War and Peace - Week 11

Wow, we got to the end of the actual book!!! *Is ignoring the fact that there's still 100 pages of epilogues*

Seeing as it wasn't in the questions... The prediction I made about one of the Rostovs dying was right!!!! I WIN!!! (I rarely predict things accurately so I'm happy about it, even though I feel like I probably shouldn't be celebrating Petya's death. After all, he wasn't one of the characters that I particularly disliked, although I feel like his enthusiasm for war was probably not too advisable). I found it weird that there was no mention of him for ages and then he showed up and was the centre of the narrative for a few chapters and then just died. But, that seems to be how this book goes!

1) Do you think the book ended in a funny place or did it seem like a logical place for the story to end?

I think actually I would be okay with it ending without any epilogues or anything, because I think there was enough to go on to guess what would happen afterwards. In other ways though, the novel kind of jumps around in time a bit anyway and glosses over important things that happened, so I'm interested in seeing what makes the epilogues different from the main text. If anything.

2) How do you see the characters five years on from now? Will everybody get a happy ever after? 

I... am no good at doing 5 years in the future things, so I'm just going to skip to the next part of the question! Hmm, it seems that Natasha and Pierre will (if getting married is a happy ending - I'm not entirely sure that any marriage with Natasha in is going to end happily, but in the book the definition of a happy marriage seems to be being able to put up with each other and not being openly mean about or to the other person, so they might manage that?

I'm trying to think who else apart from Pierre I actually care about... It seems like Marya and elder Rostov boy will end up being married, which I think would be good and a happy ending for Marya if Rostov stops being an idiot and grows up!

I'm worried about Sonya, but maybe she'll meet someone else or you know.. do something fulfilling with her life! That would be good.

I don't care about anybody else. Hehe.

3) Do you think Tolstoy is a biased narrator? If so, in what way?

Yes. Although I think he is trying to be as fair as he can about the war stuff, he is still obviously supporting the Russian side. I think he does a fairly okay job with not making all Russians out to be heroes or particularly nice people though, all in all. It's the kind of bias that is understandable, and I do like that he does make an effort to see things from the other side some of the time.

4) Are you still enjoying this book or are you honestly just waiting for the damn thing to stop talking?

Hmm, this is sort of difficult to answer. I'm not enjoying it like I enjoy my favourite books, but reading it has been really interesting and I do want to know how everything turns out. I'm not sick of it yet, but I am looking forward to it being over! Hehe. I honestly am very glad that I decided to join in with the readalong, there have been several points along the way when I've considered quitting (including before I started, and any time there were lots of war based chapters) but I am really glad that I stuck with it!

I think it has actually taken me quite a while to get into the rhythm of the book, and I am now finding that the war bits don't bother me so much because I know what to expect.... I think I would actually enjoy the book much more if I re-read it, but the chances of that happening are very very low. If nothing else, now that this week's reading has pretty much confirmed that Tolstoy is a massive misogynist (I was giving him the benefit of the doubt before, but that whole bit about intelligent women made me angry), I think I would be much more annoyed by the sexism if I re-read it.



Only the epilogues to go now! Woohoo!!! I am really looking forward to reading other things. So much so that I'm going to try to get through the epilogues today, yayy!!

Tampa by Alissa Nutting

First a warning: I will be talking about the ending of this book in the review, but at the end behind a clear spoiler marking, so spoilers should be easy to avoid if you are spoilerphobic like I am. Also I realise that I am posting this stupidly late, but... yeah. I am not a good blogger!

Onto the book!

Celeste Price is an eighth-grade English teacher in suburban Tampa. She is attractive. She drives a red Corvette. Her husband, Ford, is rich, square-jawed and devoted to her. But Celeste has a secret. She has a singular sexual obsession - fourteen-year-old boys. It is a craving she pursues with sociopathic meticulousness and forethought.

Within weeks of her first term at a new school, Celeste has lured the charmingly modest Jack Patrick into her web - car rides after dark, rendezvous at Jack's house while his single father works the late shift, and body-slamming encounters in Celeste's empty classroom between periods. It is bliss.
Celeste must constantly confront the forces threatening their affair - the perpetual risk of exposure, Jack's father's own attraction to her, and the ticking clock as Jack leaves innocent boyhood behind. But the insatiable Celeste is remorseless. She deceives everyone, is close to no one and cares little for anything but her pleasure.

