History According to Tolstoy

I apologize for my absence, life has kept me quite…occupied. I'm going to strive to update one of my four blogs at least once a day,from soonish on out, I promise. For that kind of consistency, I'm going to need to make sure I can get ahead of myself, writing-wise.

Since I last posted, I've finished War & Peace, How to Read a Book by Adler, and How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Foster and I've started A Sideways Look at Time by Griffiths. But first, let me talk about War & Peace. After finishing, War & Peace feels like an immense accomplishment. The last 100 pages are quite taxing but after finishing it, I absolutely believe it belongs on Year 1 of The List—more as a starter case than anything else, I think. You see,this first year is about "How to Use the List: Theories and Thought Exercises," and so M and I (by far mostly M) have struggled to look for books that will enlighten one on the meaning of reading and to a certain extent, life and time in general (aren't the two synonymous on some philosophical level?).

War & Peace is both. What is the meaning of reading for enrichment if not to accomplish a thorough reading of a masterpieces such as Tolstoy's War & Peace. Moreover, Tolstoy's historical theories are worth considering in the grand scheme of learning how to use The List. His idea is basically this—history as written by historians is fatally flawed because in his view, it generally fails to take account of the conditions of the general population. For Tolstoy the history that matters is that of the Bolkonskys and the Rostovs and every other myriad families fumbling their way through "history." Too often historians give account only of events or the personal conditions that lead historical leaders/"great men" to do whatever they do. Such accounts are insufficient, and we lose sight of the brave soldiers who brashly charge into action, the "historically" insignificant motivations of a man to be a mid-level government decision-maker, or the morbid interloper who ruins romances and lives out of revenge,spite, or hedonistic malevolence.

Is this true? I think the story makes a good case, if not an unnecessary argument altogether. But what an enjoyable way to read it—and what a great way to kick-off a 20+ year long examination of humanity's artistic history.

Read it already.


- S