War & Peace Podnotes, A Study Guide

In a few chapters, you will read one of the triumphs in literature, borrowed from the Wisdom Literature of the Old Testament.Tolstoy will have the fictional Andrei recognize the Vanity of our world. On the battlefield, Andrei is placed in a posture that makes him attuned to absorbing the nature of war & peace; and much more.In preparation for this moment, I ask you to take a tiny step toward developing the ability to see behind the vanity & vexation of our existence. If inclined, read the beginning of Ecclesiastes – as Andrei will paraphrase this material while speaking to the meaningless and futility of not seeing beyond the issues of the day.Conceding most will never going to do that… the critical and initial part of Ecclesiastes 1 reads: Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher (often identified as Solomon); All is vanity. What profit hath a man of all his labour, which he taketh under the sun?Then Scripture references then unrelenting cycles of nature --One generation passeth away, and another comet