Reading War And Peace...A Tolstoy Love Fest!!! W&P ep. 2 // #dickensortolstoy 2021

[Music] hello everyone it is now monday april 12th it is i think 8 p.m yes it's 8 p.m today starting from this morning um well actually starting from this weekend so today is monday i haven't filmed for the past few days because over the weekend my best friend emma from her instagram emma redwood came over and we had a really fun sleepover and it was basically just two days full of book shopping that was pretty much it i just love her very much so that was wonderful and then today i had my uh one of my classes and that went well and then i've been working on my red rabbit painting which i can include a little or yes i will include a little clip of him um he's coming out exactly how i wanted him to so that's so exciting while i was faking my red rabbit i was facetiming my amazing friend sarah from her youtube channel sarah's perusals i love her oh so much and she so sweetly um was reading me the ana karenina introduction and it was wonderful so she was reading me the introduction while i was painting and it was so relaxing and then we would just talk about different bookish things and it was wonderful so if you guys don't follow sarah's youtube channel i highly recommend you subscribe to her video to her channel because her videos are amazing and she's so funny she always makes me laugh and brightens my day so i feel like if you would like my videos you'd probably like her videos too um so yes just a little little uh shout out to emma and sarah love love them both so much so now i thought i would give you guys an update of war and peace because i am 264 pages through and i have so much that i want to say um today i did upload my first vlog starring me and war and peace so i think what i'm going to do now is i'm just going to update you guys refer to some quotes that i've saved talk about certain parts that i'm really loving and basically just gush about this book because that's what we're here for um so i think the place that i want to start start at the very beginning as julie andrews would say um okay or better known as sister maria okay we are going to start with one of my favorite scenes okay so something that i love so many things i feel like i always say something that i love about tolstoy like a million times anyway okay one of my favorite things about tolstoy is the way that he introduces characters and the way that he describes characters and the imagery that he provides the reader is incredible i always say the word incredible count how many times i say the word incredible you will lose count okay so this is on page 10 of book one part one and we are getting the introduction to one of the main characters pierre in war and peace we have pretty much three main characters one is pierre one is andre and one is natasha and so this is pierre's introduction and i just love it one of the next arrivals was a stout heavily built young man with close cropped hair spectacles the light-colored breeches fashionable at that time a very high ruffled and brown dress coat the stout young man was an illegitimate son of count bazookov a well-known grande of catherine the great's time who now lay dying in moscow the young man had not yet entered either the military or civil service as he had only just returned from abroad where he had been educated and this was his first appearance in society anna pavlov not greeted him with the nod she accorded it to the lowest hierarchy in her drawing room but in spite of this lowest grade greeting a look of anxiety and fear as at the sight of something too large and unsuited to the place came over her face when she saw pierre enter though he was certainly rather bigger than the other men in the room her anxiety could only have reference to the clever though shy but observant and natural expression which distinguished him from everyone else in that drawing room is that not gorgeous is that not absolutely beautiful um i love how he shows you how ill-suited and he tells you how ill-suited pierre is to this high society he's this clumsy excited naive young man a boy really and he is you know finally coming away from his education back to moscow and petersburg the high society and and it's kind of showing you how eager he is to be in this lifestyle but also how he doesn't really fit in quite yet um and something that i love is how anna pavlovna is this elitist socialite and she kind of sees this quality in pierre and is very anxious and uh unnerved by him and i really really like the juxtaposition of the two characters it's i think it's really interesting the way that he introduces a character it's he's just like painting them right before you and then when the painting is complete the character comes out of the painting and alive and like shakes your hand and that's how it feels when reading tell stories like i'm i'm really needing them um and then we have on page 15 the love of my life also known as prince andre balkonsky he is then introduced so we start the novel in this reception that anna pavlovna is hosting and so we're being introduced to essentially the main characters besides natasha and the rostow family but we're getting introduced to all these characters and it's like tolstoy is giving us this wide panoramic view of what's going on and he's really putting us in the setting putting us in this big reception room and sort of scanning one by one and introducing us it's kind of like he's taking us by the hand and pulling you around the room and introducing the reader to each character um and it's it's just so wonderful so then we get introduced to andre and it says then another visitor entered the drawing room prince andre bulkonsky the little princess's husband he was a very handsome young man of medium height with firm clear-cut features everything about him from his wary board expression to his quiet measured step offered a most