Bruce Springsteen: 'Tolstoy and Dostoevsky.' George Steiner: 'because life is not a thin book, it is terribly long and tangled and dense. And Tolstoy didn’t even want to stop War and Peace'
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Georges BORTOLI: "George Steiner, you write in your book—and it is even the headline that appears on the book's cover—you write: 'Ask a man whether he prefers Tolstoy or Dostoevsky, and you will know the secret of his heart.' Why make Tolstoy and Dostoevsky these ultimate cases, so to speak, these test cases?"
George STEINER: "There are works of art that force us, in a way, to choose, because they grab you by the throat, so to speak, and they say: 'Here is a vision of the world, of God, of your role in the world—choose between us. We have opposing, antagonistic visions.' And for me, they are the two giants of the novel, which is, after all, the quintessential modern form, the form that succeeded the epic poem, the tragic drama. We are in the century, if you will, or in the second century of the novel, and these are the two great masters of this form. And although we may appreciate both of them, I believe that each man, deep down, chooses one over the other."
Georges BORTOLI: "In other words, perhaps to simplify things, is it a choice between rationalism on one side and irrationality on the other?"
George STEINER: "Dostoevsky, in sum, to simplify, tells the whole world: 'If you want the kingdom of justice on earth, the kingdom of reason, you will end up with ruin, with inhumanity, with the concentration camp world,' which he foresaw in The Possessed and in The Brothers Karamazov. And Tolstoy says: 'No, it's here that we must build the kingdom of man and God, and if you escape by thinking of heaven, of the transcendent, then you will end up with injustice.' These two solutions are antagonistic and very much opposed; they do not accept each other equally. And I believe, by instinct, by reason, by sensitivity, we choose."
Georges BORTOLI: "Why, more specifically, did you choose two Russians?"
George STEINER: "Because I believe that in the novel, they are the giants, the giants who define the very limits of the form. There have been three great moments in our literature: the Greek moment, with the Greek tragedians; the Shakespearean moment; and then the Russian moment. Curiously brief moments, aren’t they? From the beginning of Gogol to the end of Tolstoy, just 60 years—60 dazzling years, with masterpieces almost every year, as with Shakespeare, and 10 or 12 great contemporaries. These moments are usually moments of crisis, approaching revolution or the fall of a civilization, where literature seems to carry this weight of anxiety, of revolution. The great questions that philosophy poses abstractly come alive in the literary mode. And Tolstoy and Dostoevsky have shown that the novel can stand up to Sophocles, Aeschylus, Shakespeare."
Georges BORTOLI: "Yes, but still, we tend to believe that the novel, the great novel, was born and also lived elsewhere than in Russia, in France for example."
George STEINER: "The French novel made the decision to be entirely a great secular novel. That is to say, when Balzac creates his brilliant world, it is the world of the bourgeoisie, the peasant—this godless world. He brushes against the problem of God, but in very bad books, in Séraphîta, in Christ in Flanders. In Proust, there is the refusal—a refusal of genius, if you like—but a refusal to open the doors to heaven or hell. Imagine Dmitri Karamazov in socks with God on the ceiling, screaming with his soul—this does not fit in Proust. Neither the dirty socks, because there is dirt in Proust, but never bad taste, nor God. And to simplify it naively, dirty socks and the presence of God go together. They go together in Shakespeare, they go together in the great epic poems, and also in the Russian novel. It is remarkable that the French novel produced Madame Bovary, and Tolstoy responded with Anna Karenina. The French novel produced The Red and the Black or The Charterhouse of Parma, with their politics and Napoleon, and Tolstoy responded with War and Peace, and Dostoevsky with The Possessed."
Georges BORTOLI: "And what do you think of the current French novel?"
George STEINER: "Well, it is almost the culmination of this triumph of style, of the autonomy of rhythm and language over human content. I see that soon the French novel will present us with works where cats and chairs and tables will talk to each other. And the last great Gongorist French novel of this wave of the new novel will be a novel with blank pages. It must come, it began with Mallarmé, who is the master of the current French novel, and in the end, it will be silence—perhaps a very beautiful silence, if you will, on fine paper."
Georges BORTOLI: "That’s the point of view of an American you are giving us here, since you are American."
George STEINER: "Yes, but I hope it’s the point of view of an American educated in France, who owes to France whatever literary culture he possesses. No, I hope, it’s the point of view of a man who reads and believes that there is a kind of very high frivolity, very beautiful, formally very interesting, but inhuman frivolity, in emptying the novel of the human voice, of the presence of the human body, which after all are the basis of language. We are not making music, we are not creating Paul Klee, abstract art; we are working with words, and words exist in the human voice. This is what Tolstoy and Dostoevsky never forget, even when they take the risk of bad taste, of being too long, of being ridiculous, of being grotesque. But they take those big risks, and that’s what is missing from these slim, perfect books we are now offered. After all, between a very large book and a thin book, the difference is almost metaphysical, not just technical. A very thin book is always The Princess of Cleves. It refuses life—with intelligence, art, all you want—but there is a certain refusal there because life is not a thin book, it is terribly long and tangled and dense. And Tolstoy didn’t even want to stop War and Peace. Two epilogues, eight new chapters—it was like time itself marching forward. And Dostoevsky, who writes these gigantic books precisely because he always wants to restart reality. Let’s remember that The Brothers Karamazov is the first volume of a cycle he couldn’t write. He died."
Georges BORTOLI: "Well, thank you, George Steiner, and I would like to remind everyone that your book, Tolstoy or Dostoevsky, after having been published in the United States, in England, and in a few other countries, is now being published in France by Éditions du Seuil, in a translation by Rose Celli."
RTF 05/10/1963. Translated from the French
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'Bruce Springsteen, who is your favorite novelist of all time?'
Bruce Springsteen: "I like Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. Personal favorites: “The Brothers Karamazov” and, of course, “Anna Karenina.” (The New York Times)
'Bruce Springsteen, who is your favorite novelist of all time?' films7 on x/twitter ... films7 on x/twitter Anna Karenina (Tolstoy), las
