Book Review: Tolstoy by A. N. Wilson; Part One: The Writer
This is a complex, opinionated biography of a literary genius. It is at its weakest when Wilson attempts to introduce his personal observations and impressions of Tolstoy’s life and thoughts as if they were the only possible interpretation, and at its strongest when he sticks to facts about Tolstoy and the historical background. The book is broken roughly into two parts: the first deals with Tolstoy’s growth and maturation as a writer, and the second concerns his dedication to spiritual matters in the latter part of his life.
Wilson makes it clear from the outset that Tolstoy was enabled by his circumstances. He was born into a noble family, and it was this that gave him the freedom to pursue the creation of literature in a country in which the vast majority of its population was enslaved to landlords. In fact, when a piece of land was sold, the peasants living on the land were sold along with it. As I read about this sordid arrangement, I wondered how many people might have had the desire and capability of creating art if they had been as free as Tolstoy. I also thought of Rabindranath Tagore, another wealthy member of a privileged minority who went on to become internationally renowned as a writer.
The young Tolstoy is presented as a flawed individual, a typical member of the aristocracy: selfish, profligate, and deeply addicted to gambling, which almost ruined him. At one point it seems he is helpless to prevent himself from destroying his life and the lives of others through card-playing and resultant debt. He drifts about, dabbles in education, and finally enters the military. Ultimately he finds salvation in two things: his writing, and his marriage (at least in the early years).
The narrative sometimes gets a bit muddled when Wilson attempts to analyze Tolstoy’s motives and thought processes while writing particular works. It is also disconcerting when he takes for granted that readers are familiar with obscure Russian and European writers of the era, who he sometimes discusses at length. On the other hand, often Wilson offers genuine insight concerning various phases of Tolstoy’s career, such as this observation of the time after the publication of his first important work, Childhood: “From now onwards, Tolstoy was a writer: that is, a man whose life is defined by what he is or is not writing.” Further on Wilson offers this clarification of the years when the masterpiece War and Peace was in the beginning stages: “Though there were periods of great idleness even during these, the most creative years of his life, such idleness should not be mistaken for literary indifference. A writer is not just at work when he holds a pen in his hand. He needs to allow the work to gestate; and when the work is of the proportions of War and Peace, the gestation will often be long and apparently idle indeed.”
Tolstoy’s marriage helped to stabilize him. He quit gambling and became concerned not only with the education of his own children, but also of the children of the serfs who lived on his land. In addition, his wife became his amanuensis, faithfully copying numerous versions of his works. Still, he was an often unhappy, deeply conflicted individual, and proof that though a person may have been a literary genius, it doesn’t mean that his personal life was enviable. Tolstoy recognized this himself, and after writing Anna Karenina he embarked upon a spiritual journey in which he embraced abnegation and pacifism. We will deal with this aspect of his life in the second part of this review.