I am definitely drawn to books that are labelled as controversial, so I knew that I would read this at some point. I found it fairly repulsive, which, to be honest, was quite reassuring! I haven't read Lolita, or The End of Alice, or anything else which has a paedophile as the main character, and after this I'm not sure if I want to (although I have heard good things about both of those books so I might at some point, who can say?).

I think that the whole subject of female paedophiles is something that maybe isn't talked about very often. In pop culture, men are quite often portrayed as being slaves to their sex drives and unable to control themselves (which is obviously a load of rubbish and very problematic for everyone!) so it was fascinating seeing a woman who was characterized like this. Because Celeste, the main character, is under no illusions that she is in love with her victims, she just feels like she needs them and has a right to use them to fulfil her sexual desires. I felt no sympathy for her at all during the novel, and I think that this sort of lets the novel down a little bit. It would have been much more complex and interesting if she had been sympathetic in some way, if there was any attempt made to sort of humanize her, instead of portraying her as a psychopathic monster from the start.

I did enjoy it though, as far as you can enjoy a book like this. The plot moved pretty quickly, and there was a part of me that was waiting to see what insane thing she would do next. I think in the end the book went too far for me, and I would have preferred it to stay more... realistic? Is that the right word? But if the idea of reading about a paedophile doesn't make you run away screaming, and if you are not bothered by pretty explicit (although not erotic in any way, thank goodness) language and descriptions, then I think it might be worth reading.

Not an extraordinary book, but an interesting one.



And now, I want to talk about the end of the book so... spoilers ahead! Be warned!















So, I think that one of the things that is actually good about this novel is the way that it ends. Not actually in that I enjoyed the ending, because to be honest it is disturbing and not at all cathartic. I have read some things which said that this was stupid because she deserved to be locked up, which of course she did, but I think that this is a more realistic depiction of what could potentially happen in the real world. There's an idea that her victims were lucky because she's so attractive, and that being seduced by a hot teacher is a fantasy for a lot of teenage boys. She basically manages to worm her way out of going to prison by being too beautiful to go there (sorry, what?! Apparently this is actually a real defence that was used!) and then is free to carry on being super creepy.

Although I think that a better book could be written dealing with these issues, I do think that Tampa says a lot about how women are depicted and how men are depicted, and it made me think about how much society would benefit if men weren't supposed to be hyper-masculine and have an uncontrollable sex drive, and if women's attractiveness didn't alter how society treats them so much.

War and Peace - Week 10

Well.. this week's reading wasn't particularly exciting, was it?! I am hoping for better things next week. I actually finished it on Wednesday and Thursday, and can't REALLY remember much of what happened in it, so this bodes well for the blog post doesn't it! Hehe.

I actually cannot believe that we have been doing this for 10 weeks. I don't think I have ever been reading the same book for so long, I am itching to go and read something else (I didn't have enough time last week to fit something else in and finish it, and I have realised that I don't like having two novels on the go at once and am really not in a non-fiction/short story place right now, so for this week I have prepared a small stack of comics to read, yay! I do really want to read another novel though, hehe).

1)  The only bit of this week's war-themed escapades that I really took in was a small section where it got interesting and the Russians started getting ready to attack the French but then got confused because they couldn't find somebody or other so they did it the next day and botched it again because they went crazy and just started trying to beat on some French people.  Does anybody feel as though they're learning?

I feel like I am learning a bit about what happened, but I also feel like although Tolstoy seems to be doing a good job of being fair to both sides, I can't quite trust his version of events. I have definitely learnt way more about the war than I knew before (which was basically that the French weren't prepared for a Russian winter), but I had no idea that they had occupied Moscow! I do not know much history at all, hehe. I would like to know more about European history but first I feel like I should learn a bit about the history of Japan seeing as I live here and everything! All I know really is a little bit about the Meiji restoration and then what has happened since - anything before then I'm a bit clueless about.

2)  Clearly Tolstoy's not a Napoleon fan - as far as Tolstoy's concerned, he's lucky at best. Thoughts?

