Which is the true Tolstoy?

Tolstoy and his wife Sonya at a family meal in 1905 (public domain)

No surprise that different critics present Tolstoy in different ways, but sometimes the difference is enormous. Here are two very different accounts of how Tolstoy chose his bride. The first is by Anthony Briggs, in his Brief Lives: Leo Tolstoy (Hesperus, 2010):

He got married, in September 1862. His attractive young wife was not easily acquired, and not immediately satisfied, or satisfying, when she was his. To begin with, even when he settled on a suitable household with interesting girls (the Bers family), there were three of them … Liza was the obvious choice, first in line for marriage at the age of nineteen .. but no. He flouted both convention and paternal opposition by choosing the second girl. It was the best decision he ever made. Sofya turned out to be the most wonderfully made literary spouse. If he is one of the great men of world culture, she is the traditional feminine force behind him … Sofia was eighteen when Leo proposed, scarcely into full womanhood, overwhelmed by this big, mature man (he was thirty-four) … but he knew quality when he saw it.

Sounds a bit like shopping in the butcher’s: “acquiring” a wife, and knowing quality when he sees it. And it’s the first time I’ve seen the word “mature” applied to Tolstoy.

The second is by Tim Parks (a review in the London Review of Books, April 2018), telling a very different kind of story:

On 17 September 1862, Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy, aged 34, gave his diaries of the last 15 years to Sophia Andreevna Behrs, who had just turned 18 … Three days earlier, on 14 September, Lev had proposed to Sonya by hand-delivered letter, when her parents had been expecting him to propose to their eldest, Liza, who was twenty. Lev and Sonya had met only at family gatherings and had never been alone together for more than a few moments. On 16 September, Sonya accepted and Lev persuaded her parents to arrange the wedding as soon as possible, on the 23rd. This was extraordinary hast, as if the groom were afraid he might change his mind. Certainly, the gift of the diaries looked like an invitation to Sonya to change hers. The bride-to-be read the notebooks at once, and discovered that Lev had actually been more attracted to her younger sister, Tanya …

How to account for the difference between the two accounts? There is only ten years between the two versions, yet there is a generation or more in difference of attitude. Briggs is the traditional literary scholar: whatever my hero Tolstoy does is likely to be right. Briggs doesn’t even contemplate that the woman might have a choice. Parks, by contrast, points out the unconventional nature of Tolstoy’s approach, and why it was by no means a foregone conclusion that Sonya would accept him. For Briggs, Sonya’s role is to be the “literary spouse” behind “one of the great men of world culture” (and Briggs keeps emphasising this throughout his biography, as if that justifies all his other actions). For Parks, Sonya carries out her role as one might imagine for a 19th-century wife:

When you’re around I feel like a queen, without you I’m superfluous.

Surely the role of the present-day critic is not just to sing the praises of his or her subject, particularly if that subject happens to be one of the most tortured souls on the planet, but to place the subject in context so that the very strangeness of Tolstoy’s actions, then and now, is made clear to us today?

Trying to make sense of Tolstoy

Tolstoy, By F. W. Taylor (public domain)

A couple of years ago I read Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, and I can't deny, I was completely hooked. The narrative was so compelling that it pulled me along through long digressions about local government, about methods of farming, the joy of manual labour and many other themes that I later realised were among Tolstoy's real preoccupations at that time of his life. While reading, I  simply thought of them as minor irritations, since the magnificent sweep of the novel was so gripping.

On reading about Tolstoy’s life – at least, the life we are today able to describe, as a result of the publication of his diaries and letters, and so probably not at all the life that his contemporaries imagined – the situation seems utterly different. Here was a man so obsessed with himself that he mistreated his wife and children and all those around him. A man who in the end gave up fiction completely since he no longer believed in it.

The endless discussions about life versus art – whether the life that the artist led should be taken into account when evaluating the work – become irrelevant when you are confronted by passages of monstrous egotism from Tolstoy’s letters to his wife, such as:

I want to write to you about what really interests you – about my inner mental state

  

Or a passage from his diary, just after the birth of his twelfth (!) child, about his wife:

Till the day of my death she will be a millstone around my neck and the children’s.

