Inspired by @APublicSpace's lovely #TolstoyTogether project, we are embarking on our own journey into War & Peace, starting today. Each day we read only two words. Today's couplet: "Eh bien." See you in 804 years.
— Reif Larsen (@reiflarsen) May 4, 2020
Day 2 of #TolstoyTogether #2wordsaday. I found myself peeking at the following day's words so I've developed a Window of Inquisition. Today's words: "mon prince" @APublicSpace pic.twitter.com/xxk0WknMzx
— Reif Larsen (@reiflarsen) May 5, 2020
Day 3 of #TolstoyTogether #2wordsaday. Une catastrophe! Just as I opened my book, my son bumped my arm, sending The Window of Inquisition backward. Due to some rather stringent bylaws from @APublicSpace, The Window cannot move again for the day. So here I am, back where I began. pic.twitter.com/lnQk7xWf7d
— Reif Larsen (@reiflarsen) May 6, 2020
Day 4 of #TolstoyTogether #2wordsaday. Success! I've been granted an exception by @APublicSpace's lawyers. They've allowed me to move my Window of Inquisition from the purgatory of words 1&2 to 5&6. Ah, Gênes! Beautiful Genoa! Never before have I greeted a city w/ such delight. pic.twitter.com/FKUGqclsbP
— Reif Larsen (@reiflarsen) May 7, 2020
Genoa, 1965. pic.twitter.com/tUlhG6UJwp
— Reif Larsen (@reiflarsen) May 7, 2020
The Aqueduct was built at the behest of Elisa Bonaparte, the little man's sister, known after the conquest as "The Princess of Lucca." But construction didn't actually begin until 1823, under the watchful eye of Lorenzo Nottolini. Dolly Parton does not figure into its history.
— Reif Larsen (@reiflarsen) May 8, 2020
Day 6 of #TolstoyTogether #2wordsaday: "ne sont" <"are not">. We have entered into existential territory; I'm moving forward, with increasing propulsion, only to be reprimanded in the negative. And so it is—we must fight on, even when all signs point us in the opposite direction. pic.twitter.com/bMXxwy8su9
— Reif Larsen (@reiflarsen) May 9, 2020
Day 9 of #TolstoyTogether #2wordsaday. It's taken me so long to get thru one line of text I forgot how books work & ended up in the margin. I didn't want to trouble @APublicSpace's lawyers for an exemption to move The Window x2 in one day, so here I shall remain until the morrow. pic.twitter.com/Tz8J4lQB9f
— Reif Larsen (@reiflarsen) May 12, 2020
Day 8 of #TolstoyTogether #2wordsaday. "Des apapanges" (a gift of land, usually to the offspring of royalty). Just before he left for the war, my father gave me a small island. He'd purchased it years before for $275. I've never set foot on this island but I dream of it often. pic.twitter.com/f8XFwllE86
— Reif Larsen (@reiflarsen) May 11, 2020
Day 7 of #TolstoyTogether #2wordsaday: "plus que" <"more than">. This journey has been a series of ups & downs. A day of despair followed by a day of triumph. Today, I'm feeling optimistic. But I also feel like I've missed so much. I may go back to the beginning and start again. pic.twitter.com/1HGJS9pDEU
— Reif Larsen (@reiflarsen) May 10, 2020
Day 11 of #TolstoyTogether #2wordsaday: "la famille Buonaparte" (Corsican sp.) In this painting of Napoleon & his family at Saint-Cloud (1810) by Jean-Louis Ducis, I've always wondered what the daughter is whispering to him—"I've seen into the future & you're alone on an island"? pic.twitter.com/yHJtlCIVAu
— Reif Larsen (@reiflarsen) May 14, 2020
Day 10 of #TolstoyTogether #2wordsaday. I've moved to line 2! Rejoice. Words of the day: "des *estates*" (Tolstoy's emphasis.) Our own estate was a farm in Telemark, Norway. My father taught me how to make burlap while my mother searched the lake bottom for krill. Ah, childhood. pic.twitter.com/77sjvcABuz
— Reif Larsen (@reiflarsen) May 13, 2020
Day 12 of #TolstoyTogether #2wordsaday. An extra word has sneaked into my Window of Inquisition today: "Non, je vous." "No, I you." The shortest quarantine poem ever written. pic.twitter.com/RQJkfYwciK
— Reif Larsen (@reiflarsen) May 15, 2020
I've received several postcards with questions about what exactly a shashka is. I'm attaching a photo of mine. How I came to possess the weapon is another story, which I will not tell here, for it exposes several people to potential prosecution. pic.twitter.com/ajF0eUy21u
— Reif Larsen (@reiflarsen) May 17, 2020
From Love in the Time of Cholera, concerning the San José galleon: pic.twitter.com/TFGY84fs3l
— Reif Larsen (@reiflarsen) May 17, 2020
Day 15 #TolstoyTogether #2wordsaday: "me dites" <tell me> as seen thru a fresh window (no blood!)
