Fairy Tales: T is for Tolstoy and Tendentious

In "T," I came across a collection of tales by Travers and a collection of created stories and fables by Leo Tolstoy. 

I didn't enjoy Tolstoy's works. 

Fairy tales have always been used--from Aesop to the French philosophers of the seventeenth century--as vehicles for lessons and morals. Even Disney--sometimes tendentiously, sometimes not--tends to attach life lessons to its movies. Consequently, the belief that fairy tales are primarily meant to improve people's lives is a common misconception.

Hopefully, this list has shown that fairy tales have been used for as many different reasons as any other creative production: to entertain, to distill social conditions, to preach lessons, to inflict horror, to work out flights of fancy, to create another world, to explore the "other," to question, to ponder, to experiment...

A tale with a lesson is definitely one possibility, and I don't automatically dislike it. After all, I adore C.S. Lewis and George MacDonald, and I don't particularly mind mice or other characters singing out their life lessons. In a sense, Into the Woods is an exploration of morals and meaning. 

So why does Leo Tolstoy bother me so much?

To start, I should stress that Twenty-Two Russian Tales for Young Children By Leo Tolstoy is an interesting compilation. Some of the tales have morals. Others are more "slice of life" and still others appear to be reminiscences from childhood. 

But the moral tales aren't simply tales with morals. They are moralistic. 

Like C.S. Lewis and George MacDonald, Tolstoy has a gift for detail. The people and animals belong to specific times and places. 

Unlike C.S. Lewis and George MacDonald, the tales seem devoid of complication. They belong to what I occasionally refer to as "Box A or Box B" religious thought. Instead of people making the best decisions they can while faced with conflicting moral goods, random outcomes, and occasional non-answers (take a path--see what happens), all life's choices are distilled into GOOD PEOPLE/CHOICE BOX A and BAD PEOPLE/CHOICE BOX B. The result is not a sense of people trying to do the best they can at any given moment but, rather, people being applauded for BEING GOOD TODAY! 

"And Sergei never again wanted to trap birds." 

"[F]rom that day, they again let the old man eat with them at the table and took better care of him." 

With C.S. Lewis and George MacDonald, I always feel (and felt as a child) that their characters are real people saying, "Right now, I'm going to take this risk, make this choice, and hope it is for the best. Later, I could change my mind. No matter what, I will keep on being the same person. I will live with the consequences of my actions. Nobody will shower me with adoration for my supposed goodness." 

Edmund, for instance, makes a series of poor choices whose consequences don't suddenly get washed away when he is rescued. He changes and begins to return to his true self. And he goes on making choices, many of which aren't clearly BOX A or BOX B. Edmund has to use experience, his wits, and his best guesses to navigate. 

Moreover, his personality doesn't radically alter. Throughout the series, he remains somewhat wry and diffident about his past. It gives him wisdom and good judgment. It doesn't alter his innate ability to observe. Nor does it excise his responsibilities: to exercise wisdom, he has to call on his past--not simply "be" that guy now. 

As for George MacDonald, his characters seem, like the characters from Babette's Feast, to be overwhelmed by grace. They are ordinary, flawed, odd people (like everyone!) who come in contact with the sublime. Grace doesn't lead them to the perfect choice. Grace enables them to make choices over and over again. And to not be ashamed of their human need to make choices over and over again.

In comparison, Tolstoy's characters--at least his characters for children--get applauded for behaving in seriously restrictive yet approved ways. 

One can understand why children's literature in the mid-twentieth century suddenly began to swerve into Lemony Snicket-type territory: children got tired of being squeezed into proper "here's how the good people act" and "here's what the good people say" roles. 

Kids know: Life is more complicated than that.