Or the revelation that in the 1870s he had some kind of religious conversion, which resulted in his aiming for a state of celibacy, while continuing to father more children with his wife.

Or Tolstoy writing to the Tsar’s heir asking him to pardon his father’s assassins.

Given this tortured background, the strangeness of the fiction starts to become more apparent: in The Kreutzer Sonata, Tolstoy describes a man who has murdered his wife out of jealousy (and who sounds in his justification just like Tolstoy himself).

Where now the separation of the art from the life? Again and again we discover a major creative artist whose life turns out to have been less than blameless – Lucian Freud is a recent example. Surely it affects our judgement of the work? The most galling implication of Tolstoy’s combination of misogyny and innocence is the realisation that this writer, famed for creating one of the great women in fiction (Anna Karenina, who is for example ranked in the “top fifteen literary characters we’re crushing on”, with the following endorsement:

Anna is the perfect, popular girl in school until we find out she’s just as sinful as the rest of us–which makes her even cooler.

Yet Tolstoy had no concept of the appalling way he behaved to his wife and family.

Surely such a staggering lack of self-awareness makes it difficult, even questionable, to write a standard book or article of litcrit about Tolstoy without mentioning the life. A review article by Caryl Emerson summarises the position very clearly:

Biographers of Tolstoy are conventionally divided into those who emphasize continuity, despite this period of crisis, and those who advocate two qualitatively different Tolstoys. Knapp belongs to the One Tolstoy school. Her governing leitmotif is Tolstoy’s childhood vision of universal brotherhood, from which he never deviates. The fiction is not the target or endpoint, but the testing ground. In his glorious “autopsychological” novels and stories, Tolstoy experiments with feelings, with philosophies of life, with varying definitions of “neighbour” – and then, after 1883, he formalizes these insights into moral precepts. Thus his art-plots, life-plots and ethical schemata cannot be separated.

Try remembering that next time you take an examination in litcrit – I don’t think it will go down so well. The case of Tolstoy exposes the artificiality of trying to ring-fence a writer’s work into some kind of aesthetic space where it can be measured for its intrinsic artistic merit alone. It certainly doesn’t work with Tolstoy. As a reader, you can be seduced by the writing, eventually subscribing to “the canonical image of Tolstoy as a fabulously fun-loving, life-affirming parent” (Caryl Emerson). On learning more about his life, you will have some doubts about this vision. Perhaps somewhere a dispassionate appraisal, that takes into account both the life and the work, might be possible. 

Trying (not very successfully) to read Machiavelli

Michele di Lando - for Machiavelli, one of the heroes of Florentine history for his role in confronting the Ciompi during their revolt in 1378

I’m reading Machiavelli's Florentine Histories simply because Tim Parks, in his wonderful Medici Money, stated in his guide to further reading, “stop worrying about ‘the truth’ and go back to what material from the time is available and readable. Machiavelli’s Florentine Histories is a joy …”

Well, I wouldn’t call it a joy, but it is a fascinating document that reveals more about the amazing story that is Florence. Understandably, Machiavelli the author was in a difficult position, since he was commissioned to write a history of Florence by the Medici family, the very family that had controlled the city for most of the 15th century (the opposite of what you might imagine from a state nominally labelled a republic). Machiavelli could hardly be openly critical of the Medici; instead, he uses the voice of Medici opponents to widen the viewpoint:

and if anyone nevertheless wants to understand this [what I think about the Medici], let him observe well what I shall have [Cosimo’s] opponents say, because what I am not willing to say as coming from myself, I shall have his opponents say. [from a private letter by Machiavelli]

But even without the problem of criticizing your patron, Machiavelli had a difficult challenge to depict the history of his own city in a positive way. Machiavelli’s view of history is very one-dimensional. There is almost no mention of culture, ideas, artefacts, or even geography. For Machiavelli, following his Roman historian models, history means political history, and throughout the book he wrestles with the problem of why Florence was so unsuccessful in terms of political organization. Following the Roman historians, Machiavelli sees no problem with inventing speeches by key people at various crisis points in Florentine history, even if there is no evidence that they said anything of the kind – but let that pass. At no point do I read any unmitigated praise of the Florentine Republic.

