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Chapter One Balancing Immediacy with Overview SINCE LIFELIKENESS (like-life-ness) is first cousin to universality-not like your perception of life, or mine or theirs, but everyone 's-perhaps the place to begin probing for its sources is with Tolstoy's mixture of what Boris Eikhenbaum called "minuteness and generalization," his ways of universalizing the particular \vithout sacrificing particularity.I In the most direct use of Tolstoy'S techniques, he categorizes in his own voice. Instead of "The princess smiled, thinking she knew more about the subject than Prince Vasili," he will write: "The princess smiled, as people do who think they know more about the subject under discussion than those they are talking with" (1:2, p. 77; emphasis added).2 The first version expresses a private thought, but the one Tolstoy used implies (as R. F. Christian phrased it) that "there is a basic denominator of human experience"-a sameness about our patterns of behavior, so that anyone \vith such a thought is likely to smile in that peculiar way, and that we all know what kind of a smile it is-a small smile, and smug, almost a smirk.3 By writing "as people do," Tolstoy isn't telling us what this smile is like, he is assuming that we know what it is like: that we have seen it many times before-probably even smiled that way ourselves. Moreover, he is shifting our attention from the princess's thought ("I know more about this than he does") to the smile it produces-perhaps because Tolstoy senses that the smile, that outward manifestation of feelings, is what his readers can recognize as part of a universal body language. Thoughts of superiority are characteristic of the human animal, but pointing that out stirs no memories. However, pointing out that there is a characteristic smile that tips off the way such thoughts of superiority make us feel toward the other person-that is concrete, visual, and likely to lead to specific memories of ourselves or of people we know suddenly smiling in such a way. With "smiled, as people do," Tolstoy in effect borrows the smile from his character, in a way that he could never have borrowed her thought, and offers it to us as a key to our own memory file. And the same can be said of many other expressions whose meanings Tolstoy assumes we all recognize. In the samplings below, his categorizing phrases are italicized. 7 Tolstoy:~ Phoenix Facial Expression [Prince Andrew] put on the air ofone lcho finds it impossible to reply to such nonsense. (1:2, p. 2.5) Natasha, who sat opposite, was looking at Boris as girls ofthirteen look at the boy they are in love with and have just kissed for the first time. (1:9, p. 65)· .. [Princess Lise] sat working and looking up with that curious expression of inner, happy calm peculiar to pregnant women. (4:7, p. 347) As with evenjo/w, her face assumed a forced, unnatural expression as soon as she looked in a glass. (1:14, p. 9,5) Tone ofVoice Prince Andrew leaned his elbow on the table and ... began to talk---as one who has long had something on his mind and suddenly determines to speak out. (1:2, pp. 27-28) "Hey, who's there?" he called out in a tone only used by persons who are certain that those they call will rush to obey the summons. (1:8, p. .59) "I must tell vou, mon cher," he continued, in the sad voice and measured tones ofa man who intends to tell a long story. (11:14, p. 1012)· .. he began to cry, in the way full-blooded grown-up men cry. (10:18, p. 8,39) Attitude He experienced that pleasure which a man has when women listen to him. (1.5:.5, p. 1241)· .. with all the gravity ofa boy ofsixteen. (9:14, p. 721)· .. they began dressing [Princess Mary] \vith perfect sincerity, and with the naive conviction women hatje that dress can make a face pretty. (,3:2, p. 236) Situation As is usually the case with people meeting after a prolonged separation, it was long before their conversation could settle on anything. (.5:9, p. 414) After a casual pause, such as often occurs when receiving friends for the first time in one's OW,} house, "Uncle" ... said ... (7:7, p. .561) They all three of them now experienced that feeling of awkwardness which usually...

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