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Leo Tolstoy
The best way to obtain true happiness is without
any rules, to throw out from oneself on all
sides, like a spider, an adhesive web of love to
catch in it all that comes: an old woman, a
child, a girl, or a policeman.
– Tolstoy
Tolstoy's aesthetic and ethical web brings into
its compassionate fold, a varied group of
individuals, both “great” and “small,”
“important” and “insignificant,” all richly
detailed, and fully fleshed out. A human being
is not characterized by merely the great events
of his/her life; rather, the certain nuances of
behaviour, and the everyday responses to
everyday situations articulate the way one is.
In War and Peace, with the characters of
Natasha, Pierre, Princess Mary, Helene,
Nicholas, early nineteenth century Russia comes
alive with the smell and taste of life in all
its vivid details. Tolstoy's artistic vision
succeeds in converging and commingling the
apparently contradictory aspects of life and
history, the private and the public, and the
struggle between the inexorable rush of
historical determinism and individual will.
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