War and Peace
Some time back, when I had first started reading War and Peace, I had a lovely theory about the importance of needlework -- almost entirely knitting -- in the book, which theory, alas, I believed had to be thrown out, as the text wouldn't uphold it, darn oh darn. The war parts are pretty much NOT about needlework. This could have been predicted, but I had hopes. Only needlework in the war sections consists of a Russian prisoner sewing a shirt for a French solder, badly.
But I'm getting pretty near the end now (I'm on page 1235 of 1444), and recently I came across more knitting, in the intersection of the domestic and the martial worlds: Prince Andrei is dying of a shrapnel wound, and Natasha is looking after him:
Ever since she had begun looking after him he had always had this instinctive awareness of her presence. She was sitting in a low chair placed sideways so as to screen the light of the candle from him, and was knitting a stocking. (She had learned to knit after Prince Andrei had casually remarked that no one made such a good sick-nurse as an old nanny who knitted stockings, and there was something soothing about knitting.) (p. 1164 of the edition linked above)
So, this is promising, cause we have an articulation of theory here. Also explains why there's no needlework to speak of except in the "peace" parts -- needlework is sane, for one thing, and an emblem of spiritual development, for another. (The Russian prisoner who sews the shirt mentioned above is a little matrix of spirituality; apparently if you've not got some level of spiritual development you can't even darn your socks. This would be part of the reason that the war's going so badly. All the ragged uniforms are lying around in the snow, unmended.)
I enjoy Tolstoy, and I'm pleased that he noticed knitting and thought about it. But there are some problems with this passage.
Prince Andrei's not been dying for THAT long; it's great that he's washed up in Natasha's bailiwick so that they can be reconciled before he dies and she can attain a higher state of spiritual development, etc. etc., but think about this; she Just Learned to Knit! And she's doing stockings! You KNOW they look dreadful, and her gauge is off, and has completely changed -- probably loosened up about halfway down the stocking. Also, there are lines running down the stocking where she switched from one needle to another. Also, she's doing it by candlelight, whilst in the middle of Deep Turmoil, and she's been dropping stitches right and left. Also, one sentence later she's going to drop the ball of yarn off her lap, and it's going to roll around on the floor, which nobody is cleaning very well these days, on account of everybody being so discombobulated after fleeing Moscow and abandoning the books.
Tolstoy doesn't say who got the stockings, but it seems clear to me that the stocking themselves are irrelevant. The entire project concerns the presentation of the act of knitting, and not the knitting itself. I can only hope that the stockings got put in the grave with Prince Andrei, and Tolstoy forgot to tell us. Cause they are for sure unusable.
I wish that somebody who knows 19th Century Russian literature would take this up, cause I don't have time to get up to speed on the critical history, and I can see I'm onto something here.
But I'm getting pretty near the end now (I'm on page 1235 of 1444), and recently I came across more knitting, in the intersection of the domestic and the martial worlds: Prince Andrei is dying of a shrapnel wound, and Natasha is looking after him:
Ever since she had begun looking after him he had always had this instinctive awareness of her presence. She was sitting in a low chair placed sideways so as to screen the light of the candle from him, and was knitting a stocking. (She had learned to knit after Prince Andrei had casually remarked that no one made such a good sick-nurse as an old nanny who knitted stockings, and there was something soothing about knitting.) (p. 1164 of the edition linked above)
So, this is promising, cause we have an articulation of theory here. Also explains why there's no needlework to speak of except in the "peace" parts -- needlework is sane, for one thing, and an emblem of spiritual development, for another. (The Russian prisoner who sews the shirt mentioned above is a little matrix of spirituality; apparently if you've not got some level of spiritual development you can't even darn your socks. This would be part of the reason that the war's going so badly. All the ragged uniforms are lying around in the snow, unmended.)
I enjoy Tolstoy, and I'm pleased that he noticed knitting and thought about it. But there are some problems with this passage.
Prince Andrei's not been dying for THAT long; it's great that he's washed up in Natasha's bailiwick so that they can be reconciled before he dies and she can attain a higher state of spiritual development, etc. etc., but think about this; she Just Learned to Knit! And she's doing stockings! You KNOW they look dreadful, and her gauge is off, and has completely changed -- probably loosened up about halfway down the stocking. Also, there are lines running down the stocking where she switched from one needle to another. Also, she's doing it by candlelight, whilst in the middle of Deep Turmoil, and she's been dropping stitches right and left. Also, one sentence later she's going to drop the ball of yarn off her lap, and it's going to roll around on the floor, which nobody is cleaning very well these days, on account of everybody being so discombobulated after fleeing Moscow and abandoning the books.
Tolstoy doesn't say who got the stockings, but it seems clear to me that the stocking themselves are irrelevant. The entire project concerns the presentation of the act of knitting, and not the knitting itself. I can only hope that the stockings got put in the grave with Prince Andrei, and Tolstoy forgot to tell us. Cause they are for sure unusable.
I wish that somebody who knows 19th Century Russian literature would take this up, cause I don't have time to get up to speed on the critical history, and I can see I'm onto something here.
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