Chapter 108 – What Men Live By (3)

I don't mean to brag. Or maybe I do? Anyway, back in high school, I was a notorious library rat.

People sometimes called me a print addict, but think about it. In a time when even the concept of a wall-mounted air conditioner didn't exist, how many places in school offered that crisp, refreshing blast of cold air? Not many.

It's not like I had a lot of choices.

So, after a quick lunch with friends, I'd head up to the library to spend my lunch break reading and lounging around. That was the daily routine for a teenage Han Jin.

Most of what I know about classic literature was built up during that time. Arthur Conan Doyle, Herbert George Wells, Jules Verne, Somerset Maugham, and many others…

Naturally, Lev Tolstoy was part of that list. I'd been reading his short stories since elementary school, so he ranked pretty high.

It wasn't long before I learned his life story, too. Like any genius, his end was extraordinary.

"Abandoning his aristocratic title and wealth to become a peasant, fighting with his wife, and then dying alone a week after running away? What on earth?"

Honestly, as a high schooler, I couldn't understand it.

For such a towering literary figure to end like that seemed… well, a bit anticlimactic, almost like the fate of a washed-up domestic abuser or a morally bankrupt soul.

It even reminded me of that story about the general who died in an outhouse from a hangover—that was more believable.

But with time, as I learned more about the reality of Tsarist Russia, I began to understand it a little.

Living as an aristocrat while others suffered so much they were driven to revolution? It makes sense that he'd be haunted by his conscience.

So naturally, a man like that would resonate with the protagonist's struggles to rise in Vincent Villiers and would bristle at Dawnbringer, a work glorifying the noble obligations of the aristocracy. I get it, sure, but…

"Honestly, what does that have to do with me?"

Is it my fault?

What, am I not supposed to include a scene where the protagonist feasts lavishly because it would offend starving African refugees?

This story was written with a London audience in mind, not the struggling peasants of Russia.

But if I said that?

—Traitor! Are you defying the International? The Red Faith shall tear you apart!

—A thousand demons and rebirth eternal!

Yeah, that's why I'm never becoming a commie, why Russia isn't for me. Certainly, a die-hard Red Russian is even less of an option.

Dealing with someone like this, though, requires a special approach.

Simply put.

"I appreciate that you enjoyed Vincent Villiers."

"Enjoyed it? Not so much as it deserved. However, you could still improve your writing style."

"If you don't mind, could you share what parts you found most compelling?"

"Must you really hear it spelled out?"

"Well, everyone's impression is different."

This is where Tai Chi comes in: listening to everything the other side has to say.

Of course, poor Conrad would bear the brunt of it.

As expected, Joseph Conrad looked crestfallen, and inwardly, I offered him an apology.

I'm sorry. I'll make it up to you later with a proper recommendation.

After some thought, Tolstoy spoke slowly.

"'What part, you ask… well, it's the way the protagonist never forgets his humble beginnings.'"

"Tadpoles, huh?"

"'Yes, exactly. How many self-made men forget where they came from, becoming utterly vile in the process?'" 

Tolstoy ground his teeth as he spoke.

Of course, I knew how deeply the "Gatsby syndrome" of self-made robber barons plagued the capitalist world. But from Russia's perspective, it must have looked different.

Take Catherine the Great, for instance.

As a Korean, I only knew the basics, but she was originally the daughter of a minor German noble.

Russia may have been a backwater, but the Imperial Family apparently looked down on her as some bumpkin girl.

So when she led a coup, overthrew her husband Peter III, and crowned herself, declaring "serfs are human beings like us," many peasants put their hopes in her.

But what happened?

Though she succeeded in modernizing the country, Catherine's new Russian Empire gave unprecedented power to the nobles, restricting peasants' rights until they were little more than serfs, bound to their aristocratic masters.

"'And yet those ignorant Russian intellectuals glorify that tyrant, lauding her as a wise monarch who laid the groundwork for our victory over Napoleon! They're wrong! That witch only dragged the country back into feudalism. What good is a nation's glory if its foundation, the serfs, lives a life not worth living?!'"

"... So that's why you like Vincent Villiers."

"'Precisely. His reforms were geared toward the common people. He exposed corruption, stabilized prices, and curbed the aristocrats' power while regulating the bourgeois and supporting unions.'"

Well… I mean, I've seen the hellish neoliberalism crafted by those bourgeois.

I'm not glorifying socialism or anything. All I'm saying is that extremism on any side leaves only monsters.

—Private enterprises are a peril to the free market economy, favoring government intervention whenever it suits them.

—A company's sole responsibility is to maximize profit. But it must play by the rules, engaging in fair competition without deceit or trickery.

Even Milton Friedman, the "mother" of neoliberalism, said that much. He was self-made, but he still had some conscience.

Anyway.

"'But what about DawnBringer? Duty to the nobility? Personal vendettas? If he has the power to defeat monsters, shouldn't he first purge the tyrants and cronies oppressing the people?'"

"Sir, if I wrote about that, I'd be thrown in jail..."

