This biography of Tolstoy by A.N. Wilson (572 pages) was first published in 1988.Ninety volumes
of Tolstoy’s work fill the shelves of the Russian Library. Of all the Russian novelists who came after Pushkin , Tolstoy was the greatest. He
was born on August , 1828 into a high ,
aristocratic family. He served as a soldier in the Crimean war. Tolstoy died
on November 7, 1910.
Solutions which he preached to
solve the problems of the nineteenth century were –pacifism,
vegetarianism, reading the gospels and
knitting your own clothes. His two greatest achievements were War and Peace ,
and Anna Karenina. In War and Peace , in telling the story of Napoleon’s invasion and retreat from Moscow, Tolstoy had
become a national institution of Russia.
War and Peace is one of the
great works of literature of the
world.
“What then must we
do?” is one of Tolstoy’s most
impressive and unforgettable books.
“What Then Must We Do?” is an
exposure of the gap between rich and
poor , and it leaves no reader unaffected. Millions of readers have
found in Resurrection things deeper ,
both disturbing and consoling than
anything in Tolstoy’s writings
except War and Peace. Resurrection was
more widely disseminated than anything
Tolstoy had previously written . “After the ball” is a great short story by Tolstoy. The philosopher Wittgenstein said that “Hadji Murat”
was one of the few works of Tolstoy
which he could admire.
It was hard for Tolstoy to think that
women have any function in the
world except as breeding stock. Tolstoy
used fiction to purge and to sanitise existence .”I could only preach by deeds;
and my deeds are bad”. Father Sergius (
published after Tolstoy’s death ) was a vivid dissection of what was wrong with the whole Tolstoyan way
of looking at the world. “The Kingdom of God is Within You” is an infinitely sad book to read. Also , “
all life is a struggle between the flesh
and the spirit and gradually the flesh triumphs over the spirit”, says Tolstoy. His later advocacy of anarchism , or his condemnation of Shakespeare
are not shared by many.
Tolstoy remained
a compulsive diarist until last days of
his life. In this diary , centre stage was Tolstoy himself. Dickens was his
favourite author and David Copperfield his favourite book. He loved Rousseau’s Emily and The Confessions equally. He had sweet and sour relations with
Turgenev. For seventeen years , there was no contact between them. However, Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky never met.
Tolstoy did not know “ a better
book in all modern literature than Dostoyevsky’s “The House of the Dead”. He was
a smoker of tobacco and had a habit of non-stop tea drinking.
Tolstoy was not
a prophet and he had many shortcomings and many ideas which are unacceptable.
But he was a great writer , with tremendous influence all over the world.
Wilson has been able to portray
Tolstoy truly and in an interesting
style. Go ahead and read this book , if you are a fan of Tolstoy.
