the complexity of human existence
“The major difference between Tolstoy and Flaubert is that Tolstoy worked from life, Flaubert from ideas—and in this instance, from a very poor idea, which was hatred of the bourgeoisie and of provincial life. Of the two men, Tolstoy had the larger heart, which gave him the greater appreciation of the complexity of human existence and stronger skepticism about the ability of coarse and blatant ideas to encompass it, including those of the Russian novelist who began this work.”
Taken from Joseph Epstein’s excellent essay in The New Criterion, June 2008. His new collection of essays is “In A Cardboard Belt!”
“A literary education teaches that human nature is best, if always incompletely, understood through the examination of individual cases, with nothing more stimulating than those cases that provide exceptions that prove no rule—the unique human personality, in other words.”
The unique human personality. I wonder, is there such a thing?