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Collected Shorter Fiction #2
Collected Shorter Fiction
Written over a period of more than half a century, these stories reflect every aspect of Tolstoy's art and personality. They cover his experiences as a soldier in the Caucasus, his married life, his passionate interest in the peasantry, his cult of truth adn simplicity, and, above all, his growing preoccupation with religion. Ranging in scope from novellas like The Kreutzer Sonata and Hadji Murad to folk-tales only a few pages long, they provide a marvelous opportunity to become closely acquainted with Russia's great novelist. Aylmer and Louise Maude's classic translations are supplemented by new translations by Nigel J. Cooper of six stories, including two that have never before appeared in English.
1008 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2001
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About the author
Leo Tolstoy
7,982 books28.6k followersLev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (Russian: Лев Николаевич Толстой; most appropriately used Liev Tolstoy; commonly Leo Tolstoy in Anglophone countries) was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays. His two most famous works, the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and a pinnacle of realist fiction. Many consider Tolstoy to have been one of the world's greatest novelists. Tolstoy is equally known for his complicated and paradoxical persona and for his extreme moralistic and ascetic views, which he adopted after a moral crisis and spiritual awakening in the 1870s, after which he also became noted as a moral thinker and social reformer.
His literal interpretation of the ethical teachings of Jesus, centering on the Sermon on the Mount, caused him in later life to become a fervent Christian anarchist and anarcho-pacifist. His ideas on nonviolent resistance, expressed in such works as The Kingdom of God Is Within You, were to have a profound impact on such pivotal twentieth-century figures as Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.
His literal interpretation of the ethical teachings of Jesus, centering on the Sermon on the Mount, caused him in later life to become a fervent Christian anarchist and anarcho-pacifist. His ideas on nonviolent resistance, expressed in such works as The Kingdom of God Is Within You, were to have a profound impact on such pivotal twentieth-century figures as Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
August 8, 2018
It's almost futile to discuss Tolstoy. All the superlatives are true. At his best his art is perfect: his portrayal of us is so lucid and honest, so literally im-mediate, that his work seems uncreated, or else miraculous. This volume has his best short works, each on par with the great novels (Ivan Ilych, Kreutzer, Devil, Sergius, Master and Man, Hadji Murad, Forged Coupon) in what in my opinion are (still) the best translations, by the Maudes, who knew the author personally.
June 18, 2023
The novellas are brilliant. Some of the shorts are moralistic fables on faith, labor, poverty, etc.
February 4, 2023
Tolstoy is such an amazing writer, this volume went by very quickly. This includes all of Tolstoy’s published stories written after his conversion, it seems. At first I found the overtly Christian themes annoying, but I came to appreciate and enjoy basically all of the stories. Even if some of them aren’t as good as War and Peace, Tolstoy is still Tolstoy and it’s all worth reading. It seems like Death of Ivan Ilych and Hadji Murad are universally acclaimed and beloved. These are great, and Ivan Ilych seems to be his best story, but my favorite is Master and Man, and I was also surprised to find how much I loved The Forged Coupon, which was left unpublished.
A long collection, but very much worth reading. I even appreciated the more didactic stories this time around, like The Kreutzer Sonata. This edition was very nice, hardcover and easy to read, and the Maudes seem to provide the best translations of Tolstoy. A great read.
A long collection, but very much worth reading. I even appreciated the more didactic stories this time around, like The Kreutzer Sonata. This edition was very nice, hardcover and easy to read, and the Maudes seem to provide the best translations of Tolstoy. A great read.
December 12, 2019
This collection of short stories and novellas are almost entirely from Tolstoy’s later writings, coming well after his famous religious conversion which followed on the heels of Anna Karenina. Most of the shorter stories propagate his newfound faith, a sort of Christian twist on Aesop’s Fables, except that the stories’ morals are clearly expressed within the text of the story rather than being added at the end of the children’s versions I remember reading as a kid. It also includes two of Tolstoy’s most widely praised novellas, The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Hadji Murad, both of which I found supremely depressing. Ironically, I found the third well-known novella, The Kreutzer Sonata, to be, while disturbingly dark, deeply fascinating. That may say more about me than the story, but there it is.
