Tolstoy

792 pp. Translated from the French by Nancy Amphoux. "Leo Tolstoy embodies the most extraordinary contradictions. He was a wealthy aristocrat who preached the virtues of poverty and the peasant life, a misogynist who wrote Anna Karenina, and a supreme writer who declared, "Literature is rubbish." From Tolstoy's famously bad marriage to his enormously successful career, Troyat presents a brilliant portrait that reads like an epic novel written by Tolstoy himself." CONTENTS: THE TERMS OF THE PROBLEM: Before Leo Tolstoy; Childhood; The World Outside; Kazan; Wild Oats; A TIME OF VIOLENCE: The Caucasus; Sevastopol; Introduction to Civilian Life; TRAVEL, ROMANCE AND PEDAGOGY: Discovery of Europe; A Few False Starts; Second Trip Abroad; "Arbiter of the Peace" and Schoolmaster; SONYA: Betrothal; A Terrifying Happiness; The Great Labor; War and Peace; The Night at Arzamas; CONFLICT: Interim; Anna Karenina; Art and Faith; The Horrors of the City; the Appeal of the "Dark Ones"; THE LOATHSOME FLESH: The Temptation of Sainthood; The Kreutzer Sonata; Famine and Strife; Sonya's Folly; What Is Art?; THE APOSTLE OF NON-VIOLENCE: Resurrection; the Dukhobors; Excommunication; the Crimea; The Russo-Japanese War; THE SOLUTION: Days Pass and a Birthday; Re-enter Chertkov; Last Will and Testament; Flight; Post Mortem; APPENDICES: Biographical Notes; Notes to the Text; Bibliography; Index.