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John Millen

Have you read a novel by Tolstoy?
 Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) is widely considered to be the greatest novelist of all time. But there is a big problem with this famous Russian writer. While many literary experts say he is the best novelist who ever lived, there aren't many readers - apart from literature students or classical novel fans - who have actually read one of his books. How can the world's greatest novelist be so rarely read? 
It takes a lot of time and commitment to get through Tolstoy's two greatest novels. It is unlikely that the average reader has read either of them.  What are readers missing?
The greatness of Tolstoy
Scottish novelist Ian Rankin, despite having written literary criticisms as well as two dozen novels, says he didn't pick up a Tolstoy novel until a few years ago when he needed a big book to read during a long-haul flight. 
Best-selling author Marina Lewycka took a whole week, with only short breaks to eat and sleep, to tackle Tolstoy's longest novel. It's clear that reading Tolstoy takes time, commitment and maturity. So how does a reader get rewarded at the end of all this?
 Tolstoy is a great craftsman who can describe everything from the grandeur of battles to the intimacy of human feelings. Through the lives of his characters, he paints a vivid social picture of the times in which they lived. Tolstoy's novels portray events and people that stay with you long after the actual story is over. 
A bit of biography 
Tolstoy was born into a rich, noble Russian family in 1828. He grew up on the family estate in the countryside tutored by private teachers. His mother died when he was two years old and a female cousin moved in to take charge of the Tolstoy children who lived a life of great privilege.
 He studied law and oriental languages at university, but left without a degree. He tried a career in the army, but that didn't last long. Tolstoy then took up writing, publishing short stories and an early novel called The Cossacks. The success of War and Peace in 1869 established him as Russia's top novelist. 
Keenly aware of the vast divide between the rich and the peasants in Russia, Tolstoy decided to devote the rest of his life to social reform, as well as philosophical and fiction writing. He died in 1910.
Tolstoy's great duo 
In his two great novels, War and Peace and Anna Karenina (1873), Tolstoy mixes dramatic events in Russia's history with the problems faced by his characters as they struggle to cope with their personal lives and events around them. 
War and Peace is an epic story of five families whose members struggle to survive against the backdrop of Napoleon's disastrous invasion of Russia in 1812. 
Anna Karenina is the most famous love triangle in fiction. Socialite Anna is trapped in a loveless marriage with a boring government official. She falls in love with handsome Count Vronsky, and condemned by her friends, she leaves her husband and son. Such an act was unthinkable in Russian society at the time.
 In both novels, Tolstoy depicts the falseness and fragility of upper-class Russian life and attitudes.
Anna at the movies 
There have been 12 movie versions of Anna Karenina, and a new big-budget cinema adaptation will be released this autumn. 
 Joe Wright, the movie's director, says Anna is 'the greatest novel ever written' and he intends his big-screen version to be completely faithful to Tolstoy's book. For Wright, Anna's story is all about 'the search for the authentic life'. Moviegoers will be drawn into the tragedy of Anna Karenina in September. Do you have time to read the book before the movie opens?



The world's greatest novelist?