In an interview on Pre-Revolutionary Russia

Next?

Next we move to War and Peace. Which comes out of Potemkin and Catherine. I don’t know how objective it is. It’s a wonderful book on the first quarter – it ends I think just before the Decembrists’ Revolt of 1825, so just after the Vienna Congress – the first 20 or 30 years of Russia in the 19th century. One doesn’t have to invent the bicycle, there is one: it’s War and Peace. It’s about how Russia won the Napoleonic wars, and moved into the first row of nations who dealt with European history. It’s set during the peak of Russian culture, the age of Pushkin, who created the modern Russian language, and that’s the beginning of the best. It’s the peak. The high modern, the Golden Age of Russian history, literature, spirit, thought, freedom, and so on. Maybe historically not very exact, but brilliant, genius, great. Tolstoy invented probably 90 per cent of that Russia of the Napoleonic wars and afterwards. But it gives the flavour, it doesn’t matter whether it’s historically truthful or not – the flavour, the ambience is there. The only thing I would recommend to modern readers is to skip all those parts – which are completely separate from the other parts of the book – where Tolstoy is philosophising about the role of the individual in history. It’s maybe 15 per cent of the book, in separate chapters, and I would definitely recommend to skip those because they are not interesting today.

In an interview on the Regency period

And I am sure some of these books will give us some insights into the other aspect of that era. Your first book is the epic War and Peace.

The reason I chose War and Peace is because it is the greatest novel of all time and I still think it is even after reading it five times. It’s an historical novel, as are my other choices Vanity Fair and obviously the Georgette Heyer. Tolstoy is writing 50 years after the event. What he is writing about is the deliverance of the Russian nation from Napoleon.

As a novelist, when you begin to write in this era it is like the elephant in the room, especially if you love it as much as I do. Tolstoy isn’t just the great chronicler of what it felt like to be under fire, he also has the ability to make us feel the emotion of his characters with a single word or gesture.

How did War and Peace help with your research and writing?

Not at all. It’s impossible for a modern novelist to write at that length, especially about philosophical issues. I just don’t think readers would get through it. But I also decided that while I was writing I would not look at it. I was worried that I might start to take on Tolstoy’s style! I had the new translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky and thought I would save that up for a treat at the end.

Did you think it was a good translation – because people get very hung up on which translation is the best, don’t they?

The Pevear and Volokonsky is interesting because it is more modern and flows better, but I suppose what you lose with a new translation is the period feel. With the old translation the translation already reads like an historical novel. It has this archaic feel which I always felt was fitting because it is an historical novel itself ­– but maybe in time the new translation will have that kind of feel.

In an interview on Intellectual Influences

How has your relationship with Tolstoy changed over the years?

I suppose that, as a middle-aged man, I react differently to Tolstoy than I did when I first read War and Peace at about 15. At first reading, I was entirely captivated by the concluding essay at the end of the book, where Tolstoy writes about historical determinism. I bought that then, and it was only really in my twenties that I rebelled against it.

Christianity was very important to Tolstoy’s life and work. Do you share any of his religious outlook?

I’m an atheist, but I don’t reject Christianity. I have a totally different view from someone like my friend Richard Dawkins, or the late lamented Christopher Hitchens. I rather like Christianity, and am attracted by many aspects of Christ’s teachings. What I like about Tolstoy is the kind of Christian fundamentalism – not the sort that one encounters in the Bible Belt, but the kind that takes Christianity very seriously. The other thing about Tolstoy is that he left this [faith] until late in life. I do think that it’s a good strategy to be more worldly in your youth and more pious in old age. I’m working on that myself.