Tolstoy's "craft"

[Anonymous No.14205008]

I keep reading about how Tolstoy was a master of craft and structure yet no one can give an actual example of what the hell they mean by it. What's so special about Tolstoy's craft?

[Anonymous No.14205033]

>>14205008

Do the following. Start reading War and Peace.

Take two notebook of notes. In one you write down every scene skeleton, to see how he organize the novel, balance the episodes, weave the plot threads, etc.

The second notebook is the most important. It’s the notebook of details. On it copy down every detail that strikes you as meaningful, perceptive, true, humane, soul-defining, striking, etc.

Copy on this notebook all the phrases of mind perceptions of the characters, of gestures, of sensations that one character has towards other, etc, etc.

This will take quite a lot of time and effort, but by the end of it you will understand far better how Tolstoy does what he does.

One tip: he pays far more attention to mental details and psychological perceptions than to details of scenarios and places and furniture. What he really finds interesting is the effect of one person on other, the effect of one mind on other.

For more deep understanding, reads this book:

https://www.amazon.com/Tolstoys-War-Peace-Reginald-Christian/dp/0571272754/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=tolstoy+war+and+peace+christian&qid=1571490112&sr=8-1

And also the chapter on Tolstoy and Nabokov on this book:

https://www.amazon.com/Stalking-Nabokov-Brian-Boyd/dp/0231158572/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=stalking+nabokov&qid=1571490326&sr=8-1

I suggest you do the same thing with both War and Peace and Anna Karenina.

[Anonymous No.14205062]

>>14205008

>>/lit/thread/S12618476

Decide to re-read Anna Karenina and take notes - in a separate notebook - of every single detail that Tolstoy writes. The aim is to learn how to give scenes, thoughs, dialogue and inner monologues a sense of reality. Start reading and underlining the micro-details and quickly realize that Tolstoy uses swarms of microscopic particularities to paint every single bit of his works: from the locks of hair of Anna to the wide hips of a Tartar waiter to the sounds and smells inside a train to the fact that Vrónski went out of the train in a station to drink a glass of soda to the way that such character walks and that character moves his lips and etc and etc.

Realize that I am underlining and dog-earing practically every single page. Realize that in the same way that Shakespeare piles up one beautiful and extremely original metaphor upon other, without time for the mind to breath, Tolstoy constantly presents, one incessantly, one after another, thousands of small details, most of them true to life and based on careful observation.

Those details even bring small character to life. In one part of Anna Karenina Tolstoy describes how the porter of a big house from one of the rich ladies of Petersburg sits in his security cabin, in front of a glass that is in front of the street, and how he reads the newspapers every day, in front of the passerby’s, thinking that with this example he is helping them in their personal edification.

It’s a small detail about a character that is not going to appear again, yet now he is a human being, not simply "the porter", as most novels would describe him. To really pay attention to such small perceptions, and to remember them when you sit down to write, and to know what detail to use here and what to use there… That’s extremely difficult.

Is far more easier to write a Pynchon like "poetic prose" than to come up with this forest of little touches, and the same can be said of Shakespeare: it’s obscenely difficult to invent one beautiful and original metaphor after another, constantly, making language a great web of micro-histories (for every metaphor is a small capsule of a history).

(cont)

[Anonymous No.14205067]

>>14205062

No other writer ever saw as many things and in such detail as him (only Shakespeare, who is no wonder that he hated, an egocentric like he was noticing that there he had one of his few rivals). He was capable of perceiving every little expression on the face, every thought; he captured every gesture and action of other living things and stored in his brain for when the time to write would come.

Furthermore, the work of many realistic writers look like blurry mirrors compared to the creations of Tolstoy. He seems to be the most sensitive, perceptive and true of all realistic writers. He seemed to be perpetually devoid of skin, always in raw-flesh (at least his mind was like that: both his five senses as his conscience – his brain was as sensible as the tender eyes and soft antennae of the snail) so that even a breath, a look, a frown, an intonation of speech, a facial wrinkle and so many other little things reach him with a disproportionately strong force.

He submerge himself in human life: in the cities and the country, the offices and the fields, the war-zone and the mossy woods with scent of rotten leaves; he visited the slums of the poor and the rich resorts of high-society, and all the time his unparalleled sensibility was capturing every small movement that happened around him.

Every molecule of existence was absorbed by the palate of his conscience. Seriously, this guy is on a league of his own as a novelist. To come up with even half the details he presents in a single work would be extremely hard; to do the same thing is simply beyond the capacity of most writers.

