Dec 21, 2016
A Year of War and Peace
Introducing a Daily, Yearlong, Chapter-by-Chapter Reading and Meditation on Tolstoy’s Masterpiece
What It Is
A Year of War and Peace is the bibliotheraputic equivalent of mainlining your favorite mood enhancer.
Over the course of one year, should you choose to join me, we will read one of the 361 chapters of War and Peace per day followed by a brief reflection on the chapter published here on Medium. These reflections will focus on the novel’s characters and how thinking about their nineteenth-century triumphs and failings may help us to live better, more fulfilling lives today. This unique reading of War and Peace is something I’ve been doing every day for the past seven years. I welcome you to join me this year.
Why You Should Join Me
The primary reason you should join me is that War and Peace is one of the greatest books ever written. It’s immensely enjoyable to read. It’s also just plain immense. In fact, its size is often cited as the reason people have not read it yet. A Year of War and Peace solves this problem by breaking down the gigantic novel into small, bite-sized pieces. No more than twenty minutes per day is required to read along and, by year’s end, with just this small investment of time, you’ll have a thorough understanding and appreciation of one of the world’s most celebrated books.
When It Starts
A Year of War and Peace begins on January 1, 2017. But, please, feel free to read at your own leisure.
What Translation I’ll be Reading
I’ll be reading Oxford World’s Classics’ Maude translation. I’ve read many of the English translations and this is my favorite. With the exception of the Norton Critical Edition, all the translations I’ve read follow the 361 chapter convention so following along with another translation should not be a problem. The first time I cycled through the book using the one-chapter-per-day method I used this cheap digital version. There are a few minor typos but it’s serviceable for our purposes.
The Daily Readings
Below are the daily readings. I will link to each as they are made available.
Day 1: Pavlovna’s God
Day 2: Pierre at the Party
Day 3: Enter Prince Andrei Bolkonsky
Day 4: Don’t Talk Politics
Day 5: Here’s Looking at Nothing, Kid
Day 6: An Unhappy Family Unhappy In Its Own Way
Day 7: именины
Day 8: Consider the Doll
Day 9: Nick Fit
Day 10: Kissing Cousins
Day 11: A Widow’s Workout
Day 12: Boris Does His Duty
Day 13: On the Distraction of C.R.E.A.M.
Day 14: Cry, Friend
Day 15: Speechmaking to Worms
Day 16: You May Die In Your Bed
Day 17: The Ants of Moscow
Day 18: Vasili the Unvirtuous
Day 19: Fate’s Force
Day 20: Approach of the Kneaded Clod (Bezukhov Smiles)
Day 21: Clarissa Explains It All
Day 22: On Proverbs and Purpose
Day 23: Good Grief, Part 1
Day 24: Good Grief, Part 2
Day 25: Good Grief, Part 3
Day 26: A Duty Disturbed
Day 27: A Review How-To
Day 28: Return of the Mack
Day 29: Raging Bull in a China Shop
Day 30: Pride’s Prejudice
Day 31: It’s Only Natural
Day 32: Amid the Madness
Day 33: Crave Not These Things
Day 34: Be the Rock
Day 35: The Flea Presumes
Day 36: Waking Well
Day 37: A Soldier’s Duty
Day 38: Prince Andrei in the Waking Echo of Confusing Strife
Day 39: On Miracles and Mistakes
Day 40: They Talked of Peace
Day 41: Plans and Anti-Plans
Day 42: “It Has Begun! Here it is!” Or: Smoke Puffs, French Pancakes and Bagration’s Chill
Day 43: Russian Carnage
Day 44: Get Ready
Day 45: Tune It Down the Middle
Day 46: Defeat in Victory
Day 47: Plotting Gardens on Volcanic Earth
Day 48: Lessons From Life and Literature
Day 49: Pop Offs and Prayers
Day 50: Justice Clashes
Day 51: Princess Marya Bolkonsky, Stoic Sage?