striking contrast to his lively little wife it was evident that he not only knew everyone in the drawing room but had found them so tiresome then it worried him to look at or even listen to them and among all these faces that he found so tedious none seemed to bore him so much as that of his pretty wife he turned away from her with a grimace that distorted his handsome face kissed anna pavlovna's hand and screwed up his eyes scanned the whole company so i find it really interesting because we get introduced to andre as this handsome brooding character and i've heard a lot of toastery scholars or just people talking about born peace describing andre as the mr darcy of war and peace and i can definitely see that because he is this very quiet brooding character and the way he treats his wife is pretty sad to be honest and you know she definitely deserves better especially because she's such a lovable character the way that toaster presents her but i think it really shows that andre and it says later in the book that he's so ill-satisfied with high society and with his wife in essence as well um but that's what makes him so real and so complex is he isn't this perfect character that is completely likable and when we see how his wife is represented as such a sweetheart and then how he you know treats her pretty poorly we in essence feel adversely to him and but i i in a way i think that that makes his character even more vivid and more complex and i just really like that about him and i don't like the way he treats his wife uh let me just make that plain and clear but i do like how complex tolstoy makes his character and it's not without reason tolstoy is making him that way because we need that character arc so we are starting at one point only to build from there so you know naturally andre is going to go through as you can see from the many pages uh a great change we can kind of infer that from the very beginning at the bottom of that page it says prince andre screwed up his eyes and turned away pierre who from the moment prince andre entered the room had watched him with glad affectionate eyes now came up and took his arm before he looked round prince andre frowned again expressing his annoyance with whoever was touching his arm but when he saw pierre's beaming face he gave an unexpectedly kind and pleasant smile there now so you too are out in high society said he to pierre i knew you would be here reply pierre i will come to supper with you may i he added in a low tone so as not to disturb the vehicle who was continuing his story no impossible said prince andre laughing and pressing pierre's hand to show that there was no need to ask the question and then we get more more of pierre and andre's interaction and they have such a sweet bromance or friendship um i love when they have interactions with one another because they are lifelong friends and you can kind of see that from that interaction in itself that's the first interaction that we really get between the two main characters of pierre and andre and even though andre is so tired of everyone else he isn't tired of pierre and i love that and then on page 22 we have another uh another image of pierre and tolstoy keeps painting him more vividly and more vividly and it's just so wonderful how he kind of creates more and more of a contrast between pierre and the other main characters or the other side characters pierre not knowing whom to answer looked at them all and smiled his smile was not like the others verging on a non-smile when he smiled his grave even rather gloomy look was instantaneously replaced by another a childlike kindly even rather silly look which seemed to ask forgiveness it's those little things that that's such a small description but it says so much and we get pierre's character just through the way that he smiles it's incredible it's so incredible and i love how they they always are juxtaposing um pierre's truth with the falsity of high society and the falsity of the other aristocrats and i think that it's so interesting the way that tostoe kind of presents this in a way where he's kind of showing you the falsity of everyone except here pierre is really truthful but that's why he's standing out and why he's really not seeming like he belongs there and same thing with andre as well it also goes on to the next few pages this is like the first the first few pages of this book are just genius i mean the whole thing is genius but i really love these parts so it says pierre was ungainly stout above the average height broad with huge red hands he did not know as the saying is how to enter a drawing room and still less how to leave one that is how to say something particularly agreeable before going away besides this he was absent-minded when he rose to go he took up instead of his own the general's three-cornered hat and held it pulling at the plume till the general asked him to restore it all his absent-mindedness and inability to enter a room and converse in it was however redeemed by his kindly simple and modest expression it's showing you that the way his manners speak so loud for his personality and for his character um i like how he describes him as absent-minded and kindly and simple and modest we get these little adjectives that give us more and more and more to create such a vivid image and then on page 26 they're asking pierre if he has decided on a profession yet and men at that time as well as women really didn't have much choice in what they could be especially people of high society as well as people of low society but people of wealth didn't really have that many job choices which i feel like we i i really didn't realize going in um they could only really go into the military or it says right here on page 26 one can't everywhere say all one thinks will share well have you at last decided on anything are you going to be a guardsman or a diplomatist asked prince