#part of me always with my good friend pierre at the battle of borodino! that part of me can never ever leave

[wulfhalls]

dostoevsky or tolstoy?

tolstoy! just because I have read both war and peace and anna karenina and I never let an opportunity to mention that I have both read war and peace and anna karenina pass me by!

[andryuska]

talk to me ( or us ,,,, ) about andrei and nature go wild my friend

let me talk / ramble on about andrei

a small preface; i’m just putting this under a read more because it is very long, and i ramble on a lot about things like the war and trauma and what have you. i’ve tried to separate each section ( natural spaces, animals, and the sky ) into two vague parts —- headcanons about what i think andrei likes, and the symbolism and meaning behind certain things. enjoy!

andrei & natural spaces

as much has andrei likes to hole himself up in his study with the blinds drawn, and sit in the almost cozy stuffiness of the room, there’s a sort of peace in quiet natural spaces that he also enjoys. something about landscapes with a few scattered trees, and perhaps a river, and distant hills or mountains makes him feel almost at peace —- and while he still finds it hard to turn off his thoughts and just let nature calm him, while he still has absolutely no chill, there’s still a peaceful quality to that sort of quiet. sounds like the window through the trees, whistling gently, makes good white noise, and he’ll often walk around the quieter places of his estate to escape any potential chaos in the household, and to take in the near-silence. he lives in the country for several years as well, and doesn’t really like the cramped city, instead feeling more at ease far away from large crowds and lots of noise.

something about winter especially resonates with him, and he doesn’t like to look out his window and see thick snow, but he kind of prefers it to the height of summer, when it’s a little too warm and going about is just uncomfortable. maybe good company might mitigate this a little, and distract him, but he prefers the late autumn and the winter, and feels a lot more comfortable in colder weather. it’s a little bit about distance too —- he likes it when the weather gives him a reason to have his fire lit as he’s in his study, reading or writing whatever suits his fancy. cold feels more natural.

( that said, when he’s cold and with someone he’s in love with, he’s all about closeness for warmth —- it’s one of the very few times when he feels comfortable permitting casual touch, when he’s in love or something like it, and a little chilly. )

there’s also some relation to nature that of course we cannot forget about, because really, who would i be to not include the time when he gets pretty emotional thanks to a tree. this tree, which when andrei sees it hasn’t sprouted anything despite the fact that it’s spring, and andrei feels a bit of a connection of it —- it symbolizes the fruitlessness he feels in his own life, and this disillusioned despair that he’s fallen into simply on a account of the experiences his years have given him. it seems to him that the tree scorns spring as well, as stupid and falsely hopeful, which definitely reflects what andrei thinks about life at that point. of course, he meets natasha very soon afterward, and had another moment with this tree when it’s in bloom, at which point he decides that his life is not over and actually, for a sadly short amount of time, actively tries to find purpose in life and seek happiness and love.

the oak, just as well, has scarred bark and broken branches —- similar of course to the trauma andrei himself has suffered at this point, and the fact that it can still bloom is a really hopeful sign. it makes me wonder what sort of the state the oak would be in after the french invasion —- part of me kind of pictures that oak tree dead after 1812.

there’s also a bit of a nature motif with andrei, with barren landscapes —- when pierre comes up to his house in 1806, it’s noted that there isn’t a lot of grass growing on the land, and much of the property it without lush wildlife. similarly, bald hills is not exactly described as a place of great natural beauty. it’s all very telling of the barrenness of andrei’s own life in terms of love and happiness, and reflects how he’s come to see the world as empty of growth and happiness —- the absence growth in andrei’s property is telling of the absence of growth he himself is experiencing, and i think that shows pretty well in the very simple and distant life he leads between austerlitz and meeting natasha. that bald hills is also not a place of much natural beauty plays into the parallels between andrei and his father, and that ever-constant theme that andrei is becoming more and more like his father as he ages.

another thing is the environmental stress that the war puts on the russian countryside being a reflection of the destruction that the war brings unto andrei himself. obviously war is not good for natural spaces, and leaves lots of beautiful places with scarred land that takes a long time to recover, and battles leave huge scars where they take place, due to both the actual process of fire, and the encampments around it that characterized this period in terms of military set up ( very classical, war of attrition style stuff ). just as the environment is worn down, as is andrei —- both mentally and emotionally, as he grapples with the stress of military affairs and the thoughts of his life back at home, and later, the whole deal with natasha —- which is sort of a parallel between him and natural destruction.

so, in summary, andrei likes nature and is symbolically linked to it, with environmental beauty and stress reflecting often what he feels.

