Lost in Russia 4-9-2015 (Part Two)

[ I am back working through my prison journal. It is out of order… Well, the order is as I have opened boxes. The date in the title is the date it was written. I hope this is not confusing. What you are reading is what you get for your tax dollars.  

Continued from Lost in Russia 4-9-2015 (Part One). sch 10/23/2025]

And for the historian this historical novel has lessons (as well as anyone wanting to write a hunting story, or satirize a conspiracy theory/superstition, or weave a marriage plot - I've given up cataloging all the stories found so far under the oh-so-simple title of War and Peace).

Now those who took part in the events of the year 1812 have long ago passed from the scene, their personal interests have vanished, leaving no trace, and nothing remains of that time save its historical results.

Providence compelled all those men, striving for the attainment of their own private ends, to combine for the accomplishment of a single stupendous result, of which no one man (neither Napoleon, nor Alexander, still less any of those who did the actual fighting had the slightest inkling.

Book Three; Part 2: August 1812; War and Peace (Penguin Classics, 1988)

What more can I say about War and Peace? 

I can ask what is the conceit of Americans? That what we cannot build better, we can buy and thus become morally superior to others by our rugged individualism? Or is it our belief that we have found the way to material success, trumping some far-off, speculative success? Either way, thinking that the rest of the world would be better off if they were us?

No, all I can say is, don't be scared of the book any more than you would be of a book by Stephen King or George R.R. Martin. Go, read Tolstoy as soon as possible. Certainly read War and Peace outside of prison!

 I have read little else but my Bible the past two weeks. Oh, yes, I nibbled at M*A*S*H Goes to Maine, and read a New Yorker, but War and Peace has been swallowing my time. 

I got “Basketball” copied and off to Ryan and KH. I did write Ryan a very long letter. I wonder what he will make of that. I'm typing portions of “The Old Days” - too many changes to keep 11 pages legible. That will take some time to finish - the law library is being remodeled, and the typewriters squeezed into the leisure library's reading room. Add to a suicide/drug overdoes (the scuttlebutt is one or the other, with heroin as the means) in Unit 5752, and 5711 on lockdown (for all manner of things: a CO getting pushed while apprehending an inmate with a cell phone, hooch, and just general screwing up), the ability to get to the Education Building has been a problem. And I'd like to get this done for JC - who is not very happy with me after we got a bit loud with one another (I violated one of my rules - don't get attached to anyone in particular) - can see it before he leaves. I think I've hit the mark with this one - I also have no idea what others will make of it. I think it and “The Sloe Gin Effect” or “Driving Down a Blind Alley” are the most likely to get me killed. 

The weather is all gray drizzle, but I'm keeping the depression at bay - tired of the effort but hanging on. I never realized how much I love the sound of Joni Mitchell's voice. Considering the senselessness, the sheer nullity, of my life, the Bible and War and Peace are good to get lost in.

sch