{"id":608,"date":"2024-08-05T17:16:40","date_gmt":"2024-08-05T14:16:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fractiousfiction.com\/?p=608"},"modified":"2024-08-05T17:17:50","modified_gmt":"2024-08-05T14:17:50","slug":"leo-tolstoy-and-the-end-of-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fractiousfiction.com\/tolstoy4.html","title":{"rendered":"Leo Tolstoy and the End of History"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It perhaps seems absurd, but the best way of grasping the significance of War and Peace<\/em> might
be by considering all the things that Tolstoy left out. The absurdity here stems from the obvious
fact that this massive novel is famous for encompassing virtually everything, as even the title
makes clear. The book is so sprawling and wordy that it has become an emblem of the all-
inclusive novel, almost a punch-line to a joke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI took a speed reading course where you run your finger down the middle of the page and was
able to read War and Peace<\/em> in twenty minutes,\u201d Woody Allen once quipped. Then added: \u201cIt’s
about Russia.” Another joke tells of a general reading the book, and when asked for his
assessment, thinks for a moment and replies: \u201cI liked the first part. The second part, not so
much.\u201d I\u2019m told that there is a whole sub-genre of Russian jokes about characters from this novel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Tolstoy, like a general himself, defends his territory by knowing what parts don\u2019t require his
protection, and he can thus safely exclude from consideration. And this, in fact, amounts to a lot
of terrain. For Stefan Zweig, Tolstoy was the author who had no use for dreams or fancies or
pleasing untruths.  Orwell complained of Tolstoy\u2019s inability to tolerate the self-serving ideologies
of others, and cited stories about the author slapping the faces of those who dared to disagree
with him. For Tolstoy\u2019s biographer Rosamund Bartlett, the great novelist suffered from a
\u201clamentable lack of a sense of humor,\u201d and adds that this \u201c sometimes makes the study of
Tolstoy\u2019s life and works slightly hard-going.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But these gaps in Tolstoy are simply another way of stressing his sober realism\u2014a realism all
the more striking given the author\u2019s life of dreamy idealism. These two strands were at conflict for
his entire life. Even as a youngster, he had tried to live by impossible guidelines. An early journal
entry finds him setting out 47 different rules for his conduct, in twenty different categories. He
would invariably fail at these idealistic plans, only to set new rules, just as unrealizable as the
previous ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even when considered simply in terms of plot and setting, War and Peace is a novel defined by
what it leaves out. Tolstoy originally conceived of the book as an even broader epic, defining
Russian life over a period of a half-century. The book would encapsulate \u201cThree Ages\u201d\u2014which
was an early name for the novel now known as War and Peace. The first \u2018Age\u2019 would cover the
period from 1805, when Russia entered into war against Napoleon, until the tumultuous events of
1812, when French troops occupied Moscow.  The second \u2018Age\u2019 would look at the 1820s and
especially the failed Decembrist revolt in 1825, when three thousand military officers staged an
unsuccessful rebellion against Tsar Nicholas I.  The third \u2018Age\u2019 would advance to the 1850s and
the Crimean War. But Tolstoy eventually abandoned this plan, and constructed his novel around
the events surrounding Napoleon\u2019s invasion and its fallout. It tells us much about Tolstoy that even
his narrowed purview produced the most sweeping historical epic of the nineteenth century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As was often the case with Tolstoy, he never gave much consideration to how other novelists
would tackle subjects. When writing\u00a0Anna Karenina<\/em>, he took delight in subverting the happily-
ever-after marriage plots of the English novelists he admired, and in the final pages adopted
such an unpopular pacifist stance\u2014at the very moment when Russia was going to war with
Turkey\u2014that the editor of the Russian Messenger refused to publish the closing section of a
work his readers had been avidly devouring in sporadic installments. In War and Peace this
unwillingness to play by the accepted rules of the literary trade shows up in the heavy doses of
philosophy that often veer so far from fiction as to make the work seem like a theoretical tract. \u00a0
Yes, Tolstoy agreed to deliver a story, but he was also determined to present a worldview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many readers have complained about this seemingly unnecessary intrusion of polemic into the
narrative. Turgenev dismissed these passages as \u201cfarcical\u201d and \u201ccharlatanism.\u201d  Flaubert
complained that Tolstoy \u201crepeats himself and he philosophizes!\u201d \u201cTolstoy\u2019s arguments seem
dated today\u2026He was a crank with all the weaknesses of a crank,\u201d Kenneth Rexroth has stated
bluntly.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I am of the opposite school of thought, sharing Isaiah Berlin\u2019s opinion that \u201cTolstoy\u2019s
philosophy of history has, on the whole, not obtained the attention it deserves.\u201d These aspects of
the book are hardly detours, but fuel that propels the novelist\u2019s commitment to his project.