Hmm, I got the impression that he thought that Napoleon was capable (especially earlier in the book), but that he was human and had maybe overestimated his talents. From pop culture in general I always got the impression of Napoleon being a complete arse, but this book has actually made me wonder if that is the case, hehe. I should really go and read up about Napoleon in general, but I'll be honest and say that it is very unlikely that I will.

3)  According to Shmoop, Pierre's only been in prison for four weeks.  And in four weeks he's decided to completely re-write his personality while shedding some pounds.  I've been surprised by how well Tolstoy has portrayed the French's treatment of their prisoners.  Maybe he's not so biased after all? [I realise that's not technically a question but I'm late so we're going with it]

Aww, poor Pierre! As I said up there *points* I actually feel like Tolstoy is pretty fair to both sides - he doesn't really imply that the Russians are completely amazing, and he doesn't really portray the French as evil or anything. I think that he is probably treating both sides as fairly as he could given that he himself is Russian and therefore obviously a bit biased. It seems to me that this whole era is pretty interesting, as most of the aristocracy speak to each other in French, and France seems to have been held in quite high regard before the war, so it seems like everyone is kind of treating the other side as humans, rather than just seeing them as the enemy. Does that make sense?

4)  This might be a ridiculous question given that some of you may not be flying by the seat of your pants and only just staying caught up (like nobody around here, obviously) but is anybody else worried that the final two books are going to be all about Napoleon trudging back across Russia and that we're only going to get back to the characters we actually care about in retrospect when we hit the Epilogues?!

I wasn't worried before, but I am now!!! Thinking about it, it is completely possible. I guess that we will just have to wait and see what this week's reading brings. I have sort of learnt not to expect major events to be properly covered, as Tolstoy seems to gloss over lots of things that I would have expected a book of this length to take time over, and then concentrate intensely on things that aren't at all important (like that stupid hunting trip!). So I don't really have that high expectations for the end of the novel - not that I am not enjoying the book in general! I am really glad that I joined this readalong, because I don't think I would have got through this in a million years if it was just me!

I think actually that if the final two books are just about the war and then everything to do with the characters that I mostly dislike is in the epilogues, I will actually be able to get through the epilogues, whereas if everyone's story is wrapped up in the last two books and the epilogues are about the war, I might struggle a lot! We'll see, I guess.

War and Peace - Week 9

Hello!

I accidentally fell behind with War and Peace BUT I managed to catch up and am only sort of late this week. Huzzah! I actually quite enjoyed reading a lot of it in one chunk as I did over the past week and a half, and although I am also looking forward to finishing it, I think I'll be a bit sad when it's over!

1)  With the multiple deaths, this week started to feel a little more like Tolstoy was starting to wrap up some of his characters' stories. How do you feel about the way Helene's death was dealt with compared to Andrew's?

Helene's death was so... glossed over. I feel like the only characters who actually get decent deaths in this book are men, which is annoying but oh well. It came out of nowhere for me, and I think she may have just died to make it easier for Pierre to go off and marry someone else.

2)  I certainly wouldn't go so far as to call myself a Pierre fan but his experiences as a prisoner were quite moving. How do you think Pierre is going to fare as we approach the end of the novel?

I actually think I like Pierre the most out of everyone in the novel. He does completely unnecessary things (like going off to war and just riding around seeing what was going on and getting in everyone's way... why?!), but in general I find his bumbling around quite endearing! I really hope he is heading towards a happy ending, even if that means marrying Natasha (which at this point is sort of inevitable, no? All the obstacles have disappeared!) who I am not a huge fan of, but if it makes Pierre happy I don't mind.

3)  Now the competition's opened back up, who are you backing for Nicholas Rostov's future wife, rich heiress Mary or devoted Sonya?

I dislike Rostov so don't think he really deserves either of them! However, it does seem like unless Sonya suddenly stumbles into a fortune he is going to end up with Marya, and that would make her happy it seems. I feel sorry for Sonya but at least she does have the Rostovs in general, whereas Marya has pretty much nobody at this point. Much as I dislike Nicholas I think he would actually treat Marya nicely, which is much better than if she had ended up with that annoying idiot (whose name I am blanking on, you know who I mean!!)

4)   The Rostovs have always been my favourite family in War and Peace and seeing them from Mary's perspective was a little bit sad.  How is everyone feeling about how things are going for them?

