"I shall go on in the same way, losing my temper, falling into angry discussions, expressing my opinions tactlessly; there will be the same wall between the holy of holies of my soul and other people, even my wife; I shall go on scolding her for my own terror, and being remorseful for it. I shall still be unable to understand with my reason why I pray, and I shall go on praying; but my life now...every minute of it no more meaningless, as it was before, but it has the positive meaning of goodness, which I have the power to put into it."
From what I understand, but not directly, Tolstoy was a difficult man and rather a tyrant, esp. where his wife was concerned. The one thing I know is that Tolstoy died alone, freezing in a remote railway station. His Anna committed suicide at a railway station as well. Was Tolstoy toying with the idea of life imitating fiction? At several places near the end, Levin considers suicide, even though things appear to be going swimmingly well for him, at least compared to the other characters. He gives up on reason along the way, which is apparently the only way he can keep himself in the land of the living.
This book appears to me much more autobiographical than anything else I have read by him. I have read no criticism of the novel--or of anything else he wrote--but one of the reasons I kept reading is that I wanted to see how this work tied in with his essential loneliness--and was not disappointed.
The book began with Anna's brother's habit of cheating on his wife. As the novel ends, it can be presumed that this is still going on in spite of his sister's suffering and horrible end. What Tolstoy seems to be saying is that people never really change. There is a profound fatalism and the only counterweight seems to be the strong but indefensible will of the individual. I wonder if it was Tolstoy who believed, in War and Peace, that only mass movements defined history, not individuals, who seem to be isolated, vulnerable, and get run over by trains and wars and even peace, a lot.
In a therapeutic age, this is probably what people want to hear--free to pursue their own pleasures because one can shift responsibility to society, culture, government, and of course our relentless souls which are preprogrammed by nature and nurture, so that other people just have to get used to us or go away! Many of the questions Levin entertains are pretty mundane by dint of severe repetition by the 21st century; but what he wants us to believe, sometimes in the same breath, is that we can generate our own goodness, yet it is also a gift--which according to his story, Levin had but Anna didn't, as she was swept away by her own inevitable passions which she was powerless to resist.
It would seem that Tolsoy's epiphany was temporary. I notice that his characters seem to think they have gotten to the pinnacle of life by peaks of emotion, which change totally, sometimes on the same page! There's a constant seesaw of conviction; until Anna decides that all is lost hence all is detestable.
So one should technically not expect Levin's happiness will last, esp. since it isn't built on reason anymore, but just reacting to life and trying to convince one's self day after day that, when all is said and done, of course I am the good one; i.e. God himself! The ability of his characters to deceive themselves regularly in this regard shoud have given the author pause. But the Creator doesn't make mistakes!
more later, guests are here...
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