Dan’s Reviews > War and Peace > Status Update

My man Tolstoy pauses the soap opera to wax poetic about the difference between discrete- and continuous-time mathematics, and how the only way to appreciate history is through the lens of calculus. I did not have this on my "Seinfeld during the Napoleonic Wars" bingo card.

In this episode of 1800s Seinfeld, the narrator spends a very long time dunking on Napoleon, rich people party harder and harder as society collapses, and George Costanza somehow ends up wandering around a battlefield with a grin on his face, reacting to cannonballs blasting him with mud and soldiers getting shot in front of him as if he's a tourist watching a street performance.

The Great General Napoleon Bonaparte makes an entrance. Everyone is in awe until they meet him, at which point they realize he's a pudgy little maniac. This is in contrast to the Russian Emperor Alexander I, who is such a rock star that children and little old ladies get into a WWE-style slugfest to pick up crumbs from a cookie he dropped. Bonaparte continues his invasion while Russian aristocrats continue partying.

George Costanza, whose wife is openly having multiple affairs, falls in love with a girl who cheated on her fiancee with a different guy she'd just met. This web of stupid people cheating on each other culminates in an almost-abduction, a poisoning and a banishment. No one learns their lesson.

I am 80% of almost halfway through this entire library of a book. There are SO MANY PARTIES. I am coming to believe that the only thing Russians did in the 1800s was go to parties and go to war with whomever the emperor didn't like that month.

In this episode of "Seinfeld during the time of Napoleon", George Costanza joins the Freemasons to make himself feel better about his wife cheating on him. There is a very pompous induction ceremony where a bunch of men say lots of mystical things, which is ruined a bit because George keeps recognizing them under their masks

As the protagonists age, the tone of the story shifts toward more dark and sombre themes

It's amazing how one of the most beloved books in the world is really just a long, multi-season sitcom / soap opera about rich idiots doing rich idiot things. Everyone in the story is fabulously wealthy and totally unhinged, but each one is lovable in their own way.

I barely have any time to read while I'm teaching 😭 But I've decided that this book is the spiritual ancestor of modern sitcoms. War & Peace is basically Seinfeld during the time of Napoleon

This is the longest party in the history of parties