Twin Stars: The Anxiety of Sibling Rivalry between Literary Titans

Papers on Language and Literature, Spring 2004 by Weidhorn, Manfred

Dostoyevsky was initially repelled by the book. Its subject matter, the travails of upper-class families, seemed to him to be a rehash of Tolstoy's earlier work (in a genre, moreover-land-owner literature-Dostoyevsky thought obsolete). The shallow, horse-obsessed, aristocratic Vronsky was worthy only of an ironic treatment by the author. Finding the novel therefore conventional and boring, he wondered why everyone raved about it (Diary 591-92, 610).

But as the story unfolded, Dostoyevsky grew to admire the way the major characters, who were petty and shallow, became illuminated by death and humiliation; their hate and deceit turned into forgiveness and love, and social status became immaterial. Such moments of insights are rare, and Tolstoy revealed that they do exist (Diary 611-13). And such insights were to Dostoyevsky uniquely Russian. In Europe, violations of the laws of society are punished by human justice, but for a Russian like Tolstoy they arejudged in the heart: Anna offended Nature's laws and suffered internally for it (785-86). The novel thus triumphantly presents evil as ingrained, beyond the reach of society and socialism. With "immense psychological analysis of the human soul, with tremendous depth,... with a realism of artistic portrayal hitherto unknown in Russia," Tolstoy shows that no Utopia will eliminate "abnormality," "evil," and "guilt." The solution is "mercy and love" (787). This novel, by intimating that only Russia had writers with the gift of universality, rebutted the European sense of Russian inferiority and gave hope that Russia would eventually produce as well great science and economics. The man who wrote it was therefore "a sublime artist" (611 ).

But in the last installment of the novel, Tolstoy took an unpopular stand on the war with Turkey, and this apostasy turned Dostoyevsky against the novel once more. Levin, Tolstoy's putative mouthpiece, became the focus of Dostoyevsky's scathing criticism. Contemptuous of slavophilia, Levin saw the war as a conspiracy by mercenaries, drunks, and louts foisted on an indifferent populace. "This is not," concluded a saddened Dostoyevsky, "what I had expected from such an author" (755, 777-79,792-95).

Levin's refusal to let his private life be distracted by the religious victimization of his Slavic brethren was bad enough. Especially outrageous was to have Levin say, in speaking of his apathy concerning the fate of the Slavs, "I am of the people myself," as though Tolstoy, through Levin, presumed to speak for all the Russian people on this critical issue (777, 807). No less infuriating was Levin's self exculpatory statement that, if he saw innocent people attacked in the street, he "would not kill" in response-byway, no doubt, of justifying Tolstoy's pacifism. (Later, Tolstoy in turn declared himself repelled by Dostoyevsky's love of war and by his argument, echoed by the Church, that fighting and laying down one's life for others is legitimate [Letters 360].) This insensitive, selfish, blind Levin, concludes Dostoyevsky, is presented by Tolstoy as an exemplary "truthful, honest man," and the author of that novel is supposed to be a "teacher of society." "What, then, do they teach us?" (Diary 813)