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Audible sampleTolstoy
Audible Audiobook – UnabridgedJohn Telfer (Narrator), A. N. Wilson (Author), Audible Studios (Publisher)
4.7 out of 5 stars 17 ratings
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Audiobook1 Credit
Preface to the 2012 Edition
Foreword
1 Origins
2 Joseph and his Brethren
3 The History of Yesterday
4 Kinderszenen in the Caucasus
5 Crimea
6 Bronchitis is a Metel
7 Travels
8 Marriage
9 Alchemy
10 War and Peace
11 The Shadow of Death
12 Anna Karenina
13 The Holy Man
14 Real Christianity
15 The Kreutzer Sonata
16 Terrible Questions
17 Resurrection
18 Sad Steps
19 Last Battles
20 Escape
Notes
Contents
In this biography of Count Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy, A. N. Wilson narrates the complex drama of the writer's life: his childhood of aristocratic privilege but emotional deprivation, his discovery of his literary genius after aimless years of gambling and womanizing, and his increasingly disastrous marriage.
Wilson sweeps away the long-held belief that Tolstoy's works were the exact mirror of his life and instead traces the roots of Tolstoy's art to his relationship with God, with women, and with Russia.
He also re-creates the world that shaped the great novelist's life and art - the turmoil of ideas and politics in 19th-century Russia and the literary renaissance that made Tolstoy's work possible.
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©1988 A.N. Wilson (P)2014 Audible, Ltd.
Listening Length
21 hours and 30 minutes
Author
A. N. Wilson
Narrator
John Telfer
Audible release date
11 June 2015
Language
English
Publisher
Audible Studios
Product details
Listening Length 21 hours and 30 minutes
Author A. N. Wilson
Narrator John Telfer
Audible.com.au Release Date 11 June 2015
Publisher Audible Studios
Customer reviews
4.7 out of 5 stars
4.7 out of 5
17 global ratings
Top reviews from other countries
David Bisset
5.0 out of 5 stars MagisterialReviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 9 September 2019
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This is a reissue with a new preface. It is superb, with numerous comments by the author. The gestation of the masterpieces is explained in great depth, and in addition the spiritual writings are given due weight. Tolstoy was a literary genius, and a flawed saint. Reading this book is strongly recommended.
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alisa barstow
5.0 out of 5 stars Tolstoy by AN WilsonReviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 19 January 2013
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Exactly what I ordered. This is a super book and a highly rated biography of Tolstoy. This edition is even more interesting as it has an updated preface by the author.
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Saidie Hays
4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent. Wel researched and writtenReviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 19 January 2016
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Excellent. Wel researched and written
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joseph o'kane
5.0 out of 5 stars Five StarsReviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 20 April 2016
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One of the Best Biographies of the Great Man Great on my Kindle xx
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nicholas blyth
5.0 out of 5 stars Beyond Adequate Praise
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 19 May 2016
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How is it possible adequately to praise War and Peace? This is the second time I have read this immense work of fact and fiction and I found myself so over-awed by the immensity of its scope and the depth of its penetrative insight - into both the nature and causes of the Napoleonic wars as they affected Russia in the early 19th century and into their interplay in the lives of several Russian families. The analysis of the ways in which the war was conducted - especially in 1812 is precise, lucid and deeply philosophical; the examination of the loves and lives of the Rostov, Bolkonski, Kuragin and Bezukhov families, a mixture of tenderness and close observation, sometimes sensitive, sometimes critical.
The book is huge. It's party for that reason that the complete reading of it involves actually living through it: it requires a substantial passage of time and this creates the effect that one is part of its history. To move slowly ( which is almost a necessity ) through the events - in the treatment of which there are no short cuts, no convenient circumnavigations - is to be part of a slowly-unfolding history, as vast as the Russian steppe lands and sometimes as unforgiving.
I can guarantee that no one who reads War and Peace will ever be the same again. It impinged on me the first time I read it ( as a young man and eager to 'get through' it ) but now, as a much older man, it effected a change in me. No one should not have read this book at least once in their life time!
