Read Tolstoy

I know no author who explores and develops the complexity of personality like Tolstoy. What I value in his novels is how he lets a character grow, go off, come back and emerge (or not) into the self he sees in the person from the beginning. This helps me accept and honor the complexity in real people – and in myself – and carry an expectation of good for each, and carry this for years. Tolstoy's character development also helps me interpret biblical characters. Biblical writers do not delve into as much depth with a character as does Tolstoy (this is not their purpose), but from the insights I see in a Tolstoy novel I am able to fill out a biblical character and relate to him or her more fully. When I imagine Peter the Apostle in a Tolstoy novel I see him less outsized and predictable and more a real man, a man like me – and so, I am a man like Peter. Reading Tolstoy makes reading the Bible more interesting.

I just finished War and Peace again, and kept copying out quotes, even whole chapters (copied off a website, not typed out). There are segments that describe me better than I can do so myself, and reading them I know myself more deeply.

As a sample, here is Tolstoy's description of Princess Maria upon seeing Nikolai, Rostov the man she loves, enter the room.

From the moment she set eyes on that dear, loved face, some new vital force took possession of her and compelled her to speak and act irrespective of her own volition. From the time Rostov entered the room her face was transformed. Just as when a light is lit inside a carved and painted lantern, suddenly revealing in unexpected, breath-taking beauty of detail the fine, intricate tracery of its panels, which till then had seemed coarse, dark and meaningless, so was Princess Maria’s face suddenly transfigured. For the first time all the pure, spiritual, inward travail in which she had lived till then came out into the open. All her inner searchings of spirit, her sufferings, her striving after goodness, her resignation, her love and self-sacrifice – all this now shone forth in those radiant eyes, in her sweet smile, in every feature of her tender face.

Confession. I have not read (or seen) Anna Karenina. I have not yet wanted to look into the aspects of human personality that he exposes there. This certainly says something about how I protect myself, but that is part of the complexity of me.