The Coffehouse of Surat by Leo Tolstoy

""So on matters of faith," continued the Chinaman, the student of
Confucius, "it is pride that causes error and discord among men. As
with the sun, so it is with God. Each man wants to have a special
God of his own, or at least a special God for his native land. Each
nation wishes to confine in its own temples Him, whom the world
cannot contain.

"Can any temple compare with that which God Himself has built to
unite all men in one faith and one religion?

"All human temples are built on the model of this temple, which is
God's own world. Every temple has its fonts, its vaulted roof, its
lamps, its pictures or sculptures, its inscriptions, its books of
the law, its offerings, its altars and its priests. But in what
temple is there such a font as the ocean; such a vault as that of
the heavens; such lamps as the sun, moon, and stars; or any figures
to be compared with living, loving, mutually-helpful men? Where are
there any records of God's goodness so easy to understand as the
blessings which God has strewn abroad for man's happiness? Where is
there any book of the law so clear to each man as that written in
his heart? What sacrifices equal the self-denials which loving men
and women make for one another? And what altar can be compared with
the heart of a good man, on which God Himself accepts the sacrifice?

"The higher a man's conception of God, the better will he know Him.
And the better he knows God, the nearer will he draw to Him,
imitating His goodness, His mercy, and His love of man.

"Therefore, let him who sees the sun's whole light filling the world,
refrain from blaming or despising the superstitious man, who in his own
idol sees one ray of that same light. Let him not despise even the
unbeliever who is blind and cannot see the sun at all."

So spoke the Chinaman, the student of Confucius; and all who were
present in the coffee-house were silent, and disputed no more as to
whose faith was the best."

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Tolstoy was acquainted with extremely high spiritual thought- this complex concept is rarely to be seen, especially in the age he lived in. The fact that the closer one is to God, the closer he wants to imitate him is practically foreign even in today's age. What exactly does it mean to be close to God? To enjoy God's presence...which today, especially with the current evangelical movement, is extremely shallow and dejected. To enjoy God can be the hardest and yet the most satisfying thing. And then of course we would want to be like Him, for we find spiritual pleasure in Him.

Also, I love how Tolstoy doesn't discriminate all Christian denominations... how each can have some sort of truth from the "one ray of the same light". No matter what angle one looks at it- if one truly and sincerely believes in God then they cannot but have the truth.

Walk in the Light and 23 Tales by Tolstoy

"I remained alive when I was a man, not by care of myself, but because love was present in a passerby, and because he and his wife pitied and loved me. The orphans remained alive, not because of their mother's care, but because there was love in the heart of a woman, a stronger to them, who pitied and loved them. And all men live not by the thought they spend on their welfare, but because love exists in man.
I understood that God does not wish men to live apart, and therefore he does not reveal to them what each one needs for himself, but he wishes them to live united, and therefore reveals to each of them what is necessary for all."

So we really do need each other!

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1. In man dwells love
2. It is not given to man to know his own needs
3. All men live not by care for themselves, but by love

Can love be completely extinguished in a person?

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Also on a side note- whenever I refer to this book I really mean Father Sergius by Tolstoy--!

The Death of Ivan Ilych by Tolstoy

Family Happiness

"When we talked our voices resounded and seemed to hang in the still air over us, as though we were the only creatures in the midst of the whole world, and were alone together under that blue dome, in which the mild sunshine played flashing and quivering."

"And he would acknowledge himself, later, that everything in the world in which I had no share seemed to him so absurd that he could not understand how one could be interested in it. It was just the same with me. I used to read, and to interest myself with music, with his mother, and with the village school: but it was all simply because each of these pursuits was associated with him and won his approbation. But as soon as there was no idea of him associated with my pursuit, my hands dropped at my side, and it seemed to me quite amusing to thing there was anything in the world beside him."

I like how the entire world apart from them is so ridiculous and absurd...as if they had another world to themselves and are watching the people going about their day- leading their meaningless lives while they- they are living.

"Each stage has its love...and still I love you, but with a different love."

The different stages of love is the main point of this story- that love changes and is constantly reshaped throughout our lives.