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Tolstoy – A Biography Paperback – 3 May 2001
by A N Wilson (Author)
4.4 out of 5 stars 29 ratings
Paperback
$61.54
2 Used from $27.0911 New from $61.54
In this biography of Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy, A.N. Wilson narrates the drama of the writer's life: his childhood of aristocratic privilege but emotional deprivation, his discovery of his literary genius after aimless years of gambling and womanizing, and his increasingly disastrous marriage. Wilson traces the roots of Tolstoy's art to his relationship with God, with women, and with Russia, and breaks new ground in re-creating the world that shaped the great novelist's life and art-the turmoil of ideas and politics in nineteenth-century Russia and the incredible literary renaissance that made Tolstoy's work possible.
Tolstoy: A Biography
A.N. Wilson
4.05
376 ratings48 reviews
Verified Purchase
How is it possible adequately to praise War and Peace? This is the second time I have read this immense work of fact and fiction and I found myself so over-awed by the immensity of its scope and the depth of its penetrative insight - into both the nature and causes of the Napoleonic wars as they affected Russia in the early 19th century and into their interplay in the lives of several Russian families. The analysis of the ways in which the war was conducted - especially in 1812 is precise, lucid and deeply philosophical; the examination of the loves and lives of the Rostov, Bolkonski, Kuragin and Bezukhov families, a mixture of tenderness and close observation, sometimes sensitive, sometimes critical.
The book is huge. It's party for that reason that the complete reading of it involves actually living through it: it requires a substantial passage of time and this creates the effect that one is part of its history. To move slowly ( which is almost a necessity ) through the events - in the treatment of which there are no short cuts, no convenient circumnavigations - is to be part of a slowly-unfolding history, as vast as the Russian steppe lands and sometimes as unforgiving.
I can guarantee that no one who reads War and Peace will ever be the same again. It impinged on me the first time I read it ( as a young man and eager to 'get through' it ) but now, as a much older man, it effected a change in me. No one should not have read this book at least once in their life time!
Read less
2 people found this helpfulReport abuse
Tolstoy – A Biography Paperback – 3 May 2001
by A N Wilson (Author)
4.4 out of 5 stars 29 ratings
Paperback
$61.54
2 Used from $27.0911 New from $61.54
In this biography of Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy, A.N. Wilson narrates the drama of the writer's life: his childhood of aristocratic privilege but emotional deprivation, his discovery of his literary genius after aimless years of gambling and womanizing, and his increasingly disastrous marriage. Wilson traces the roots of Tolstoy's art to his relationship with God, with women, and with Russia, and breaks new ground in re-creating the world that shaped the great novelist's life and art-the turmoil of ideas and politics in nineteenth-century Russia and the incredible literary renaissance that made Tolstoy's work possible.
Tolstoy: A Biography
A.N. Wilson
4.05
376 ratings48 reviews
In this landmark biography of Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy, A.N. Wilson narrates the complex drama of the writer's life: his childhood of aristocratic privilege but emotional deprivation, his discovery of his literary genius after aimless years of gambling and womanizing, and his increasingly disastrous marriage. Wilson sweeps away the long-held belief that Tolstoy's works were the exact mirror of his life, and instead traces the roots of Tolstoy's art to his relationship with God, with women, and with Russia. He also breaks new ground in recreating the world that shaped the great novelist's life and art--the turmoil of ideas and politics in nineteenth-century Russia and the incredible literary renaissance that made Tolstoy's work possible. 24 pages of illustrations.
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626 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1988
Literary awards
Whitbread Award for Biography (1988)
Original title
Tolstoy: A Biography
Published
March 17, 2001 by W. W. Norton Company
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About the author
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A.N. Wilson
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Andrew Norman Wilson is an English writer and newspaper columnist, known for his critical biographies, novels, works of popular history and religious views. He is an occasional columnist for the Daily Mail and former columnist for the London Evening Standard, and has been an occasional contributor to the Times Literary Supplement, New Statesman, The Spectator and The Observer.
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4.05
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Chrissie
2,651 reviews
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June 21, 2017
Why should I continue reading a book that is making me miserable?
I have completed 1/4 of this very long book. I have had enough. What follows explains why I dislike it.
The language used is sophisticated rather than clear. At times one is even unsure who exactly the author is speaking of!
The author sees Tolstoy as the greatest writer of all time. He doesn't approach the man or his writing with balance.