"'Writers are meant to take such risks! Do you think Alexander Pushkin was persecuted for nothing? And look at Dostoevsky! How did that traitor, who convinced himself the world was mad, end up?'"

[T/N: Dostoevsky (1821-1881), Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837)]

Hmm… Quite a choice of words. I'd heard Dostoevsky had strong nationalist leanings.

Now I see why Tolstoy despised him.

"'Understand this: a writer who betrays his conscience isn't a writer at all! And that conscience must ache for those who can't live happily in the love of Christ!'"

"So, you're saying writers should write for the peasants, as they're suffering and oppressed."

"'Exactly!'"

I nodded with a bitter smile.

That's a valid reason to write; it's what drives "literature of commitment" to stay relevant.

And I know Tolstoy is sincere about this.

However—

"Realistically, how could a peasant stop being oppressed?"

"'… What are you saying?'"

"Vincent Villiers isn't a lawyer from East End just because lawyer Vincent died, you know."

I spoke calmly.

If I'd wanted to focus on Vincent's social reforms, I would've had him survive and be resurrected, like The Count of Monte Cristo.

Supposedly drowned? I could just have a passing ship rescue him.

It's the same logic behind reincarnation in the classic "youngest son of a chaebol" stories.

The reason such stories prevail isn't just because that trope dominates web novels.

The reason is—

"An underdog's upset only happens by breaking the system."

"'Breaking the system, you say…'"

"And when you break the system, there are inevitably casualties."

I know the history of the Russian Revolution.

Democracy may be built on blood, but Russia, clinging to feudalism even into the 20th century, shed rivers of it in revolution.

And the one who rose from that blood, Lenin, became a dictator by necessity.

Tolstoy was the very figure who perfected the absolutist state he had just passionately criticized.

And if you don't like that? You get Catherine the Great.

Even though I only had a superficial knowledge of her, I thought I understood why, according to Tolstoy, Catherine had reverted Russia to a quasi-feudal state. After all, her revolution—deposing her husband and ascending to the throne herself—was hardly something people would readily embrace. To secure support, she would have had to appease those in power, and this ultimately set Russia back to a feudal society.

In other words, when an underdog disrupts the establishment, two outcomes emerge: either the underdog becomes the establishment, or the establishment is completely overhauled. But the lingering scent of spilled blood tends to entrench yet another version of the same power. What was the result of the Russian Civil War, after all? Stalin himself.

Thus, web novels that prioritize a happy ending for the protagonist lean toward reform from within the establishment as a more realistic and popular approach, rather than the messy, blood-stained finale of a total overthrow.

And from my modern perspective, what's important is... well, dialogue and compromise, a synthesis of opposites, so to speak. In this respect, it's hard not to appreciate the measured path England took.

The Magna Carta. 

The Bill of Rights. 

The Petition of Right. 

The Chartist Movement, the gradual extension of suffrage, and finally, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Ah, though the last one was primarily led by the U.S., right? Still, it's all part of a process that, in the end, paved the way for even Korea's Candlelight Revolution.

"I'm not trying to idealize England," I said. "But England's modernization involved... a continuous dialogue and compromise, where kings listened to nobles, nobles heeded the bourgeoisie, and the bourgeoisie respected the demands of the proletariat."

"And so," Tolstoy looked at me with blazing eyes. "Are you saying that to move the world without sacrifice, the privileged must be open to the persuasion of the unprivileged?"

"And that there should be enlightened elites ready to accept the voice of the people, even sacrificing some of their privileges."

That's noblesse oblige, I thought. But I didn't bother to say it aloud—Tolstoy was brilliant enough to intuit my thoughts without me spelling them out.

"If they're only ever overthrown, the suffering will spread through the whole of society, hurting the weakest most of all. It's better to guide those in power to a softer landing, leaving some of them intact but minimizing the damage," he murmured, his head lowered.

Conrad didn't translate this part; Tolstoy was merely muttering to himself, but he must have caught the gist.

"But what if those remnants of power become greedy again?" he continued. "What if they resort to manipulation to reclaim their authority, killing off those among them who dare to converse with others? Then what?"

I chuckled at the realization that Tolstoy had understood the need for elites who could listen. "I'm not sure if you're familiar with Eastern philosophy," I began, "but in the East, we have a philosopher named Mencius who holds a role similar to Saint Paul. He once said something like this."

"Oh?" Tolstoy leaned forward with interest.

"Every person possesses four innate virtues: compassion, a sense of justice, humility, and conscience."

"And if they lack those?"

"Well, then they're not truly human."

Like the monsters that Dawnbringer must vanquish—beings who lack any human heart.

Tolstoy stared at me blankly for a moment, then burst out laughing. "Ha, ha... ha-ha-ha!"

As his laughter faded, he said something that Mr. Conrad interpreted for me.

"He's asking if you like alcohol."

"Uh."

What's this? It felt like we'd reached a perfect conclusion, yet I could almost hear my liver shouting, "No, please!"