This is a surprise to the outside reader, who thinks of Florence as one of the great early models of republicanism. Sadly, for Machiavelli, Florence was never a successful republic. The text is a long account of factional strife between the major groups: nobles, popolo, and the plebs. A further challenge is that Machiavelli tends to reserve his major analysis for the introduction to each of the eight books that comprise his history. The narrative itself becomes a one-thing-follows-another kind of history – one faction gains power, exiles or murders members of the other faction or factions, and survives until an internal or external crisis prompts a rebalance of power. Then the exiled faction returns and wreaks revenge.  So you have to read these introductory sections very carefully, and return to them, for Machiavelli’s more considered viewpoint. For example, in the Preface, Machiavelli makes clear his priority:

When I read their [the other Florentine historians’] writings diligently, I found that in the descriptions of the wars waged by the Florentines with foreign princes and peoples they had been very diligent, but as regards civil discords and internal enmities, and the effects arising from them, they were altogether silent about the one and so brief about the other as to be of no use to readers or pleasure to anyone.

And while I am nit-picking, I think the Italian would be better translated as “so brief that it will not please any reader” (“che ai leggenti non puote arrecare utile o piacere alcuno”), since I don’t think you can describe 300 pages of factional strife as bringing pleasure to any reader, even though it would please them to be told the true position.

Here is an example of one of Machiavelli's great conclusions, buried in the first lines of book Three of the Histories:

The grave and natural enmities that exist between the men of the people and the nobles [gli uomini popolari e i nobili], caused by the wish of the latter to command and the former not to obey, are the cause of all evils that arise in cities. [3.1]

This startling statement may be as true today as it was then. 

In other words, Machiavelli’s account leaves out a lot of background. And this, incidentally, is where finding things out becomes surprisingly difficult. I bought a 500-page History of Florence by John Najemy, highly recommended by one of his peers, Robert Black, to pick up some background information for reading Machiavelli’s Florentine Histories, only to find that first, the annotations in the edition of Machiavelli I was reading were very poor, and then, that finding simple things in the Najemy book were not so simple. Who were the plebs, for example? Machiavelli, of course, doesn’t have to define terms that for his readers would have been obvious, but it's not so simple for those of use reading him five hundred years later. There is no entry in the Najemy index for “plebe” or “plebs”, nor any references to “nobles” or “nobili”, for that matter. I can’t imagine that any history of Florence between 1200 and 1575 fails to mention both, but clearly, the author sees his role as writing the narrative, not providing clear signposts for readers who might not have the time to read the text from start to finish. Nobody is credited for compiling the index, so I assume the index is by the author. At this point, I long for a digital copy of the text so I could find references to these factions and find out for myself. This is where you realise that books, and even libraries, collections of texts, are a starting point, not an end point.

Edward Gibbon at the University of Oxford

The tower of Magdalen College, Oxford, from Christ Church Meadow. Edward Gibbon was a student at Magdalen College for just 14 months

Edward Gibbon’s Memoirs contain a remarkable description of his time as a student of  Magdalen College, Oxford. It must rank as one of the most comprehensive indictments of a university education ever written.

To the university of Oxford I acknowledge no obligation; and she will as cheerfully renounce me for a son, as I am willing to disclaim her for a mother. I spent fourteen months at Magdalen College; they proved the fourteen months the most idle and unprofitable of my whole life.

What did Gibbon not like about university? It is remarkable that some at least of his complaints may still have some relevance today. It would be an interesting exercise to examine each of these complaints and if they still exist (or are relevant) today. Here then are his issues with Oxford (all extracts from Gibbon are taken from the University of Michigan Digital Library (Text Creation Partnership) edition.