These works are by no means representative of – or as purportedly great as – Tolstoy’s classic works, the above-mentioned Anna Karenina and War and Peace, but they do illustrate Tolstoy’s amazing, possibly unmatched skill at characterization. Writers are taught to show, not tell, and as Tolstoy nurses his often dark, sometimes mundane plot lines along, it becomes easier to relate to and empathize with his characters than those of any other writer I can think of. This particular quality of Tolstoy’s art is all the more evident in his shorter works as opposed to his massive masterworks, where most readers need a wall chart to keep track of all the characters.
The vast majority of these tales are sad and dispiriting, reflective of Tolstoy’s disillusion with Tsarist Russia, along with its corrupt bourgeoisie, structural inequality, and top-down moral hypocrisy and decay. Written between the mid 1880s and 1906, four years prior to Tolstoy’s death and a decade prior to the beginning of the Russian revolution, these stories offer a fascinating and illuminative perspective on pre-Soviet Russia, one that helps the reader understand Soviet history and Russia today.
For people my age, who as kids were told that cowering under our school desks would somehow protect us from the nearby detonation of a Russian atom bomb, who’s first consciousness of geopolitics was Sputnik, or the Bay of Pigs, or the Cuban Missile Crisis, who lived through the Cold War and, finally, watched the fall of the Berlin Wall, Russia is the great bugaboo of our childhood. People who remember none of those things seem to consider Putin’s Russia a great menace yet today; those people could stand to gain a little perspective by reading their Tolstoy.
These works are by no means representative of – or as purportedly great as – Tolstoy’s classic works, the above-mentioned Anna Karenina and War and Peace, but they do illustrate Tolstoy’s amazing, possibly unmatched skill at characterization. Writers are taught to show, not tell, and as Tolstoy nurses his often dark, sometimes mundane plot lines along, it becomes easier to relate to and empathize with his characters than those of any other writer I can think of. This particular quality of Tolstoy’s art is all the more evident in his shorter works as opposed to his massive masterworks, where most readers need a wall chart to keep track of all the characters.
The vast majority of these tales are sad and dispiriting, reflective of Tolstoy’s disillusion with Tsarist Russia, along with its corrupt bourgeoisie, structural inequality, and top-down moral hypocrisy and decay. Written between the mid 1880s and 1906, four years prior to Tolstoy’s death and a decade prior to the beginning of the Russian revolution, these stories offer a fascinating and illuminative perspective on pre-Soviet Russia, one that helps the reader understand Soviet history and Russia today.
For people my age, who as kids were told that cowering under our school desks would somehow protect us from the nearby detonation of a Russian atom bomb, who’s first consciousness of geopolitics was Sputnik, or the Bay of Pigs, or the Cuban Missile Crisis, who lived through the Cold War and, finally, watched the fall of the Berlin Wall, Russia is the great bugaboo of our childhood. People who remember none of those things seem to consider Putin’s Russia a great menace yet today; those people could stand to gain a little perspective by reading their Tolstoy.
July 31, 2016
Tolstoy being my favorite Russian author and the author of one of my favorite books (Anna Karenina) could of course receive nothing but the highest rating. His short stories are often a little too religious for my liking and a little too simplistic and moralistic, but his language, his delving into the human mind, and his intoxicating attention to details always overshadows any qualms I have with the content.
Hadji Murad is in this, considered by many to be his finest short story (novelette?), but I was not enchanted, and despite reading Bloom's essay on its virtues, I am still not a fan.
I particularly enjoyed "Three Questions." The three questions being: 1) What is the right time for every action? 2) Who are the most necessary people? 3) How would one know what was the most important thing to do? The answers being: 1) "Now! It is the most important time becuase it is the only time when we have any power. [2] The most necessary man is he with whom you are, for no man knows whether he will ever have dealings with anyone else: [3] and the most important affair is, to do him good, because for that purpose alone was mean sent into this life!" Ridiculously short, simple, and sappy, and I loved it.
"A History of Yesterday" - This one sticks with me because it is so overly detailed and analyzed.
"The Forged Coupon" - I loved the concept far more than the execution. One small minor act carrying vast and serious consequences for many people. It just got a bit too preachy at the end.
Hadji Murad is in this, considered by many to be his finest short story (novelette?), but I was not enchanted, and despite reading Bloom's essay on its virtues, I am still not a fan.
I particularly enjoyed "Three Questions." The three questions being: 1) What is the right time for every action? 2) Who are the most necessary people? 3) How would one know what was the most important thing to do? The answers being: 1) "Now! It is the most important time becuase it is the only time when we have any power. [2] The most necessary man is he with whom you are, for no man knows whether he will ever have dealings with anyone else: [3] and the most important affair is, to do him good, because for that purpose alone was mean sent into this life!" Ridiculously short, simple, and sappy, and I loved it.
