For the last nine months, I've carried Tolstoy's War and Peace everywhere with me. I read the novel in the sultry summer heat of Wellesley, Massachusetts; I read it in a garden in Greenmount, Australia as parrots squawked overhead; I napped by a stream in the Sierra foothills with War and Peace as my pillow. Every sick day I spent in bed, Tolstoy's words were my tea and toast.
For nine months, I read little else, yet I was content. Tolstoy's work is not without flaw: he interrupts the story to editorialize about Napoleon's strategies. He has tedious monologues about historical disagreements. But, the story is written with such fluid beauty and such a nuanced observation of humanity that it makes the plodding parts a worthwhile trade. I can't say that I began my study of Tolstoy with any expectations: I started to read with curiosity, and I continued with pleasure.
In Tolstoy's concluding discussion about freedom, he expounds:
"Reason expresses the laws of necessity. Consciousness expresses the essence of freedom....Freedom is that which is examined. Necessity is that which examines. Freedom is content. Necessity is form. Only by the separation of the two sources of cognition, which are related to each other as form to content, do we get the distinct, mutually exclusive, and unfathomable concepts of freedom and necessity. Only by their union do we get a clear picture of the life of man" (1210).
This passage illuminates the reciprocal nature of creativity and structure that explains modern the artist's struggle. We all must contend with limitations and still find grace. Tonight, as I watch Shaun White flip the radical Double McTwist 1260, I understand Tolstoy's desire to comprehend the absolute capacity of human liberation, and I understand why Tolstoy's work is still important for us to read today.
Beautiful post, Heather. I love the idea that Tolstoy's words were your "tea and toast" when you were ill; I think they were mine at least once over the last 9 months, too! I'm still reading, but this gives me a push to finish.
ReplyDeleteNecessities for the 21st century American are certainly different than those for Tolstoy, as are freedoms. But are they really? It’s the great writer that can scrape down to the bones of what is truly necessary, what truly makes a person free, and write so that we remember.
ReplyDeletePS I want to submit to Blood Orange, but your submission link is not behaving.