Bronson Reads War and Peace, pgs. 1-127

In Princess Pavlovna's salon, the dowried St. Petersberg aristocrats mutter and posture, in French ironically, about the merits and madness of Napolean pointing his invincible army towards them. A rogue bastard, Pierre, educated abroad, shows his youth by professing admiration for Napolean as a post-Bourbon uniter of newly Enlightened France, and is promptly dismissed by the bouffant princes and princesses as reckless and trite.

So, Prince Andrey, disgusted with the pedantic privilege in the room, his wife among them, offers such priceless Bronsonian advice to Pierre later, in private:

"You talk of Bonaparte, when he was working his way up, going step by step straight to his aim, he was free; he had nothing except his aim and he attained it. But tie yourself up with a woman, and, like a chained convict, you lose all freedom. And all the hope and strength there is in you is only a drag on you, torturing you with regret. Drawing-rooms, gossip, balls, vanity, frivolty - that's the enchanted circle I can't get out of. I am setting off now to the war, the greatest war there has ever been, and I know nothing, and am good for nothing. I am very agreeable and sarcastic."

Your Bronson, too, is agreeable and sarcastic, but has yet to seek such extreme measures to escape that fate. Instead, Your Bronson has embraced his own vanity and has been validated by the Great Tolstoy to continue to eschew all bullshit chicks and fight the noble wars, like finishing this ridiculous book.