Collage 352

Can you see the influence that the previous piece had on this one? or visa-versa? And the next one, Val's, shares a similar sensibility. That's why I love working with Team Tolstoy. We've had an ongoing artistic dialogue going on now for about a year. March 2010 is when we really committed to this project. It is amazing what we have accomplished. I am in love with this project and each and every one of my team mates and contributors. And our photographer (who happens to be my husband).

I have been sick for the last week. The silver lining is that I've had a lot of time to read! So I'm making great progress reading the book. Only 350 more pages to go! I want to finish the book, I want to finish the project. But ambivalently! The whole process has been one of the best experiences of my entire life.

We are in Volume II, Part Five, Chapters X and XI. It is clear that Anatole Kuragin is bad news -- but we are told that he had gotten married two years before. It was a shot-gun marriage, forced by the father of a modest Polish landowner. No one knows about her other than a few close friends, Dolokhov being one of them. He's the one that tied the bear to the policeman's back at the beginning of the story. We are also told that Anatole's father had sent him away from Petersburg after running up $20,000 in debt and expenses. Natasha has no idea what is in store for her.

A week or so ago I emailed Yasnaya Polyana, the Leo Tolstoy Museum Estate in Russia to let them know about our project. I just got an email back, and they like it! We are hoping to develop a relationship with them, and to possibly show The War and Peace Project there one day. How's that for big dreams? -- Lola

Lola Baltzell
from page 711-712 of original text
collage
made 1/28/11
page 566-568 Pevear/Vololhonsky translation