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A young lady and an old man are married, experiencing passionate love,and in the end that love faded, but remained a different- more mature kind of love.

Resurrection by Tolstoy

"'Disgusting is the animality of the beast in men,' he though, 'but when that beast in man is in its pure form, you survey it from the height of your spiritual life and despise it; whether you have fallen or not, you remain what you have been, but when this animal is concealed beneath a pseudo-aesthetic, poetical film and demands worship, then you become all rapt in it, and, worshiping the animal, no longer distinguish right from wrong. Then it is terrible."

How interesting! "this animal is concealed beneath a pseudo-aesthetic, poetical film and demands worship"! Is it really the animal, the beast within us behind the poetry and romanticism? Is it the I? I haven't come across such a thing before...does the romantic in us destroy in the end?

"He loved her not for his own sake, but hers and God's."

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Mainly about this man who seduced this girl, while young- they were both in love at the time, and left her with 100 roubles. From then on she became a prostitute, and her life got worse from that point. She was accused of poisoning someone and the man was on the jury, even though she still was condemned. He spent the whole time devoting his time to her and the case. She ended up by marrying someone else. He ended up becoming a Christian. So his new Christian life began...

Amazing book. Too bad they didn't marry. It shows the sick perversion of man in power, compared to the ones how aren't but are still ad. People in power corrupt themselves and at the same time corrupt the criminals. If everyone should live by God's commandments (as suggested in the book) there would be a Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. ---

"'Just so we act,' thought Wekhlyu'dov,'living in the insipid conviction conviction that we are ourselves the masters of our life, and that it was given to us for our enjoyment. This is obviously foolish. If we have been sent here, this was doesn't by somebody's will and for a certain purpose. We, however, have decided that we are living for our own joy, and apparently we are suffering from it, as will the husbandman who is not doing the will of his master. But the master's will is expressed in injunctions (commandments. Let the people execute these injunctions, and there will be on earth the Kingdom of God, and people will attain the highest good, which is within their reach."

If only man would obey God. We suffer because we do not, we are made, programmed to obey, But yet we refuse to do so. That's been humanities biggest problem, and what a problem!

===also funny passage with the Catholic mass and how they did everything Christ told them not to do--- I love Tolstoy's satire!

The Idiot by Dostoevsky *

"The picture depicted Christ, who has just been taken from the cross. I believe that the painters are usually in the habit of depicting Christ, whether on the cross or taken from the cross, as still retaining a shade of extraordinary beauty on his face: that beauty they strive to preserve even in his moments of greatest agony. In Rogoshin's picture there was no trace of beauty. It was a faithful representation of the dead body of a man who has undergone unbearable torments before the crusifixion, been wounded, tortured, beaten by the guards, bean by the people, when he carried the cross and fell under its weight, and, at last, has only just been taken from the cross- that is, still retaining a great deal of warmth and life; rigor mortis has not yet set in, so that there is still a look of suffering on the face of the dead man, as though he were still feeling it (that has been well caught by the artist); on the other hand, the face has not been spared in the least; it is nature itself, and, indeed, any many's corpse could look like that after such suffering. I know that the Christian Church laid it down in the first few centuries of its existence that Christ really did suffer and that the Passion was not symbolical. His body was therefore fully and entirely subject to the laws of nature. In the picture the face is terribly smashed with blows, swollen, covered with terrible, swollen, and blood-stained bruises bruises, the eyes open and squinting; the large, open whites of the eyes have a sort of dead and glassy glint. But, strange to say, as one looks at the dead and glassy glint. But, strange to say, as one looks at the dead body of this tortured man, one cannot help asking oneself the peculiar and interesting question: if such a corpse (and it must have been just like that) was seen by all His disciples, by His future chief apostles, by the women that followed Him and stood by the cross, by all who believed in Him and worshiped Him, then how could they possibly have believed, as they looked at the corpse, that that martyr would rise again? Here one cannot help being struck by the idea that if death is so horrible and if the laws of nature are so powerful, then how can they be overcome? How can they be overcome when even He did not conquer them. He who overcame nature during His lifetime and whom nature obey, who said Talitha cumi! and the damsel arose, who cried Lazarus come forth! and the dead man came forth? Looking at that picture, you get the impression of nature as some enormous, implacable, and dumb beast, or, to put it more correctly, much more correctly, though it may seem strange, as some huge engine of the latest design, which has senselessly seized, cut to pieces, and swallowed up- impassively and unfeelingly- a great and priceless Being, a Being worth the whole of nature and all its laws, worth the entire earth, (which was perhaps created solely for the coming of that Being! The picture seems to give expression to the idea of a dark, insolent, and senselessly eternal power, to which everything is subordinated, and this idea is suggested to you unconsciously. The people surrounded the dead man, none of whom is shown in the picture, must have been overwhelmed by a feeling of terrible anguish and dismay on that evening which had shattered all their hopes and almost all their beliefs at one fell blow. They must have parted in a state of most dreadful terror, though each of them carried away within him a mighty thought which could be never wrested from him. And if , on the eve, of the crusifixion, the Master could have seen what He would loo, like when taken from the cross, would He have mounted the cross and died as He did? This question took, you can't help asking yourself as you look at the picture."

