Beautiful Sky Over the Moment of (Near) Death: War and Peace, End of Part I

 

The Emperor Napoleon and Prince Andrei Bolkonsky

In the final scenes of Volume 1 of War and Peace Prince Andrei Bolkonsky lies on his back bleeding from a head wound and looking at the beautiful sky.  Napoleon rides through the battlefield, surveying the carnage of his defeat of Russia and Austria at Austerlitz.

Before the battle Prince Andrei admired Napoleon. But lying on his back with the shaft of the unit flag in his hand he feels himself dying and that this world has no longer has meaning for him. He sees Napoleon and does not care.  

Napoleon thought Andrei was dead, but seeing him move, he orders Andrei to be taken to an aid station. The agony of  being lifted onto stretcher convinced Andrei he was, in fact, alive.

Reading this passage, I remembered lying on my back on the side of Route 230 northwest of  Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania.  In the middle of an S-turn my Suzuki 550 motorcycle shook and flipped into the air. I was launched at 75mph, bounced and skidded and rolled to the ditch on the opposite side of the road. The visor of my full-face helmet had been scraped away. I looked straight up at a lovely, blue mid-June sky with scattered, puffy clouds.

I felt no pain.  At first the peace and beauty of the sky, the silence around me, led me think I was dead. Some moments later, I knew I was alive when a man who was painting his house ran up and covered me with a drop cloth. He said, "Don't move" and told me help would be there soon.  I looked down and saw the ligaments inside my knees, the skin was burned away on the left side of both knees because of the way I landed. Seeing inside my knees woke the pain.  My moment of eternity was over.   

In his book The Nearest Thing to Life James Wood surveys dozens of novels to show how real life is brought to life in fiction. He uses scenes with Prince Andrei illustrate the beauty of the reality brought to life in novels. 

The delight of re-reading Tolstoy after 25 years is in the scenes of pain and pathos and beauty he paints so well.

 

I am re-reading "War and Peace" by Leo Tolstoy. I am 300 pages into the 1996-page Pevear and Volokhonsky translation.

Tolstoy was a lieutenant in the Russian Army during the Crimean War (1852) and writes about war with the horror and humor of a combat veteran.

In the first war section of the book, the Russian army meets the French in Austria just after the Austrian army is smashed by Napoleon. The Russian general Kutuzov has beats Napoleon in the first battle, but is forced to retreat. One of the cavalry squadrons attacking the French includes the young cadet Nikolai Rostov.

Rostov draws his sword and rides to the attack with his squadron in his first combat action. In moments his horse is shot from under him and falls on him. Rostov's arm is bruised and possibly broken in the fall. His arm is numb. He struggles to his feet holding his limp arm. He sees French soldiers running toward him. He realizes they are going to capture of kill him. His thoughts are a swirl. He thinks, 'Everyone loves me. My mother, my sisters. My friends. How could they want to kill me. I have a happy life.'

He snaps out of the reverie and runs, escaping in trees and shrubs at the edge of the battlefield.

In that swirl of confused thought, Tolstoy captures the crazy extremes of combat. One moment the young soldier is riding to glory, the next he thinks of his mother on the point of death.

I cannot judge the veracity of the scenes in Moscow parties and dinners, but they come alive for me in the backstabbing intrigue of the powerful.

Tolstoy is amazing.

Year End Wrap Up: Exercise Turns Civilian, Reading Tops Riding

For the first time since I started riding a bicycle again in 1987, the total number of book pages I read exceeded the number of miles I rode.

This year I rode more than 8,000 miles, probably 8,300 by December 31, but I have read more than 10,000 pages in more than 50 books.  

Also, because I had trouble with my shoulder, I stopped doing pushups.  Every year since I re-enlisted I did more than 6,000 pushups, nearly 15,000 in 2011, but this year, less than 300.  

And I pretty much gave up running after the Ironman triathlon.  I also stopped swimming in September when I took four college classes.  But in the weirdest stat for the year, I swam more miles than I ran:  87 miles swimming, 74 running.  

The most troubling, beautiful, sad book I read this year was "Life and Fate" by Vasily Grossman.  It is the 20th Century version of "War and Peace" centering on Stalingrad.  

Eleven of the 52 books I read this year were written by Russian authors, but all were in English.  I am continuing to study Russian language, but not at the point where I can read Russian.  I can still read French well enough that one of the books I re-read this year was an abridged "Three Musketeers."  

Next semester I will be taking Russian language and 19th Century Russian Literature, so I will continue to have Russian in my mind.  If I leave the Army in May, I will definitely be riding more.  My plan will be to ride 10,000 miles in 2016 to get ready for racing in the 65+ category in 2018.  It's great to be the youngest in an age group!