A review by joanaprneves
Tolstoy: A Russian Life by Rosamund Bartlett

informative inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

4.0

This is a well written biography, easy to read and highly informative. It was a pleasure to devour. I read it because I had just finished Anna Karenina and was surprised to find not a story focusing on an adulterous woman, but a political and ideological landscape. Knowing Ghandi had been inspired by Tolstoy, I decided to learn more about him. I was not disappointed! This is why this biography is really well structured: it respects Tolstoy’s legacy as he built it, that is, almost against the novels he is famous for. It details his family life and his wife’s complex role in it (it focuses less in the children but that is understandable albeit a bit of a blind spot), his reluctance in embracing his wealth and privilege and his learned path towards an enlightened life. Bartlett substantiates her claims by listing what he read and how he accessed said knowledge. Moreover, we learn about his day to day life abs the way he accommodated his needs in order to have become the man he turned out to be. It is also a portrait of a woman’s life - Sonya lived in the shadow of her husband, devoted to him it renegaded by him when she didn’t comply to his wishes. This biography doesn’t paint him as a hero, and that is one of its utmost qualities. It portrays the man, with his qualities and his flaws. Patiently and with clarity it maps out his ideas, how they came to be, and his behaviour in a nuanced way that allows for the reader to understand the man, and to acknowledge how simultaneously exceptional and flawed he was.