Tolstoy Inspiration For TodayBy Professor Andy Kaufman
Tolstoy’s Love of Truth
“The hero of my tale—whom I love with all the power of my soul, whom I have tried to portray in all its beauty, who has been, is, and always will be beautiful—is Truth.”
One of the many reasons Anna Karenina is considered Tolstoy’s greatest work—and one of the greatest books ever—is because of Tolstoy’s ability to depict the subtleties of human experience with such remarkable truthfulness. “We are not to take Anna Karenina as a work of art. We are to take it as a piece of life. A piece of life it is!” resounded Matthew Arnold, a famous nineteenth-century literary critic. Consider how many characters there are in Anna Karenina, and yet none of them is a stock figure. Every character is irreducibly individual. Tolstoy makes these characters come alive in the way he takes us inside of their minds and hearts with an astonishing attention to detail.
The Storm in Anna’s Soul
A good example of this is the famous scene in which Anna boards the train to go back to Petersburg. There is a storm outside and inside of Anna’s soul. (pp. 99-104) We can feel Anna’s agitation, anticipation, and exhilaration, not because Tolstoy tells us these things are happening, but because he shows us Anna’s inner life through her external actions. We feel it in the way Anna moves in her seat, in how she tries to control herself by adjusting her belongings, in how she picks up the novel, reads, becomes absorbed, and then puts it down, in how she rubs the penknife sensually against her cheek and giggles with nervous delight. We know exactly what is occurring inside of Anna’s soul from Tolstoy’s subtle, vivid description of her physical gestures alone.
Wordless Communication
Tolstoy also takes us inside his characters through his description of profound, yet wordless communication between human beings. One of the most important moments in Levin’s and Kitty’s life, the declaration of their love for one another, happens without a word being spoken: “He simply could not pick out the words she had in mind; but in her lovely eyes shining with happiness he understand everything he needed to know!” (p. 398) Or how about communication between a human being and an animal? In one of the novel’s most poignant moments Vronksy is lying on the ground after having crashed his horse during the steeplechase. “…Before him, gasping heavily, lay Frou-Frou, her head turned to him, looking at him with her lovely eye.” (p. 200) Is this a tender moment of reconciliation between the horse and her reckless rider? Or is it perhaps a chilling moment of realization for Vronsky that he alone has caused the destruction of another living creature? Vronsky’s sorrow, sympathy, guilt, perhaps even love for his horse are all packed into this brief sentence. Tolstoy knows how to say much in so few words.
Truth Comes from Within
Tolstoy’s ability to render life so truthfully is not just a matter of his superior literary technique. It comes from something much deeper inside of Tolstoy. It comes from his profound compassion for human beings and his sincere desire to understand human life without illusion. Tolstoy sees his characters as they truthfully are, not as socially constructed images or stereotypes. He senses the inner world of his characters with clarity, honesty, and compassion. This contrasts sharply with the way many characters in his novel often see each other and themselves—as projections of their own insecurities and illusions. In a nineteenth-century Russian society dominated by delusions and lies, Tolstoy had the courage to see and express the truth. Speaking the truth was not always easy for Tolstoy. It often cost him his inner peace, his friends, and even his relationship with his wife in the end. But there was no other way for him. Love of sincerity and hatred of lies were too deeply embedded in his blood.
Tolstoy believed that true understanding of life is not a matter of intellect or education. In fact, some of the most highly educated and intelligent people in Anna Karenina, such as Karenin and Koznyshev, are among the least capable of dealing with life’s complexities. True understanding, Tolstoy believed, comes from the heart, not the head. It stems from the courage to embrace one’s own inner truth and from the ability to truly understand the soul of another. In Anna Karenina Tolstoy demonstrates that courage and that ability as remarkably as any writer—and perhaps any human being—ever has.
“There is no greatness where there is no simplicity, goodness, and truth.”
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