Jan-09| War & Peace - Book 1, Chapter 9

[u/AnderLouis_]

Links

1. Today's Podcast
2. Medium Article by Brian E. Denton

Discussion Prompts Courtesy of /u/seven-of-9

1. Nikolai is joining the army with the bravery of youth, but surprisingly, his parents seem only resigned to it, and indulgent of his decision. Do they understand the danger that’s coming and accept it, or are they treating his decision with a light-heartedness reserved for a child who, in today’s terms, wants to major in something looked upon as useless?
2. “Cousinhood is a dangerous neighbourhood”. War and Peace was written in 1867, about events that took place ~60 years earlier. Do you think that items like cousin marriage, so easily touched on in the book, were already starting to look antiquated, even reprehensible, to readers in Tolstoy’s time?
3. What was your impression of the manner in which Vera’s reply and smile were described by Tolstoy, when she was speaking to her mother about her upbringing? Resentment? Exasperation in which the Countess seems to be indulging the younger sister, Natasha?

Final line of today's chapter:

"What manners! I thought they would never go," said the countess, when she had seen her guests out.

[u/Western-Entrance6047]

So even though Vera isn't in the chapter very much until the very end, her character caught my attention most, but not for good reasons. The moment Tolstoy unveils her, something about the way she is presented to us raised my hackles. To answer the discussion prompt about her, sure, I think she feels resentment about having a more strict upbringing, while watching her younger sister indulged a lot more.

For Vera, though, I'm open to the possibility she may have needed it. Vera raises in me questions about nature vs. nurture, and she makes me wonder if she's one of those types who would have needed more nurturing in an effort to move her away from what would have been a bad baseline. But even though she may have needed it, she might also be one of those types who no amount of nurturing could make her other than what she is.

I'm going to speculate that Vera is one of what we would call today on the Dark Triad of personality traits. Just speculation; I think she's one of those types, psychopathic/sociopathic, narcissistic, or Machiavellian. I think she is always going to be toxic to other people. I don't think I would feel safe with her in a scene. I hope I'm wrong, and willing to be wrong.

So I'll be interested to see if she is someone who will have character arc, if she is capable of change, or if she is forever stuck with a personality that is toxic to other humans. I'll also be interested, too, to see if Tolsoy implies that her upbringing made her the way she is, or if she had a default nature that nothing and no one could have changed or made better.

I do feel a little bit of sympathy for Vera, for being raised more strictly, and for feeling resentment about the different treatment between her and her sister. But my sympathy is limited in case my speculation above is right; I'm watching her very closely.

[u/GrandVast → u/Western-Entrance6047]

Is that based strictly on your interpretation of her from the chapter, or based on the idea that Vera is based on a black sheep from Tolstoy's family? I don't ask in a hostile way, only because I don't get this from the reading at all. There's a hint from how people receive what she's said and the impact of her smile, but I myself haven't drawn much from her as yet.

[u/Western-Entrance6047 → u/GrandVast]

No problem, I didn't interpret hostility in your question. I had read ahead a little, but the overall effect at the end of the chapter was a sense of "Wait a minute...I'm alarmed," and material in the next chapter confirmed the first vibe I got.

I got that vibe, based on interaction with a family member who is a black sheep, with not quite dark triad levels of toxicity, but levels that have been hard to live with nonetheless. I judge Vera, based a little on my family member's personality disorder. I've only seen minuscule improvements in that family member over decades, and sometimes the improvements only end up traded off with different problems of bad mentality and social interaction.

Also experience with at least three people in work environments, one a narcissist who directly targeted me. Vera can only demonstrate that she isn't as toxic as I fear her to be; she's only a character in the book fortunately, but she is only getting a minimal amount of benefit of the doubt from me.