Week 30 Recap: On the Eve of Borodino

All week Tolstoy has been building up to the Battle of Borodino — one of the major events of the 1812 campaign and a defining event in the novel. Pierre and Andrey starred in this week’s reading and are approaching the battle with very different attitudes.

Last week, I remarked on Pierre’s oddly placed “excitement,” which we sort of see again this week, …