Lack of good teaching

In the discipline of a well-constituted academy, under the guidance of skilful and vigilant professors, I should gradually have risen from trans∣lations to originals, from the Latin to the Greek classics, from dead languages to living science: my hours would have been oc∣cupied by useful and agreeable studies, the wanderings of fancy would have been restrained, and I should have escaped the tempta∣tions of idleness, which finally precipitated my departure from Oxford.

Oxford and Cambridge the victims of their foundations

The schools of Oxford and Cambridge were founded in a dark age of false and barbarous science; and they are still tainted with the vices of their origin. Their primitive discipline was adapted to the education of priests and monks; and the government still re∣mains in the hands of the clergy, an order of men whose manners are remote from the present world, and whose eyes are dazzled by the light of philosophy.

Oxford and Cambridge have a monopoly on higher education

The legal incorporation of these societies by the charters of popes and kings had given them a monopoly of the public instruction; and the spirit of monopolists is narrow, lazy, and oppressive: their work is more costly and less productive than that of independent artists; and the new improvements so eagerly grasped by the competition of freedom, are admitted with slow and sullen reluctance in those proud corporations, above the fear of a rival, and below the confession of an error.

The Universities are incapable of reform

We may scarcely hope that any reformation will be a voluntary act; and so deeply are they rooted in law and prejudice, that even the omnipotence of par∣liament would shrink from an inquiry into the state and abuses of the two universities.

The academic awards are not indicative of genuine study

I should applaud the institution, if the degrees of ba∣chelor or licentiate were bestowed as the reward of manly and suc∣cessful study: if the name and rank of doctor or master were strictly reserved for the professors of science, who have approved their title to the public esteem.

The academic staff don’t teach

in the university of Oxford, the greater part of the public professors have for these many years given up altogether even the pretence of teaching.

Academic tenure makes the teaching staff complacent

instead of being paid by voluntary contributions, which would urge them to increase the number, and to deserve the gratitude of their pupils, the Oxford professors are secure in the enjoyment of a fixed stipend, without the necessity of labour, or the apprehension of controul.

Teaching staff uninterested in academic study

The fellows or monks of my time were decent easy men, who supinely enjoyed the gifts of the founder: their days were filled by a series of uniform employments; the chapel and the hall, the coffee-house and the common room, till they retired, weary and well satisfied, to a long slumber. From the toil of reading, or thinking, or writing, they had absolved their conscience; and the first shoots of learning and ingenuity withered on the ground, without yielding any fruits to the owners or the public.

Conversation with the academics was unstimulating

Their conversation stagnated in a round of college business, Tory politics, personal anecdotes, and private scandal: their dull and deep potations excused the brisk intemperance of youth; and their constitutional toasts were not expressive of the most lively loyalty for the house of Hanover.

Tutors were not bothered by student absence

My growing debts might be secret; but my frequent absence was visible and scandalous: and a tour to Bath, a visit into Buckinghamshire, and four excursions to Lodon in the same winter, were costly and dangerous frolics.

Tutors did not engage with students

Instead of guiding the studies, and watching over the behaviour of his disciple, I was never summoned to attend even the ceremony of a lecture; and, excepting one voluntary visit to his rooms, during the eight months of his titular office, the tutor and pupil lived in the same college as strangers to each other.

Students were not given proper study materials

No plan of study was recommended for my use; no exercises were prescribed for his inspection; and, at the most precious season of youth, whole days and weeks were suffered to elapse without labour or amusement, without advice or account.

Teaching staff were uninspiring

The first tutor into whose hands I was resigned appears to have been one of the best of the tribe: Dr. Waldegrave was a learned and pious man, of a mild disposition, strict morals, and abstemious life, who seldom mingled in the po∣litics or the jollity of the college. But his knowledge of the world was confined to the university; his learning was of the last, rather than of the present age; his temper was indolent; his faculties, which were not of the first rate, had been relaxed by the climate, and he was satisfied, like his fellows, with the slight and superficial dis∣charge of an important trust.