andre after a momentary silence pierre sat up on the sofa with his legs tucked under him if you believe it i still don't i don't like either the one or the other but you must decide on something your father expects it and so we get that word you know that sentence your father expects it so that's really our first look into these expectations that pierre kind of has to fill as well as a lot of the characters all the characters have to fill some sort of expectation of what either they their family or society wants them or sees them or thinks it's acceptable to do and then on page 27 one of my favorite lines is if no one fought except on his own conviction there would be no war he said i i love that i love that so much and that would be splendid said pierre prince andre smiled ironically very well likely it would be splendid but i will never come about well why are you going to war asked pierre what for i don't know i must besides that i'm going he paused i am going because the life i am leading here does not suit me and i just love that because it says so much about andre and he's telling us plain and simple that he's not satisfied with the life that he leads and i feel like everyone is expected to be satisfied with their life and so many people even myself included we have those moments where you're somewhat ill-satisfied with what you're doing or maybe what's going on in the world or you're just kind of wishing for more or wishing to change in some way and i just feel like it gives andre so much depth and pierre is very naive and lovable but i think that andre is very deep and i love a nice deep character like i was saying in my last vlog i think that pierre and andre are a bit of a mix of levin like levin is a mix of both characters i just really like how they kind of coincide with one another as two very different characters in terms of their personalities but the way that they interact is really interesting and how they are such good friends even though they have quite many differences oh my gosh so andre and pierre are talking i just love this scene so much it's on page 28 and pierre goes back home with andre and it says okay said the princess in the same capriciously playful tone in which she had spoken to ipolit in the drawing room and which was so plainly ill-suited to the family circle of which pierre was almost a member so they're showing you that um that the little princess or um i think it's lee's is how you pronounce her name elizabeth it's andre's wife um she doesn't really fit in with her own in-laws and her her own husband but pierre fits in he's almost a member of the family showing you the way that the characters kind of feel about one another without really saying it explicitly and then it also goes on by saying her husband looked at her as if surprised to notice that someone besides pierre and himself was in the room and addressed her in a tone of frigid politeness and then she asks him on the next page i have long wanted to ask you andre why have you changed so to me what have i done to you you are going to war and have no pity for me why is it please was all prince andre said but that one word expressed an entreaty a threat and above all conviction that she would herself regret her words but she went unhurriedly you treat me like an invalid or a child i see it all did you behave like that six months ago please i beg you to desist said prince andre still more emphatically pierre who had been growing more and more agitated as he listened at all this rose and approached the princess he seemed unable to bear the sight of tears and was ready to cry himself i just i love that it's showing pierre sweetness showing andre's sternness and showing lisa's uh frustration and rightly so she should be frustrated because i was in if i was in her position i would be frustrated as well but i think what toastery does so beautifully is no character is good or bad they have a mix of everything in them and that's what gives them so much truth at some points lis can somewhat irritate the reader and andre can sometimes frustrate the reader and pierre can be almost not too naive but a little hard-headed i don't know if hard-headed is the right word but there is something to there's something to look for a fault in the the character that really pushes them forward in the plot and it's just so it's just so wonderful another little line on that page is andre courteously kissing her hand as he would have done to a stranger so treating his wife like a stranger that's just so sad pierre continually glanced at prince andre prince andre rubbed his forehead with his small hand this is something that we were talking about in the discord so if you don't know we do have a discord for the dickens versus tolstoy book club it will be in my description box and something that people were bringing about in the war and peace discussion was that tolstoy always mentions that certain characters hands are small and white or big and red and pierre i mentioned a quote earlier where he described pierre's hands as big and red and then a lot of the times we get andre's hands as small and white as well as some of the other characters in the military with prince andre what i was saying to the people in the discord at least how i was reading it was it sort of showing you the contrast between these people that belong in at least for the men with small white hands those men sort of belonged in polite high society where you know you expect them to have hands that don't seem like they've worked very much or hands that haven't really done anything um besides aspects of life in the gentry and with pierre's big red hands you can almost relate that to his not fitting in with that vision of high society and then these men with the white hands a lot of them are described like i said in the military they are forced into this brutal war that now they have to get their pristine white small