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S U M M E R
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R E A D I N G
War and Peace on Bread Loaf Mountain
When I started working on this issue of
the Bulletin, and it became clear that
I would look at summer reading, a
chorus of voices cried, “You have to talk with Kyra—
she’s reading War and Peace this summer!” Kyra Fries
first came to Park in 2001 as an intern. During that
year and the next, she became a fixture in the English
Department, working closely with Juliet Baker and
Curt Miller in the English and Drama Departments.
After teaching high school students at Gould Academy
in Bethel, Maine, Kyra returned to Park in 2006.
She teaches English to Grades VII, VIII, and IX, and
co-directs Park’s drama program with Curt Miller.
This summer, Kyra Fries completed her fourth
year at Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf School of
English. In August, I traveled up to the idyllic mountain
campus to ask Kyra about her experiences at
graduate school. In particular, I wanted to learn more
about her course on Tolstoy’s War and Peace, which
seemed to take summer reading up several notches.
—Kate LaPine, editor
Tell me about War and Peace
I signed up for the course, a close reading
of Tolstoy’s masterpiece, in February and
bought the book the day after. The course
description in the catalogue said, “It is
important to have read the whole novel
before the class begins,” and besides, I
wanted to be able to do the work of the
class rather than simply keeping up with
the reading. So I got to work. The new
translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa
Volokhonsky has 1,215 pages.
On a normal day in Boston, my alarm
goes off at 6:00 a.m. I press snooze a few
times before getting up to walk my dog,
Basket, and get home in time to eat
breakfast before heading off to Park. But
I had to adjust my morning routine to
accommodate the reading. All spring, I
got up at 5:15 and read for 30 minutes.
I figured out that I could read ten pages
in that time — with my pen, of course.
After teaching the skill to students for so
long, I think I’m a pretty good active
reader. I knew I had to mark passages,
note events, circle characters—how else
would I be able to remember what I’d
read in June On weekends I’d try to read
more, but by graduation I still had about
500 pages left! Obviously, I had to change
my schedule slightly . . . with a simple
division problem I discovered that in the
The Park Bulletin | Fall 2009 33