Sweeping, judgmental statements are made that can surely be questioned!
Much is devoted to an explanation of how we should interpret Tolstoy's books. I am looking for a biography, a book that instead tells me of the events in his life, rather than an explanation of his books. The book’s focus is wrong for me, but may fit others.
In chapter 3, the author states that a novelist should not leave it up to a reader to ponder the message that is to be drawn from a book; all questions should be given crystal clear answers. We readers should not have to think; that is the author's job, not ours. I quite simply do not agree. I want to be nudged to think about interesting questions. I enjoy considering diverse alternatives on my own! I want to be given alternatives, not fast and firm answers.
Information is repeated. It is as if the different chapters were written at different times, and who ever put the book together hasn't checked the content of previous chapters.
Neither do I like the narrator of the audiobook - John Telfer. He over dramatizes. He turns the information into theatrics, He whispers to increase suspense. He changes volume and speed to help us understand the import of the author's lines. Seriously, I neither appreciate nor need this help! I do understand what he is saying so the narration I have given 2 rather than 1 star.
I very, very rarely dump a book, but I am doing this now. I am rating and reviewing the book because I think it is helpful for people to be provided with different points of view. I am fully aware that what another is looking for may be very different from what I am seeking. It is for this reason I have stated what it is that displeased me.
ETA: This audiobook is based on the 2012 edition of the book.
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Nathan
523 reviews
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July 15, 2009
This is almost two books in one. Wilson begins the book with glittering literary praise, flushed with admiration for Tolstoy's novels and driven by an obsessive fan's knack for relating the fiction to Tolstoy's life and Tolstoy's Russia. Wilson is obviously well-acquainted with these substantial works, and his easy expertise is impressive, if rather showy.
When the narrative reaches Tolstoy's revolutionary period, there is a jarring shift in tone: the breathy te deums are replaced with a sneering paternalism and brutal cynicism, and Tolstoy quickly degenerates from brilliant artist to starry-eyed idealist.
This tension between Wilson's unabashed admiration for Tolstoy's novels and his barely-contained contempt for his political views disrupts the flow of the narrative, which, when detailing the objective facts rather than Wilson's opinion, is nicely intimate and well-crafted. If Wilson had stayed in the background as an historian, rather than playing judge and jury, his book would have been infinitely more valuable.
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Richard Newton
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26 books
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February 11, 2019
I enjoyed the excellently written, insightful and thoughtful biography of Tolstoy.
This is the first material I have ever read on Tolstoy's life. I have learnt there are different viewpoints and interpretations from the mass of materials he left, as well as the materials many of the others who knew him wrote. I cannot therefore comment on the accuracy of AN Wilson's particular interpretation or the choices of which elements of Tolstoy's life he has chosen to emphasise. I can only comment on my enjoyment of reading the book.
Wilson has a fluid and engaging writing style, and a fairly intellectual interpretation of Tolstoy's novels. What I liked was both the greater understanding of Tolstoy's life the book gave, but as important for me, was the historical and cultural context in which he wrote as this context flavours his writing and is helpful to understand to enjoy those books to the highest degree. War and Peace is one of my favourite books, and I will get more out of it the next time I read it. In contrast, I am not a huge fan of Anna Karenina, but I will now re-read it and suspect I will enjoy it more.
It is worth knowing this was published in 1984, and references to the Soviet Union as a currently existing and geographically unified country under a communist regime seem a bit quaint. But this does not remove from the main points or quality of the biography.
As a good biography of Tolstoy, I definitely recommend this, with the caveat that if you really want to understand Tolstoy, you will need to read other materials as well.
