Here is a symposium, courtesy of National Review. Do they understand any of these books, most of all the extreme perversity of Tolstoy? Jane Austen is praised for not having a kiss in the entire book. Maybe the Song of Solomon works as a pick. Free to Choose wasn’t a bad selection either, or try their Two Lucky People. Don’t they know that Rick sets up Ilsa at the end of Casablanca, just so her can reject her as an act of spite and malice? How about Romain Rolland’s Jean-Christophe? Goethe’s Hermann und Dorothea? Make your other selections in the comments, but the rapes in Atlas Shrugged rule that one out. Thanks to www.politicaltheory.info for the pointer.
Lady Chatterly’s Lover? Fear of Flying? Oh wait, this was the most _conservative_ love story. Never mind
I think that I have never seen a better example of how disparate the conceptions of “conservative” are.
Hermann and Dorothea….you took the words right out of my mouth. 25 years have passed since I read it and nothing compares, in this area anyway.
Perversity in Tolstoy? What leads you to this conclusion in connection with War and Peace, Tyler? The end of War and Peace is resounding affirmation of true love deep mature romantic love with two couples, Natasha and Pierre and Nicolai and Maria, happly married. The novel’s trajectory is the separate, somewhat circuitous (and in the case of Pierre and Natasha torturous), paths by which these four finally attain that happy state against the backdrop of the Napoleanic wars and social dynamics of eary 18th Century Russia. Yes, in his personal life, Tolstoy may have been perverse, but the ultimate lesson of War and Peace is a extremely salutory one from the perspective of the type of deep love that human beings are capable. It is a choice that I believe is beyond reproach from the perspective of conservative criteria, such as virtue, personal growth and casting off the foolishness of youth.
DWG is right. I’m just re-reading War and Peace now, coincidentally.(and have been for the last two weeks, who knows how many more!)
I am curious, Mr. Tyler, what exactly do you mean by “the extreme perversity in Tolstoy”?
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