Customer Reviews

Tolstoy

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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!

Henri Troyat has done a superb job of crafting the life story of Leo Tolstoy into something which almost reads as a novel, a page-turner in its own right. The intimacy with which he thoroughly knows of and understands Leo Tolstoy's life and his works is nothing short of remarkable, and this is a biography I would be surprised at seeing bettered any time down the road. Tolstoy is on view for all to see, from his world-renowned works, to personal letters written to close acquaintances, to his own personal diary, Troyat makes use of every available resource to give us an up close and personal view of Tolstoy's life. The research done in comprising this most thorough work of Tolstoy's life is simply astonishing. Troyat has crafted a masterpiece which is fun to read, though admittedly this was made a tad easier as it was biography of Tolstoy's life he had to work with.

Tolstoy is a man of many dichotomies and this is at least partly what makes his life so very interesting. He was one of the greatest writers of all time, yet he despised literature. He inspired a peace movement led by Gandhi, and yet at one time owned peasants (admittedly early on in his life). He wrote of how life should be lived, and yet could not get along with his own wife (and wound up dying in a train station at the age of 82). The life of Leo Tolstoy cannot be summarized in a few short paragraphs, and even if it could, it would be doing a great man a grave injustice. Tolstoy deserves a biography which is comprehensive in depth and contains details not only of his life but also of his works......Troyat has given us this. And throughout this book, Troyat draws comparisons between Tolstoy and characters in his literature, such as the time his brothers dragged him to a brothel at the age of 17, leaving him to feel ashamed afterwards (while in one of his works the character visits a brothel only to cry at the edge of the bed afterwards). Many other examples abound throughout the narrative where Tolstoy writes himself into his works. But the average reader would probably not be able to distinguish when Tolstoy in fact does this without the exceptional work of Henri Troyat. Throughout the book it is all too evident that this was a work which Troyat put his heart and soul into, giving us insight into a great man whose life was so wide-ranging, from his early life in Moscow, to his middle years in the Caucauses, to his later years on Yasnaya Polyana. Tolstoy deserves a biography which is a masterpiece in both scope and detail....and Henri Troyat has provided this magnificently.

5 stars. One of the best biographies I have ever read.

Henri Troyat surely deserves every award known to biographers. The man is a genius. This is lucky for us, because Tolstoy's complexity demands genius to even comprehend it. But comprehend it Troyat does. As Doubleday said of Troyat about this book, he possesses "a combination of talents almost Tolstoyan in breadth and scope." How else can you define an author so wonderfully in tune with his subject but by the very definition of that subject?

The strength of this book is its depth and scope. It covers everything from Tolstoy's birth to death, and I mean everything: The young nobleman obsessed with charity, the artistic ectasy, the sexual scandals and insatiability, the marriage and the children, and yet the saintliness of the philospher and theologian, monk and hermit. Troyat amazingly covers the entirity of Tolstoy's life and works. It is an entire world revealed, in infinite detail, to its horizons and then beyond. (800 pages and, no, that is not large type) This tale of Leo Tolstoy proves the man is every bit as large as his legend, and so much more. Every page is filled with breathtaking revelations, touching and frightning displays, family secrets and public explosions, and intimiate looks behind every deed of the man in the very words of his own hand. This book is psychology, philosophy, theology, anthropolgy, poetry, truth, and on yes, biography so incredibly well-written it reads better than most novels.

M. Troyat, my hat is off to you. Thank you for one of the most enjoyable and informative reads of my life.

Thomas Fortenberry

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 .

Troyat's book about Tolstoy was one of the most magnificent books I've ever read. Not only was I left with the impression that Troyat had read every word Tolstoy ever wrote (no small under- taking), but that he understood and respected his subject for his faults as well as his triumphs. Some parts of the book are sheer poetry, particularly his one chapter critique of War and Peace. When I finished reading the book, I went back and re-read that chapter. I consider Troyat one of the best biographers I've ever read, and he certainly lives up to his reputation in this book. Certainly one of his best.

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.

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.

Having read War and Peace and Anna Karenina, I decided to read my first Tolstoy biography. This turned out to be an excellent choice. Reads at times like a Tolstoy novel, funny how art and real life intertwine. Will go back to the novels with better understanding now. The ending is particularly amazing, try and get to the end without reading about it elsewhere, and it will have you spellbound. (Even if you do know how his life ended this account is still mesmerizing.)

Read it in the original if you can. I'm already thinking what Troyat book to read next..

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.

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.