Death has always been around. Ever since life began. But you are never ready for it. Never. Even before the very imminence of it. Prince Andrew has just died. Book 12, chapter 16, page 773 of Tolstoy’s War and Peace. I thought Tolstoy would spare him, but in the end, so as it happens in life itself, he died.
Not only did Prince Andrew know he would die, but he felt that he was dying and was already half dead. He was conscious of an aloofness from everything earthly and a strange and joyous lightness of existence. Without haste or agitation he awaited what was coming. That inexorable, eternal, distant, and unknown the presence of which he had felt continually all his life–was now near to him and, by the strange lightness he experienced, almost comprehensible and palpable…
Among many deaths, War and Peace is about life and the true beauty of living. Life goes on, and so do I, reading this wonderful masterpiece written in 1869 regarded not only as a novel, it is the best book ever written! Everything is within it: love, battles, psicologic recreations of life, history, war and of course, peace. It is such a lengthy book many would think of it as boring. 964 pages is not for everyone. Not for me when I was 27 for sure! Thankfully, I had the wisdom of waiting for the right moment to read it. But do not get me wrong. I am not afraid of long books. I have read quite a few long books…Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain (one of my favorite books ever!), Proust’s Jean Santeuil, García Márquez’ A Hundred Years of Solitude, Bolaño’s The Savage Detectives…they have all brought me joy. War and Peace is different. It is a saga that transcends time and goes right where humanity has gotten lost.
Davout looked up and gazed intently at him. For some seconds they looked at one another, and that look saved Pierre. Apart from conditions of war and law, that look established human relations between the two men. At that moment an immense number of things passed dimly through both their minds, and they realized that they were both children of humanity and were brothers. (book 12, chapter 10)
“Never, never marry, my dear fellow! That’s my advice: never marry till you can say to yourself that you have done all you are capable of, and until you have ceased to love the woman of your choice and have seen her plainly as she is, or else you will make a cruel and irrevocable mistake. Marry when you are old and good for nothing- or all that is good and noble in you will be lost. It will all be wasted on trifles. Yes! Yes! Yes! Don’t look at me with such surprise. If you marry expecting anything from yourself in the future, you will feel at every step that for you all is ended, all is closed except the drawing room, where you will be ranged side by side with a court lackey and an idiot!… But what’s the good?…” and he waved his arm. (book 1, chapter 8)
Never had love been so much in the air, and never had the amorous atmosphere made itself so strongly felt in the Rostovs’ house as at this holiday time. “Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly. It is the one thing we are interested in here,” said the spirit of the place. (book4, chapter 11)
I am not done yet, but I can say this book has changed the perception of my life and the way I see literature as a means of enlightment and growth. It is taking me a great deal of time. I am enjoying the after thoughts I have with myself.
It was clear and frosty. Above the dirty, ill-lit streets, above the black roofs, stretched the dark starry sky. Only looking up at the sky did Pierre cease to feel how sordid and humiliating were all mundane things compared with the heights to which his soul had just been raised. At the entrance to the Arbat Square an immense expanse of dark starry sky presented itself to his eyes. Almost in the center of it, above the Prechistenka Boulevard, surrounded and sprinkled on all sides by stars but distinguished from them all by its nearness to the earth, its white light, and its long uplifted tail, shone the enormous and brilliant comet of 18l2- the comet which was said to portend all kinds of woes and the end of the world. In Pierre, however, that comet with its long luminous tail aroused no feeling of fear. On the contrary he gazed joyfully, his eyes moist with tears, at this bright comet which, having traveled in its orbit with inconceivable velocity through immeasurable space, seemed suddenly- like an arrow piercing the earth- to remain fixed in a chosen spot, vigorously holding its tail erect, shining and displaying its white light amid countless other scintillating stars. It seemed to Pierre that this comet fully responded to what was passing in his own softened and uplifted soul, now blossoming into a new life. (book 8, chapter 22)
Life and death, so many people passing. Last night, my dear cousin Donald passed away. Another life that was not expected to last long, but nobody knew. Sad. If we could only knew our deadline….
And then, watching “I am Heath Ledger” kept me thinking of my own inmortality. How come a young talented actor, with so many to give to the world, dies? He lived his life to the fullest, maybe anticipating he would only be around 28 years. And he did everything in his power to leave a mark on this world. Will I be able to do that? Only time (and the ones I love) will tell.
Letters from Indra 