[Anonymous No.14205068]

>>14205008
Simply the wide scope of his stories. They don't span generations but are still huge because the character leads a "full life".

Not many writers can pull that off. Most end up writing boring excesses like Harry Potter trilogies.

[Anonymous No.14205084]

>>14205067

Basically all I did was to underline the phrases with details and dog-ear the pages while Inwas reading, so I didn’t need to stop and note them immediately.

After that, in my free time, I took a notebook I named “book of details” and started to note all the phrases Inhas underlined. I was already doing it with other books, but Tolstoy is providing so much that I am having much more work.

Some examples of what I note down are, right in the begging, Stiva Oblosnky’s servant way of putting his hands in his pockets, and his way of cleaning with his hand and breath an imaginary dust in Stivas jacket (with great satisfaction).

There is the Tartar waiter with large hips, and the fact that he was waiting for Oblonsky to order the food in French but, since Stiva order ir in Russian, the waiter gave himself the satisfaction of naming the dishes in his head, mentally. In this same scene there is another interesting detail: Tolstoy mentions that both Lievin and Stiva, although being friends and having dinner together and even talking, were both concerned only with their own problems and could hardly think seriously about what the other was complaining.

There is also the small detail of Stiva saying to one of the civil servants in his public repartition that he should proceed as he - Stiva - has commanded, and not in his own way, and how (here is the detail ) Stiva smiles kindly to him and touched the mans arm with his hand, trying to show him that he should take that negative as an insult.

Other detail was Stivas reaction to Dolly, his wife, when she had just forgiven him. He was happy and smiling, but whenever he noticed he was too happy for someone who had recently been forgiven he would tried to remain more silent and force himself to show as shaken and crestfallen.

There is the detail of Anna thinking that her husbands ears are to big when he first sees him after Vrónskis first advances, and the fact that even her son - that she remembered as perfect and longed to see - seems to her eyes, after the impact of the future romance, to be imperfect, to be not as good as she thought he was.

Other thing I remember is Anna smiling kindly to her husband, in the way one smiles to the frailties and defects of the people we love.

I also remember the tired eyes of Anna’s husband, and how Vrosky gets offended by his way of walking, with his hips somewhat swinging and his flat feet.

There is a scene in the train where Vronsky is so satisfied and assured of himself that he stares at people as if they were objects. Then Tolstoy describes a young student that gets angry with this pose of Vrosky, and then he starts to move and cough and talk loud and even nudge to show to the chad Vrosnky that he is a person and is meaningful, but to no use: Vrosky dosent even notice him.

But these are only scraps: there is much, much more.

>>/lit/thread/S11193744#p11194712

[Anonymous No.14205215]

>>14205033
>>14205062
>>14205067
>>14205084
What does any of this have to do with craft or structure? This is just Tolstoy's autistic obsession with objective reality and detail (which led him to hate Shakespeare) and the mark of his realistic style. And by the way it is possible to create characters and themes as nuanced (if not more so) without as much grit. Shakespeare does it with speech and action alone.

>>14205068
So that's it? He's considered one of the greatest novelists of all time, analogous to Shakespeare, because of "wide scope"? There's plenty of novels, e.g in the scifi genre, that are of even grander scope than Tolstoy's domestic operas. Asimov's Foundation series comes immediately to mind.

If Tolstoy's craft just boils down to "scope" and "realistic telling detail" I don't see why it's lauded so much. Over authors like Dickens or Hugo for example.

[Anonymous No.14205260]

>>14205215
ugh.

[Anonymous No.14205280]

>>14205215
but Dickens and Hugo are also considered "one of the greatest novelists of all time". also style emerges from craft so your argument makes no fucking sense

[Anonymous No.14205312]

>>14205215
>What does any of this have to do with craft or structure?
Nigga are you being serious right now?

[Anonymous No.14205324]

>>14205280
>>14205312

>style emerges from craft
Is my point exactly. Style is not craft, it emerges from it, it is downstream from it. I asked specifically about craft and structure so why is style being discussed? There's no argument that Tolstoy is the grandmaster of the realist style, but give me an example of his structural mastery.

[Anonymous No.14205345]

>>14205324
Anna Karenina has perfect counterpoint of plot between the Anna-Vronsky strand and the Levin-Kitty strand, each plot informing and developing the other.

[Anonymous No.14205889]

>>14205033
Was a terrific, professional answer to a mediocre OP. OP how are you complaining about this?

