Summer Reading

If one were to lift the curtain on the Rowley apartment this summer, one would more often than not find its inhabitants reading. Libby is taking classes that require reading, is part of a summer book club (so far A Severe Mercy and The Diary of Anne Frank) with some teachers from her school, and is also engaged in personal reading projects: currently The Brothers Karamazov. I don't have anything else to do after work, either, so I've been working my way through other Russian literature. In the last month I've finished both Anna Karenina and War and Peace as well as Hard Times by Charles Dickens. I've just started Dostoevsky's Demons. The result is a rather peaceful and contemplative life.

This is my first real foray into Tolstoy. Anna Karenina was a very well written novel, and some have considered it the greatest novel of all time. Nevertheless, I found it morally bothersome. Tolstoy's personal opinions are obscured, and I didn't enjoy the moral ambiguity surrounded the titular character's affair. While it definitely resulted in destruction, the actual cause of the destruction is unclear - is it Anna's fault, Vronsky's fault, or society's fault? Meanwhile, one wonders if the problems Levin is struggling with will expose a solution to Anna's unhappiness. Levin's solution is lyrically beautiful and powerful, but ultimately unsatisfying to an orthodox Christian.

War and Peace is not as good of a novel as Anna Karenina. In fact, in some places it is hardly a novel at all. Indeed, the whole second epilogue is a focused attempt at solving the problems of historiography and putting it on a footing that allows for its study as a positivistic kind of endeavor - to discover the very laws by which human activities are governed. This is very dull and history, ironically, has shown it futile. The narrative, on the other hand, is well written, and the characters themselves are engaging. The scope of the work, admittedly intimidating, is also a strength, as Tolstoy is able to approach many obstacles to true human happiness from a variety of angles. Pierre Bezukhov and Andrew Bolkonsky's concerns, especially, are very interesting reading and I found the thoughts Tolstoy expressing through them interesting and helpful.

Back to reading, now!