War and Peace

Thanks Jalima.

Yes, she is Miss Havisham Tegan and she is also in Mr Selfridge apparently, although I have never watched that.

annodomini I have to google them every time I have watched an episode
Now I know who has married whom and who will marry whom in the future, but I won't tell because I have forgotten again already.

It's taken three episodes for me (maybe I'm a bit thick) to sort out who's who and who's married to whom. Except for Pierre of course.

I found it on BB4 thank you Tegan and watched 2 episodes back to back. I will catch up with the 3rd sometime during the week. Thoroughly enjoyed it too.

I am loving War and Peace. I couldn't believe it when Pierre asked his vile wife to come back home. How much humiliation can one man take?

Yes; I'm glad I stuck with it because I'm enjoying it. I hadn't realised that it was an Andrew Davies interpretation. Is the actress playing Pierre's wife the same one who plays Miss Havisham in Dickensian?

I'm still enjoying it and I think Pierre is developing into an interesting character. He still looks too young but I'm getting used to that.

Yes. Jessie Buckley does quite a bit of Shakespeare on stage in London. The Globe a couple of years back, (the Tempest) and The Garrick at the moment (The Winters Tale)

Greyduster agree with you about the 'myopic 13 year old', had to laugh when my DD said when watching it with me last week ' he needs a slap'.

I didn't know who Jessie Buckley was, so had to look her up - Marya Bolkonskaya !
Yes, she is very good, I like her portrayal.

And I am very glad Jessie Buckley is in it. She is doing rather well. smile]

I don't think he looked like a myopic thirteen year old. Or Harry Potter. I think the character will unfold. He most likely has hidden depths.

I am not watching in any kind of academic way. Just enjoying it.

I'm loving W&P but I do see that the wome seem to be rather underdressed for a Russian winter. I found the main problem in the book was remembering which character is which as they all seem to have numerous names

I've seen an ad for Hinterland so hopefully it will apprear on non-Welsh BBC soon, sounds like it may take over from Young Montalbano

I think it's BBC4; I channel hop a lot so I get mixed up .

Oh when was that on Tegan ? I really like Lucy Worsley . Also what channel please?

I am watching W&P as I love historical dramas. I have never read the book though so its all very new to me.

I'm perfectly well aware that he is supposed to be an awkward bumbling person, but i just take exception to them casting someone who makes him look like a myopic thirteen year old. I stick by my assertion that it is poor casting.

Weren't Andrei and Pierre meant to be the two sides of the authors personality? Watched the second part of the Lucy Worsley programme about the Romanovs which gave a lot of background information to the war and how it affected both the rich and the poorer classes and led, eventually, to the revolution.

Greyduster The point of Pierre Bezukhov is that he is an awkward bumbling person, there are people like that about.

This story is not about the serfs, but I agree with others in those time in almost any literature, the very poor, serfs still in Russia, had very little importance. The whole situation of the decadence of Russia in the 18/19th century was what led to the stirrings of revolution.

When this novel was written it was written for the intelligencia.
The majority of the poor almost certainly could not read, as in Britain in those days.
The book was written in 1869, you have to judge it by its time.

It does not matter if you like or dislike certain characters in any books or films. If you made every character wonderfully brave and handsome it would be unrealistic.
It seems to me that there are very few American movies which actually show the trials and difficulties of the urban poor of the USA.
That would spoil the glossy impressions of what the USA is like so loved by Hollywood.
At least in Britain in the 1960s there were a lot of films about working class reality with no glitter at all.

I'm loving it. Don't really have a clue what's going on, but it's much better than the radio version. I feel so sorry for the poor little Count (or whatever he is) who got the bum's rush into marriage, and now she's totally leading him up the garden path. I really hope the scriptwriters author (!) has a cunnng plan whereby he can win the dual.

I had a phase of reading Russian novels and short stories, and Tolstoy wasn't a favourite, too dreamy and rambling for me.
Maxim Gorky wrote about peasants, you can get his books in english. And Chekov's short stories are wonderful, they cover most classes of Russian society.
Gogol was another favourite, but weird. and of course Dostoevsky. Our local library had all these at the time.

hannah I agree -Dickens seems to be the exception. I haven't been able to watch Dickensian, alas.

I just can't get into rich people prancing about in gorgeous palaces and looking glamorous, whilst knowing that outside the palace gates, peasants scratch a living in a feudal system that hasn't changed since mediaeval times.

I'm overthinking this, aren't i.

To gettingonabit. Dickens is full of the poor and the lower orders and Dickensian showing on TV now is a mish mash of all his books.

I read today that when James Norton was playing the psychopath in Happy Valley he disguised himself as a student and came out of a charity shop carrying a copy of 'War and Peace' under his arm.
Did he know then that he had a part in it I wonder?

James Norton
Yes, it was such a relief to see him as the rather sweet but naughty bumbling vicar after the truly scary psychopathic killer he played on BBC.

Got a bit carried away with "for me" there (I blame the cooking sherry)