Virginia Rounding, Catherine The Great.

Virginia Rounding, Catherine The Great: Love, Sex, and Power. This was recommended by the ladies at Stuff You Missed in History Class. Don't be fooled by the titillating subtitle - this book is perhaps less shocking then any old Russian novel. Catherine did have a series of young favorites, but she and those around her were unfailingly discreet. Catherine is a fascinating figure and the biography itself was decent, and seem to get better and less awkward as it went along. Early in the book it felt as though someone comfortable with more academic prose was trying a bit too hard to be relaxed and conversational. Catherine's letters and those of her friends and visitors to her court were wonderful and the author did a great job of framing people's words; for example pointing out that certain correspondence was often intended to be intercepted and read by people other than the adressee - a sort of free advertising or propaganda. Catherine's letters to Voltaire, for example, were intended for a wider audience. Some letters were just fun to read - the long and frank correspondence between Catherine and her dear friend and art dealer Friedrich Melchior Grimm, full of details about her grandchildren, dogs, and daily life - made her absolutely come to life. Catherine lived in such a fascinating time, right at the beginning of our modern age, and how she managed to efficiently adopt an new country and religion, take it over in a neat coup, efficiently rule and expand a vast empire (based on serfdom) with the longest reign of any Tsar, while simultaneously maintaining within herself at least the ideal of an enlightened ruler modernizing and improving Russia, is incredible.

Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace. (The Peavar and Volokhonsky translation.) I'm not sure what to say about this. I hadn't read it in about 12 years and I have to say it was a lot of fun - it's a big juicy novel. I enjoyed the characters and even the history(diatribes)- in fact I thought the background was the most fun. I had more appreciation for prince Andrei this time, and less sympathy for Pierre. But by the end I was enraged at so many things. The ending- the relationships of Natasha and Pierre, Marya and Nikolai, were so disappointing. Even more than in Anna Karenina, I felt that the women weren't actually people. And Tostoy's attitudes about marriage were infuriating, even in context of the time. Not that the center of a marriage is creating a family, but the relationship between husband and wife is so lopsided. I don't like the implication that the wife is almost solely a vessel for the reflection and refinement of her husband's personality. Natasha was especially obnoxious, and while Marya had potential to be an interesting person, it didn't happen. I want to be clear, I liked the happy domestic scenes (and the breastfeeding), it was Tolstoy's condescending and limiting views on the rest of the role of a wife that was infuriating. The scene with Marya's diary almost made me vomit. But I guess that I've changed a lot in a dozen years, maybe I'm less able to accept things uncritically, or maybe I just have another perspective on life.

After posting, I realized that I had better explain, because I know it's the family tradition to love Pierre. So here's why Pierre is basically worthless. Yes he has a good heart. I like him, especially when he's drinking, feels bad, and won't get off the couch. But his role as an intellectual is a monumental waste. He's a follower - a guru-hopper - he doesn't have any substance. His feelings are good, but he never develops any discipline. What he really needs is a regular job - all that money is bad for him. He's really only any good when he has something to do. At the very least, he needs a counterpoint, a challenge; but Andrei's dead, and Natasha is quite the opposite.

Alexander Pushkin, Eugene Onegin

Alexander Pushkin, Eugene Onegin, translated by Charles Johnston. I enjoyed this translation much more than the one I first read. It veers between gossip, romance, tragedy, country soliloquy and high comedy, and it's in verse (which seems only proper). I loved Tatyana's opinion of the city socialite scene:

"This world's so vacuous that it's got
no spark of fun in all its rot!"

Pushkins' Tatyana is one of the few heroines that gets to grow up from the period. I was greatly cheered that she had the courage to shoot Evgeny down.
(Oh man, I really really would love to learn Russian, at least enough to start, but with my language skills it might take me decades, plus it would most likely be hard work.)

Anton Chekhov, My Life

Anton Chekhov, My Life. A short novel or a long story, perfectly told, that reminded me how much I really love Chekhov. Misail, Masha, Kleopatra, Blogovo - all the people are perfect, recognizable, and vivid. Misail is the son of an architect and is a failure. He absconds from his expected role and becomes a laborer, a roof painter. He is not truly a reformer or revolutionary. He finds a love and loses her. He doesn't change anything. The ending is right. (By the way, this was the Constance Garnett translation, the voice I grew up hearing Russian literature in. I think her words are perfect for Chekhov.)

Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

Anna Karenina. I've been reading this forever. Partly because I have a mountain of readings for school, and partly since I've been unable to feel any deep sympathy with any of the characters. Anna - her passivity drives me crazy, the same with her husband. Vronsky is just a vaguely likable slacker, and I have no patience for slackers. Kitty is just a child, and Levin, who is actually interesting, is annoying in his infatuation with nothing more than an ideal of romance and a young girl. I feel their relationship is so lopsided in many ways that I really don't feel empathy for them. Levin seemed to have a deeper relationship with his housekeeper and hired hands than he does with his wife. I love Tolstoy, for all that, and the book still manage to be gripping, but I don't really like any of the people in it. It's sad when I'm more interested in the discursive asides and arguments of bit players than in the central drama.

I hate to rant on about Anna, but come on! If you're going to sin, you'd damn well better enjoy it. At the very least get around to self hatred and despair a lot quicker, there's no need to drag on in a sickening muddle for years on end. Hamlet couldn't make up his mind either, but at least he made some great speeches. Rip that scab off or decide to tough it out and be a good girl. Take up knitting, or get to know your husband, or become a closet drinker or something. Jeez. And Vronsky sounds like a fun guy - if you're living in sin, why be so damn respectable and boring about it? Rob some banks, gamble, something - you run away with your lover and all you can do is go to museums? I realize Anna didn't have a whole lot of choices, and was circumscribed by her role in society - but she is a total wet noodle. That train arrived about 400 pages too late.

And Levin, although an admirable man, is just too condescending to be believed. Let me try to show why- here's a scene from Levn and Kitty's honeymoon: "He was supposed, as he understood it, to do his work and to rest from it in the happiness of love. She was supposed to be lovely and only that. But, like all men he had forgotten that she also needed to work. And he was surprised at how she, the poetic, lovely Kitty, in the very first, not weeks, but days of married life could think, remember and fuss about furniture, mattresses for guests, about a tray, the cook, the dinner, and so on. ... And loving her as he did, though he chuckled at those cares, he could not help admiring them. He chuckled at her arranging the furniture ...." Blech. He should have married a peasant, and at least they could have farmed together.