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Rating: 
Summary: Wilson's Tolstoy -- not the person we thought we knew...
Review: A. N. Wilson writes idiosyncratic books. The author states (p. 207), "This book is the story of Tolstoy, as a writer and thinker." When I began reading, I mistakenly thought I was reading biography. As I plowed on I discovered that Wilson's "Tolstoy" is only about 30 percent biography. It is also a book of literary criticism, 19th century Russian history, character and psychological analysis, and ruminative essay. In short, it is "an intellectual history." Wilson includes all the helps a reader could ask for: photographs (53 of them!), an extensive bibliography, and a handy time line, (as well as the usual aids like the index, foreword, notes, acknowledgements, and table of contents). Wilson states: "This book is primarily the story of a novelist... a great genius whose art grew out of his three uneasy and irresolvable relationships: his relationship with God, ... with women, ... with Russia. In all cases, the relationships were stormy, full of contradictions." Hmmpf, gross understatement!! While many readers may have no image whatsoever of Tolstoy, some (like me) visualized an icon: a saintly, dreamy, old man at odds with a lowbrow wife, and persecuted by a corrupt government. How wrong I was! His wife was for many years a full partner in his productivity. Only toward the end did Tolstoy and she become each other's torturers. The government forgave Tolstoy, a well-connected aristocrat, much that would have (and did) put other dissidents in czarist labor camps (e.g. poor Dostoyevsky!). [Though Tolstoy was a contemporary of Dostoyevsky, the two men made a deliberate point of never meeting each other.] - - - - One of the fascinations of this book is that one gets to know Leo Tolstoy "with all the warts". He was no saint, either as a selfish young man, or as an opinionated old fool. In fact, throughout his life he was an unpleasant person. His saving grace was that he was a genius when it came to writing fiction! Tolstoy shamelessly took others' tragedies, and turned them into highly saleable fiction. But he did it so very, very well! Tolstoy's life began three years after the Decembrist Uprising of 1825, and ended seven years before the Russian Revolution of 1917 - a fascinating period in Russian history! His life spanned the rule of four czars: Nicholas I (1825-1855), Alexander II (1855-1881), Alexander III (1881-1894) and Nicholas II (1894-1917). In a nation run by an autocracy out of touch with its population, Tolstoy became a folk hero simply for being a merely decent person (NOT quite a good person, much less a saint!) He was a college dropout. He fought in Chechnya with the czar's army. He "sowed his wild oats" with hundreds of young ladies, (and - predictably -- contracted gonorrhea). He was a spoiled brat. In later years, the Orthodox Church excommunicated him. His bizarre behavior led the czarist secret police to ransack his home to see if he was a dangerous revolutionary (he was, but not in the way they thought!). When Tolstoy left his home and wife to die, at age 82, in a railroad station, he did not die alone and forgotten. An early film crew was there! Crowds of people recognized him and flocked around. His wife even made it there on a later train, just in time to be there before he expired. Leo Tolstoy died in the midst of a "media circus"! Wilson, in his own style, brings all these disparate threads together. His tapestry is fascinatingly beautiful. And of course, Wilson makes his own points - trenchantly! For example, regarding Tolstoy's decision to live according to the Gospels, Wilson remarks: "It is possible to read [Tolstoy's last] thirty years as an extraordinary demonstration of the fact that the Sermon on the Mount is an unlivable ethic, a counsel of craziness which, if followed to its relentless conclusion as Tolstoy tried to follow it will lead to the reverse of peace and harmony and spiritual calm which are normally thought of as the concomitants of the religious quest. Tolstoy's religion is ultimately the most searching criticism of Christianity which there is. He shows that it does not work." I left this book with a burning desire to read more of Tolstoy. This phenomenon always happens to me when I read A.N. Wilson. Unfortunately, reading Tolstoy's opus would be quite impractical: his collected works run to 90 volumes! So now I must choose!
Rating:
Summary: Vibrant and Funny Literary Biography
Review: Among it's more traditional strengths, Wilson's life of Tolstoy must be added to the exceedingly select list of laugh out loud biographies of Russian novelists. Throughout the book's considerable length and passionate examinations of Tolstoy's writing and the Russian history from which they grew, are superb jokes, asides, and sarcasm - in no way denigrating the tempestuous creator of War and Peace, but keeping a keen-eyed perspective on the many paradoxical facets of his long life. Wilson's account is suffused with a deeply felt love of Tolstoy's writings, perfectly balanced by an appreciation for his absurdities. If you have read and loved War and Peace, Anna Karenina, or any of Tolstoy's works, this biography yields a rich and absorbing account of the life and history from which they sprung.
Rating: 
Summary: An objective look into the life of a great author
Review: This book is something you can easily read over the span of several sittings, as it is sectioned into several chapters that chronicle each era of Tolstoy's life, making it easy to read. An excellent source of both research and simple enjoyment. Being a lover of Tolstoy's literature and philosophy, and having read brief snippets of Tolstoy's life in the preface of his novels, I was interested in learning more about the man himself. Wilson has produced a well researched biography that is informative and interesting to read. What I especially like is its clarity on what is fact and what are speculations based on his erratic diaries, using painstaking quotes, footnotes, literary excerpts, and bibliography to back up the author's and literary community's theories. The result is a portrait of a man at odds with himself, who like Dostoevsky was a living representation of the duality of man. No wonder these writers were so profound at portaying the the human condition, mind, spirit, and soul. If only we could go back in time and walk with these men and speak with them personally, how rich we would be.
Rating:
Summary: An objective look into the life of a great author
Review: This book is something you can easily read over the span of several sittings, as it is sectioned into several chapters that chronicle each era of Tolstoy's life, making it easy to read. An excellent source of both research and simple enjoyment. Being a lover of Tolstoy's literature and philosophy, and having read brief snippets of Tolstoy's life in the preface of his novels, I was interested in learning more about the man himself. Wilson has produced a well researched biography that is informative and interesting to read. What I especially like is its clarity on what is fact and what are speculations based on his erratic diaries, using painstaking quotes, footnotes, literary excerpts, and bibliography to back up the author's and literary community's theories. The result is a portrait of a man at odds with himself, who like Dostoevsky was a living representation of the duality of man. No wonder these writers were so profound at portaying the the human condition, mind, spirit, and soul. If only we could go back in time and walk with these men and speak with them personally, how rich we would be.
Rating:
Summary: Not the average biography
Review: Tolstoy is one the greatest writers during what must be considered the heroic age of novel writing. He never makes a wrong move in his writing, but probably was one of the most unpleasant people ever to live. Wilson here gives us a view of both the sublime artist and the opinionated gad fly of his friends, family and country and presents a fairly complete picture of a divided man. This is a tell all book, but not in the usual sense. Wilson focuses on the inner life of Tolstoy rather than his day to day experiences which probably were not as meaningful to him as what went on inside. This probably is the best biogrpahy of Tolstoy in English. It is good for those who are familiar with Tolstoy's works and for those who are not.
Rating:
Summary: Not the average biography
Review: Tolstoy is one the greatest writers during what must be considered the heroic age of novel writing. He never makes a wrong move in his writing, but probably was one of the most unpleasant people ever to live. Wilson here gives us a view of both the sublime artist and the opinionated gad fly of his friends, family and country and presents a fairly complete picture of a divided man. This is a tell all book, but not in the usual sense. Wilson focuses on the inner life of Tolstoy rather than his day to day experiences which probably were not as meaningful to him as what went on inside. This probably is the best biogrpahy of Tolstoy in English. It is good for those who are familiar with Tolstoy's works and for those who are not.
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