The Honors English required reading my first semester at the University of Arkansas was a long list filled with even longer books.
I’m talking lengthy, humorless tomes – the kind you only read on assignment or if you’ve a librarian to impress; “The amorality in Zola’s ‘Nana’ reflects condemnation of heredity and environment as shapers of overall circumstance in Parisian life circa 1870. So, howz about a quick snog in the stacks?”
As a conscientious reader, I was confident I would make short work of each novel. After all, I had finished every assignment since “The House of the Seven Gables” in seventh grade, when I only made it through 3 pages before I regretted not dying over summer vacation.
That fall, I was in marching band for 10-15 hours a week, and I shouldered the extra burden of switching from saxophone to Sousaphone because the band needed more low brass. This particular weekend we had also traveled out of town for a football game. On the cacophonous band bus, I attempted to read my assignment, Tolstoy’s “War and Peace.” It was like being swarmed by happy chinchillas – unproductive but not altogether unpleasant.
It is perhaps understandable that I got behind on “War and Peace.” I was to have finished over the weekend, but on Sunday afternoon I had what felt like 5000 pages left to go. Shades of Evelyn Wood, was it too late to cram a quick Speed Reading course?
By sheerest coincidence, the film “War and Peace,” starring Audrey Hepburn and Henry Fonda, was being shown on TV that very afternoon. A wave of gratitude washed over me. Thank you, uncaring universe, for throwing me a bone! And extra thanks for Audrey Hepburn, as long as we’re at it.
What a large bone this was, all euphemisms aside, in those olden days before streaming services or even video tapes! It could be months or years before a particular film popped up on TV.
For example, I had once waited years to see “Godzilla” on the TV late show. I fell asleep 5 minutes into the film, although I awoke for the last 5 minutes. Consequently, I long regarded “Godzilla” as the epitome of the tightly edited movie.
Viewing the film of “War and Peace,” 3 hours and 28 minutes long (and even longer with commercials), sounded considerably easier than reading hundreds of pages before class on Monday. Not as easy as one might think, though; the 12 inch screen viewed from 10 feet away made it difficult to discern Henry Fonda from shrubbery. Fortunately, his acting sometimes helped.
Now, my dorm room was about a dozen rooms down from the communal toilet, which was often inconvenient. In those days, I drank Dr. Pepper with mucho gusto and frequency, sipping it from a Brandy snifter while commenting on its “good legs and fruity bouquet hinting of prune undertones.”
After several hours of watching the film, the climax approached, with Fonda’s character moments away from to assassinating Napolean as he rode through Moscow. My attention was divided, however, because my bladder was bulging with processed Dr. Pepper. During a commercial break, I sprinted down the hall to the restroom for some overdue relief.
Earlier that afternoon, it had started snowing, falling lightly and dusting the courtyard below my window. My friend Carra, who lived next dorm room over, had glimpsed the snow and stepped into my room while I was away.
When I returned, hurrying so as to not miss any of the crucial final events of the film, I was horrified to find the TV turned to the weather station. Carra was chomping on a bag of Chips Ahoy cookies and studying the screen as if he anticipated a pop quiz on precipitation.
“Why do you have it on the weather?” I yelled. “It is pretty obvious that it is cold and snowing! You can look out the window and see the snow!” I always was a believer in first-person, empirical evidence.
I stepped up to the TV, grumbling, “Now what station was that on?” I flipped the knob until a scene of Napoleon in his tent popped up. Satisfied that I had not missed the climax, I sat, and we continued watching. Would Fonda get a shot at Napoleon? Would Napoleon get a shot at Fonda? Would anyone get a shot at Audrey Hepburn?
The film’s focus had strangely shifted to Napoleon, without even a glimpse of our former protagonists. It was even stranger that the French conqueror was played as a bit of a buffoon. Earlier, he had been exactly as funny as hemorrhoids on a first date.
After 20 minutes, I gave voice to my growing suspicions. “Hey! What’s up with Napoleon? I don’t think this is the right movie!”
I used few curse words at that point in my life, and most were mild by modern standards. Nowadays, I would say, “Fuck! What the fuck happened to fucking Napoleon? I don’t fucking think this is the right fucking movie… Tits!”
I furiously rotated the dial, passing goofy Napoleon at least three times in my desperate search for any hint of Fonda or Hepburn.
What kind of universe shows two Napoleon movies simultaneously when one was sufficient? Just how many movies with Napoleon in them were there? What were the odds? Was the universe dicking around? Here, Steve, I’m gifting you with a movie, so you don’t have to read your ass off all night. Ha, ha! Just kidding, sucker!
Contemplating Carra, the agent of my aggravation, I calculated whether I should kill him humanely or stretch it out. At 6’7”, he needed no stretching out, so perhaps quick was the better way to go.
I figured I could make it appear that Carra choked on Chips Ahoy easily enough. Nobody would ever suspect foul play!
Carra was lucky that snowy afternoon; he only survived because it would have been such a mess to clean up, what with crumbs everywhere.
I went to class the next morning without finishing the book.
And here it is, many years later, and I still don’t know how “War and Peace” ends. Except that Fonda didn’t kill Napoleon. Duh. It’s not fucking “Titanic,” you know.