I feel bad for them. They do seem to always want to try and do the right thing and other people just take advantage of them. I feel like they might be happier in general to just give up a lot of their money and be a poor but happy family! I think that it will work out for them in the end though, hopefully! Although I still think that one of the Rostov boys might die. Have we actually heard anything about Petyr (is that his name??? Argh! I am not doing well today) since he joined the army?


Not much longer to go now!!! I am going to do my best to not fall behind again.

War and Peace - Week 6

I know everybody else seems to have got to the halfway point last week, but in my copy we passed it this week. Huzzah! I keep on saying this, but I honestly didn't think I would make it this far. This week's chapters were hardly inspiring though. Hmm. This probably wasn't helped by the fact that I've had a really bad cold since last Tuesday which has made my thinking a little bit foggy, so I'm actually kind of struggling to recall what happened in the book clearly, even though I finished the reading on Saturday. Oh well..

1) Honestly, by this point in the book (55% or so), do you think War & Peace could have been shorter or did it need to be this long?

It definitely could have been shorter. There are parts that I don't think anybody could really complain about being cut, like the boring hunting bit from a couple of weeks ago. I guess though with it being this length it does have something for everyone? Like the first chapter this week about why wars happen would be interesting if you liked philosophy, and the war bits in general would be interesting if you are interested in military tactics or how wars were fought then (this is the most interesting bit about the war parts for me - the way that people fought seems to be really radically different than how wars seem to work now. I am sure there are people who care more about the war stuff who hate when the novel goes into gossip/scandal mode, although those are my favourite bits!

2) Do you feel there's been another change in tone? Why do you think Tolstoy keeps doing this? Do you like it?  

Hmm I'm not sure I'd say it's a change in tone, in that the book is kind of a bit all over the place tonally anyway. It's definitely different from last week, but we have had these kinds of chapters before. I know it took a lonnnng time to write the book, so I wonder if the shifts in tone throughout the book reflect the time in life that he wrote certain parts? Maybe! I like it when it shifts to a tone that I enjoy, haha.

3) Natasha. AAAAAAAAAND GO.  

Natasha didn't really annoy me this week. Of all of the posts for last week that I saw, I seemed to be the least annoyed with her anyway, so I found her quite tolerable this week. And she apparently gave her family joy by being ill and giving them all something to do?? I think maybe everybody who is supposed to be good in this novel just has a massive martyr complex, it's weird. Anyway, she wasn't too bad although she obviously is still being quite selfish, but I think maybe she's taking the time to reflect on her actions and hopefully she'll end up being a better person?

4) Pierre has convinced himself (via numerology, obviously) that Napoleon is the Antichrist from The Book of Revelation. Is this in character for Pierre? How do you think he'll act on this?

Oh Pierre. He's so... gullible. And weird. I don't know. I think it is in character, as he did hear about the freemasons and immediately jumped on board with that, so yeah. I think he must just be really bored, so he just grabs onto whatever crazy thing floats his way. I don't know if he'll do anything about this! I bet it was just Tolstoy finding some book which mentions that at some point and going "YES! The novel definitely isn't long enough yet, now I have another weird tangent to go off on for no reason! Huzzah!". I did enjoy the way that Pierre played around with his name to get it to fit the pattern, and then was very pleased when it did even though what he did didn't actually make any sense. Oh Pierre.


------

Is anybody else thinking that now there are going to be two Rostovs off fighting, one of them is definitely either going to be horrifically injured, or die at some point soon? I have a theory about what is going to happen, so I am interested to see if I'm right. (I would write it here, but I hate spoilers myself, and I have read fan theories before that have actually turned out to be correct and I've ended up feeling disappointed. Mind you, I am REALLY BAD at predicting what is going to happen, even when it is apparently really really obvious to everyone else, so I'm probably wrong anyway!)

War and Peace - Week 5

Another week, even fewer characters that I don't actively dislike. Haha. I managed to finish my reading on time this week, yayy! 

1) Could the disastrous meeting between Marya and Natasha have gone any other way? Who was to blame?

I don't think so. They were both being a bit stupid about it in the first place (if I recall correctly - I think my brain was so overtaken by the Natasha/Anatole drama that happens later that I have forgotten the details!), so I think they share the blame. I would say that Natasha is more to blame for it, but can you imagine how awkward it would be meeting the family of your significant other without said significant other not actually being there!? So much as I grew to dislike Natasha this week, I don't think it's entirely her fault.

