The cause of it all

Alcohol abuse is one of societies great levellers.It does not matter whether you are a prince or a peasant, when the demon drink controls you, you are the same.That is the message at the heart of Leo Tolstoy's 'The Cause of it All' - a warning against over-imbibing.It features Mihayla, the apparently respectable head of a rural Russian family.Then there is the vagrant who has been given shelter in their home for a night.Both get drunk, with Mihayla trying to bite his wife before the vagrant stops him.In the morning, the vagrant has gone - along with some of their belongings.Mihayla pursues him. But will this violent alcoholic choose revenge - or realise that they are both controlled by the same demon?It is a theme that has never - and probably will never - be outdated.The scourge of alcohol abuse features in Anne Bronte's 'The Tenant of Wildfell Hall', Patricia Highsmith's 'Strangers on a Train' and 'Angela's Ashes' by Frank McCourt.Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) was a Russian author, a master of realistic fiction and one of the world's greatest novelists. Tolstoy's major works include 'War and Peace' (1865-69) and 'Anna Karenina' (1875-77), two of the greatest novels of all time and pinnacles of realist fiction. Beyond novels, he wrote many short stories and later in life also essays and plays.In the years following the publication of 'War and Peace' Tolstoy - who was born to a Russian aristocratic family - had a spiritual awakening that made him a committed Christian anarchist and pacifist. His philosophy inspired Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.