— Reif Larsen (@reiflarsen) May 18, 2020
There's a point in every good story when it's no longer being told to you—you become the story. And then there's pleasure in popping back out & seeing the story lying on the table. pic.twitter.com/u4MsBPLxdD
Day 16 #TolstoyTogether #2wordsaday: "nous avons" <we have>
— Reif Larsen (@reiflarsen) May 19, 2020
I've been thinking of the collective these days—what it means to have something together. Possession is often tied to the individual; an act of conquering, not of collaboration. But remember my kitchen, before the war? pic.twitter.com/0HqP5wZaGw
Day 17 #TolstoyTogether #2wordsaday: "la guerre" <the war>
— Reif Larsen (@reiflarsen) May 20, 2020
Now is the time when we must talk about the Imperial Russian officer's plume and how he keeps it so <ahem> attentive, even in the heat of battle. pic.twitter.com/PsCz4wn2xu
"I say, Boris, where do I get one of those?" pic.twitter.com/3gX9WRkReX
— Reif Larsen (@reiflarsen) May 20, 2020
Day 18 #TolstoyTogether #2wordsaday: "vous vous" <you you>
— Reif Larsen (@reiflarsen) May 21, 2020
It was sometime in the summer of '84, on a train to Kaliningrad, when I first realized that other people also had minds & that they were thinking of themselves not as "you" but as "me"—I was the "you." I never recovered. pic.twitter.com/flJp85ryBk
Day 19 #TolstoyTogether #2wordsaday: "permettez encore" <allow again>
— Reif Larsen (@reiflarsen) May 22, 2020
Oh when, oh when? Once I attended a Kino concert and when they played the perestroika anthem "Хочу перемен" there was no distance between me and those 10,000 other souls. We were closer than touching. pic.twitter.com/u7MQ9nGJJB
Day 20 #TolstoyTogether #2wordsaday: "pal-"
— Reif Larsen (@reiflarsen) May 23, 2020
Once again, I have been caught unawares. The margin giveth, the margin taketh. To have a word end in mid-breath; for all action to cease; for quiet to descend upon the land—it is almost too much to bear. Yet there is always tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/p92LDrJkGo
— Reif Larsen (@reiflarsen) May 24, 2020
Day 22 #TolstoyTogether #2or3wordsaday: "toutes les atrocités"
— Reif Larsen (@reiflarsen) May 25, 2020
We had lunch in the hotel's cafeteria. An odd vibration permeated the room; I didn't touch my food. Later, we learned Vilina Vlas was infamous—the Serb army had kept women here for months at a time. No one told us. pic.twitter.com/CMDEpe2SJ9
Day 23 of #TolstoyTogether #2wordsaday: "cet antichrist"
— Reif Larsen (@reiflarsen) May 26, 2020
6 of my 7 grandmothers died clutching their icons. I inherited only one of them, a tiny painting of baby Jesus with a huge forehead. I've been assured the icon brings good luck, though all of its previous owners are dead. pic.twitter.com/67t5idxRcS
Day 24 #TolstoyTogether #2wordsaday: "ma parole" <my word>
— Reif Larsen (@reiflarsen) May 27, 2020
It was in this Mordovian bus stop that the doctor gave me his word—he was going to do everything he could to save my father. I never saw that doctor (or my father) again. pic.twitter.com/KA6uX7IHir
Day 25 #TolstoyTogether #2wordsaday "j'y crois" <"I believe it">
— Reif Larsen (@reiflarsen) May 28, 2020
My last evening in St Helena, I ascended the 699 steps. At the top, a priest was standing, his robes cracking in the wind. I waved, breathless. He said something—I could not hear what—and headed out to the cliffs. pic.twitter.com/maf07fsYFX
Day 26 #TolstoyTogether #2wordsaday: "je ne" <"I do not">
— Reif Larsen (@reiflarsen) May 29, 2020
For a long time, I did not believe in gravity. pic.twitter.com/OwvOMIvL28
Day 27 #TolstoyTogether #2wordsaday: "vous connais" <"know you">
— Reif Larsen (@reiflarsen) May 30, 2020
Each time I rowed across the Bering Strait I was followed by a minke whale whom I came to call Andrei. The last time he was not there. A friend sent this picture from the beach in Уэлен. There's no way to know. pic.twitter.com/D6xODMQAFV
Day 28 #TolstoyTogether #2wordsaday "vous n'êtes" <you are not>
— Reif Larsen (@reiflarsen) June 1, 2020
In the late '80s I lived in a 1-room flat that I acquired due to a bureaucratic glitch in the state artist program. It happened to be on the Trans-Siberian Express. For 200 days I was nowhere and everywhere at once. pic.twitter.com/wsV3huMIS8
