Volume 35, Number 18 · November 24, 1988
Mr. Know-all
By John Bayley
Tolstoy
by A. N. Wilson
Norton, 572 pp., $25.00
Tolstoy: The Ultimate Reconciliation
by Martine de Courcel, translated by Peter Levi
Scribner's, 458 pp., $27.50
The unique thing about Tolstoy as a writer is that he found it intolerable to be one. Many writers hate writing, or find it impossibly difficult, or can only write about what it means to be a writer. Tolstoy not only had literary genius but could use it with ease. His sense of himself was so great that it extended to everything else: nothing seems more natural as we read him than to become, as it were, Tolstoy. He writes so naturally that we seem to be doing it for him.
Review, 3082 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |