Tolstoy

Rating:
Summary: tolstoy reader
Review: an excellent informative book about tolstoy
most fascinating is his relationship described with Turgenev, doestevosky and later chekov. the ending is a cruel one to him as he describes feeling like a hypocrit as ghandi reads his works as his family fights over the spoils of his estate.

Rating:
Summary: A tour de force
Review: If you happen to agree with me that Leo Tolstoy was one of the ten most creative bipeds (Perhaps THE most brilliant creative genius , even a notch above Shakespeare !) then you would would want to read this superb bio of the master,Reading Troyat account of Tolstoy's life is like being a fly on the wall of the Tolstoy estate at Yasnaya Polyana _____ Troyat has cast a wide net and scooped up a real gem of a book .

Rating:
Summary: Enlightening!
Review: This book is very informative yet reads as lively as a Tolstoy novel. Reading this before, during, or after you read "War and Peace" is very enlightening. Interesting the fact that the author of "War and Peace" struggled with history in school and exclaimed that history was "nothing but a heap of myths and useless, trivial details, sprinkled with dates and names". Other wisdoms include "Bronchitis is an imaginary disease! Bronchitis is a metal!" Highly entertaining. I had to deduct one star due to the fact that there is not one picture in this biography which I find quite odd.

Rating:
Summary: Enlightening!
Review: This book is very informative yet reads as lively as a Tolstoy novel. Reading this before, during, or after you read "War and Peace" is very enlightening. Interesting the fact that the author of "War and Peace" struggled with history in school and exclaimed that history was "nothing but a heap of myths and useless, trivial details, sprinkled with dates and names". Other wisdoms include "Bronchitis is an imaginary disease! Bronchitis is a metal!" Highly entertaining. I had to deduct one star due to the fact that there is not one picture in this biography which I find quite odd.

Rating:
Summary: Comprehensive and well-written
Review: Tolstoy once wrote in his diary "Nobody will ever understand me." I can imagine that many biographers have been tormented by those words as they tried to compile and collate information about the extraordinary life of this great "lion" of writers. Troyat has done a remarkable job of this daunting monumental task, and his book ought to be considered essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the lifelong inner struggle that seemed to fuel the creative genius of Leo Tolstoy. As others have commented, it truly does read with the pace and interest of a sweeping epic novel, and there doesn't seem to be any possible chronological gap that could be missing. It's all here: Tolstoy's ancestry, the early loss of both his parents, his military youth in the Caucasus, his bouts with profligacy, his fickle literary friendships, his blunderous courtship and tumultuous (to put it mildly) marriage with Sofya Behrs... and all of his day-to-day glaring contradictory theories that remind us of Herzen's assessment of him: "He oversteps the limits. His brain does not take time to digest the impressions it absorbs." Everything is here: his vacillating acceptance and rejection of earthly comfort, his never ending search for some form of self-imposed suffering to atone for his affluence, his frustrating envy of all who had the good fortune of being unfortunate... his ultimate rejection of a fortune.

In my opinion, Leo Tolstoy was the greatest writer the world has ever produced. I've read other biographies of him, and consider Troyat's to be the best for many reasons, not the least of which is his selective restraint with detail. It's obvious that he probably read upwards of a million pages in order to give us this 900, and the finished product is never tedious. His look at Tolstoy is unbiased, he does not try to canonize him. It takes a great man to have every stone of his life upturned like this, and yet emerge as a hero. Tolstoy does!

Rating:
Summary: Overly detailed and opinionated
Review: Tolstoy's biography by Troyat is thoroughly documented, and Tolstoy certainly is an interesting subject for a book. I recommend it for people looking for an authoritative source of information.

However, taken as a book to be read, not referenced, it has serious flaws. The main one, which I find inexcusable, is Troyat's comments throughout the book "explaining" Tolstoy to the reader, and being shocked at Tolstoy's inconsistencies. Troyat will show us a scene where Tolstoy lays down a plan for virtuous conduct in his diary, then breaks his own code. Troyat exclaims: "Paradox! Tolstoy is a strange man, breaking his own code". Well, Mr. Troyat, don't we all?
Then, at another instance, he will characterize, say, Turgenev's judgement of Tolstoy, as "lacking in psychology". Troyat, of course, would have known better. In other words, Troyat doesn't try to erase himself from the book, we see his footprints all over. The book should have been named "Troyat's superior knowledge of Tolstoy".

Another related problem with this book is excessive documentation. We are witness to too many changes of opinion in Tolstoy. For, say, his doubts about his feelings for Sofya Bers, this is revealing, but we are subjected to the same ceremony for each acquaintance made by Tolstoy. The point was well taken from the beginning: Tolstoy changed his opinion of himself and others very often. And again, I don't see this as strange: many people are like that. But by the fourth time I saw Tolstoy meet someone, then write on successive days "Excellent" "Superficial" "Vain" "Far superior to me" etc. I was about to give up on the book. In contrast, we don't see enough of what others thought of Tolstoy, and that is a pity, especially since the book's excessive focus on Tolstoy's inner struggle makes it grey and humorless.

To sum it up: can serve well as a reference book, but not as a novel. Read Tolstoy himself, he is more revealing.

Rating:
Summary: The book tells the story, but the mystery remains
Review: Troyat is thorough and comprehensive in telling Tolstoy's story from childhood through youth and into the great creative mature years and the decline and old age. He writes with great knowledge of the complex Tolstoy of innumerable paradoxes and contradictions. Tolstoy is arguably the greatest novelist of all time and yet at times he despises mere literature. Tolstoy aims to be humble and yet cannot abide the literature of Shakespeare because there is the chance that Shakespeare might be greater than Tolstoy. Tolstoy loves and admires his wife and has a large family with her yet comes to despise her and betray her . Tolstoy preaches celibacy and yet indulges himself with peasant women he owns and exploits. Tolstoy in Isaiah Berlin's concept aims to be the hedgehog who understands all reality as one great system and yet is truly a fox in his remarkable observations and understanding of nature and society. Tolstoy is a raw awkward bear of a character who nonetheless develops into a sincere and mature responsible citizen and landholder. Tolstoy is the man of wealth who sits and works with the peasants and would give everything to them. Troyat portrays the contradictions and has the narrative power to sweep us along in telling the story of this giant of world literature. Surely one clue to the endless search for meaning is his loss of his mother when he is two. But every explanation falls short , and it is difficult to make full sense of this remarkable mixture of greatness and difficulty, of wisdom and idiocy , of genius and simple human stupidity , of love and indifference to those he is closest to , which is Tolstoy.
The book tells the story but the mystery remains, as is perhaps true with the life of every person , great or not.