Day 52: But Then, Une Fine Mouche
Day 53: Fictions of Merit
Day 54: The Monstrous Enormous Whole
Day 55: Social Insecurity
Day 56: Wishing for Wishau
Day 57: Just Like Clockwork
Day 58: Leaving for Battle
Day 59: Right is Wrong and Wrong is Right
Day 60: Fog
Day 61: A Crop of Ruin
Day 62: That Infinite Sky
Day 63: Assorted Impressions
Day 64: Laughing for Some Reason Like Heaps of Manure on Well-Kept Plough Land and Disfigured by Fear of Death
Day 65: Une Belle Mort!
Day 66: Kisses
Day 67: Owned
Day 68: A Tale of Two
Day 69: The Meat it Feeds On
Day 70: Lear’s Baby
Day 71: Self-Judgment and the Wild Spectrum of Love
Day 72: The O’er Fraught Heart
Day 73: Habits and Homecomings
Day 74: The Lock in the Wax That Floats
Day 75: The Leaf and the Rake
Day 76: At Home in a Spirit of Love with a Head Full of Heat
Day 77: In the Neighborhood of Others
Day 78: Imitate or Loathe
Day 79: Self-Examination and the Dread Existential
Day 80: Oh Mio Crudele Affetto
Day 81: Tomorrow Never Knows
Day 82: The Stranger
Day 83: Lessons
Day 84: On Mediating Institutions
Day 85: Our Naked Shivering Nature
Day 86: Practice
Day 87: La Crème De La Véritable Bonne Société
Day 88: Flattering Mirror of the Proud
Day 89: The Wisdom of Choruses
Day 90: Torment as Teacher
Day 91: Practical Business
Day 92: Peaks
Day 93: Pals
Day 94: God’s Folk
Day 95: Hero
Day 96: Lines Written A Few Miles Above a Totally Ruined and Deserted German Village
Day 97: All That Is Moving And All That Is Not
Day 98: The Difference Between What Is Hard And What Is Easy
Day 99: When King Laugh Come (But Only For Some)
Day 100: Boris Drubetskoy And The Art of Career Advancement
Day 101: Where Despair Most Fits
Day 102: The Alexander Option
Day 103: Andrei’s Oak
Day 104: Natasha’s Moon
Day 105: Remote From These Bounties
Day 106: Prince Andrei Puts His Guiding Principles To Work
Day 107: Conform To The Nature of Which You Are A Part
Day 108: Every Day
Day 109: Maybe The Flu
Day 110: The Purification And Reformation Of Oneself
Day 111: Thinking Makes It So
Day 112: I ❤ Pierre Bezukhov
Day 113: Doubtable Foundations
Day 114: Such Seething Brains
Day 115: (Just So) What’ll We Do About Boris?
Day 116: Revving Up For Le Réveillon
Day 117: The Sweet Nectar
Day 118: Sunshine and Storm
Day 119: Markets and Meditations
Day 120: The Social Contagion
Day 121: These New Eyes and What They See
Day 122: Consider Also That You Do Many Things Wrong
Day 123: A Party of Leaves
Day 124: Through Weal and Woe
Day 125: All With Whom We Associate
Day 126: A Test of Character
Day 127: Stumbling Footsteps in the Dark
Day 128: Wax Wings are Things Without Feathers
Day 129: Family Law
Day 130: The Rage Returns
Day 131: Season of Mists and Mellow Fruitfulness
Day 132: Baby, You’re a Rich Man
Day 133: It Raineth Every Day
Day 134: The One Breeds Union, the Other Disunion
Day 135: The Cosmopolitan Dream
Day 136: Stuck in the Net
Day 137: Fleas, Crickets, Grasshoppers
Day 138: Met Him Pike Hoses: I Sailed With Thee Along the Peruvian Coast Last Voyage
Day 139: Moonglow
Day 140: Natasha and the Infinite Mirrors
Day 141: Act Naturally
Day 142: Pierre’s Errors
Day 143: Eating the Other
Day 144: The Angry Man
Day 145: We Have a Thaw
Day 146: Le Sourire de la Mélancolie!