[Anonymous No.14205915]

>>14205889
Because telling me to spend upwards of months to years of my life studying Tolstoy's work in minute detail (something which I doubt the poster himself has done, as it's clearly a copypasta) does not answer the question I posed in the OP.

>>14205345
This at least gets closer to the goal, but still offers nothing in the way of a concrete example. Just a claim.

[Anonymous No.14205997]

>>14205215
>objective reality
What an immense fucking mouth breather. Holy fuck. Not only is your position and attitude puerile, but you go as far as to actually make you seem even more stupid that you already seem to be

[Anonymous No.14206030]

>>14205997
>but you go as far as to actually make you seem even more stupid that you already seem to be
Possibly one of the worst sentences I've ever read. And you could have criticized the inaccuracy of my terminology (what I was trying to get at was Tolstoy's omniscient pov, the sustainment of a reality which exists outside the characters head and always seeks a clinical objectivity) but way to cogently defend your position without resorting to ad hominems. Really well done.

[Anonymous No.14206102]

>>14205215
>There's plenty of novels, e.g in the scifi genre, that are of even grander scope than Tolstoy's domestic operas

kek boys this one's been lost forever

[Anonymous No.14206106]

>>14206030
1. Tu quoque fallacy
2. Strawman fallacy

The expression "objective reality" is redundant since reality itself is objective - this is why you are, to me, a very stupid individual.

Regarding the typo in that "sentence" - you might you want to do a quick google search on the difference between phrases, sentences and clauses - which made you exclamate your opinion, I don't give a flying fuck. Why? Because you're intellectually dishonest. A previous poster answered you in a thoughtful manner and you disregarded his take with "ahahah tolstoj was just being autistic". Don't expect respect or decorum or anything else when you are excrement with legal personhood

[Anonymous No.14206157]

>>14206106
>reality itself is objective
There's entire schools of philosophy that beg to differ but whatever, I've already clarified what I meant.

>Regarding the typo in that "sentence"
It wasn't a typo I was pointing out, just its terrible construction. I was of course referring to that whole sentence, but that clause in particular was awful.
>I don't give a flying fuck. Why?
Because you don't actually have anything to say, all you can do is resort to personal attack and reference to other people's answers (which as I've already pointed out, were copy-pasted and don't even answer the question). I doubt you've even read any of Tolstoy's works, so please go ahead stop posting in this thread.

[Anonymous No.14206211]

>>14206157
>There's entire schools of philosophy that beg to differ but whatever, I've already clarified what I meant.
Name me just two schools of thought that "beg to differ". I'll wait. :)


>It wasn't a typo I was pointing out, just its terrible construction. I was of course referring to that whole sentence, but that clause in particular was awful.
If you weren't addressing the typo - the only factor harming grammar normativity - then it's a matter of taste making you a hypocrite.


>Because you don't actually have anything to say
I did have something to say. Do you not see that replying to me and having this actual conversation is paradoxically to your claim? Retard.


>all you can do is resort to personal attack
Did much more than that, but I do concede that I take joy is bullying mouth breathers like yourself.


> and reference to other people's answers (which as I've already pointed out, were copy-pasted and don't even answer the question).
They do answer your question. They are just the answers you want. If you want determinate answers or responses be more precise in the way you inquire, retard.


>I doubt you've even read any of Tolstoy's works, so please go ahead stop posting in this thread.
I doubt you're above 19.

[Anonymous No.14206234]

>>14206157
>There's entire schools of philosophy that beg to differ but whatever, I've already clarified what I meant.
Name me just two schools of thought that "beg to differ". I'll wait. :)


>It wasn't a typo I was pointing out, just its terrible construction. I was of course referring to that whole sentence, but that clause in particular was awful.
If you weren't addressing the typo - the only factor harming grammar normativity - then it's a matter of taste making you a hypocrite.


>Because you don't actually have anything to say
I did have something to say. Do you not see that replying to me and having this actual conversation is paradoxically to your claim? Retard.


>all you can do is resort to personal attack
Did much more than that, but I do concede that I take joy bullying mouth breathers like yourself.


> and reference to other people's answers (which as I've already pointed out, were copy-pasted and don't even answer the question).
They do answer your question. They are not just the answers you want to read. If you want determinate answers or responses be more precise in the way you inquire, retard.


>I doubt you've even read any of Tolstoy's works, so please go ahead stop posting in this thread.
I doubt you're above 21.

[Anonymous No.14206312]

>>14205215
>There's plenty of novels, e.g in the scifi genre, that are of even grander scope than Tolstoy's domestic operas. Asimov's Foundation series comes immediately to mind.