The Genealogy of Novels, Or Zoom And Enhance As Working Method
Pierre Bezukhov is condemned to be executed by firing squad –
In book four of War And Peace –
As a result of:
‘…the system, the concatenation of circumstances…’
A process we associate with Kafka.
Tolstoy presents the episode as an uncanny comedy.
A mode also found in Kafka.
Not least in The Trial.
So uncertainly amusing is the sequence in War that we fail to notice that Pierre benefits from a boy’s own adventure resolution.
He was shunted into the firing line by an arbitrary turn of fate.
But was delivered from it via an equally random zigzagging.
All of it supports Tolstoy’s thesis –
Made explicit in the intercalary chapters –
That human affairs are governed by destiny’s whimsy.
Kafka would turn the process on its head.
Have K put down due to a bureaucratic mix-up.
Rather than delivered from same by same.
Kafka was a fan of Tolstoy.
It’s not impossible, then, that he was inspired by the episode.
So much so that he developed an entire genre out of it.
Treated it as a mission statement.
So, realised its full potential.
Became its genetic offshoot.
In the genealogy of novels.