hands dirty with dust and blood and mud and you know it's it's showing you such a great difference between polite society and war kind of pushing that pushing the envelope with with that image and showing you how different war and peace really is i just think it's fantastic also they were saying that they were wondering if tostoy like had a fascination with hands and if you don't know i have a fascination with hands i think that they're a beautiful way to express emotion i talk a lot with my hands and and as an artist and as an illustrator i love expressing um a narrative using using hands as a means to tell a story as well as i think tolstoy did so that just makes me really happy on page 32 there's just this really simple line of i don't understand said prince andre and then he repeats it i don't understand showing that the men don't really understand the women and the women don't really understand the men and i think that tolstoy is so fantastic at writing each sex like men and women characters are both very distinct as well as the children and the adults they all have very distinct voices and they all sound very true none of them seem like this older russian man leo tolstoy is writing is writing it as if it it was him he is writing as the characters and he's really giving them such a true voice and i wrote in the margins the men don't understand the women the women don't understand the men sounds familiar because even today you know a lot of people don't understand a lot of others and it's always that that saying of walking someone else's shoes and we sort of get to do that as readers we can walk in so many different types of shoes and it's really interesting how he can create such reality with the misunderstandings of the characters as well as the understandings and then we get introduced to dalikov which is just quite the character um we also get introduced to anatole who i uh you know uh we won't even talk about that at all in this scene um it's so funny they are they are at anatole's house and dolokov lives with anital and i don't want to give too much away maybe i shouldn't tell you what happens but it's the window scene all of them are drunk and it's just so great it's so wonderful the way that the way that toaster gives us that moment um and gives us an inside look into these nefarious young men and then we meet the rostov's which is just amazing one of my favorite characters is the count it's natasha's father elia elia rustov and he is so sweet he calls everybody moshe or machere and even even if they're not like relatives or close to the family he calls everybody most share like my darling in french and he's just such a sweet loving character and he's so silly too they're talking about this one scene with a bear and a policeman and some rope i won't say too much but there's a wonderful bear scene that at first i was very confused by and then i realized what was happening in the scene and started hysterically laughing where count ilia also finds this very funny and then we get introduced to natasha which is just such a gorgeous passage so it's on chapter eight of book one part one and it says this dark-eyed wide-mouthed girl not pretty but full of life with childish bare shoulders which after her run heaved and shook her bodice with black curls tossed backwards thin bare arms little legs and lace-frilled drawers and feet in low slippers was just at that charming age when a girl is no longer a child though the child is not yet a young woman we just get this wonderful introduction to natasha's uh naive character just like pierre we sort of get this vivid image of her right away and then we also get the introduction of boris and nikolai boris is a family friend of the rostov's nikolai is natasha's older brother and it says boris the officer anna michelovna's son nikolai the undergraduate the count's eldest son sonja the count's fifteen-year-old niece and little petya his youngest boy so we get introduced to all the children characters found in the rest of household and then we get sonia who i love so much nikolai and sonia denise sonia was a slender little brunette with a tender look in her eyes which she veiled by long lashes thick black braids coiled twice around her head and a tawny tint in her complexion and especially in the color of her slender but graceful and muscular arms and neck by the grace of her movements by the softness and flexibility of her small limbs and by a certain coinness and reserve of manner and then it goes on and says her eyes under their thick long lashes watched her cousin who was going to join the army with such passionate girlish adoration that her smile could not for a single instant and pose upon anyone and it was clear that the kitten had settled down only to spring up with more energy and again play with her cousin as soon as they too could like natasha and boris escape from the drawing room and i i just love that it's so beautiful so sonia has this great um love for her cousin nikolai and i just i love nikolai i love sonia i love natasha they're all such fantastic characters my battery is actually going to die soon so i think i'm going to stop here for now keep reading i want to try to get up to part three tonight which is oh book two actually is what i mean and that's page 310 so i think that that's what i'm going to do i am going to get nice and cozy and keep reading and hopefully reach book two or volume two and i'm just so excited but yes i will definitely keep going back and forth and referencing favorite quotes and things i would keep going but again my battery is dying so we will talk again very soon i hope you're enjoying this so far i'm about to go to bed but i just had to say war and peace by leo tolstoy book one part one the end of chapter 16 oh my god right in the heart and soul if you haven't read it read it if you have read it reread it amazing probably one of my favorite scenes