Day 147: A Ruler to Make the Crooked Straight
Day 148: What We Talk About When We Talk About Marty McFly Being Called a Chicken
Day 149: There Will Be a Show Tonight
Day 150: Moloch Whose Eyes Are a Thousand Blind Windows
Day 151: Do Not Swear By Natasha’s Moon
Day 152: Watchful and Natural Guardians (Call Your Mother)
Day 153: Sufficient to Cleanse the Soul Completely
Day 154: Have the Standards Ready
Day 155: Greater Kindness and Tender Compassion
Day 156: Control
Day 157: Dance My Dunce
Day 158: Bad Men
Day 159: Crushing It
Day 160: A History of Rage
Day 161: You Will Not Suffer Any Harm
Day 162: Birthday
Day 163: All You Need is Love
Day 164: The Sovereign and the Swarm
Day 165: Boundless and Bare the Lone and Level Sands Stretch Far Away
Day 166: Achievement
Day 167: The King of Naples!
Day 168: The Compact of Mutual Indulgence
Day 169: Ethos and Athos
Day 170: Reflect
Day 171: Adieu, André!
Day 172: On the Faculty of Choice
Day 173: Critical of Theory
Day 174: Kinderspiel!
Day 175: He Had Gained Experience
Day 176: Nikolai Karenina
Day 177: Before a Blowing Wind
Day 178: Absurdity, Injustice, and a Bestial Kind of Madness
Day 179: There Will Always Be a Protest
Day 180: At This Point, I Excuse You
Day 181: Persist and Weigh the Enemy More Mighty
Day 182: L’Russe Besuhof
Day 183: Bandage
Day 184: Humanity
Day 185: Serfin’ USA
Day 186: True Freedom and the Sleekest Slavery of All
Day 187: Read a Book Every Day
Day 188: Be the Belly Without Blemish
Day 189: Out of Luck in La Belle Époque
Day 190: Smolensk
Day 191: Ask the Dust
Day 192: Models
Day 193: Put Away All Covetousness
Day 194: The Remainder
Day 195: Warm Waters
Day 196: One Model
Day 197: Marya’s Response
Day 198: Swept Away Together
Day 199: The Meet Cute, Tolstoy Style
Day 200: A Consciousness of Wrongdoing
Day 201: Revisit the Lofty Sky of Austerlitz
Day 202: Kutuzov’s Anti-Plan
Day 203: I Read the New Today, Oh Boy
Day 204: (Working Title)
Day 205: The Blind Tools of History
Day 206: Like a Morning Dream
Day 207: No Thine Own Self
Day 208: Ready
Day 209: Atqui Vivere, Lucili, Militare Est
Day 210: Be Well Content
Day 211: As If Burned
Day 212: Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop
Day 213: Amour Propre
Day 214: A Great Wind
Day 215: Clotho Forbids
Day 216: Love and Beauty and a Latent Heat
Day 217: As if in a Tempest
Day 218: They Will Not Stop It, They Are Not Horrified at What They Have Done
Day 219: The Hand That Moves the Battle Along
Day 220: War and Economics
Day 221: The Wisdom of Age
Day 222: Fear of Death
Day 223: Without Fear of Death
Day 224: Fifty Thousand Corpses Lay There (This Heart Within Me Burns)
Day 225: Fate Show Thy Force
Day 226: The Calculus of History
Day 227: Prosecute the Present Study
Day 228: Prepare to Meet Everything
Day 229: Plain
Day 230: So it Goes
Day 231: Keep
Day 232: Monkey See, Monkey Do
Day 233: The Natural Sauce
Day 234: Silence
Day 235: To Be Honest
Day 236: Pierre Bezukhov and the Practical Practice
Day 237: The Countess and the City
Day 238: Natasha Turns it Around
Day 239: Riches and Rightness
Day 240: Profitless
Day 241: Indifferents
Day 242: Old Efim’s Sufferance
Day 243: Total Nihilistic Existential Breakdown
Day 244: The Ryazan Road to Ruin by Revolution
Day 245: Droning On
Day 246: The Common Lot of Mortals
Day 247: Eschew Outwardly Before the Worlde
Day 248: Laws for Leadership
Day 249: Steal Something from the Thief
Day 250: Les Loups du Barbarisme
Day 251: They Carried Their Loot with Them
Day 252: L’Russe Besuhof (Reprise)
Day 253: A Just Vengeance
Day 254: Get Contaminated
Day 255: Sometimes the Bear Eats You
Day 256: To Dine in Africa
Day 257: Divine Love and the Refreshing Inn
Day 258: Lay Aside the Senator’s Dress
Day 259: More Than Mere Bodies
Day 260: Life is Ball
Day 261: Ought Not This Person be Destroyed?