\u201cTolstoy\u2019s interest in history and the problem of historical truth,\u201d Berlin continues, \u201cwas
passionate, almost obsessive, both before and during the writing of War and Peace. No one
who reads his journals and letters, or indeed War and Peace<\/em> itself, can doubt that the author
himself, at any rate, regarded this problem as the heart of the entire matter\u2014the central issue
round which the novel is built.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, Kenneth Rexroth could hardly be more wrong. He dismissed Tolstoy\u2019s views as typical of
\u201cthose of any spokesman of the rationalistic enlightenments of either the eighteenth or nineteenth
centuries.\u201d We have moved beyond such views, he suggested, and they can thus be safely
ignored. But Tolstoy is actually probing the limits of rationalism and the murky area outside the
purview of Enlightenment optimism. The great Russian writer may have been influenced by
Rousseau\u2014that other rule-breaker who mixed up philosophy and storytelling in equally
uncharacteristic ways\u2014but has far less faith in human reason to guide us towards the proper
ends of life. In War and Peace<\/em>, even the great heroes fail by trusting too much in their mental
prowess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the world of War and Peace<\/em>, events take a life of their own. The battlefield is the most obvious
place where strategy and planning are overwhelmed by the chaos of conflict and the sheer
momentum of adrenaline-charged activity. Tolstoy wants to debunk the \u201cgreat man\u201d theory of
history, popularized by Thomas Carlyle in the 1840s but a staple of chroniclers and biographers
since the time of Plutarch. Others have tried to counter this hero-worship, from Herbert Spencer
to Noam Chomsky, but has anyone offered a more powerful refutation than Tolstoy?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet Tolstoy also applies this same debunking attitude to the intimate matters of domestic life. A
marriage proposal or love affair, as told from his perspective, can be as resistant to planning and
control as the Battle of Austerlitz. Tolstoy is the master of the ineffectual or disillusioned
character, and not just for the dramatic force they bring to bear on a narrative, but for the simple
reason that Tolstoy saw them as the most realistic ingredients of his novels of social realism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Far from becoming invalidated by subsequent events, Tolstoy\u2019s theory of history has gotten
confirmed again and again by the follies and disasters that have marked the 150 years since the
publication of his magnum opus. The whole tragic spectacle of collapsing empires, fallen
regimes, disastrous wars of global conquest, and political overreaching\u2014in other words, the
history of the twentieth century\u2014could have been predicted from the pages of this far-seeing
book.  Perhaps we live in more sober times nowadays, under a mood of wary restraint and
careful posturing that some have even called \u201cthe end of history,\u201d yet that very popular academic
catchphrase sounds like it could have come out of a commentary on War and Peace<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u201cEnd of History\u201d argument presents this concept not as some apocalyptic event, but as a
positive result of the spread of liberal democracy and the decline in cross-border belligerence.
Yet any close examination of modern events shows that these shifts have taken place largely
because alternative modes of leadership, erected on the faithful worship of heroes with world-
beating aspirations, have fared so poorly. The heroes failed to realize their towering ambitions,
much like Napoleon in War and Peace<\/em>.  From that perspective, Tolstoy is perhaps the real
alternative to Hegel  and his dialectic or Nietzsche with his Will to Power<\/em>, and the true forerunner
of contemporary approaches to statecraft built on pragmatism instead of grand masterplans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, we hate to admit it, but we\u2019ve been chastened by the real world, and might even have
learned, in some measure, to live and let live\u2014not drop the bomb, not start WWIII, not invade our
neighbors, or colonize those less heavily armed than us. And, yes, we still have much to learn.
The path to humility and tolerance is long and slow. But Tolstoy was a good role model for those
two virtues, in an age when they were in short supply. In the final decades of his life, he actually
had more influence as an advocate for non-violence and tolerance than as a literary figure. He
adopted the dress of a peasant and the guise of a holy fool, preached kindness and
compassion, inviting others to follow his example.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Should we be surprised that so many have done so in the current day, when tolerance has\u2014
against all odds\u2014become even more powerful than aggression and warfare? Tolstoy still invites
us to follow his example. And he gave us pretty good book to read along the way. Maybe even
one that is still a few steps ahead of us, and can help us along the road. That\u2019s not what novels
are supposed to do, especially ones that are 150 years old. But Tolstoy never paid much
attention to the rules.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It perhaps seems absurd, but the best way of grasping the significance of War and Peace mightbe by considering all the things that Tolstoy left out. The absurdity here stems from the obviousfact that this massive novel is famous for encompassing virtually everything, as even the titlemakes clear. The book is so sprawling and wordy that it<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t Continue Reading <\/span><\/i><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"Tolstoy\u2019s theory of history,\r\noften derided as a distraction\r\nor even a farce, has received\r\ntragic confirmation again and\r\nagain from the follies and disasters\r\nthat have marked the 150 years\r\nsince the publication of his\r\nmagnum opus War and Peace.\r\nCan it help us grapple with the\r\nissues of our own times?","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-608","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-1"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fractiousfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fractiousfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fractiousfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fractiousfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fractiousfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=608"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fractiousfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":611,"href":"https:\/\/fractiousfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608\/revisions\/611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fractiousfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fractiousfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fractiousfiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}