In Quest of Tolstoy [Hardcover]

Lev Tolstoy has held the attention of mankind for well over a century. A supremely talented artist, whose novels and short stories continue to entrance readers all over the world, he was at the same time a fearless moral philosopher who explored and challenged the fundamental bases of human societypolitical, economic, legal, and cultural. Hugh McLean, Professor Emeritus of Russian literature at the University of California, Berkeley, has been studying and writing about Tolstoy for many years. In these essays he investigates some of the numerous puzzles and paradoxes in the Tolstoyan heritage, engaging both with Tolstoy the artist, author of those incomparable novels, and Tolstoy the thinker, who, from his impregnable outpost at Yasnaya Polyana, questioned the received ideas and beliefs of the whole civilized world. In two concluding essays, Tolstoy beyond Tolstoy, McLean deals with the impact of Tolstoy on such diverse figures as Ernest Hemingway and Isaiah Berlin.Reading this collection convinces me that Professor McLean is the most modest, appreciative, and penetrating critic of Tolstoy Ive ever read. Hugh McLean (Ph.D. Harvard University) taught at Harvard, the University of Chicago, and the University of California, Berkeley, where he is now Professor Emeritus. He is the author of Nikolai Leskov, the Man and His Art, and edited In the Shade of the Giant: Essays on TolstoyPreface. Part 1. Tolstoy the Artist. Buried as a Writer and as Man - The Puzzle of Family Happiness. The Case of the Missing Mothers, or When Does a Beginning Begin? Truth in Dying. Which English Anna? Love in Resurrection: Eros or Agape? Could the Master Err? A Note on God Sees the Truth but Waits . Gary R Jahn. Was the Master Well Served? Further Comment on God Sees the Truth but Waits . Part 2. Tolstoy the Thinker. A Woman's Place... The Young Tolstoy and the Woman Question . Tolstoy and Jesus. Rousseau's God and Tolstoy's God. Claws on the Behind: Tolstoy and Darwin. A Clash of Utol£|