Tolstoy's Letters

Tolstoy's Letters (Rusland, 1845-1910): 2 delen: 717 blz: Geselecteerd, bewerkt en vertaald in het Engels door R.F. Christian (1978): Uitgeverij The Athlone Press

 

 

Ik heb een set van twee boeken met brieven van Tolstoj herlezen. De boeken zijn hardcovers met een stofomslag, de brieven zijn geselecteerd, geredigeerd, vertaald en uitgebreid van noten voorzien door professor Christian, een vooraanstaande Engelse Tolstoj-deskundige, criticus en vertaler. De 608 brieven (uit de meer dan 8.500 brieven van Tolstoj die gepubliceerd zijn) zijn genummerd en chronologisch weergegeven en iedere keer als er een brief wordt opgenomen naar een nieuwe persoon, wordt die geïntroduceerd met een korte (bij de belangrijkste correspondenten een wat langere) inleiding. Van personen die in de brieven worden vermeld wordt altijd in de noten vermeld wie hij of zij was. Het boek is verdeeld in 9 secties, elk met een korte inleiding. Het Engels van de vertaling is zeer prettig leesbaar. Het zijn twee prachtige boeken!

Uit het voorwoord van professor Christian:

- When I began to consider how many letters to translate and on what basis to select them, it soon became apparent that the great majority fell roughly into one of three main categories. First there were those to do with Tolstoy the writer, his views about his own work and the work of other writers. Secondly there were those which concerned Tolstoy the thinker in a broader sense, and expressed his attitudes to the times he lived in, contemporary social problems, rural life, industrialisation, education, and more especially in later life, religious and spiritual questions. Thirdly there were the letters which were moore loosely to do with Tolstoy the man, the main stages of his biography, his relations with his family and friends, and the growth and development of his own personality.

- Tolstoy himself never concealed his distaste for "books about books", especially those written by profesional critics, and on at least one occasion declared that "of all the boring things in the world, criticism is the most boring".

- The germ of almost everything that came to fruition in his thinking and writing after 1880 can be found in one or other of his letters of the previous thirty years: his pacifism, his rejection of capital punishment, his hostility towards state institutions and bureaucratic practices, his unconventional views on primary and secondary education, his distrust of university professors, doctors and journalists, his hatred of big cities and an urban society based on the buying and selling of property, his painful awareness of the contrast between his own material well-being and the poverty surrounding him and his concern to justify his art in terms of its usefulness to the community as a whole.

Overige citaten:

Over de door de redacteur gewijzigde titel van "Kinderjaren":

- The title Childhood and the few words of the introduction explained the idea of the work; but the title A History of My Childhood contradicts the idea of the work. Who is interested in the history of my childhood?

 

Over de guillotine:

- I've seen many horrible things in war and in the Caucasus, but if a man had been torn to pieces before my eyes it wouldn't have been so revolting as this ingenious and elegant machine by means of which a strong, hale and hearty man was killed in an instant. In war it's not a question of the rational will, but of human feelings of passion; but in this case it's cold, refined calculation and a convenient way of murder, and there's nothing grand about it.

- The only thing I want when I'm writing is for another man, and one who is dear to my heart, to rejoice at what I rejoice at, to be angry with what angers me, or to weep the same tears as I weep.

 

- To prepare a child for some occupation is one of the oldest and most dangerous forms of despotism. You want to give him an assured slice of bread, but perhaps he's preparing himself to spend all his life as a poverty-stricken but great poet of thinker.

- The aim of an artist is not to solve a problem irrefutably, but to make people love life in all its countless inexhaustible manifestations. If I were to be told that I coukld write a novel whereby I might irrefutably establish what seemed to me the correct point of view on all social problems, I would not even devote two hours' work to such a novel; but if I were to be told that what I should write would be read in about 20 years' time by those who are now children, and that they would laugh and cry over it and love life, I would devote all my own life and all my energies to it.

 - All knowledge comes to people by irrational paths.

- ... I'm sure, she feels in her soul - and only La Rochefoucauld would have noticed it - a feeling of slight hostility such as we always have towards people whom we don't know, and whom everyone, beginning with one's husband, praises beyond measure.

- As some Frenchman said: "une composition est une lettre, qu'on écrit à tous ses amis inconnus".

- As far as my mental activity is concerned, I am an egoist, i.e. it seems to me that my thoughts must always be of interest to everyone, and I'm prepared to thrust them on everyone; but I consider my person of very little worth, and of no interest to myself, let alone to anyone else.

- I always feel surprised and sorry, particularly sorry, about articles. A big work, particularly a positive, not a critical one, will be appreciated sooner or later, the shot will reach the target and strike home. But criticism which you are so fond of is a terrible thing. Its only importance and justification is to guide public opinion, but this is the joke - when criticism talks rubbish it guides public opinion, but if it is the result of genuine and serious (ernst) thought it has no effect, and may just as well have never been written.

- Joseph de Maistre wrote a long lettre to his king in 1812 about the war and about Petersburg and ended the letter like this; "Je pris votre Majesté d'excuser la longeur de cette lettre. Je n'ai pas eu le temps de la faire plus courte."

- Our vile literary profession is corrupting. Every writer has his own atmosphere of flatterers which he carefully surrounds himself with, and he can have no idea of his own importance or the time of his decline.

- It's a truism that idleness is the mother of vice; but not everyone knows that feverish, hasty activity is the habitual handmaid of discontent with oneself and especially with other people.

- My view is that I and my life have no importance of rights, but I value my view, not for my own sake, but for the happiness of other people; and of other people, my children are nearest to me.

- Vladimir Vasilyevich, I was very glad to get your letter. I entirely agree with what you say, that people's attitude to animals is cruel and ought not to be so, and that the time has come or is coming when the majority of people should be aware of it, and when this awareness that it's cruel and unnecessary and stupid to cause pain to animals should become public opinion, and be transmitted through literature, art and education.

 

- I asked myself long ago whether I would work just the same if I were never to know whether my work would be approved or not by people, and I replied sincerely that of course I would work just the same.

 

- Every work is une lettre de l'auteur à ses amis inconnus.

 

- And simplicity is the necessary condition of the beautiful. What is simple and free of artificiality might be bad, but what is not simple and is artificial cannot be good.

 

- The most important thing about knowledge is not to imagine that you know what you don't know, but to know that you don't know what you don't know.

 

Ik heb nu direct achter elkaar twee boeken over het leven van Tolstoj gelezen. Dit brievenboek met brieven van Tolstoj zelf, bezorgd door professor Chrisian en de biografie over Tolstoj van A.N. Wilson. Beide boeken zijn zeer onderhoudend en behoren tot het mooiste dat ik ooit gelezen heb. U kunt het doen net zoals ik en beide boeken lezen. Maar als ik er één van moest kiezen, welke  zou ik dan kiezen?

Beide boeken geven ongeveer dezelfde informatie over Tolstoj's leven. De biografie is compacter en ik denk iets vollediger. Ik vind het Engels van professor Christian prettiger om te lezen dan het Engels van A.N. Wilson van de biografie. Het brievenboek geeft aanvullende informatie over de correspondenten van Tostoj zodat je een beter beeld krijgt van de mensen in zijn omgeving. Maar het grootste verschil is dat de brieven in het brievenboek geschreven zijn door Tolstoj zelf en dat Tolstoj natuurlijk een veel belangrijkere en betere schrijver was dan A.N. Wilson. Ik ga voor dit brievenboek!

   

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