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mark
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April 11, 2014
The only Tolstoy I’ve read is what has been excerpted in this book … so I am at a huge disadvantage to the author, A.N. Wilson. However, I suspect he is probably one of only a handful of people who have read The Complete Works of L.N. Tolstoy. I suspect David Foster Wallace might be one of those handful, who has bragged, Wallace, that he’s read everything you have. I say this because I see things—things that make me think Wallace got some ideas, not only philosophical ideas, but ideas for characters (The character Mario in Infinite Jest. That’s all I’ll say here about that.); phrases, and situations, also, from Tolstoy. In addition to that, I see similarities in the genius of both writers – the way in which they saw the world was in so much more detail than the average and/or ‘normal’ person. Wilson describes it thus: “One of the things which makes him [Tolstoy, and I will say, Wallace, too] such a memorable writer is his extra-consciousness, or super-consciousness, of existence itself.” [p.19] Wilson goes on: “We all know that there is such a thing as life, that we are alive, that the world is there, full of sights and sound. But, when we read Tolstoy (Wallace) for the first time, it is as if, until that moment, we had been looking at the world through a dusty window. He flings open the shutters, and we see everything sharp and clear for the first time.” [105] “Tolstoy, like all true writers, carried his life about with him, created the very cocoon of observant detachment, indolence and sensuality in which a creative mind flourishes. [p.105] Like many detached minds, Tolstoy was perfectly capable of deriving enjoyment from the company of those he despised. [p. 106] We will never know how much is embellishment, and how much the truth.” [p. 22] And both men had the education, background, and abilities to put that down on paper, using precise language and words. Both men were privileged white boys in their respective countries. But there does seem to be one big difference, besides the fact Tolstoy was born in Russia in 1828 & the Literary Field was in its infancy, and that is the anxiety factor. Wallace appears to have been born with an anxiety disorder, while Tolstoy’s troubles didn’t manifest until after he was mature. So … everyone has heard of Tolstoy’s novels, War and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina (1877) which Tolstoy finished at age 49; but he continued to write up until his death at age 82, mostly non-fiction – personal, political and religious books and essays. He progressed in his thinking and writing from Historical Fiction (W&P); to Contemporary Fiction (AK) to memoir (A Confession) to philosophical and religious books & pamphlets (What I Believe, 1883; Where Love is, God Is, 1885; What Then Must We Do, 1886; On Life, 1887; The Kreutzer Sonata, 1889; Why Do Men Stupefy Themselves?, 1891; The First Step, 1892; The Kingdom of God is Within You, 1893; Christianity and Pacifism, 1894; What is Art?, 1898; What is Religion?, 1902; I Cannot Be Silent, 1908; among others, one of which was Resurrection, a novel, 1900, which got him formally excommunicated. Like Wallace, he suffered because of his genius and, like Wallace, thought of suicide after finishing his great works of fiction. Like Wallace, Tolstoy was complicated and conflicted and saw the ambiguities and paradoxes that living a meaningful life present. But unlike Wallace – he married young and had many, many children and responsibilities; and his readers and followers began to think of him as a holy man. And maybe he, Tolstoy, began to believe that, too. The author, Wilson, asserts that Ghandi learned the idea of passive resistance from Tolstoy (p.411). Maybe that’s so, I certainly don’t know. Wilson is very opinionated and makes a lot of assertions, conjectures, and assumptions. Such as: Male’s make great [better] fiction writers because of their innate ogling prowess developed out of the drive for sexual conquest. I don’t disagree. As Wilson says, we, males, see a lot more than just the girls. (Trust me, it’s true!) And that, “… prodigious literary geniuses” elements’ of genius tend to only “… coalesce after a period of total indolence.” [p.64] And but so I think he, Wilson, has every right to these assertions – he’s qualified, having read everything there is to read from and about Tolstoy (including the diaries of the man and his wife) as well as being a journalist, biographer, and fiction writer himself. We’ll never know what and how Wallace might have progressed had he lived past his great work, Infinite Jest, and the unfinished The Pale King. The thing about Tolstoy is that his writing and thinking seemed to evolve, whereas Wallace’s didn’t – he was stuck, kept worrying the same problems of being human. Maybe Tolstoy was crazy, thinking himself Christ-like … but times were different then. Darwin had published The Origin of Species in 1859 and evolution and atheism were hardly accepted ways of thinking about the world. Science was in its infancy, also. Freud didn’t come onto the scene until Tolstoy was nearly finished, so the idea of unconscious motivation was something unbeknownst to the Russian genius. All thought was God/Christ centered. There was no psychotherapy or Alcohol Anonymous or 12-Step programs. And but so I think the two great writers had similar minds, just in different times with different influences. I’m looking forward to reading War and Peace and Anna Karenina; but I’ll probably skip the rest – time is running out for me. So many books, now. However, if you’re young and love literature, I think a PhD dissertation comparing and contrasting the work and lives of Tolstoy and Wallace would be a very worth while project. Should you read this biography? Yes, if literary genius is of interest to you. If the process of fiction writing is of interest; and Russian history. And marital relations. And of course, the life and times of Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy.
