T(olst)oy Story

An Idiot Flaps Odyssey - Part 2

It's that time again! 4:40pm. And also that time where I read books, in an attempt to improve myself. It's difficult to improve someone so amazing, but I'm going to try my best.

Here are the previous parts of this thing:
Introduction
Part I

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Leo Tolstoy - The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories


After the the Elizabethan rhetoric of Edmund Spenser last week, it was nice to have something a little easier to get into.

Unfortunately, the insane anti-Irish rantings of Spenser are matched in their ferocity by the insane anti-sex rantings of Tolstoy. But at least the latter are accompanied by some gripping stories.

I've read the title story of this collection before, during my ill-fated Novella module of my MA. It was ill-fated because:
1) Our teacher was an obnoxious idiot
2) I was rubbish at writing (readers of this blog may question the "was")
So let's choose the happy medium of 'ill-fated'.

I haven't read much Tolstoy. I once got about a third of the way through War and Peace, but then stopped. When I came back to it, I'd forgotten who everyone was. That happens to me a lot. It's annoying - I should persevere. But in the past, I didn't have a blog-based crusade to ensure I saw everything through to its conclusion.

The main story was written when Tolstoy was having a personal crisis, relating to his views on marriage, sex and religion. So the first two stories are thinly-veiled expressions of his, frankly insane, views.

He thought that sex, even in marriage, was a sin. He blamed disastrous marriages and debauchery on the contemporary social conditions. When really, it just seems that his cypher characters were, probably like him, just dicks.

Anyway, this isn't supposed to be a book review. If you want to find out about it, look here. The title, and a central element of The Kreutzer Sonata comes from a Beethoven violin sonata. Here is the first movement:



As well as the Kreutzer Sonata, the other stories are The Devil (an intense and beautifully expressed mediation on struggling with infidelity), The Forged Coupon (a rambling exploration of the consequences of a single immoral act - it could be adapted into a Tarantino film), and After the Ball (a really nice ten-page vignette).

All in all: I dug it. Even if he's crazy, Tolstoy can spin an good yarn.

So - things what I liked:

Tolstoy's wacky views are entertaining. The weird thing is, he sometimes seems to be approaching the truth. He talks about marriage as enslaving women. His views on religion are really appealing, as he's sceptical of religious institutions, and morality based on adhering to rules (he prefers the idea of morality as using a compass to judge your behaviour in relation to a perfect ideal).

And just when you're thinking he might be on to something, he'll come out with something like:

"Over coffee, as often happened, there was one of those conversations, peculiar to ladies, in which there is no logical connecting thread whatsoever, but which are evidently held together by something, as they go on interminably."
(The Devil, Chapter X)

The other thing I enjoyed was hearing his views on the society of the day. I'm a bit obsessed with discovering how people in the old days view the younger generation.

I get annoyed that every era thinks that their youth is immoral, that everything is going downhill, that we're living in the worst age for music, art, respect, etc. That tabloid mentality really irritates me. It may sound callous, but the current age isn't particularly significant. We're just a part of a long process of cultural change. We shouldn't ascribe ourselves with particular importance, just because we're alive now.

So, I like reading books where previous generations are criticised - it proves that it has always been the case.

In particular, I like Tolstoy's criticism on women's dress:

"..cast a glance at our society ladies: the same exposure of arms, shoulders, breasts, the same flaunted, tightly-clad posteriors, the same passion for precious stones and shiny, expensive objects, the same diversions - music, dancing, singing."
(The Kreutzer Sonata, Chapter VI)

They sure were slutty in 1890! Thank God he never saw a mini-skirt. The criticisms of the conservative establishment are always the same.

Another interesting element, is his view on sexualising children from a young age. You might have read the story recently about Primark selling padded bras to children. There was a mighty fuss, of course. We're ruining our children! We're a padeo haven! Things like this didn't happen in my day!

Well, Tolstoy certainly thought they did in his day:

Discussing spoiled children, and their parents' desire to get them ready for marriage: "And in these pampered children, just as in all animals that are overfed, there is an unnaturally early appearance of an unmasterable sensuality which is the cause of horrible torments in their adolescence."
(Postface to The Kreutzer Sonata)

Despite being written in the late 19th Century, the sentiment could be replicated in a 21st Century Mail editorial.

I know it's not the most important element of the book, but I think it's quite amusing. Annoying people always have the same criticisms of modernity, but seem to have no awareness that these criticisms are old news.

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So, my conclusions are these:
- Tolstoy was crazy
- Tolstoy was a good writer
- Tarantino should adapt The Forged Coupon (maybe with a Blaxploitaion slant)
- People should stop think society is crumbling. Maybe it is, but it's happening slowly, has been doing it for thousands of years, and when they're older, your idiot children will make the same bullshit claims about 'the good old days'.

Onto a full-length novel next. Join me next time for more on my Idiot Flaps Odyssey.