War and Peace

. . . was a 'vewy intewesting' novel. Tolstoy was an excellent novelist, although he was a very bad philosopher. Everyone in possession of the commonest sense knows that he has free will.

Many of my classmates and I have decided that this philosophical snafu does nothing but increase our admiration of Tolstoy's talent. For someone to believe in fatalism and still find life interesting enough to observe it and write about it as well as he did is a truly facinating thing.

Some students theorized that Mr. Tolstoy didn't really apply his theory to his characters or his conception of the world: they posited that, perhaps, he just 'thought the mule was pregnant' - didn't quite see the otherwise obvious consequences of his views in his everyday observations of life and community.

I personally don't buy that at all. I can see evidence of his theory in every character of this novel; admittedly, his character developments are far from flat and uninteresting (aspects one would think unavoidable in Tolstoy's theoretical slaves to circumstance) but Tolstoy does clearly state that he believes the mark of humanity to be his capability for deceiving himself into thinking that he has the power of choice. In this right, Tolstoy left most of his characters in a fullness of humanity, with all their self-inflicted deceptions about free will (read: common sense), and the lives he illustrates were, therefore, mostly realistic (albeit his characters were Russians . . . I've come to the conclusion that Russians must think funny, and I'm not Russian).

Another of my classmates stated that he felt betrayed by Tolstoy, who, using his phenomenal talents, had illustrated many diverse and lovable characters, only to show in the end that he had used them as puppets for the proposal of a dark, fatalistic philosophy. I can relate to his frustration - and the more I think it over, the more I suspect that to be true. I don't so much feel betrayed by Tolstoy, though -I pity him; after meeting a certain former-resident-of-Ohio I know that skeptical fatalists can be rather lovable. They have baggage from past experience which inhibits them from seeing what is otherwise evident to carefully nurtured individuals like myself. This particular man frequently shows undeniable signs of wanting to get out of his philosophy-by-default; I'm sure Tolstoy was the same way, at least at some point in his life (even if he was a Russian - I'm telling you those people are strange).

So, Ohio-man, you know who you are - if you're reading this, let me know if you've read this novel or not. I have a strong suspicion that you have.

With much love to all (especially to my second obsession, who might actually be reading this now, being deprived of his previous excuse: "I live your blog - why do I need to read it?"),
Em