"A History of Yesterday" - This one sticks with me because it is so overly detailed and analyzed.
"The Forged Coupon" - I loved the concept far more than the execution. One small minor act carrying vast and serious consequences for many people. It just got a bit too preachy at the end.
July 13, 2009
A much more refined Tolstoy, wise in his old age, and essential in his views. The Death of Ivan Ilych is a must, as well as the Forged Coupon, how much land does a man need, and others that are too dear for me to advertise.
July 12, 2017
DEATH OF IVAN ILYCH: an interesting short story by Tolstoy about death, life, and how one has lived. An introspective into why bad things happen to "good" people, and when exactly does death stop being just a word and become something tangible.
September 2, 2017
As I read them ...
Kreutzer Sonata * – Ugh. I assume this isn’t a joke. As I was reading it, I briefly wondered if it was supposed to be ironic. But I guess not. That said, I’ve read few stories that have so strongly displayed an author’s naive understanding of the human mind, or his/her lack of self-awareness at even the most basic level. A strange, strange, strange tale. It’s more of a spittle-spewing rant put in the form of a story. Tolstoy the author (whatever happened to him) would never have written an implausible story like this. But Tolstoy the polemicist would. Wow. Can I give this a negative rating?
(1/15)
The Death of Ivan Ilyich *** – “Ivan Ilych's life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible."
For a novella that ends with a panegyric on the light of forgiveness and acceptance, this is a rather unforgiving book. But then, I suppose it is supposed to present Ivan’s narrow, bourgeois point of view.
I don’t know if I believe in death bed conversions/confessions, but Tolstoy does make the reader squirm as we face our own mortality along with Ivan. Unlike Tolstoy, I would argue our genes and a hundred thousand years of evolution within society have created a person like Ivan (and us). I’m not a believer in the magical times of youth and the simplistic charms of peasants. Growing up and taking on responsibilities makes us who we are, for good or ill. God/nature did most of the damage.
But this is a well-done story and worth reading. I’d start with Hadji Murad first, however. (8/17)
Hadji Murad ***** – This is one of the best works of prose that I’ve ever read. It’s simple but beautiful construction is amazing. It covers a wide range or perspectives, yet has a wholeness.
I couldn’t shake the vague feeling I was reading a fairy tale. The novel is beautiful in its deceptive simplicity. The sentences are declarative and logically unfold, like a well-told tale. He’s not trying to trick anyone or create complexities. Tolstoy lays out everything he wants you to see.
While there isn’t any obvious preaching of morals, Tolstoy makes it clear how we’re to feel about characters and action. Like the evil stepmother, there is no ambiguity about Tsar Nicholas. Was ever a worse portrait of someone painted than Tolstoy’s portrait of Tsar Nicholas: sexual assault, petty morality, hypocrisy, ignorance, flattery seeking, gross vanity, etc. It is a chilly portrait of the mundaneness of evil. (7/17)
Kreutzer Sonata * – Ugh. I assume this isn’t a joke. As I was reading it, I briefly wondered if it was supposed to be ironic. But I guess not. That said, I’ve read few stories that have so strongly displayed an author’s naive understanding of the human mind, or his/her lack of self-awareness at even the most basic level. A strange, strange, strange tale. It’s more of a spittle-spewing rant put in the form of a story. Tolstoy the author (whatever happened to him) would never have written an implausible story like this. But Tolstoy the polemicist would. Wow. Can I give this a negative rating?
(1/15)
The Death of Ivan Ilyich *** – “Ivan Ilych's life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible."
For a novella that ends with a panegyric on the light of forgiveness and acceptance, this is a rather unforgiving book. But then, I suppose it is supposed to present Ivan’s narrow, bourgeois point of view.
I don’t know if I believe in death bed conversions/confessions, but Tolstoy does make the reader squirm as we face our own mortality along with Ivan. Unlike Tolstoy, I would argue our genes and a hundred thousand years of evolution within society have created a person like Ivan (and us). I’m not a believer in the magical times of youth and the simplistic charms of peasants. Growing up and taking on responsibilities makes us who we are, for good or ill. God/nature did most of the damage.
But this is a well-done story and worth reading. I’d start with Hadji Murad first, however. (8/17)
Hadji Murad ***** – This is one of the best works of prose that I’ve ever read. It’s simple but beautiful construction is amazing. It covers a wide range or perspectives, yet has a wholeness.