I have never given this any thought, always considering the paintings of Jesus Christ as a guess of what He might have looked like. but in all I've seen, It's true they are not portraying the truth. Basically denying most of His humanity. very interesting. He would've been battered! Anyway, He didn't "overcome" the laws of nature because He didn't want to. It was his choice.
But also, that's interesting to think that nature (and I'm thinking of Nature as a creature) was created of the sole purpose of killing Jesus Christ. To show humanity who Christ is. At first I thought of this as, a fraud. Honestly. But further thinking led me to actually believe differently. Nature was created to show humanity, for us to understand, how much Christ loved us. And as Dostoevsky mentions, if He would've seen Himself on the cross...of course He did! He already knew, He is God Himself- He knew foresaw everything- and yet He still did it. Seeing the future only added to the misery.
Also, Jesus' worshipers at the time- Imagine how they would've felt! What loss and disappointment. Even the disciples were slow to believe. Very, very interesting.

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

"This new feeling hasn't changed me, hasn't made me happy or suddenly enlightened, as I dreamed- just like the feeling for my son. Nor was there any surprise. And faith or no faith- I don't know what it is- but this feeling has entered into me just as imperceptibly through suffering and has firmly lodged itself in my soul.
I'll get angry in the same way with the coachman Ivan, argue in the same way, speak my mind inappropriately. There will be some wall between my soul's holy of hollies and other people, even my wife, I'' accuse her the same way of my own fear and then regret it, I'll fail in the same way to understand with my reason why I pray, and yet I will pray- but my life now, my whole life, regardless of all that may happen to me, every minute of it, is not only not meaningless, as it was before, but has the unquestionable meaning of the good which is in my power to put into it."

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Tolstoy compared to Turgenev, Pushkin, Gogol and Dostoevsky is somewhat of a moralist, hoping for the good in humanity, the hope of redemption such as the character in Anna Karenina. I mean, all the others focus on the weakness of humanity, the oddities, the dreams- while Tolstoy emphasizes the sin, how it can eat at you, while redemption is always there. I prefer the others to Tolstoy- too optimistic for my taste- even though of course, he is right- it is better to have hope. For where would we be without it?

And goodness, out of the thousand and something pages- one quote!

The Adolescent by Dostoevsky

"Silence is always beautiful, and a silent person is always more beautiful than the one who talks."

The magic of contrast!

"In my opinion, man is created with a physical inability to love his neighbor. There's some mistake in words here, from the very beginning, and 'love for mankind' should be understood as just for mankind which you yourself have created in your soul (in other words, you've created your own self and the love for yourself) and which therefore will never exist in reality."

Haha! So there is no hope for mankind! If love cannot safe us, what can? Our love for yourselves and others is a mere illusion and it doesn't exist- it is more of a concept that something that could be practiced. Interesting thought.

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This book was my first Russian classic! And what an introduction into the field! It changed my life, and my view on literature in general. It revealed to me that stories have so many layers that are unseen by us...but work out together in the end to produce a marvelous effect. Just like this novel. This one is not his best book, but glad I picked it up one day in the library, not knowing that I would be blown away- and not be the same ever again.