There was no religious training

It might at least be expected, that an ecclesiastical school should inculcate the orthodox principles of religion. But our venerable mother had contrived to unite the opposite extremes of bigotry and indifference: an heretic, or unbeliever, was a monster in her eyes; but she was always, or often, or sometimes, remiss in the spiritual education of her own children … My college forgot to instruct: I forgot to return, and was myself forgotten by the first magistrate of the university. Without a single lecture, either public or private, either christian or protestant, without any academical subscription, without any episcopal confirmation, I was left by the dim light of my catechism to grope my way to the chapel and communion-table.

Attending university makes you lose interest in reading

It is whimsical enough, that as soon as I left Magdalen College, my taste for books began to revive

Sadly, Gibbon reports, his reading after leaving Magdalen College was just as exotic and unstructured as before - hardly surprising, given his experiences above. 

Night and the City

Jules Dassin’s Night and the City (1950) is a true original. It’s a film noir, but transposed to London. Perhaps because I’m familiar with London, there is an immediacy about the film – the milieu seems familiar: the small-scale thieving and rackets that used to go on in Soho, and probably still do. It resembles film noir in several respects:

• A wonderful cast of eccentric character actors, including two professional wrestlers
• Filmed almost entirely at night
• A breathless pace, so you feel as if the action is happening in real time (in fact there are some curious tricks with the timing: Mary Bristol has the time to open her own night club seemingly the very day she is given a permit (which turns out to be false).

But unlike most film noir, there is a real character here, not just stereotypes. While Humphrey Bogart as a private detective remains a figure of fantasy (however appealing), Harry Fabian (Richard Widmark) is all too believable. He is a larger-than-life young man on the make, willing to cut corners and to defraud friends and family if there is a chance of realising his dreams of vast wealth. He starts the film trying to borrow money from his girlfriend, and ends up stealing all her savings. He lacks any ability to temper his dreams, and his ideas continually overwhelm him. He spends the entire film running away from earlier deals that went wrong. He is not unlike Pinkie in Graham Greene’s Brighton Rock: a similar character who dreams of being bigger than he is. Greene’s wonderful depiction of a seedy resort full of small-time crooks busy trying to defraud and outwit each other.

The success of the film is due in no small measure to the characters: Francis Sullivan as overweight night-club owner Philip Nosseross; Googie Withers as his wife, ready to steal her husband’s money if it enables her to break free and to start her own club; Stanislaus Zbyszko as Gregorius the wrestler – and he really was a champion wrestler; Herbert Lom as Kristo, a suave criminal boss.

Plus, the script is wonderfully sharp:

Phil Nosseross, owner of the night club, when he hears his wife is going to set up in business with Harry Fabian: You don't know what you're getting into.
Helen Nosseross: I know what I'm getting out of.

The depiction of women is fairly standard. There is a good woman (Gene Tierney) and a bad woman (Googie Withers) and we know within the first five minutes of the film that the good woman cannot really be Harry Fabian’s girlfriend – it can’t work. Instead, she will fall in love (she already has fallen in love) with the man upstairs, Adam Dunne. Adam is everything that Harry is not. He cooks. He is responsible. He thinks about what Mary Bristol wants. They end the film in each other’s arms. Actually Mary sings in one of the night clubs, but we aren’t invited to think too much about that part of her life.

Helen Nosseross, by contrast, lives fully in the night club underworld. She runs the night club and trains the young women. She is not above stealing money from her husband, and happy to go behind his back to finance her independence. We are shown very clearly that a woman seeking independence is a dubious activity. The fact that she is surrounded by much bigger criminals than her is neither here nor there.

After the film, we are left with images of Harry Fabian running for his life. The tragedy, as Mary Bristol points out at the end, is that we admire Harry’s enthusiasm, his wish to make good, but we are appalled by his inability to reflect on what he is doing.

Mary Bristol: Harry. Harry. You could have been anything. Anything. You had brains ... ambition. You worked harder than any 10 men. But the wrong things. Always the wrong things ...