If the total effect of his book is inconclusive, it is
all lucidity and shapeliness in its parts. There is no faltering in
his hold upon character; he never loses his way among the scores of
men and women in the book; and in all the endless series of scenes and
events there is not one which betrays a hesitating intention. The
story rolls on and on, and it is long before the reader can begin to
question its direction. Tolstoy _seems_ to know precisely where he is
going, and why; there is nothing at any moment to suggest that he is
not in perfect and serene control of his idea. Only at last, perhaps,
we turn back and wonder what it was. What is the subject of War and
Peace, what is the novel _about_? There is no very ready answer; but
if we are to discover what is wrong with the form, this is the
question to press.
What is the story? There is first of all a succession of phases in the
lives of certain generations; youth that passes out into maturity,
fortunes that meet and clash and re-form, hopes that flourish and wane
and reappear in other lives, age that sinks and hands on the torch to
youth again--such is the substance of the drama. The book, I take it,
begins to grow out of the thought of the processional march of the
generations, always changing, always renewed; its figures are sought
and chosen for the clarity with which the drama is embodied in them.
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