Day 262: Les Décrets de la Divine Providence
Day 263: Nikolai Rostov and the Spontaneous Order
Day 264: πρόσωπον
Day 265: Without These Structural Components
Day 266: Man of Action, Man of Mind
Day 267: Footpaths
Day 268: Crown with a Halo
Day 269: A Relationship Remembered
Day 270: State the Simple Truth of It
Day 271: My Name is Platon
Day 272: Round
Day 273: Nature Likewise by Power of Reason
Day 274: It’s Okay to Cry (It’s Only Natural)
Day 275: The Dream of a Particle of Love
Day 276: The Two Handles of His Story
Day 277: Let Me See Who You Are
Day 278: On Kutuzov
Day 279: A Call for Clouds
Day 280: Abide the Outcome in the Dark
Day 281: Look How They Massacred My Boy
Day 282: The World Will Not Quarrel
Day 283: The Less Control We Have
Day 284: Controlling You
Day 285: Autumnal Leaves
Day 286: New Yorkers
Day 287: Stoic So Hard
Day 288: Memento Mori
Day 289: The Grain of a Fig
Day 290: Cogs
Day 291: Make Haste
Day 292: Kutuzov’s Champions
Day 293: Revenge
Day 294: Bubble Trouble
Day 295: Mars on Earth
Day 296: The Unfailing Antidote (Solving for X)
Day 297: Transformation and Opinion
Day 298: The Implacable Governor
Day 299: Tikhon’s Caesarean Section and the Inevitability of Death
Day 300: The Curtain is Raised
Day 301: Hold to the Precious Few
Day 302: Use a Ruler
Day 303: Not the Footprint
Day 304: Petya Rostov and the Fairyland Fugue
Day 305: Envy and Oswald 4.6.729
Day 306: Pierre Bezukhov’s Terrible March to Enlightenment
Day 307: A Sovereignty Ancient
Day 308: War
Day 309: Dream is Destiny
Day 310: Licked Before You Begin
Day 311: Lives Hastening, Turning in a Speeding Whirlwind
Day 312: Greatness
Day 313: A Component Part of a Social System
Day 314: On the Loss of a Loved One
Day 315: La Valle d’Abisso Dolorosa
Day 316: The Choice is All You Have
Day 317: The Hard Winter Training
Day 318: It’s Hard Out Here for a Philosopher
Day 319: Coriolanus and the Stone
Day 320: Force and Fatalism
Day 321: The Price is Pain
Day 322: It is Yourself You Spare
Day 323: Shrugged Shoulders and Simple Sighs
Day 324: Put on Your Pajamas
Day 325: The Last of the Human Freedoms
Day 326: Identicalizing
Day 327: Magic and Where to Find It
Day 328: Love (My Sighs Speak, Each One a Grievous Thing) — The Rusty Door Opens
Day 329: Delivery from the Snare
Day 330: How to Get Rich
Day 331: Hope and Fear
Day 332: Eudainomia
Day 333: Accept and Endure
Day 334: Formed by Nature to Change
Day 335: The Sheepish Aims of Great Men
Day 336: From Thence All Things Flow
Day 337: The Bee is Something Else Entirely
Day 338: Everybody Hurts
Day 339: Determined Love
Day 340: How to Employ the Soul
Day 341: Nikolai Rostov and That Old Hussar Habit
Day 342: Jumping After Stars
Day 343: Between Fire and Ice
Day 344: It Kills the Ills
Day 345: Joy and Despair
Day 346: Happy Holidays!
Day 347: The Individual Mind and the Political Body
Day 348: Remember the Fifty Names
Day 349: The Word
Day 350: Blind Accidents
Day 351: Keep it Up We’re in the Final Stretch Now
Day 352: Just as it Was
Day 353: Feral Humanity
Day 354: Strange Blood and the Continuous Spinning Thread of the Web
Day 355: The Tolstoy Cone
Day 356: Power to the People
Day 357: Like Hadrian and Augustus
Day 358: We Fishermen Caught in a Net
Day 359: A Man’s Own Judgments
Day 360: Cause
Day 361: The End