andrei & animals

i think i’ve made a post about this already, but the basically this: andrei is not particularly fond of animals or attached to them, but he is very good with them. to him, animals are pretty functional —- horses are for riding and pulling carriages, dogs are for hunting, cats are for catching mice ( though admittedly, andrei does has a greater fondness for cats than others —– they, like him, like being quietly left alone to deal with their own business ) and he can’t really see himself as getting attached to an animal in a very personal way. he cares for them and tends them, of course, he won’t be cruel, but then he’s not going to be getting emotionally involved.

however, andrei has that demeanor that animals tend to be really keen to —- he’s very calm and composed, he doesn’t make loud noises or sudden movements, he won’t stare at them and make them uncomfortable. and so they’re often very calm around him as well, and any place that keeps pets will notice that dogs and cats might settle around him to sleep or try and get affection out of him —- he very rarely gives it, but he’ll get rubbed against to be sure. similarly, he’d a very steady rider and he’s always taken pretty well to being on horseback. if things happen, he won’t get uneasy, but will calmly handle the matter, which can be very settling for an animal that is confused and anxious for whatever reason.

aside from being on horseback for very functional reasons, we really don’t see andrei with an animals throughout war and peace, and i think that most i can say of that is that it speaks of a sort of coldness and detachment. he doesn’t have dogs, and just as well, isn’t a part of any real pack or group, he never really has the emotional dynamic with a number of people ( as opposed to the rostovs, who are featured in a very long section about hunting and family ). horses were common place, so there’s no value in looking into that. he never expresses anything really important about animals if i recall correctly, so really, he’s not the interested in them. he’d rather just be with himself, and no one else.

andrei & the sky

the very best and most beautiful use of both imagery and symbolism and war and peace? the use of the the sky ( and things in the sky ) as symbols of love, hope, and forgiveness. natasha looks up and sees the moon, and is in love with everything, and her hearing her speak of the moon is really when i think andrei falls in love with her, truly and fully despite having never really met her. pierre looks up and sees the comet of 1812 ( which actually happened in 1811 in late december, fight me dave malloy ) and is suddenly filled with the hope for a new and better life. andrei sees the sky at the battle of borodino —- i think austerlitz is a little different, so i’ll work backwards here —- and suddenly realizes the capacity of his forgiveness and love.

seeing the sky, this free and beautiful blue expanse that is just standing above this horrible and incredibly violent battlefield at borodino, is that experience which finally allows himself to be free of this contempt and anger that filled the months before. it’s almost something that teaches him that he can be above it if only he can love, and after seeing the sky at borodino, he suddenly becomes very keen to the importance of his love —- for him, the sky opens him to this thought that all exists because of his ability to love. not all of life is strapped down in violent war, not everything is about bitterness and loathing. there is something greater than him, greater than the forces of history, and because of it, he doesn’t need to hold on to his quarrels any more. he’s able to forgive anatole and love natasha, he’s able to move past a grief that has had a huge and terrible effect on him for a very long time. you could almost say that in seeing the clear sky, he can finally clear the air ( get it? get it?? )

seeing the sky before his death is arguably one of the most important moments in his life emotionally speaking, and it kills me that it has to happen at a point where he can no longer live —- even if, at that point, he has basically accepted his death.

which, speaking of, brings me to one of my favourite shorter quotes in the whole book. “ death is an awakening. ” i know that literally, he’s talking about a dream where he dies, and as he does, he wakes up and has this thought, but i’ve been thinking about it a lot, and i think that revelation, that death is an awakening, comes a little late for him. because the real awakening isn’t the dream, or seeing natasha or anything like that, it’s the moment where his death really begins —- the moment that he’s injured and staring up at the sky he has is awakening, and but this moment is also the beginning of a very long death. the sky, and the forgiveness that it represents, is the awakening that he’s talking about. in seeing the sky, he’s awakened to the fact that all exists because he loves, and that begins the moment he sees the sky, which happens to be the same moment when his death begins.

so what about austerlitz? because he has a bit of a moment with the sky there too —- and instead of filling him with love and forgiveness, it fills him with a sudden understanding of his own insignificance and likewise, the insignificance of all these armies commanded by great men. lying under the sky then, he’s suddenly met with disillusionment and smallness. it’s the very first moment where he understands that he’ll never be glorious, because there is no purpose in glory, and thus that they are all small and have no real way of changing history. so…. what gives?

i think if you look past the difference in effect, you can see the sky having a similar effect at both battles —- both times, it is an awakening, an injury that could be fatal ( that only is the second time ) followed by an immediate understanding of something that he had before been blind to. sadly, the first time his awakening is a very negative one, that leads him into a collection of years that are very miserable and isolated, wherein he feels like he has no purpose. the next time he really feels bright is with natasha and the moon, but that isn’t really his awakening —- he’s just witness to someone else seeing something, and we learn soon enough that it doesn’t go very well for him.

tl;dr —- andrei’s philosophical awakenings are tied to the sky, and his emotional state is tied to the environment. and he likes cats, but not that much.