MOSCOW, RUSSIA– The federal government of Russia has officially called an annual parade through the streets of Moscow to celebrate the wondrous word length of Leo Tolstoy’s books. Tolstoy, arguably the writer whose publications contain the most words and pages ever, will be honoured throughout the streets of Moscow later this year on November 22nd, the date of the incredibly long author’s death in 1910. Known for his ability to vividly paint, in great detail, the conflicted selfishness, hypocrisy, jealousy, fears and frailties of the average human psyche, as well as for his insight into how to construct a long book, Tolstoy will forever be remembered for such seminally long books as War and Peace and Anna Karenina. And while these books were not only long, they were also lengthy, Tolstoy’s word-heavy books delved deeply, poignantly and often chillingly into confronting questions of personal identity, regret, suicide, purpose, loneliness, existential dread, love, fidelity, faith and word length –all of which were tackled with a lot of verbs, nouns and adjectives stretching across many, many pages. And it was his uniquely profound and long approach to often shameful private–yet universal–human emotions throughout his many-paged books, and particularly the amount of all those pages, that, to this day, make them still resonate deeply with people who like long books all across the world.
May the genius length of his lengthy writing live on forever.