I couldn’t shake the vague feeling I was reading a fairy tale. The novel is beautiful in its deceptive simplicity. The sentences are declarative and logically unfold, like a well-told tale. He’s not trying to trick anyone or create complexities. Tolstoy lays out everything he wants you to see.
While there isn’t any obvious preaching of morals, Tolstoy makes it clear how we’re to feel about characters and action. Like the evil stepmother, there is no ambiguity about Tsar Nicholas. Was ever a worse portrait of someone painted than Tolstoy’s portrait of Tsar Nicholas: sexual assault, petty morality, hypocrisy, ignorance, flattery seeking, gross vanity, etc. It is a chilly portrait of the mundaneness of evil. (7/17)
March 25, 2008
This collection is a great one. Excellent mix of the mainstream and less popular short stories. The book looks great though the binding isn't terrific. The book label is painted on and wears off over time - but its a terrific buy and looks great on the shelf (after being read naturally).
October 17, 2014
A very eclectic collection of COMMON PEASANT stories, a must read for everyone at any time of their life. The death of .... is a very poignant story with a imaginative ending. How much does ... brings to the fore MAN'S INORDINATE & ENDLESS WANTS & WHAT FINALLY IS TAKEN OR LEFT BEHIND!
January 16, 2008
Oh dear. This is Tolstoy writing Christian tracts and hyper-simplistic fables. There is some good stuff here, but I'm sure it can be found in better company.
January 8, 2015
Not as good as War and Peace or Anna Karenina, but still good
January 23, 2016
still reading it but i like it a lot. i particularly liked the stories ''the three hermits'', ''how much land does a man need'', ''where love is God is''
March 20, 2008
blm baca hehe..baru beli..
September 14, 2018
A very uneven collection of stories: far too preachy and religious in the Tolstoyan vein of ‘love one another’ and ‘let your conscience be your guide’, but with four stand out exceptions – Hadji Murat, A Christmas Night, The Forged Coupon and The Death of Ivan Ilyich – the collection more than redeems itself. The heavy-handedness of his moralizing in the remainder of the stories made me feel that well before the time of the Soviets, he invented ‘socialist realism’, albeit with a ’moral realism’ slant.
A Spark Neglected Burns the House (15pp.)
Prefaced by a quote from Matthew on forgiveness of debts, the story involves an escalating feud between neighbors. It could very well be a sermon from a priest were it not for Tolstoy’s amazing sense of the dramatic episode in storytelling and ability to put philosophical tenets into dialogue without seeming to interrupt the narrative flow.
Two Old Men (19pp.)
Bible quote: form John, on true believers. Elim and Elisha are old men who set out on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Wanting a drink of water, Elisha stops at a hut on their way while Elim goes ahead. Elisha saves the family there from starvation, spends most of his money, and return. Elim makes it to Jerusalem, where he thinks he sees his friend at the Holy Sepulchre. Returning home, he meets the family Elisha had saved and when he sees his friend again, doubts whether it was he or Elisha who had truly been granted their boon by God, since one must love others and help them, as Elisha had done. Lovely contrast, strong moral.
Where Love Is, God Is (11pp.)
Martin, a poor but honest cobbler, has lost his wife and all but one of their children. When the final son dies as well, he despairs, only to be counselled by a pilgrim to read the Gospels. Doing so, he hears a voice saying ‘I will come tomorrow’. Impatiently expecting to see Christ, instead Martin is moved to help an old man clearing snow, a woman with a baby and an old lady and a young boy. Tolstoy’s theme, exemplified by the Matthew quote on forgiveness of debt, is that one finds Christ by helping others: that is the true God (good?) Kinda way too preachy.
The Story of Ivan the Fool… (20pp.)
A thoroughly charming folk-tale type legend or fable exemplifying the virtues of honest, hard labor as opposed to the supposed gallantry of war and acquisitiveness of business. The attempts by the minions of the Devil and then by the very Devil himself to get the better of ‘the fool’ Ivan are at times hilariously fruitless for Ivan is a good, honest, caring, hard-working, ‘fool’ – (i.e., holy one?) Truly excellent.
Stories Told from Pictures (12pp.)
