Word: tolstoys
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...artistry of War and Peace and Anna Karenina translates into many languages, but Leo Tolstoy the social phenomenon is strictly Russian. Most biographers take this fact for granted. A.N. Wilson spells it out in his descriptions of that vast, isolated kingdom of the 19th century in which the roles of writer and prophet were frequently indistinguishable. Martine de Courcel strikes a deeper Slavic chord when she says that Tolstoy's aim was to become a Fool of God. Count Leo was, of course, no fool, although many of his truths never got off the ground. His moralizing often seems...
...modern American readers, Tolstoy's life sometimes reads like a 19th century version of Portnoy's Complaint, in which the protagonist never stops griping that his desires are repugnant to his morals. Tolstoy's diaries and instructional writings are engorged with this seriocomic theme, a fact that led Biographer Henri Troyat to conclude more than 20 years ago that Russia's literary icon was "a billy-goat pining for purity...
...Courcel, holder of a psychology degree from the Sorbonne, latches on to this internal conflict as a dramatic device. The results are somewhat predictable and schematic. She relies heavily on the diaries of Tolstoy and his wife Sophia Andreyevna, memoirs, letters and interpretive readings of the novels and essays. These materials are tailored to fit what appears to have been a predetermined conclusion: Tolstoy reconciled his warring selves only when, ten days before dying in 1910, he fled farm and family...
...chicken wire, how to bind up the raspberries -- but the techniques that worked in the fertile hills of Vermont do not necessarily work in the sands of Long Island. Most important of all, I do not have the time (or the energy) to play some character out of Tolstoy. I live by the 8:26 to Penn Station, and most of the time, my roses grow untended...
...contrary Russian view, from Tolstoy through Lenin, is that history is mainly forces and factors. "In historical events great men -- so called -- are but the labels that serve to give a name to an event," Tolstoy wrote in War and Peace, "and like labels they have the least possible connection with the event itself." Herein lies another irony: just as Reagan's romantic view overstates the role that individuals can play in shaping history, the Russian view probably understates Gorbachev's personal potential...