PS
YouTube is a great resource. There are clips of Tolstoy; and Anna Karenina is available as audio book – free! (Which I’m going to indulge. The reader, a woman, does all the hard work for you – all the Russian names.)
April , 2014
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Neil Randall
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January 17, 2014
Excellent biography of one of the most complex of all literary figures. Wilson concentrates on the striking contradictions between the man and the artist, how Tolstoy struggled to reconcile his human weaknesses, failures and faults with his religious beliefs, and how his work, in the latter part of his life, suffered as a result, and how his family life and marriage (especially) broke down. Beautifully written and very well put together. Recommended.
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Steve Gordon
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June 19, 2020
Garbage. I find it fascinating how half wits are both published and acclaimed in the literary world. I only finished the book because my curiosity about Tolstoy's life, being provoked, overwhelmed my abhorrence of the writer. First and foremost of the crimes here - the constant sniping at Tolstoy's ideology. The author writes from a Christian perspective. If you believe in one version of fantastical beings, you can't really comment on other people's interpretations of fantasy can you? Furthermore, how does the mention that Napoleon III was Napoleon Bonaparte's grandson make it past an editor? How can a book use the term "negro" in 1988? How can an author use "menopause" out of the blue to define a woman's action? And finally, the attributing of spurious comments to Lenin and Trotsky, who played no role in Tolstoy's life, to impugn the Russian Revolution (which was an underlying seeming necessity for the author) was the final straw. Sometimes, I can overlook an author's nauseating political views to get what I can from the subject at hand (Tolstoy). Unfortunately, I couldn't do it here.
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Jeff Netting
9 reviews
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January 10, 2023
This was an interesting book. It made me question the nature of literary biography and the ideal shape of it. I love Tolstoy, and wanted to know more about his later life especially, when he essentially gave up writing fiction (with the exception of Resurrection and some stories), and chose to become a saint. What I found most surprising was how the biography wasn’t particularly useful or interesting for trying to form some new opinion or interpretation of Tolstoy’s books themselves. The nature of the relationship between fiction and history, even if that history is the author’s life, seems to be very complicated and never clean or simple.
Wilson gives a relatively concise overview of Tolstoy’s life. He’s a good writer, and the writing is accessible and the book is very readable. My main complaint is how quick Wilson is to express judgments of both Tolstoy and the subjects Tolstoy was engaged with. He is quick to call Tolstoy’s opinions and thoughts absurd or ridiculous, to evaluate the strengths or weaknesses of Tolstoy’s fictions, and even expresses his own views on Christianity, art, and politics. This padded the book a good deal in my opinion. To paraphrase Blake, “Give me the facts, and I will make a judgment for myself.” What does it matter what Wilson thinks of all of this? I had never heard of him before getting this biography, and I’m much more interested in what Tolstoy, a massive figure in literature and history, thinks. I also didn’t find Wilson’s interpretations of Tolstoy’s works particularly interesting or helpful. In other words, this would have been a great book if it had stuck more closely to its subject.
All in all, I’ve come to think that, in general, the chronology of an author’s life included with any good edition is a fair amount of information. Reading this much detail was interesting, but at times it felt like I was indulging in gossip, scandalous information that just isn’t necessary for reading War and Peace or Anna Karenina. Not a bad book, glad I read it, but I’ll never reread it and perhaps my time would’ve been better spent reading Tolstoy himself.
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Philip Pajakowski
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May 7, 2020
Very good on Tolstoy’s context in Russia and his personal relationships. Wilson indulges in a bit too much pop psychology and seems obsessed with reminding us that Stalin was no good.
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Matt Griffith
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July 29, 2011
The main puzzle this book poses for the reader is: who has the biggest ego - Tolstoy or A N Wilson? Watching the two of them go mano et mano is a good scrap, and Wilson does well to cut through the Tolstoy excesses, but by the end I found them both slightly monstorous. The book also lacks in the historical depth that later Russophiles would expect (I think Wilson lacked access to much of the historical archive when writing this back in the 70s and is not that insightful of the Russian cultural setting compared to later authors) and he doesn't give that much insight into Anna K or War & Peace, with too much weighting on the last confused period. So can't really recommend.