yet one of my favorite quotes yet war and peace by leo tolstoy book one part one chapter 16. now i'm going to go to bed good night [Music] hello everybody it is now april 14th it is wednesday and it is the evening what time is it it's almost nine o'clock and i have just been doing schoolwork all day because i feel like i'm a broken record all i say is i've been doing school work all day but that's basically what my life consists of right now um my senior show is coming up soon so i am just doing a lot of work and a lot of different things that i have to figure out in time for the senior show and also just from my classes in general if you don't know if you're new here hello my name is carolyn i am an illustration major and an english writing minor at my college it's the fashion institute of technology in new york city but i am on long island because all of my classes are online which is fine uh it's going pretty well but i have just been so so busy and i have been prioritizing my schoolwork because i have to but i've also been making sure that i read at least a little bit of war and peace every day and last time i talked to you guys i mentioned part one book one part one chapter 16 which was just i think one of my favorite scenes yet in the book and then since then i am on now and now i forgot to tell you guys i made it to book two so this book is broken up into four books and two epilogues and i am now on book two which is broken up into five parts so i'm just on part one of book two oh my goodness i want to punch one character right in the face and i want to give another character a very big hug because the poor guy just needs it um so much so much has happened but i don't want to babble through this i kind of don't want to give too much away in case you're watching this you've never you've never read war and peace before i talk about war and peace a bit more i wanted to show you guys what i have been working on for my university and if you have been following along on my instagram then you will know all of this already but if you haven't i will just explain myself really quickly so since i'm an illustration major my passion and my desire is to become a book designer and a book illustrator and for my thesis i have done book covers and book jackets and for the past two i did one embroidered which you guys have most likely seen because i've showed it on my channel it's for anne of green gables it's fully embroidered and then my other one was fully digital it is pride and prejudice which i don't think i've shown you guys so i will put it on the screen and i also did the same design it i kind of envisioned it to be in a series of jane austen's emma so i did it fully monochrome doing blues for pride and prejudice and pinks for the emma cover and i feel like it kind of i picked those colors because i feel like emma is full of love and passion and romance and so of course pink and then for pride and prejudice i feel like there's this mood and calm calm quality to the book that i feel like blue really gives off so that's why i picked those books as well as the whole concept behind my pride and prejudice and emma design is that i wanted the main characters to interact with a famous work of art particularly sculptures and it kind of tells the story through a visual narrative without saying too much and it has the main female protagonist on the front and then the male protagonist on the back so when you flip the book over it adds a bit more to the storytelling as well as my other portraits of jane austen and the two characters how i visualize them on the flaps and without rambling on and on that's just a little explanation about those but the now the one that i'm working on which is so those other two are most likely going to be in the senior show and the one that i'm going to show you now i have till the 21st or until the 28th really is the last day but then the 21st is the first day that we can upload our work the one that i'm working on right now is definitely going to be in the senior show and i'm so excited about it okay here comes story time of explaining this cover for you guys so i'm doing a book cover for uh alice in wonderland and why i'm doing a book cover for alice in wonderland is because for not my thesis class but i'm taking a separate painting class that one my professor wanted us to do anthropomorphic portraits of animals and anthropomorphic meaning animals having a human quality to them and i was thinking okay what classic books can i do a cover for that have anthropomorphic animal characters and i thought of the white rabbit in alice in wonderland as well as a lot of other animals in alice in wonderland and there are so many that i was choosing from but i was really excited about doing alice and which funnily enough alice wonderland isn't even one of my favorite books i mean i love it and i respect it for what it is because i think lewis carroll just created this incredible bizarre weird wonderful world um but for me personally it isn't like a favorite book of mine but i love it conceptually anyway so i picked the white rabbit for my design and i was thinking about trying to make it bizarre giving it that lewis carol feel making it feel like alice in wonderland while also feeling like a vintage portrait so it went through many stages if you go on my instagram i have a story highlight titled red rabbit and you can see the whole process from digital sketch to me in the process of painting it currently and i was deciding between what eye color i should make him and what jacket color i should give him and it was a whole thing i did a poll and everybody was divided got so many messages saying yellow blue yellow blue and i was 50 50 the whole time i didn't know what color i should make it but i finally decided i painted all the other elements of the piece to figure out what color i think would suit the whole composition and i think the