passage: levin is spending time with his brother, he mows with the muzhiks and finds great joy, dolly’s life in the countryside, levin visits, then levin watches the peasants, wants a simple, pure life, but then sees dolly and decides not to
the part where levin is talking to his brother, where his brother accuses him of doing nothing for the Country. levin then goes on a rant of being motivated only by things that directly affect him. self interest. i think i’m similar to this, it’s so much already having to work with things in your micro environment, and like levin, i think so much of the rest of the world is out of my control or of no interest to me. we all suffer, we’re all dealt a certain fate. i know this isn’t the best way to approach humanity, but maybe if we all turned inward and worked on loving ourselves and just the basic, being kind to those around us and strangers, then we’d be ok. problem is we aren’t. we can’t let each other be. we’re constantly having to convince others that our way to deal with society is the best when we are all so different, how can we all be wedged into the same system and philosophy. but we are. i don’t know the solution. i know it’s not simple. i just know i don’t try as much to be a part of it because i don’t know how. i like the peace and calmness of my life. i like the people in it. i like caring for them, for myself, and i think that is all the capacity i have. it’s a lot already! i know i could try harder and others do. i’m grateful for those people but sometimes those people also think they know it all and fuck it all up. mainly talking about politics here. and maybe even people who mean to do well but don’t understand the big picture and repercussions enough. maybe we’re meant to just live in smaller communities. but i’m sure we’ll figure i out. but i’m just an ant in all this, not the queen bee. i’m not ender (from ender’s game). and if you haven’t read ender’s game (1 and 2) this is where you would have to had do so to understand this sentence. very james joycean of me. hah!
quote: Either you’re so undeveloped that you cannot see all that you could do, or you cannot give up your peace, your vanity, whatever, in order to do it.
and it was kind of funny to see levin go through the motions of wanting to change and then upon seeing kitty pass by in carriage (this is all in less than a 24 hour span) is relegated to abandoning all those hopes and dreams of a simpler, purer life, because he loves her so…
the part where levin was mowing and his whole body got into it, he lost track of time, had similarities to the murakami running book in which he does an ultra marathon and basically loses all track of his body and time, he becomes a machine. i don’t think i’ve ever pushed myself this hard… i just let my body and brain mentally collapse and stop. this is why i hate hiking. probably for the best. we can’t all be star athletes.
ok and then there is dolly, her and her kids, how unhappy she is, her husband kind of doing nothing for her. she focuses her source of happiness on her children, so much expectation of them, only to be brought up by something so small as her daughter sharing a cake with her son who was “wrongly” punished. not sure if this was a good lesson. and then at the end being so devastated that they were fighting and just being kids. also teaching them french… mothers… the nature of them, maybe should change. i mean parents in general, but especially mothers. but if everyone were like this would the human race just cease to exist?
quotes:
Sliced down with a succulent sound and smelling of spice, the grass lay in high swaths.
… the strange mother-of-pearl shell of white, fleecy clouds…