{"id":81366,"date":"2015-01-08T12:09:27","date_gmt":"2015-01-08T17:09:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=81366"},"modified":"2015-01-08T15:20:59","modified_gmt":"2015-01-08T20:20:59","slug":"no-object","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/01\/08\/no-object\/","title":{"rendered":"No Object"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Bem_postcard_7\"<\/a>

War and Peace<\/i>\u2019s Natasha Rostova in a postcard by Elizaveta Bem, 1914.<\/p><\/div>\n

Yesterday, amid the headlines and hashtags, the footage and pictures from Paris, came an e-mail. It was from a publicist. It reminded us that this month marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of War and Peace<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Well, sort of: the first installment of what was then titled 1805\u00a0<\/em>was indeed published in the January 1865 issue of\u00a0Russkiy Vestnik. <\/em>It\u00a0<\/em>ran in serial form for the next two years. However, Tolstoy wasn\u2019t happy with this version and reworked much of the book\u2014which he called \u201cnot a novel, even less is it a poem, and still less a historical chronicle\u201d\u2014before publishing it as War and Peace<\/em> in 1869.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Arguably, a\u00a0sesquicentennial is a tenuous peg in any case (it doesn\u2019t even have an honorific, like gold<\/em> or diamond<\/em>). But in dark times, you don’t need an excuse; they are reason enough. I\u2019m not suggesting that whenever there is tragedy in the world you drop everything and pick up a fourteen-hundred-page novel; there is life to lead and news to read and, yes, social media to follow, too. Besides, you\u2019d be reading all the time. But it\u2019s like Mr. Rogers said: when the world is frightening and violent, look for the helpers<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

Yes, love, \u2026 but not the love that loves for something, to gain something, or because of something, but that love that I felt for the first time, when dying, I saw my enemy and yet loved him. I knew that feeling of love which is the essence of the soul, for which no object is needed. And I know that blissful feeling now too. To love one\u2019s neighbors; to love one\u2019s enemies. To love everything\u2014to Love God in all His manifestations. Some one dear to one can be loved with human love; but an enemy can only be loved with divine love. And that was why I felt such joy when I felt that I loved that man. What happened to him? Is he alive? \u2026 Loving with human love, one may pass from love to hatred; but divine love cannot change. Nothing, not even death, can shatter it. It is the very nature of the soul. And how many people I have hated in my life. And of all people none I have loved and hated more than her \u2026 If it were only possible for me to see her once more \u2026 once, looking into those eyes to say \u2026<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Sadie Stein is contributing editor of\u00a0<\/em>The Paris Review, and the\u00a0<\/em>Daily\u2019s correspondent.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday, amid the headlines and hashtags, the footage and pictures from Paris, came an e-mail. It was from a publicist. It reminded us that this month marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of War and Peace.\u00a0 Well, sort of: the first installment of what was then titled 1805\u00a0was indeed published in the January 1865 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13115],"tags":[10031,4861,16530,16533,16532,16531,4473],"class_list":["post-81366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-daily-correspondent","tag-anniversaries","tag-leo-tolstoy","tag-mr-rogers","tag-nineteenth-century-literature","tag-russian-novels","tag-sesquicentennials","tag-war-and-peace"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n\u201cWar and Peace\u201d Turns 150 This Year<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"2015 marks the sesquicentennial for Tolstoy\u2019s classic\u2014depending on how you count.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/01\/08\/no-object\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"No Object by Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"January 8, 2015 \u2013 Yesterday, amid the headlines and hashtags, the footage and pictures from Paris, came an e-mail. 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