choice that i made was the right choice and i'm really excited about it and i'm so excited to show you guys i still have quite a bit more painting to do but most of the base colors are down some of the details are down so i will just show you guys i have it right here on the floor next to me so the concept of this design is i wanted the white rabbit to not be the white rabbit i wanted it to be the white rabbit but i wanted to put a spin on it so i was thinking well it's a white rabbit and in the red queen's garden they have planted white roses and she has them physically painted red and i just love that visual i think that that's such a great idea of you know they planted the wrong roses i just love that concept of them painting it i think it's such a great visual and i thought what if the white rabbit painted himself red to kind of blend in or to not be spotted or to spy on the red queen or for whatever reasons maybe he wanted to to sneak around her palace undetected so instead of being a white rabbit i made him a red rabbit and he is holding a paintbrush and he has his pocket watch and i decided to make the color of his jacket blue i am really really excited about it and i hope you guys like it too so as you can see there's an i don't know if you can see there's an oval around him the outside of the oval is going to match the dark green color of his bow tie and then it's going to kind of look like here i'll put up a picture of what i imagined the cover to look like but for now i have to add a few more of the details to his jacket and to the bow tie and a few other things have to finish the pocket watch finish the brush color in the background the background is going to be a similar color as to the canvas or the board this isn't a canvas this is a gesso board i'm just so happy with how it came out i think i'm going to add a few more white hairs so that it's a bit more obvious that he painted himself red i mean there is red paint on the end of his paintbrushes so you can kind of infer he painted himself red um but i also put some red shadowing on his white shirt and i made his eye white and blue because i thought it made it a bit more bizarre and creepy kind of giving him like a human looking eye um i i thought it would add to the to the lewis carol alice in wonderland quality of the piece and i'm just incredibly excited about it and i have my painting class tomorrow all day long so i'm going to be painting this tomorrow all day long and um weird story if you follow me on instagram again you would have seen this already but i'm going to tell you anyway my sister has sims i think it's the sims 4 and we were playing it last night and my sim so i have a sin uh that my sister made for me so we always play it whenever i go over and we had my sim her job was she was an author and that was fun for a while but then i thought hey let's change it up make it more fun let's make her a painter so it's more real true to life i am a writer as well but i'm not obviously published so i thought you know what i'm already an artist let's make her an artist more realistic so we made her a whole art room we even gave her a gallery wall and bookshelves and a desk and a green chair so it's exactly like and a rug so it's exactly like this room and she painted her first painting and i filmed it because i thought oh let's let's film the experience i wonder what she's gonna paint so you get a canvas and the stem paints and you can see whatever they paint she painted i will just put a picture up of what she painted a pink rabbit was the first painting she ever did she ever did is that not terrifying is that not terrifying big brother i see you wherever you are i see you isn't that creepy my sister and i like freaked out because how how weird is that yesterday all day long i painted the red rabbit or pinkish he looks kind of pink and then my sim last night after i spent the whole day painting painted a pink rabbit that's just weird anyway i keep rambling on i hope you don't mind the red rabbit has really been taking up a lot of my time and yeah yeah yep so i think my plan is for tonight since i have been just so busy and doing so much school work i feel like i'm going to read a bit later but for now i think i'm going to watch a movie the movie that i'm going to watch and then i'm going to read war and peace but the movie that i'm going to watch before i read war and peace i have read a little bit today um but i want to read a little bit more anyway the movie that i'm going to watch is the 1956 war in peace with audrey hepburn and mel um oh what's his last name mo ferrer and henry fonda such great actors and this is directed by king vidor and i have audrey hepburn's my favorite actress i really love old movies of course i have to watch the war and peace adaptation that's my little update for now i will let you know how i like the 1956 adaptation of war and peace i have a feeling i'm going to love it because it's audrey hepburn and every picture i see for every still frame i see from that movie i just want to cry because it's so beautiful hello i am back it is now 11 30 and i think i'm going to read for a little bit before i go to bed um i watched about an hour of the movie and i just watched up to the part that i have read um and i'm really really liking it it's a beautiful film but very different from the book they changed quite a bit of it which i was surprised at but also not because um with the bbc miniseries they were able to put a lot of or most of the scenes in i feel like you could you're getting a glare on my glasses um they were able to put most of the scenes because it was a mini series so they could include a lot more of it this is just a three and a half hour movie um and it's it's a beautifully done i love older films they have just such such a magical and charming quality to them um i i should i feel like i should talk about some of my favorite movies more