2) Everyone seems to be secretly considering Marya for marriage at the moment. Do you think it will ever happen for her? Was Boris right to pick Julie?

I hope not, because marriage doesn't seem to be a particularly great thing in this book! Seeing as she is one of the characters who I actually don't dislike, I want her to get away from her family and.. I don't know, do some charity work or something because she would be good at that. And I think she would be much happier than she is at the moment. Poor Marya! Although she could do with learning to actually stick up for herself and that she doesn't just have to accept what is going on around her.

Boris and Julie? I don't really care. Maybe Julie will be more likely to actually stand up for herself, which is good? I do feel though in some ways that the message of this book is that marriage sucks, so I find it hard to support anything to do with marriage!!

3) There's too much drama with Natasha for me to formulate an all-encompassing question, so... I don't know. Discuss.

Oh Natasha. The Rostovs are slowly slipping down my tolerability scale (seriously, I really don't like anyone in this novel at all. I don't mind not having any likeable characters, but given how many characters there are I was expecting to like at least a couple of them!). They all seem so completely naive and clueless as to what is going on around them, and don't seem to be able to grasp the idea that people might not necessarily be what they seem on the surface. I would like to give Natasha the benefit of the doubt and say that she probably didn't really mean to hurt people in the way that she did or act so horribly, but she seems completely incapable of thinking through anything that she does or considering the consequences of any of her actions.

I am not really the biggest Andrei fan (or a fan at all), but seeing as he does seem to be making an effort to be a better person, I do feel bad for him. I think though that Anatole deserves his fair share of the blame for what happened here, obviously, but Natasha could have just not gone OOH PRETTY and run after him the way that she did. If you're mooning over someone for months and going on about how in love you are with them, you don't then run off with the next handsome person who pays you a bit of attention!

Urgh. I don't know. On the one hand I do feel a bit sorry for her as her only purpose in life seems to be to get married, which must be pretty depressing. I sort of don't blame her for wanting a little bit of excitement in her life? Still though...

4) Lots of characters are being fairly dickish this week. Who wins the prize for the person you'd most like to slap?  

At the moment I just feel very grateful that I don't live in the same kind of world or society that is portrayed in the book! So I'm not really that angry with any of the characters, just grateful its not me. If I have to choose though, I think I'll go for Anatole, as he seems to just go through life lying to everyone so he can have affairs with as many women as possible, and thinking that being charming can get him out of anything. I mean, obviously it can because it seems to be working for him, but he is a completely despicable human being. If the women who are going into it knew what kind of man he was then I wouldn't have a problem with it, but he obviously manipulates people into doing what he wants like he did with Natasha (she is obviously not entirely blameless, but I do feel she is more the victim here of both Anatole and her own stupidity). I am so glad that I don't know anybody like that!


There was soooo much drama this week, which is good as I think I like this book best when it is drama filled! Fingers crossed for another drama filled week!!

War and Peace - Week 4

Yayyy week 4! And we're almost halfway through the book!!!

I had (another) bad week this week - I started reading the chapters on Sunday!!! I really could have done what I did last week and read the chapters early in the week too, but I was putting off doing my taxes, so also put off all of the other things that I wanted to do and instead spent hours on my phone doing nothing. Does anybody else do that? It's so stupid, if I'm not going to do stuff I'm supposed to be doing, I may as well do stuff that I want to do, rather than mindlessly play stupid games.

Then when I did start reading, the first two chapters were all about Prince Andrei who I still dislike so I was put off slightly by that, but once I actually got into this week's reading properly I zoomed through it. Who knew that this would be a book where catching up wouldn't actually be a painful process? Yay War and Peace!

Anyway, on with this week's questions! Thank you as always to Hanna for being lovely and giving us all set things to talk about each week!

1) Do you feel that the tone of the novel changed this week?

Yes, a little... for one thing, there was almost no focus at all on the war aspect, it just seemed to mostly be about the mundane details of everyday life. Nothing that much really happened this week, which was a bit of a change from the whirlwind that was week 3!

2) Do you think that the story is uniquely Russian, or could it have been set somewhere else?

