lisiya-gori

[lisiya-gori]

one day I'm really going to start marya posting, and then you'll all see

[lisiya-gori]

these portraits remind me so much of lise 😭 esp the first one oughhh

[lisiya-gori]

and what if I said this was natalya rostova with vera and nikolai

[lisiya-gori]

Swift intelligent nephew or strong holy uncle

[lisiya-gori]

another funny vera thing: tolstoy very clearly wants us to think vera and berg's relationship is pathetic and kind of embarrassing, but he's actually a really good boyfriend to her? they're together for the entire novel, he knows he wants to marry her years before he actually does, they have open, respectful conversations about major issues like money and children. and yet it feels like the narration tries really hard to convince us that their relationship sucks. it's like, you know you could have just made it worse

[lisiya-gori]

@helenekuragina so, vera is interesting because tolstoy based her on liza behrs (his sister-in-law), who he didn't like and who he thought was annoying and weird. that's why almost every time vera comes up in the novel he makes a point of talking about how annoying and weird everyone thinks she is. it's really the narrator who is saying these things most of the time. tolstoy is fundamentally not interested in vera outside of this. he does not care to explore her personal life or her relationships with her parents or siblings. the other rostovs barely talk about vera at all when she's not present in a scene, which is not often.

this means that anything we can say about vera is going to be inherently speculative. this is the case for pretty much everyone in war and peace who isn't a major character. there's a lot going on there, but there are also a lot of gaps, and people are going to fill in those gaps based on their own ideas about the other characters and dynamics at play. in terms of actual textual evidence, we have maybe three scenes to work with.

all that being said, I think it's clear that vera is something of an outsider in the rostov family. I've talked before about how the rostovs' relationships are based around a sort of mutual fantasy, a shared idyll of family togetherness that grows increasingly distant from reality over time. vera, for whatever reason, can't or won't participate in that fantasy. she can't resist pointing out things that everyone's trying to avoid, like the fact that sonya and nikolai's marriage would exacerbate the family's financial problems, or that her parents kind of spoil natasha at the expense of their other kids. nothing she says is wrong, or even especially rude, but by saying these things she breaks the illusion the rostovs are subconsciously trying to preserve: that their happiness is not dependent on all kinds of tears, fears, sacrifices etc, and that things can and will stay the way they are forever.

you see this happen in little ways every time vera shows up. it leads her parents and siblings to respond to her with frustration (we are working so hard to keep this thing together and you are ruining it) and resentment (why should you get to say things like that when nobody else does). it also leads vera to feel sort of superior and contemptuous, in a sort of everyone-here-is-delusional-except-me kind of way. in her mind, they're being annoying and weird. natasha, nikolai, and sonya all want to dress up and sing italian light opera and go on sleigh rides together forever and ever. vera just wants to marry her long-term boyfriend and get out of the damn house.

this illuminates a lot of weird little delusions and hypocrisies in the rostov family dynamic. the rostovs have subliminal resentments and unspoken rules and illusions that are fundamentally unsustainable. does that mean that it's all an illusion and they were never actually happy at all? I don't think so. I think it’s a mistake to assume that a family can only be perfect or terrible, which is the criticism leguin is making of tolstoy’s famous “happy families are all alike” line.

I think it’s actually very plausible to read her as having some of what we today call neurodivergence, which would create obvious tension with her hypersocial, spontaneous, high-context family. there's also something to be said about the way natalya seems to favor the kids that are more like ilya (natasha and nikolai) over the kids that are more like her (vera and sonya). we can't discount the impact of gender here, both in terms of garden-variety eldest daughter syndrome and in the sense that vera was a firstborn daughter in a patriarchal aristocracy. she and nikolai seem to be very very close in age (she's 17-18 in 1805 and he can't be much younger than that), and I think she would have really picked up on the fact that she and her brother were treated differently. natasha was born after nikolai, so she wouldn't have been viewed as a disappointment in the same way.

anyway my personal favorite vera theory (for which I have no evidence, just vibes) is that she was an oops baby conceived post-engagement but pre-wedding, which is why they gave her a name that means "truth."

