue is devoted entirely to his
philosophical speculations on history, so we have a chance to say good-bye to
the characters only in the first part. The action is set in 1819-1820. The
major characters who make a final appearance consist of two families, the
Bezukhovs and the Rostovs. Pierre Bezuhov has married Natasha Rostova, and
Nikolai Rostov has married Princess Marya Bolkonskaja. Both families have
resumed a settled family life after the turmoil of the Napoleonic Wars. Old
Count Rostov has died, and his wife, who never recovered from the death of her
beloved son Petya, is senescent.
While Pierre remains a dreamer,
always hoping for some better liberal future for Mother Russia, Nikolai has
become a conservative, devoted to tsar and crown, uncomfortable with the idea
of change. Both women, Natasha and Marya, are devoted to their husbands and
children, of which there are many. Natasha seems to have lost her most
attractive trait, her vivaciousness and youthful spark. Now dowdy and matronly,
she is absorbed entirely in Kinder and Kuche, has no intellectual interests,
which has made for much chagrin and even consternation among modern feminist
readers of War and Peace. Then again, Tolstoy seems to have been born to
offend the modern woman of the West.
Huge as his novel is, you would think
that Tolstoy would find space in his epilogue to tell us what happened to some
of the minor, but for all that, highly delineated characters. The feral Dolokhov we last see in the scene
describing the death in battle of Petya. What happened to him after that? Who
knows? Tolstoy? Maybe not even Tolstoy. Then again, wouldn’t it be nice to know
how Berg and his wife Vera are doing in 1820, and what about Boris Drubetskoi,
his elbows-out pushy mother and his wife Julie?
Tolstoy gives special short shrift
to Prince Vassily Kuragin and his family. Is the obnoxious Ippolit still alive?
Don’t know. We do know that Hélène has passed conveniently away (so that Pierre
will be free at the end to have Natasha). One brief mention is made, that
Anatole is dead, but we don’t know exactly how or where. Last we have seen of
him he is having a leg amputated in a field hospital at the Battle of Borodino,
while Prince Andrei looks on. Although he has the distinction of being in the
very first scene of the book, Prince Vassily is never even allowed a scene of
grieving—over his dead daughter and dead son(s). Writers of books like some of
their characters better than others, and in War and Peace it is never in
doubt which of his characters Tolstoy likes, and which he despises (Dolokhov, the
Kuragins).
No comments:
Post a Comment