Day 29 #TolstoyTogether #2wordsaday: "mon ami"
— Reif Larsen (@reiflarsen) June 3, 2020
In 1962, deep into what was supposedly the Krushchev Thaw, my friend Pavel was taken to the camps b/c he wrote some truths. When they took him that night, he was naked save an overcoat. Later, they sent back the overcoat, folded. pic.twitter.com/fYFomTZknj
Day 30 #TolstoyTogether #2wordsaday: "vous n'êtes"
— Reif Larsen (@reiflarsen) June 4, 2020
you are not, you are not, you are not, you are not, you are not, you are not, you are not, you are
Day 31 #TolstoyTogether #2or3wordsaday: "my faithful slave"
— Reif Larsen (@reiflarsen) June 5, 2020
One month in and I reach my first words in English. And what words. It as if Tolstoy is reaching from beyond the grave, saying, "I see you." pic.twitter.com/ev626BmUaM
Day 32 #TolstoyTogether #2wordsaday: "commes vous" <"as you">
— Reif Larsen (@reiflarsen) June 6, 2020
We used to throw rocks into the shallows of the Luga, trying to hit the fish. Oskar would pick up a rock but never throw it, though we teased him. Last year, I heard he had passed. He was the first of us to go. pic.twitter.com/aOfXNGrFwd
Day 33 #TolstoyTogether #2wordsaday: "Good evening"
— Reif Larsen (@reiflarsen) June 8, 2020
That far North, days never ended. The quality or the light bent and trembled, but the sun never set. Time grew long and sticky, like syrup. This was how we met—jumping off the back of a horse at midnight. pic.twitter.com/lunuhNcVMG
Day 34 #TolstoyTogether #2wordsaday: "good evening"
— Reif Larsen (@reiflarsen) June 9, 2020
Winter was the time of memory. The hours were slippery— as if the present had already happened. We ate our kasha and went out into the snow under a dark sky. It was morning or night. It didn't matter. All we could do was laugh. pic.twitter.com/UrHdqnChnX
Day 35 #TolstoyTogether #2wordsaday: "je vois"
— Reif Larsen (@reiflarsen) June 10, 2020
I can't remember when my mother went blind. There isn't a before or an after. There's only a song. She would play it in the evenings—I can hum it to you even now. She would stare out the window and I would wonder what it is to see. pic.twitter.com/aVVRlpTx6Z
Day 36 #TolstoyTogether #2or3wordsaday: "je vous fais" <I made you>
— Reif Larsen (@reiflarsen) June 11, 2020
My brother didn't speak until he was five. This was after the comet hit—language was still being reformed. When he finally began talking, he spoke only in the third person. Like everything, we grew used to it. pic.twitter.com/ukwHcvXkXP
Day 37 #TolstoyTogether #2wordsaday "sit down"
— Reif Larsen (@reiflarsen) June 12, 2020
The year we lived underground, one comrade would go to The Above each month to gather food we couldn't farm in The Chamber. When it was my father's turn, I watched him open The Hatch and wondered if memories needed sunlight to grow. pic.twitter.com/OyK0jmGCgN
Day 38 #TolstoyTogether #2wordsaday: "tell me"
— Reif Larsen (@reiflarsen) June 14, 2020
My babushka was an official storyteller. She had memorized the entirety of War & Peace—people would line up for hours to hear her recite it. Sometimes she would declaim 100's of pages at a time, sometimes she would say only 2 words. pic.twitter.com/flhaBsiwvO
And with the conclusion of paragraph one, my little experiment comes to an end. The Window of Inquisition is retired. Thank you to @APublicSpace for granting me permission to move at such a measured pace. Until next time...
— Reif Larsen (@reiflarsen) June 15, 2020
Inspired by A Public Space and Yiyun Li's #TolstoyTogether project— in which a large group of readers came together to read War and Peace at the rate of about 12 pages a day, taking around 3 months to finish—I made the questionable decision to embark upon the novel at the rate of 2 words per day.
I (slowly) worked my way through the text, recording my efforts on Twitter. I experienced several mishaps along the way and my progress was not made any easier by the fact that the majority of the first paragraph in the Pevear & Volokhonsky translation was in French. No matter. When I reached the end of the first paragraph, after 39 days, exhausted, I decided to retire the project.
Here is a record of my journey.
War & Peace, Two Words a Day
The first paragraph of War & Peace.