In ‘Evil Allures, But Good Endures’, a slave owner’s faith allows him to subvert the Devil’s plan to disrupt harmonious relations with his slaves; in ‘Little Girls Wiser Than Men’, a spat between adults is foreshortened by the example of the very children whose injudicious actions initially led to the problem, and in ‘Ilyas’ true happiness is shown to be found in poverty and hard labor. Just past 10% gone in this volume, and I’m really getting tired of the simplistic Christian message of tolerance, good will, labor and no ill feeling – without dissatisfactions, little if anything would ever get done in the world!
The Death of Ivan Ilyich (48pp.)
As with all Tolstoy, an exceptionally well written narrative of the last few months in the life of a self-important judge. His troubled marriage, the vacuous nature of his profession, his distance from his children, his vanity about his new home, his ambition to get ahead in terms of his social status, his lack of faith in the entire medical profession, and his willingness to see how his doctors put on an air of superiority when they really know little of what’s going on – exactly as he often did in his courtrooms are all described in minute detail and with penetrating insight into what Tolstoy saw as the selfishness, vanity and basic wrong-headedness of the society of the upper middle classes. Only a strong, young peasant who helps Ivan through his illness seems to truly care about what his master must be going through. And again, unfortunately, as with all Tolstoy there is a semi-religious, simplistic ‘feel sorry for them, not for yourself’ conclusion that allows the title character to finally see the light and pass away.
Despite this far-too-trite thematic tidying up, an exceptional story. Like The Kreutzer Sonata’s focus on jealousy, this story’s focus on death was truly masterful in both conception and execution.
The Three Hermits… (6pp.)
A Bishop encounters three hermits who live on a remote, nameless island and teaches them the Lord’s Prayer. It would appear, from the final events in the story, that the hermits represent the Holy Trinity.
The Imp and the Crust (4pp.)
The Devil and his minion, the imp of the title finally win one by creating alcohol out of a surplus harvest of corn. It would appear to argue that subsistence is better than accumulated wealth.
How Much Land Is Enough? (14pp.)
The Devil wins again by taking advantage of Pahom’s insatiable greed for land. One should never bite off more than one can chew.
A Grain As Big as a Hen’s Egg (3pp.)
Almost communist in its espousal of ‘God’s Law’ that one should benefit only by one own’s labour, and never covet the products of another’s labour.
The Godson (13pp.)
A long, involved parable of mystic events culminating in advice to cease caring about yourself, cleanse your heart, cast away fear of death, make your life fast in God, let your heart burn warmly another’s heart may be kindled from it.
The Repentant Sinner (3pp.) The actual sins and saying of Peter, King David and John the Divine allow the title character to enter heaven.
The Kreutzer Sonata (89pp.)
I hadn’t realized how misogynist the main character of this story is: he believed women are trained in coquetry for their sole purpose of snaring a husband. Previous review:
This is a novella detailing one man's story of how he came to murder his wife. Set during a train trip in which the narrator allows Pozdnischeff to recount his courtship, marriage, honeymoon, increasing estrangement from and hatred towards his wife, his strong suspicion of her infidelity with a violinist, Trookhatschevsky, and his eventual surprising of them on an unexpected return late one night when, after the violinist runs away, he stabs his wife to death. The guilt or innocence of the perpetrator is never an issue - indeed, it is in almost a minor passing comment partway through his story that he relates the fact that a jury acquitted him of the crime, intent as he was, they believe, on maintaining his family's honor against his unfaithful spouse. It is his attitude to love, to marriage, to children, and to the society of the well-to-do in Russia at the time that Tolstoy seems to have been most interested, and the murderer makes a telling argument of the depravity behind almost all of these supposedly hallowed institutions. Men are almost never virgins when they marry, and almost never intend to be faithful to their wives. To marry for love is to delude oneself. Women live for nothing but to catch a man, an endeavor in which their mothers actively connive to ensnare the husband-to-be. When alone, a betrothed couple - or at least, the one in this novella, can find absolutely nothing to talk about, so separate are their worlds and interests. By the time of their honeymoon, the husband was already hating his wife, a feeling which she passionately returned. The five children they had together did nothing to relieve the stress of their incompatibility. Illnesses, doctors, visits to different locales for medical reasons - all of these pressures add to his already strained nerves and make their marital relations worse. Actual violence erupts, with him on one occasion telling her to leave his study before he does something they'll both regret and her calling to the children when he takes hold of her arm to come and see their father beating her. Told to refrain from any having any more children, she actually becomes more beautiful in his eyes over the next two years, and takes up the piano. This is the occasion for her meeting with the violinist and her husband's palpable sense of outraged jealousy. Particularly their performance of Beethoven's piece which gives the story its title worked to inflame his jealousy. As he puts it, unlike a march, a dance or a mass, with which one actually has a reactive counterpart, in the opening presto movement of this piece, there is nowhere for the listener's feelings to go to have an objective release; thus, they work to build up the intensity of any feeling inside him. It would appear that she really wasn't unfaithful to him in any real way, but things had deteriorated so severely between them that his murderous actions really come as a logical conclusion to their pitiful life together. Hoping for her admission of guilt on her death-bed, she instead replies with the hateful admonition that she will forever deprive him of his children, who indeed are sent to live with her sister, their aunt. A gripping tale, with far less of the moral sermonizing one comes to expect from Tolstoy. It appears that in this essentially psychological analysis of the motivations behind a heinous and violent act, Tolstoy came closest to the domain well charted by his only major rival in Russian novel writing, Dostoevsky. Very, very good.
