Donna Tussing Orwin - Simply Tolstoy

To Thanina and Hannah

No title could better suit Donna Orwins wise and riveting biography than Simply Tolstoy. For the actual man was contradictory and immensely complex; he only dreamed of simplicity. On this massive life, the erudite and compassionate Orwin trains a meticulous lens that keeps out none of the dark but lets through all the light.

Caryl Emerson, A. Watson Armour III University Professor Emeritus of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Princeton University

This is a little gem, the best introduction to Tolstoy I have ever encountered, and it is more than that. The most accomplished scholar will find important new insights, the sort that one immediately recognizes as both true and profound. Orwin brings Tolstoy to life as a person and as a writer, and she also shows beautifully how the two are linked. The discussions of Tolstoys views on psychology and the nature of art are especially illuminating.

Gary Saul Morson, Lawrence B. Dumas Professor of the Arts and Humanities and Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Northwestern University

Tolstoys life, work and thought in 100 pages? It cant be done! But in Simply Tolstoy, Donna Orwin does it. Providing concise overviews of Tolstoys most important literary work in the context of his biography and intellectual historical background, this brief book will appeal to a wide range of readers curious to understand Russias great novelist and thinker.

Andrew Wachtel, President, American University of Central Asia

Donna Tussing Orwins Simply Tolstoy is both a personal essay and fact-packed critical biography of Tolstoy. Readers are fortunate that Orwin, one of the foremost scholars of Tolstoy, distils her knowledge into an accessible encounter with this giant. She describes her youthful curiosity about Tolstoys sincerity and moral goals, concluding that he was a post-Kantian romantic who relied on feeling rather than reason for access to... truth, and a pacifist who was the greatest war writer of modern times. Orwin shows how Tolstoys estate Yasnaya Polyana, his little homeland, shaped his experience. Reading War and Peace as a founding myth of modern Russia, she argues that war is its dominant theme. Horrible as it is, war has its charm. Simply Tolstoy raises questions relevant today, about war, marriage, intimacy, or how to live a moral life, questions that play out against the canvas of actuality: No author, writes Orwin, has more thoroughly recreated the interplay between circumstance and free choice than Tolstoy.

Robin Feuer Miller, Edytha Macy Gross Professor of Humanities, Brandeis University

This engaging and readable little work is an introduction worthy of the master. Donna Orwin, the foremost Western Tolstoy scholar, has spent a lifetime immersed in the writers works. She brings to the task a formidable knowledge of philosophy, Russian literature, and history, and a biting critical intelligence. Authoritative, thorough, and stimulating, this book brims with original insights that seasoned readers, as well as Tolstoys novices, will appreciate. Take a couple of hours, curl up under your beach umbrella, and read Simply Tolstoy. Then go back and read your Tolstoy, with this powerful little book at your elbow.

Carol Apollonio, Professor of the Practice of Slavic and Eurasian Studies, Duke University

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