troisoiseaux

In War and Peace, Natasha and Andrei have fallen in love and gotten engaged at great speed, although on the promise to Andrei's father that they won't get married for a year, and will keep their engagement secret for that year, which will cause absolutely no problems whatsoever. :) :) :) Natasha's first ball is one of the scenes I'd remembered fondly from my first read-through, ~10 years ago— Tolstoy is just so good at evoking the feeling of experiencing feelings (here, the deadly seriousness of preparing for, and giddy excitement of attending, Baby's First Big Grown-Up Social Event) and, between Natasha and Kitty in Anna Katerina, I feel like he's surprisingly good at writing teenage girls? On the other hand, I had not recalled the twin plot threads of Andrei and Pierre both trying to engage with reform via committee: in Andrei's case, advocating for military reform, through which efforts he quickly becomes besties with but just as quickly disillusioned with (I'm sensing a pattern/foreshadowing here) an upstart statesman; in Pierre's, getting really invested in the mission and mysteries of the Freemasons and trying to convince his fellow Freemasons, who view it more as a social networking club, to take it equally seriously.

I've started reading Madly, Deeply, the edited and published collection of Alan Rickman's diaries, 1993-2015; so far, his 1993 entries have been a blur of names and references that I mostly don't recognize— main plot threads of 1993 are a failed bid to acquire a theater(?) and shambles on the set of the movie Mesmer— but it is delightful whenever someone I do recognize pops up (so far, Fiona Shaw— who he refers to as "Fifi"— and Ian McKellen). I'm also delighted by his frequent mini-reviews of random movies: "Jurassic Park— what the hell is the plot? Great dinosaurs." and "Sleepless in Seattle— halfway through I think 'I was in this movie'" (followed by editor's note: "He wasn't").