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Search - Tolstoy

Tolstoy
Author: Henri Troyat

The task of writing a biography on a subject as monumentally complex as Leo Tolstoy demands of an author a combination of talents almost Tolstoyan in breadth and scope. Henri Troyat is such and author, and this biography of Tolstoy, says Genet in They New Yorker, "is at last the final, complete portrait of the man as he surely was." — Under M. To... more »yat's guidance, one is led to understand why Tolstoy is considered one of the most bizarre personalities of modern times; why he was regarded by his contemporaries not only as a literary giant but also as a gargantuan enigma. Tolstaoy fascinated the people of his own time. In these pages, that fascination is reborn in the story of a man who was the personification of Man at all times, who was in reality two men, "one saint, the other libertine-clothed in the same skin and constantly at war." Troyat views Tolstoy with affection, respect, and often with amusement. For as a writer, lover, husband, father, and cult leader, this extraordinary human being was a mass of contradictions. He was a man who, though born a nobleman, had an overriding ambition to be a peasant. As a youth, his world was gambling, wine, and wenching, but as a man he was bent on reforming the world in the image of Christian love. Despising violence, he made fortune writing about war. His War and Peace is regarded by many as the greatest novel ever written, but, in time, Tolstoy became increasingly dissatisfied with fiction. Longing for universal brotherhood, he was unable to find love in his own family. Famous and revered beyond andy of his contemporaries, he died almost alone and alienated from the world. Such is the Tolstoy of whom M. Troyat writes. But, Tolstoy is more than a biography. It is also a recapturing of the scent, the scene, the color of Russia in the mid-nineteenth century, a book rich in the fabric of history. It is a book that is itself Tolstoyan, bursting with life, ideas, humanity, charity, and spitefulness, love, war, peace, and passion. It is a book about which Andre Maurois said, "Troyat has written exactly what I should have liked to write." One may imagine that it is also a book Tolstoy himself might have written. And in a sense he has, for skillfully woven into the text are dozens of excerpts from his writings. Tolstoy dominates the work and speaks unforgettably through it.

ISBN: 134201
Publication Date: 1967
Pages: 792
Rating:

0 stars, based on 0 rating

Publisher: Doubleday & Company Inc.
Book Type: Hardcover
Other Versions: Paperback
Members Wishing: 0
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Genres:

Biographies & Memoirs >> General

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