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Toby Frith
4.0 out of 5 stars A journey into one of literature's most compelling figures
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 11 February 2012
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A N Wilson's authoritative biography is an excellent starting point for further knowledge of one of literature's giants. Having only read part of Anna Karenina, I took great enjoyment from reading about his life and his maddeningly irrational approach to it and have now purchased all his books for later consumption. He is somewhat pragmatically dismissive of Tolstoy's latter stance on religion, but don't let this detract from what is a fine book.
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P B
1.0 out of 5 stars One star for quality of printing, but yet not sure I will return.
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 26 June 2020
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I would have expected more from W.W. Norton. All the text in this paper back is a low quality photocopy of a bitmap print of the original hardback.
Each and every letter of text in the book is created from a checkerboard of black and white made to conform to the shape of the letter, so that the overall color of the text is grey. The spaces between words and lines are filled with "dust" of black dots such as occur with low-quality printouts.
The photos in the book are also low bitmap quality, so you really cannot discern the faces. For example, there is a photo of Turgenev taken in lighting that creates a shadow over his eyes. With the poor quality of of the bitmap print, that portion of Turgenev's face is obscured in grey, so you cannot discern much of who he is.
I am not sure I will return this book, as I am very interested in reading of Tolstoy's life. If I can get a hardback by the time the return window closes, I will. Otherwise it will be a painful slog though the poor quality of print.
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Jameson Brooks
4.0 out of 5 stars Poor publication quality
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 7 April 2020
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Subject matter and writing are thus far very engaging (I am a mere 50 pages in). I do feel it necesssary to point out something bibliophiles (or anyone, really) might take issue with.
Unfortunately the publication is of somewhat poor quality. The type has the look of being pixilated and blurred, as if it was printed onto the page from a lo-resolution file, or maybe upsized from a smaller image. It is definitely still legible; life goes on.
You might be better off looking for an older edition or a current hardcover than the paperback currently being sold new here. Not a huge deal by any means, but something I myself would’ve liked to have known. Alas, the perils of buy books online.
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Nukuheva
2.0 out of 5 stars Outdated Take on Tolstoy
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 9 July 2021
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Wilson's take on Tolstoy is woefully dated at this point. Three-plus decades old and counting it relies on old-fashioned psychoanalytical perspectives excessively--too much formulaic talk, for example, about Tolstoy's relationship with the mother he never knew. Moreover the book misses out entirely on current discourses on gender, sexuality, and race. It dismisses possibilities about the author that he didn't dismiss about himself, especialy with regard to his attraction to other men. If anything justifies the time commitment--and the cost--it's passages that speak more to a cultural than biographical history. But one can get that other places.
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SBS829
5.0 out of 5 stars Tolstoy In Situ
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 29 May 2010
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A.N. Wilson's biography of Tolstoy is quite different from a traditional by the dates hagiography. Instead, Wilson succeeds both in telling the story of Tolstoy's life and placing it in the turbulent times in which he lived. The result is a very satisfying work that ranges widely in Russian history, Russian literature and a touch of Christian theology. Wilson's writing also departs from the typical just-the-facts narrative of so many biographies; his own observations and wit are laced through the book. Mostly that style is very effective, although occasionally I felt like Wilson was simply showing off his erudition.
Beyond simply reporting the details of Tolstoy's life, Wilson offers an overview of most of Tolstoy's fiction and some additional analysis of his non-fiction work, particularly his later life essays on religion and government. One of the great insights in the book is how carefully Wilson ties the events and characters in War and Peace and Anna Karenina to the people who shaped Tolstoy's life. While it is a commonplace to say that novelists recycle themselves in their work to some degree, Wilson demonstrates how Tolstoy's life and fiction were thoroughly interwoven. For me, Wilson's analyses of Tolstoy's other fiction was so compelling that I immediately added a number of them to my short-term reading list.