like my favorite older movies there are so many audrey hepburn's filmography is just exquisite but she does an amazing job playing natasha she just exudes happiness and just watching her makes you smile and makes me smile like she's just an incredible and incredibly beautiful woman just as an actress and as a person she's just so admirable i've actually read a biography about her which i should talk about more um but it was amazing she led such an unbelievable life especially before she became an actress and she lived through world war ii and just an incredible life anyway so um just because i don't want to babble on i want to get reading i'm going to continue reading war and peace obviously what other book would i be reading and i'm so excited yeah so then after i'm done reading i think i will go to bed have classes tomorrow and then pick back up with more reading because that's what i've been doing [Music] all i have to say is poor pierre he just well the narrator just says pierre was one of those people who in spite of an appearance of what is called weak character do not seek a confidant in their troubles he digests his sufferings alone that's just so sad every time i read about pierre i just want to give him a hug i feel so bad because everyone is going through giving pierre a nice big hug this scene is so incredible like this passage that i'm reading currently from when i started reading to now just so much is happening i keep highlighting like entire pages and i'm like this is a bit ridiculous carolyn you're just gonna highlight the whole book but then again i can buy more highlighters okay i am about to go to bed but i just read such a sweet scene and i think i want to read a little bit of it so it is a spoiler so i'm holding up my leo card and um come back when he is down it's the scene where andre's family doesn't know if he's alive or dead and his wife starts to give birth to their baby the nanny looks out of the window and says that someone's there and they think it's the doctor and so maria goes out to receive the doctor but it's not the doctor still lower beyond the turn of the staircase one could hear the footstep of someone in thick felt boots and a voice that seemed familiar to princess maria was saying something thank god said the voice and the master lay down to rest replied the voice of demian the house steward who was downstairs then the voice said something more demian replied and the steps in the felt boots approached the unseen bend of the staircase more rapidly it's andre thought princess maria no it can be that would be too extraordinary and at the very moment she thought this the face and figure of prince andre in a fur cloak the deep color which was covered with snow appeared on the landing where the footman stood with the candle yes it was he pale thin with a changed and strangely softened but agitated expression on his face he came up the stairs and embraced his sister you did not get my letter he asked and not waiting for a reply which he would not have received for the princess was unable to speak he turned back rapidly mounted the stairs again with the doctor who had entered the hall after him they had met at the last post station and again embraced his sister what a strange fate masha darling and having taken off his cloak and felt boots he went to the little princess's apartment it was andre he was alive oh my gosh of course as the reader we know that but the way that the way that princess maria finds out that that it's andre is just so sweet and i love the part where it says i just took my glasses off where it says for the princess was unable to speak she he wouldn't get a response for she was unable to speak it's just so sweet so that is a wonderful place to leave off on so i'm going to stop there for tonight you can come back okay um so that was a great place to leave off um that was the end of chapter eight of book two part one for reference um and right now i'm on page 350 so i think i'm going to go to bed because i'm very tired now and i will talk to you guys tomorrow [Music] do [Music] hello everybody and happy sunday may 9th how did we get such a big time jump that is because i have been filming but i thought i was editing this video and it's getting a bit long so i thought i would stop it here film a little outro clip for you guys um and just talk about what's been going on because i feel like i haven't been very active lately and that is because today's sunday but this week coming up is my last full week of university ever and then i graduate and then i'm an adult and i'm done and i am scared but very very excited so i have been just so busy finishing up all of my projects i am an illustration major so i'm getting my bachelor's in fine arts in illustration and my minor in writing and i am just so happy with how my college career has ended and it's just it's been such an incredible experience and it's really been very surreal um today is actually mother's day as well so it is night time now i was just finishing up some stuff that i had to do before school tomorrow um but i had a wonderful day with my family which that was nice but yeah besides that i've just been trying to take some time to myself really like reflect on life and sort of take take it all in and um so yeah i haven't been posting as much as i normally do i think that's just because i've sort of been feeling a little not overwhelmed well yeah i guess a little overwhelmed but in a good way in a sense so yeah i finished up all my assignments i i wrote down on my phone i always write down my homework and everything and i was like done done done with like all of my classes which is just insane so a lot of the stuff that i'm doing this coming week is just critiques and discussions and submitting final work so craziness craziness i did want to send a really big thank you talking about graduation um my amazing friend sarah from her youtube channel