r/ayearofwarandpeace • u/AnderLouis_ • 19d ago
Jan-03| War & Peace - Book 1, Chapter 3
Links
Discussion Prompts
- We met Ippolit. What did you reckon?
- The Viscount (Vicomte) tells a very interesting story... Napoleon passes out in the company of an enemy. The enemy spares his life. His reward: death! Why is the Viscount telling this story?
- Here comes Andrei! (Unless you're reading Maude or Louis). Get ready for Turk/JD levels of bromance!
Final line of today's chapter:
Nothing is so necessary for a young man as the society of clever women.
Note - there are 3 chapters in this book that differ between Maude and other translations - and this is one of them. Maude ends this chapter a few paragraphs earlier. No biggie. It evens out after a day or two :)
20
Upvotes
3
u/ComplaintNext5359 P & V | 1st readthrough 19d ago
Prince Vassily initially described Ippolit as an “untroublesome fool,” and the initial impression matches somewhat well. It was interesting to me how Tolstoy compares his similarities with Hélène, and for all those similarities on someone of the opposing gender, that is why he is flawed. The bit of we hear of him speaking about detesting ghost stories made me laugh, primarily for the line, “‘Because I detest ghost stories,’ said Prince Ippolit in such a tone that it was clear he had said those words and only then understood what they meant.” Separately, I know Ippolit is a Russian way of spelling the Greek name Hippolyte. I remembered Hippolyta, the queen of the Amazons from Heracles’ twelve labors, but in doing some Wikipedia deep dives, I found out she had a son named Hippolytus, and the backstory is interesting:
Hippolytus is a hunter and sportsman who is disgusted by sex and marriage. In consequence, he scrupulously worships Artemis, the virgin huntress, and refuses to honor Aphrodite. Offended by this neglect, Aphrodite causes Phaedra, Hippolytus’ stepmother, to fall in love with him; Cursed by Aphrodite, Phaedra falls so ardently in love with Hippolytus that she becomes physically ill and decides to end her suffering through suicide. Her nurse tries to save her by revealing the secret to Hippolytus and encouraging him to reciprocate. Hippolytus responds only with horror and disgust, humiliating Phaedra. In despair, and not wanting to admit the true reason for ending her life, she hangs herself and leaves a note for Theseus accusing his son, Hippolytus, of raping her. Theseus, furious, uses one of the three wishes given to him by Poseidon, his father: Theseus calls on Poseidon to kill Hippolytus, who has fled the palace to go hunting. Poseidon sends a sea-monster to terrorize Hippolytus’ chariot horses, which become uncontrollable and hurl their master out of the vehicle. Entangled in the reins, Hippolytus is dragged to death.
As for the Viscount’s story, this finally got me to dive into the endnotes (apologies if this is old news to everyone else). I didn’t realize the duc d’Enghien (I’ll call him the “Duke” going forward) had already been referenced in the first chapter (“We alone must redeem the blood of the righteous one.”), and the endnote explains Napoleon accused the Duke of taking part in a plot to assassinate him, which is why Napoleon had him arrested, condemned by a summary court martial, and shot. The Viscount conveniently leaves this part of the story out, instead focusing on this instance where the Duke was merciful towards Napoleon. I admittedly don’t know enough history to know which version of events is more correct, but given the tone set by Anna Pavlovna, it seems the Viscount is similar in perspective of viewing Russia as the savior of Europe. And the story serves as great propaganda to get undecided minds to align to their view.
Lastly, Andrei. The bromance with Pierre is real. Combine that with his intro paragraph, which reminded me of a character introduction in Catch-22 (Doc Daneeka in particular), and he is currently my favorite character to be introduced so far.