It is not possible to discuss Tolstoy without considering the era in which he lived and his own role in 19th century Russian history. Tolstoy lived through the period in which Russia awoke from centuries of torpid slumber as the nascent intelligentsia and later the radicals sowed the seeds of the Russian revolution and the tragedy that became 20th century Russia. As others have done, Wilson tells how Russia's tiny educated class grew increasingly hostile to the entrenched and largely repressive monarchy and bureaucracy. While Wilson's focus is one Tolstoy's personal disaffection, and how Tolstoy's idiosyncratic quest for God shaped the evolution of his views, he also puts in the context of the growing atmosphere of radicalization. Wilson also makes the point that as Tolstoy's charismatic cult grew, many of his followers were indifferent to or cared little about his literary works. To them he was simply a holy man who would no more traffic in the machinery of the Tsar. One fact that I had not known was that Tolstoy's views on disengagement were an influence on Gandhi's thinking about passive resistance to government.
For all these reasons I highly recommend this biography.
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Interview
AN Wilson: 'Everyone writes in Tolstoy's shadow'
Interview by William Skidelsky
The prolific author on the mystique of Tolstoy, his spat with Richard Evans and the limitations of the Kindle
AN Wilson photographed at the Edinburgh festival in 2007
AN Wilson: 'I’m like Jane Austen – I work on the corner of the dining table.' Photograph: Murdo Macleod
Sun 22 Apr 2012
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/apr/22/an-wilson-tolstoy-hitler-interview
AN Wilson – biographer, historian, novelist, columnist, provocateur – is the author of more than 40 books, including, most recently, Hitler: A Short Biography. His 1998 biography of Tolstoy, which won the Whitbread prize, is now being reissued.
You wrote recently that you used to regard Tolstoy as a mystery but he now makes sense. What did you mean?
I was perhaps a little bit too inclined to think of a great conversion in the middle of his life. But when you go back and read the stuff he wrote as a soldier, and the war passages in War and Peace, it's clear he's moving towards the position of pacifism and hatred of war that dominated the second half of his life. Similarly, in War and Peace, the emphasis on peasant wisdom and the vacuity of the upper classes in Russia, it's all there.
How would you sum up his writing?
The word that leads you in is realism. When I was writing this book, Anthony Powell said to me: "Why do you want to waste your time writing about him, his books are just cinema?" I know what he means, particularly if you turn to Dostoevsky, and there's all that agitation and innerness, as if you're inside people's heads. Whereas with Tolstoy it's as if you're in the room. In many ways, he's an extraordinarily detached writer. As I've got older, I've become keener on this.
Which novelists would you place alongside Tolstoy?
He really wrote in the tradition of history writing, which confuses people. He was writing between history and art, and to that extent the only writer who is remotely like him is Walter Scott. And Balzac to a certain extent.
And today's historical novelists?
Everyone writes in Tolstoy's shadow, whether one feels oneself to be Tolstoyan or not. His influence on the dissident writers of the Soviet Uniton was enormous. Figures like Grossman or Solzhenitsyn, although their language is less elevated, were dominated by a Tolstoyan desire to use fiction to tell the truth of history.
You seem to be publishing at a furious rate – a Dante biography last year, Hitler last month and a novel later this year.
A historical novel, in fact…
How do you manage it?
If you imagine writing 1,000 words a day, which most journalists do, that would be a very long book a year. I don't manage nearly that… but I have published slightly too much recently.
Richard Evans's very critical review of your Hitler book led to a heated exchange of letters. Do you enjoy spats?
No. I thought that Evans's review was just incredibly rude. We've all been rude in our time and you have to put up with that sort of thing. He did point out one or two howlers but the rest was rather absurd of him. Dons sometimes do that to generalists.
Do you think facts are overrated?
I think they're sacred and it's quite right to point out mistakes.
Where do you work?
I've never had a study in my life. I'm like Jane Austen – I work on the corner of the dining table.
Do you have a Kindle?
I do, but funnily enough it's very difficult to get any books on it you actually want. The first thing I thought I'd put on it was Froude's Life of Carlyle, which is one of my favourite biographies, but it's quite impossible. Then you try to download the Pléiade Proust rather than some crap Proust and you can't. Then I downloaded the complete works of Yeats, and the poems give out halfway through. So I think it's of very limited use. It's fine for aeroplanes and trains but it won't replace the dear old book.