The Devil (39pp.)
Like Ivan Ilyich’s exploration of death and the Kreutzer Sonata’s of jealousy, this story is a microscopic analysis of adultery. Eugene’s affair with the peasant girl Stepanida, initially entered into ‘solely for my health’, is terminated with his marriage to a lovely wife of his own, much higher social station. However, Eugene cannot shake off his lust for his former lover. The dual endings supplied are both engagingly unsatisfying, making one believe that Tolstoy more than likely had firsthand experience of these feeling and, as well, could see no satisfactory away around the moral dilemma is represented. Certainly such would seem to be the case with Stepan, Anna’s brother in Anna Karenina. The almost religious nature of this sin involved is exemplified by the title character being the peasant girl, who is presented throughout as an attractive, fun-loving, more than willing participant in adulterous activities.
Father Sergius (39pp.)
A very engaging story of a young military officer whose discovery of his fiancee’s chequered past leads him to become a monk, how he is moved to a metropolitan monastery where he encounters doubts and temptations, then how he becomes a hermit, a healer, and almost a rock-star religious celebrity only to leave all that and become an itinerant holy man who is eventually sent to Siberia for not having a passport. His encounters with women are of critical importance in developing and testing his faith, while his pride and personal vanity are also major hurdles for him to overcome on his journey to serve God. His conclusion ‘the less importance he attached to the opinion of men the more did he feel the presence of God within him. Reminded me of Tolstoy’s novel Resurrection in that they both document the difficult task of one who sincerely wants to do good and truly believe. Highly recommended.
The Empty Drum (7pp.)
A magical folk tale of how a simple peasant, along with his wife and her supernatural powers, manage to subvert the machinations of a king who wishes to wrest the pretty wife away from her haband. Er mother, an old woman in the forest, also aides their efforts.
Francoise (8pp.)
Adapted from an original story by de Maupassant, this is a convoluted but still quite direct condemnation of prostitution, culminating in the violent phrase: ‘they are all somebody’s sister!’
A Talk Among Leisured People (5pp.)
A sort of introduction to the following, much longer story, with a group of well to do aristocratic types bemoaning the fact that the lives they lead are ungodly and unchristian; however, when anyone makes a proposal to do something different, the imagined discomforts associated with such a change prevent them from taking any real action; an excellent story to exemplify an ‘all talk no action’ situation.
Walk in the Light While There Is Light (43pp.)
One of the most heavy-handed, didactic, sermonizing works I’ve ever read. Purportedly set in the 1st century A.D. in Cilicia under the Roman Empire, it tells the story of Julius, an Roman citizen of the upper class and his friend Pamphilius, who leaves to join a band of Christians. Page after page is filled with Pamphlius preaching to Julius about the virtues of love in a Christian sense, in which men are told to only work for others, to use submission rather than violence and to give things away rather than acquire them. In many respects, their society is almost a communist one. Julius is so frustrating with familial, political and economic difficulties (despite staying quite wealthy) that he three times chooses to leave his secular life and join his former friend among the Christians. One each of these occasions, he encounters an otherwise unnamed physician who dissuades him from casting off his real life for one of the Christian soul. In this respect there is somewhat of an even-handedness to the arguments pro- and anti-Christian, but it only makes for a much more turgid diatribe of a ‘story’. For this historical setting and a much more engaging set of personal characters, I much prefer Sienkiewicz’s Quo Vadis.
Master and Man (39pp.)
