How a book about Russian Nobility, Dinner Parties (lots and lots of them), and Freemasons became one of my favorite reads of the year

I know, I'm shocked too.  Time to ramble.....

Bad News- Due to my Mother being in town for a few weeks, I couldn't make the Saturday meeting.  Very disappointing, but as Joe pointed out, Our schedule masters us sometimes.

Good News- Due to the desire to remember what having a sort-of social life feels like, I quit my night job.  Should give me lots more free time.  Should mean I can post more than once every two months.

And how am I celebrating my first "free" night?
 Currently, that would be drinking a beer, smoking a cigar, and watching wrestling.  The beer is self-explanitory.  The cigar is a habit I picked up from an uncle who lives in Florida.  Not that I smoke often, or ever smoke cigarettes, but occasionally I get a craving, and nothing beats a stogie.  And the wrestling...is an even older habit, though one I have not indulged in for a long time. It's also fitting for the book I'm about to discuss.

Bear with me.

Wrestling is not an intellectual pursuit, I admit that.  It's also a strange choice for someone who professes to despises "reality" shows as much as I do.  To answer your questions, yes, I know it's fake. Yes, I know it's lowest-common-denominator.  Yes, I know it's basically soap opera for men.  In between all it's faults, it also can make for compelling drama, and great theater.  Much like "War and Peace".  If you had told me that most of W&P would take place during dinner parties held by rich people for rich people, well, I would have been less that thrilled.  But the more I read Tolstoy, I can't put it down.  I didn't even start reading our second assignment until two Saturdays ago, but once the story got rolling, I was unable to stop.  And, also like wrestling, it's the characters that make it must-see....uh...must-read?  Whatever it is, I love it.  I love Pierre's long, well-meaning but ultimately futile search for a meaningful life.  Also, his blithe ignorance on how much he loves Natasha.  You might have already guessed this from my last W&P post, but Pierre is by and far my favorite character.  I plan on expanding on this more when on a later post, further in the book, but the more Count Bezukhov, the better for me.

As for Natasha, Joe told me last week, "How can anybody fall in love with a 16 year old girl?  Have you talked to a 16 year old girl?".  It's probably a good point, even by somebody who dubbed her an "attention whore", but the beauty of Natasha is that she is a good person, extremely positive and uncynical and capable of making anybody feel better about themselves and her.  And that's exactly the kind of girl that attracts, well, losers and such.  Just by being around a person like that, you feel like more than you are.  I'm not saying she's perfect, but I know people like that, and I get it.  As for the suicide attempt, and the nuttiness, and the boyfriends.....she's 16.  When you're 16 (and this goes for boys and girls), everything is magnified, every event feels earth-shattering.  It doesn't feel right, but it does feel true, and I think that's what I'm digging about Tolstoy, his characters feel true.  The "good" ones- Natasha, Pierre, Andrei (or Andrew, depending on your version) and the bad ones- The old prince, Dolokhov, Anatole, Helen, every Rostov other that Natasha....yeah, there are a lot of people I yell at while reading.  But I keep reading about them, and I want to know more.  I'm even tempted to keep reading even though the next meeting is a few months away.

I also highlighted a few passages, ones that just struck me as insightful and well-written.

• No matter what he thought about, he always returned to these same questions which he could not solve and yet could not cease to ask himself.  It was as if the thread of the chief screw which held his life together were stripped, so that the screw could not get in or out, but went on turning uselessly in the same place.- Pierre, as always the most eloquent mind for a man with no social skills. Reminds me of me, if I had an eloquent mind.
• "Yes, that is true, Prince.  In our days," continued Vera- mentioning "our days" as people of limited intelligence are fond of doing, imagining that they have discovered and appraised the peculiarities of "our days" and that human characteristics change with the times......- I actually fist-pumped when I read this.  
• Sometimes he remembered how he had heard that soldiers in war when entrenched under the enemy;s fire, if they have nothing to do, try hard to find some occupation, the more easily to bear the danger.  To Pierre all men seemed like those soldiers, seeking refuge from life: some in ambition, some in cards, some in framing laws, some in women, some in toys, some in horses, some in politics, some in sport, some in wine, and some in governmental affairs. "Nothing is trivial, and nothing is important. It's all the same- only to save oneself from it as best as one can." thought Pierre. "Only not to see it, that dreadful it!"- I'm not trying to engage in hyperbole, which I tend to do sometimes. This is the most intelligent, scathing, observantly brilliant passage I've read in a long time. 

I love this book.