War and Peace - Finished Book 2

Last night finished the 2nd (of 4) "books" of War and Peace. Volume ends with Pierre looking at the night sky and having some sort of vision of peace, understanding his place in society and the universe. These moments, typically Tolstoyan, are hard to describe and capture. But each of the male characters seems to have this kind of vision - most notably Andrei, on the battlefield, wounded, looking up at the sky. It's unclear whether these are reassuring moments or frightening. Do they see the wholeness of the universe, or do they see themselves as mere specks, incapable of changing anything, of doing any good? The end of book 2 is incredibly stressful and despairing. Natasha has seemingly ruined her young life by spurning Andrei and trying unsuccessfull to run away for Anatole Kuragin. She's in despair, rightly. And Pierre remains one of the loneliest and inconsolable of heroes. Of course Natasha will end up with someone, but who - back with Andrei? Or Pierre, if he can somehow free himself from Helene, who seems to me not as evil as she seems to Pierre. Describing all this, I make W&P sound like a melodrama, even a soap opera - and it is so far from that. As the translator's intro notes, someone said that "if the world could write itself, it would write like Tolstoy." That seems so true, yet what does it mean exactly? The great naturalists of the 19th C - Tolstoy, Stendahl, Flaubert, in particular - all seem to write like the "mirror carried along the highway." But of all of them, Tolstoy seems the least "present" in his novels. You never quite hear his voice or see a distinct mark of style. This is in fact his style. He enters into the minds of his characters all the time - a whole range of characters - and unfolds their thought process for us, but without the "modernist" stylistic devices (e.g., stream of consciousness). And probably no other writer has a more acute sense of the telling detail: the way Kuragin stands with one foot forward, first looking at himself in the mirror; Natasha shaking with sobs, and her rather haughty expressions. So many scenes, all of them so cinematic (sleigh ride through the snow, troika racing toward the elopement) and done, each, with just a few details it seems. We know the characters, can see them, but we have actually been told so little about them. We know their internal lives and can put them into a physical space because of the discrete details of expression. How can you not see Pierre as someone played by Renoir, bumbling along, trying to make peace, denying the nasty rumors - as in the great Rules of the Game?