Abhorrent though mosquitoes are to me, Tolstoy finds a way to live with them and even arrive at existential insights.
Tag Archives: Leo Tolstoy
How Tolstoy Would Judge Jeff Sessions
Leo Tolstoy, who calls out public officials who abuse the public trust, would have choice words for the American attorney general.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Jeffrey Beauregard Sessions, public corruption, Resurrection Comments closed
What Tennis Meant to Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy picked up tennis late in life, even though at one point seeing it as symbolic of bourgeois decadence. A look at the novel “Resurrection” explains why he changed.
Tolstoy on Resisting a Narcissist
If Trump is like Napoleon in Tolstoy’s “War and Peace,” can he be defeated by popular resistance, as he is in Tolstoy’s novel?
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged American Dream, Donald Trump, Immigration, Trump resistance, War and Peace Comments closed
Great Pro-War Literature Doesn’t Exist
In which I argue that great pro-war literature doesn’t exist, including “The iliad” and “War and Peace.” (Both works are magnificent; I just don’t see them as pro-war.)
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Charge of the Light Brigade", Alfred Lord Tennyson, anti-war literature, Catch 22, Donald Trump, Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Homer, Iliad, Joseph Heller, Naked and the Dead, Norman Mailer, Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien, war, War and Peace Comments closed
Tolstoy and the Forerunners of Twitter
Before there were people sending tweets about the important developments of the day, there was witty repartee in European salons. We get a taste of such banter from Tolstoy’s “War and Peace.
Panicked by Trump? Turn to Lit
As Trump panic starts to set in, pundits are turning to literature to get an understanding of how it has all happened. This past week saw references to “Oedipus,” “Frankenstein,” “War and Peace,” and “Slaughterhouse Five.”
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Donald Trump, Frankenstein, GOP, Kurt Vonnegut, Marco Rubio, Mary Shelley, Oedipus, Presidential politics, Slaughterhouse Five, Sophocles, War and Peace Comments closed
Happy Families Are All Alike?
Tolstoy may seem to say that unhappy families are more interesting that happy ones in “Anna Karenina,” but the happy families that conclude “War and Peace” appear to contradict this.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Anna Karenina, families, husbands and wifes, War and Peace Comments closed
For a Rich Life, Read Widely and Freely
Literature impacts our lives but the influence is best if we read a wide variety of works. Limiting ourselves to just a few authors can warp us.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Company We Keep, D. H. Lawrence, ethics of fiction, Jane Austen, Mikhail Lermontov, Wayne Booth, William Shakespeare Comments closed