sarah's perusals sent me a little graduation card with the sweetest note and she also sent me this bookmark of van gogh which is double-sided and i have seen these bookmarks she's posted a few pictures of them and i have been like obsessed with them ever since i saw her post about them so she sent one to me and that just means the world to me so thank you so much sarah i already thanked you but i want to thank you in a video um talking about graduation i thought that'd be fitting and then i also got two other things in my p.o box which i just wanted to do a quick shout out one is from jerry and he sent me the sweetest here let me open it so i can show you guys okay so jerry sent me this really lovely handwritten note and also this incredible bookmark which says just one more chapter and it has anna karenina great expectations and warren peace on it with a little cat sitting on top it's just the cutest thing and it's such a beautiful bookmark so thank you so much jerry this means the world to me and your note warmed my heart immensely um and then so i got that in my pool box just saying thank you to everybody um and then i got the sweetest note from a wonderful girl named zoe and i can't wait to write you a letter back zoe but she sent me the sweetest like three page letter which just like i was reading it in the car and i started crying because it was just the sweetest thing ever and she wrote me a little thank you carolyn note and she gave me these adorable um these adorable sticky notes which like birds on them it's just so perfect and i i just want to say a really really big thank you to all of you guys who have been so supportive and i can't imagine graduating without you guys because i sort of feel like you're part of my support system in a way i just get so much so much kindness from you guys and i really don't know how to repay you um it means the world to me so all i can really just say is like thank you so so much and you guys mean the world to me and your kindness just baffles me so i really appreciate you guys very very much especially in this time in my life where there's just a lot of change and a lot of things ending and also beginning and so i'm just feeling a little overwhelmed with the gratitude and just a million different emotions something else that i have on my desk here is a another gift that i got in my p.o box this is from an amazing girl named alexandra and she sent me a book and i have been wanting a book like this for so long but i just like never found one that i liked or never found one in the us and it is the russian edition the bag just fell the russian edition of anna karenina by leo tolstoy and it's like this gorgeous hardback look at this book oh my goodness can a book be this beautiful and then the inside is russian oh my gosh if i ever learn russian then i will be able to read this book but just like looking at this and thinking these are tolstoy's actual words like these are the words that he put himself on the page and because obviously translations is never the authentic real thing and you know this is so this means the world to me so thank you so much alexandria and your note that just meant so much to me and now i have i have the russian edition to add to my ever growing anakaranina collection i want like every single edition of that book ever and so this just having you fuel that and helping me grow my collection means the world to me so thank you so so so much um speaking of tolstoy i will close out by talking about war and peace i am now up to page 800. which is book three part two chapter 17 and i have slowly been reading a few chapters every day just because with all my finals and everything i haven't had as much time as i would like to to read but i have been absolutely adoring this book there is so much that i want to talk about but that will be in my next war and peace reading vlog because this one like i said is already pretty long but i just wanted to tell you guys that this book is just blowing my mind i feel like every time i read another chapter i think that it can't get better and it gets better and it just like it's just mind-blowing um so yes these are all of my annotations i've gotten a lot of questions about how i annotate or how i'm specifically annotating war and peace so hopefully once i graduate and i have a bunch of time to film i'm going to be filming a whole updated how i annotate video and also how i how i read books not just to read them but to take them in and absorb them and analyze them and sort of remember what you read and have what you read really stick with you and stay with you because i feel like that's a very important aspect of reading is to not just read to finish a book but to read to experience the actual book um so yes absolutely adoring it um these pink tabs are parts that i'm like they're like my favorite favorite favorite parts and there have been many specifically in this section in the book i think that was part three book two part three yeah um so you guys will have to wait for the next installment of my war and peace vlogs to hear me talk a bit more about that but i thought i would just close out this vlog here thank you guys so much seriously for everything everything just everything under the sun thank you and i hope you're doing amazingly well if you are reading war and peace tell me how you're feeling about it tell me how you're liking it and let me know how you guys are doing i hope you guys are doing really well and what books are you reading if you're not reading war and peace are you reading anything noteworthy i would love to know and i hope you are just doing very well so i will see you guys soon in another video thank you so much for everything you do and happy reading [Music] you

Channel: CarolynMarieReads

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Id: TB7y5j8Z2wo

Length: 59min 9sec (3549 seconds)

Published: Tue May 11 2021