Tag: War and Peace

War and Peace: Reflection on Literature in the Digital Age -Part 2

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The reward of reading War and Peace was much more than being able say I got through it.  The reward of reading is always the experience of deep thought.  Having viewed both a movie version and a made-for-TV version, I had an idea of the overall story, but a reader not only has the creative privilege of designing the sets, the costumes, and actors, the reader gets to contemplate the philosophical concepts embedded throughout. And War and Peace certainly is chock full of philosophical meanderings.  What does it mean to exist as a human?  What is power and what is free will?  What are truth, beauty or love?  Did God design it all? This book is so much more than the story.

The story of War and Peace is basically a love story, which surprised me! Although there are vivid battle scenes of the War of 1812, descriptions of society a hundred years before Downton Abbey (and the production values I created in my mind were ever so lovely), and financial ruin during times of duress, the overarching theme is love.  The characters desperately seek the meaning of life through encounters with power, money problems, death, and the contemplation of free will. Spoiler ALERT! Love, it turns out, is the ultimate meaning. The Beatles were right! Love is all you need.

loveisall

But it really isn’t that simple.  Stating that love is the answer is like showing a picture of water and talking about how water is necessary for life.  You have to drink it to experience it.  You have to go through the journey for yourself. The experience of reading War and Peace is a far cry from the type of reading we get on the web as we scroll frantically through tidbits of thought. The experience has become a part of me, unlike the countless photos, memes, and comments delivered throughout every day through “disposable” media.

A book is a container of thought. Mental nourishment is as important as physical nourishment.  Your grandmother knew that you are what you eat. Now I am sounding like a librarian!  Everyone should read.

Well, that too isn’t really that simple.  I agree with Nicholas Carr’s suggestion (the reason I read War and Peace as stated in Part 1) that our brains are changing due to our constant connection to the Internet.  I recognize it in my own life and the lives of those around me- always leaving the present moment to check in online with our devices.  Maybe I should summarize by saying, all you need is love, a good book, and an effort to unplug occasionally. War and Peace exemplified all three and, in Part 3, I just may share an example or two.

War and Peace: Reflection on Literature in the Digital Age -Part 1

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450px-War_and_Peace_book

I just finished reading Tolstoy’s War and Peace.  For real.  I guess last night when I read the final page, it was a bit like reaching the top of the print version of Mount Everest. Having accomplished this literary feat, I certainly have enough material floating around in my head to reflect upon in more than one blog post. You may never read this novel, but feel free to join me and reflect on what it meant, what it means, and what it may mean in the future.

The first question is: Why?

Why read War and Peace, the historical fiction novel written way back in 1869, which is often referenced whenever we speak of something super long and boring?

I simply decided to read War and Peace before it is too late.  I will explain.

Back in 2011, I happened upon Nicholas Carr’s book The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains and his insights validated my own feelings that I was losing a grip on how to deeply focus.  We still read as much as we ever did, but in little snippets of skimming blogs and posts and scrolling through content on our mobile devices.

Several references about our lack of ability to read and absorb long passages of text were made by Nicholas Carr.  Bruce Friedman, a medical school faculty pathologist at the University of Michigan, is quoted in The Shallows, stating, “I can’t read War and Peace anymore.  I’ve lost the ability to do that.  Even a blog post of more than three or four paragraphs is too much to absorb. I skim it. (Carr, 2011, p.7)”  (Are you still with me? You have passed the three or four paragraph mark. I dare you to finish this blog post.  And you don’t have to read War and Peace- I promise.)

Carr also quotes Clay Shirky, digital media scholar at NYU, suggesting in a 2008 blog post, “No one reads War and Peace.  It’s too long, and not so interesting (Carr, 2011, p.111).” He goes on to explain long novels of the past are not worth the time invested and “were just a side-effect of living in an environment of impoverished access”.

Today, we have access to live information on a global scale at our fingertips and in our pockets.  We can view millions and millions of youtube videos, instagram photos, tweets, and memes created by people all over the globe. Are we really “information rich”? Carr raised this question with the warning that thoughtful people may “…slip comfortably into the permanent state of distractedness that defines online life” (p. 112). In 2011, I took that warning very seriously and I still do.

So, I read War and Peace.  And it was truly worth the effort.

Stay tuned for Part 2 – if you finished this post- and I’ll reflect on what it’s all about.