I feel like I don't have enough knowledge about either Russia or anywhere else at this period of time to be able to answer this! I do end up feeling quite a big culture gap sometimes when reading as I find it difficult to see how conversations work sometimes (as in, somebody will ask a question and then somebody else will reply with something that doesn't seem to make sense to me - is this a Russian thing, is it just the translation I'm reading, or is it just me being thick?)

But if a completely uninformed answer is okay, I feel like for the most part the peace parts could have easily been set in any European country with an aristocracy at the time and not really change THAT much, but seeing as half of the story is about war, I guess that part would be really different if it wasn't about Russia.

3) How about Andrey and Natasha's nupitals? Will they ever get married and do you think it will work out?

Although I still dislike Andrei, I did end up warming to him slightly this week if only because of his new association with the Rostovs and Natasha, who I think I might like, although I don't really understand her behaviour a lot of the time. So I do kind of hope that it works out, and that they actually have a happy marriage and change each other for the better! But I have to say that I found myself, as I do with all classics that I read, annoyed by the fact that the feelings of lust that they were both clearly having were talked about as being love. I really think that true love is something that takes time to develop, and sure, you can be infatuated by somebody when you first meet them, but until you actually know them properly I'm not sure that you can love love somebody. (On a personal, slightly soppy note, I say this as someone who actually experienced "Love at first sight" as described by most literature with my husband, but although I sort of knew somewhere that he might be "the one" (and I'm not sure that I believe that there is one person for everyone) when we first met, I would still say that it took a good while before I knew that he was the one for me for sure.)

Anyway, I do hope that it works out. It would be nice to see a healthy relationship in this book!! I think the signs are good so far as nobody really seems to have manipulated them into this.

4) Could Rostov have done more to help out his parents with their financial situation?

Yes. He annoys me a LOT. His mother begs him to come home and help sort stuff out and dig them out of the mess that he helped create (although it seems like his dad is just kind of useless with money anyway, so Rostov being an idiot has just made what would have already been bad slightly worse), and then when he comes home he's like, oh actually sorting stuff out is too hard, I'm going to go hunting all of the time and arse around instead.

I am not impressed. Although I'm not really impressed with his parents either, be more sensible with money you fools!!! (I am a weirdo who actually enjoys saving money, and is sensible to the point of being very boring about spending it, so it pains me to see people still making silly decisions about money when they're in financial difficulty. I end up having to remind myself that I am lucky that managing my money sensibly comes naturally to me, and that for some people it is as difficult as it is for me to stop myself from stuffing my face with chocolate a few times a week.)

I am glad though that he decided not to marry for money, although I do get that this would probably have helped his family a lot. But I hope that somebody in his family gets their act together and actually does something about their money situation, even if that is just changing their family's lifestyle so they're living within their means. I guess at least it seems like they are helping out a lot of other people with their stupid money decisions, even if they're not helping themselves.

5) How do you feel about the lengthy hunting descriptions? Did you read the whole thing?

Boring. I read it, but in a way where I was just sort of seeing the words but my mind was somewhere else. This happens sometimes anyway, but normally when it does and I realise I go back and re-read what I have missed, but I didn't bother this time. I still don't really know what happened in those chapters, but oh well!



Overall, I am still enjoying the book and finding it pretty easy to read, but I do feel like this week's chapters weren't the most interesting, especially the last part. Although all of the talk of instruments that I had never heard of led me to listen to some Russian folk music which wasn't at all what I imagined Russian folk music would be like, so that was interesting! I hope that the next section has less lengthy descriptions of hunting and more plot development!

On a side note, I got annoyed at how patronising the men were being about Natasha's horse riding ability (I'm sure they thought they were being complimentary, but shhh, silly men). Did they realise that she was managing to ride as well as they were and doing it all side-saddle, which seems to me the most illogical way to ride a horse ever?! BE MORE IMPRESSED! I never really got why it was women who ended up riding horses this way, as surely it would make more sense for men who have very sensitive parts between their legs. Women's sensitive parts are at least hidden away and protected somewhat! I also never really understood why trousers were seen as a men's thing, when they make SO MUCH MORE SENSE for women.

Ahem, anyway... I am going to start reading the next bit today, so hopefully I will end up finishing on time!!! I do seem to have a fallen into a pattern of being behind every other week, it's irritating me!!!