Which is the Dream?

The young man, frustrated by the intransigent status-quo, is attracted to the lone, powerful man who impudently casts convention aside to rise in the ranks to the status of Emperor. The young man is Pierre at the beginning of Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace. Pierre is a sympathetic character despite the fact that Tolstoy was not himself a fan of Napoleon. One mark of Tolstoy's greatness, and a key aspect of his ability to write characters, is that he understood perspectives that were not his own.

I've been listening to an audiobook of War and Peace lately while walking to and from work. Just like the first time I read it, I enjoy the "Peace" sections more than the "War" sections. I suppose because there are more women in the Peace sections though I do appreciate the complicated portrait Tolstoy paints of officers and soldiers, caught up in petty dramas, in nurturing certain modes of behaviour, in strategising that often seems more retroactive than proactive.

I like this bit from the point of view of the young soldier, Rostov, thinking about a colonel with whom he'd previously had some interaction:

It seemed to Rostóv that Bogdánich was only pretending not to notice him, and that his whole aim now was to test the cadet’s courage, so he drew himself up and looked around him merrily; then it seemed to him that Bogdánich rode so near in order to show him his courage. Next he thought that his enemy would send the squadron on a desperate attack just to punish him—Rostóv. Then he imagined how, after the attack, Bogdánich would come up to him as he lay wounded and would magnanimously extend the hand of reconciliation.

All these young men go to war with such vainglorious fantasies of personal heroism or of at least having the opportunity of showing their honour. When the reality turns out to mainly be mindless marching and various camp chores, naturally the imagination rushes in to fill the gaps in the story their young minds imagine must be happening, just outside their ability to directly perceive it. The reality of conflict can burst that bubble but so can thirteen year old Natasha's laughter at the dinner table. There's a dinner scene earlier with members of multiple families and esteemed persons in which a grave discussion about honour in battle is interrupted by Natasha deliberately asking very loudly about desserts. While she may not understand the long psychological road of nursed egos and resentments that led to the discussion, her instinct that it's bullshit is no less accurate.

Most of the guests, uncertain how to regard this sally, looked at the elders.

“You had better take care!” said the countess.

“Mamma! What sweets are we going to have?” Natásha again cried boldly, with saucy gaiety, confident that her prank would be taken in good part.

Sónya and fat little Pétya doubled up with laughter.

“You see! I have asked,” whispered Natásha to her little brother and to Pierre, glancing at him again.

“Ice pudding, but you won’t get any,” said Márya Dmítrievna.

Natásha saw there was nothing to be afraid of and so she braved even Márya Dmítrievna.

“Márya Dmítrievna! What kind of ice pudding? I don’t like ice cream.”

“Carrot ices.”

“No! What kind, Márya Dmítrievna? What kind?” she almost screamed; “I want to know!”

Márya Dmítrievna and the countess burst out laughing, and all the guests joined in. Everyone laughed, not at Márya Dmítrievna’s answer but at the incredible boldness and smartness of this little girl who had dared to treat Márya Dmítrievna in this fashion.