[lisiya-gori]

it’s all about the humiliation of having to ask for what you want in order to get it, which is in turn about the mortifying reality of wanting anything at all. marya, in order to marry nikolai, has to accept that she actually does want love and sex and is even willing to use her money and social position to get it. nikolai, in order to marry marya, has to break his commitment to sonya in favor of someone who can solve his financial problems with full knowledge of the way society will view his decision. sonya, in order to stop this, would have to actually ask nikolai to stay loyal to her, with all the risk and vulnerability that entails. and in a way sonya is victorious here, because unlike nikolai and marya she refuses to compromise

the other really interesting thing here is that this ethos of self-sacrifice is so strongly correlated for each of these three characters with a lack of control over their own lives. marya largely lets go of it after her dad dies (she basically convinces nikolai to get married in the epilogue), nikolai leans heavily into it after his inheritance is lost, and sonya clings to it because it’s all she has. there’s something finely observed about human nature in that, and especially in the way it makes them all act like complete freaks

sonya marya and nikolai are the three characters in war and peace who are most enraptured with the concept of self-sacrifice, as an ideal and as an organizing principle. they all variously aspire to it and at the point where their interests come up against each other there’s a moment where they’re sort of in competition over who will get to be the martyr of the situation. sonya is the best at it, so she wins. which of course means that she loses

[lisiya-gori]

sonya marya and nikolai are the three characters in war and peace who are most enraptured with the concept of self-sacrifice, as an ideal and as an organizing principle. they all variously aspire to it and at the point where their interests come up against each other there’s a moment where they’re sort of in competition over who will get to be the martyr of the situation. sonya is the best at it, so she wins. which of course means that she loses

[lisiya-gori]

war and peace characters who would be stoners if given the opportunity: pierre, denisov, marya bolkonskaya (fight me), julie karagina, ippolit obviously, marya dmitrievna as well actually, ilya rostov

[lisiya-gori]

ursula k. le guin with the best take anyone has ever had on the rostovs? I find that very easy to believe

(from "All Happy Families," found here )

[lisiya-gori]

- ch 1, part 2, vol 2, War and Peace, (trans. Pevear & Volokhonsky)

- (trans. Briggs)

Mood.

[lisiya-gori]

more evidence for the everything-is-incest argument: it's crazy how nikolai bolkonsky and nikolai rostov's relationship in the epilogue reads exactly like a stepfather-stepson dynamic. that sort of mutual unease and resentment, and (at least on nikolai r's part) the guilt about it. of course technically they're uncle and nephew after nikolai r marries marya b, but from nikolai b's perspective what happens is that his dad dies and then his primary female caretaker since birth gets married to Some Guy who comes to live in his house, and nikolai b has to listen to him even though he's not his REAL dad. pierre is his fun uncle but nikolai r is his replacement father figure who he hates. it's wild that this can happen even to andrei and marya, who are by far the least incestuous siblings in this entire book

[lisiya-gori]

real housewives of st. petersburg, the cast is anna pavlovna scherer (chronic name-dropper who hosts the best events and lives for other people’s drama) marya dmitrievna akhrosimova (amazing confessionals, will call a bitch out, ridiculously memeable) anna mikhailovna drubetskaya (patient, ruthless, nice to your face while she destroys you behind you back, absolute reality tv menace) aline kuragina (former beauty queen who is very clearly not holding it together) and natalya rostova (hypocritical nicegirl constantly manipulated into doing anna mikhailovna's dirty work). lise bolkonskaya does friend-of appearances and julie karagina hosts a popular recap and analysis podcast

[lisiya-gori]

while we're talking about implied traumatic backstories for tolstoy's female characters, let's discuss the over/under on anna mikhailovna abusive relationship survivor. consider: extremely protective of her only child, does not ever mention his father. raises boris with an extensive network built entirely on the strength of her own connections. embroiled at the beginning of the novel in a crippling lawsuit whose contents are never discussed. ruthlessly pragmatic about security, power, and autonomy in a way that suggests intimate knowledge about what it means not to have any. adept at manipulating events from an ostensibly inferior position. never once seen to put her trust in a man

[lisiya-gori]

that passage of war and peace with andrei that’s meant to be like a deep and profound spiritual revelation but it’s just him learning that his life isn’t over in his thirties

[lisiya-gori]

epilogue natasha actually does kind of make sense. natasha's ending in war and peace is that she goes through a series of extremely traumatic events (betrayal, social and economic ruin, war, displacement, grief) and then immediately marries someone she's known all her life and feels safe with, even though she's never had romantic feelings for him before. and then when we see her seven years later she's completely withdrawn from the wider world, subdued every aspect of her personality to the point of unrecognizability, stopped playing music or dancing or doing anything that might draw attention to herself, and devoted herself entirely to the security and comfort of her family. that is a very coherent storyline, even if it's not the one tolstoy thinks it is

[lisiya-gori]

ok we just laughed until our ribs got tired. Now what