I haven't read War and Peace in a fairly long time, maybe early Eighties, so my memory is hazy. That was the second time around. The first was when I was nineteen. It might be time to read it again, since I am about Tolstoy's age now when he wrote it. Anyway, I agree that Tolstoy did have the ordinary as an ideal. But those characters were so fully written that it is like I knew them as friends once, and I am now remembering them. Yws, he definitely exceeded his ideals and himself.
God there were so many fabulous scenes. Rabbit hunting on Rostov's estate, in the freezing drizzle with the horses breath coming out in clouds, eating dinner in the game keepers, riding a troika in the snow at midnight.
Anyway, if you've never read the Possessed before, man you're in for a treat. It is completely over the top, off the hook, insane. The firballs, nutcases, delusional weirdos, sad and ineffectual liberals, the clueless, in short the completely un-ordinary are skipping around every corner, a circus lurking the closets, mumbling to each other in the other room. I can't think of one character in those thousand pages that didn't belong on medication or in hotel hah-hah.
But no, I haven't read Updike. Gertrude was very problematical. I've been over Hamlet about three times which is not near enough, but each time I remember thinking why on earth don't you get off your ass and save your son?
Gertrude the tipsy Soccer Mom. Gee honey, be careful, he's awfully strong and nasty. Thanks mom.
Joanna, do you want to explain Gertrude?
Gotta go to work.
Chuck Grimes