Comment by besnn00

I also read it a few days ago and for me it was very underwhelming. A disappointment for me was that Tolstoi was always looking for some perfection or regularity that would explain everything. It is arrogant of us to think that there should be something when as far as we can see there is only all that has ever been and nothing more. But I think there was a hidden theme there, which is something that many people who have read Nietzsche but also positive nihilists agree with: we give meaning to life. This was what Tolstoi found in tradition. A meaning that had been passed to new generations, evolving bit by bit but retaining it's essence. Only he couldn't stand that God was so ingrained in it.