Basically, a retelling of the short story ‘A Snow Storm’ from the first volume of collected stories. The master, Vasili Andreevich and his man, Nikita, set off to a not-too-far-away village so that the master can complete a business deal regarding the purchase of a forest grove. An intense snow storm intervenes, they lose their way repeatedly, are offered shelter for the night at a village they stumble into twice, but refuse: ‘Business!’. The story was, like it’s counterpart in the first volume, rather tedious until the final ten or so pages, in which the dreams and aspirations of the two personalities are allowed to wander as they both face the very real prospect of death. Quite engaging and only – thankfully! – a little religious.
Hadji Murad (106pp.)
A truly amazing story of the Russian-Moslem war in the Caucasus. Much more a series of vignettes than a true narrative, the natures of the multiple participants in this conflict are fleshed out in truly dramatic fashion. Central to the story is the title character, whose antipathy to Shamil, another Moslem leader, causes him to defect to the Russians with dreams of being provided with an army, defeating Shamil and ruling all of Chechnya. Then there are the Vorontsovs – son and father, who receive Hadji with basic civility but at the same time are somewhat hamstrung in terms of exactly what to do with him. Eventually, the decision – or lack thereof – is made by Nicholas I, the Tsar, in consultation with Chernyshov, his advisor whose antipathy to the elder Voronstsov affects his advice. Complicating matters is the fact that Shamil holds Hadji’s family – his mother, two wives, grown son and five children – hostage, thus preventing Hadji from doing anything until they are ransomed or otherwise freed. Poltarsky, a Russian offcer who can’t keep his mind on cards when sitting beside a pretty young girl, Petrov, a major to whom the young girl is a mistress, Avdeev, a young soldier who volunteered to go in place of his older brother who had many children, Butler, a young Russian officer addicted to gambling, and Marya, a beautiful, coquettish but sincere young woman round out the characters: they are all part of the ethos of this time which Tolstoy observed and was able to recreate so convincingly. The spitefulness and ruthlessness of Shamil, the dunderheadness of Nicholas I, the sad pathetic end of Avdeev – all make for truly engaging short stories within this overall tableau. Moslem songs, usually quite plaintive and sad, are quoted. Truly a great ‘story’ – I only wish it had been longer.
Stories Given to Aid the Persecuted Jews (14pp.)
‘Essarhaddan, King of Assyria’ tells how the titular character is taught by the magic of an old man that all life is one and that to kill others diminishes oneself as well. ‘Work, Death and Sickness’ relates a supposed South American Indian legend of God’s frustration in trying to make men happy and cooperative by showing them not to accumulate more wealth than others, to live life fully since they don’t know wen they’re going to die and to care for the sick – mostly, these make men unhappy and contentious with one another. ‘Three Questions’ relates a King’s efforts to know the right time to do things, the right people to listen to and how to know the right thing to do; a hermit and a would-be assassin help him see that the right time is now, the right person is whomever one happens to be with and the right thing to do is good.
Fedor Kuzmich (20pp.)
Unfortunately, Tolstoy left this story unfinished at his death. The fragment that exists is highly interesting, as it describes the motivations behind the Tsar Alexander I to fake his death in 1825, and become the hermit of the title. (Checking with Wikipedia, there is little substantive evidence to support this claim, which was nevertheless widely held). His animosity to his grandmother, Catherine the Great, and sympathy for the plight of his mad father, Paul III, in whose murder he was himself complicit, starts what would have been a very engaging historical work of fiction.
A History of Yesterday (22pp.)
Almost stream-of-consciousness writing, supposedly influenced by Sterne’s A Sentimental Journey, and, like the previous story, unfinished. Despite the title, it is more a series of random musings on the practice of flirting, the habits of sleigh and carriage drivers, insulting nicknames, the relations one has with one’s servants, the need for a plan and/or an aim in one’s life. dreams, the process of falling asleep (first, the mind, then the emotions and finally the body succumb to unconsciousness), and then the decision to travel. Such pithy observations as the following make this a little above the rather tedious meandering that is essentially is: ‘I have noticed that men with moustaches are particularly sensitive about insults given to the carriages.’ Not very impressive.
A Christmas Night (29pp.)
A truly excellent story of young love, jaded perversity and frustrated yearning. Young Seriozha Ivin meets the Countess Scholing through the auspices of Prince Kornakov. Feelings rise, elation is in the air, the smiles are full of intense of intense emotion. The three characters all have different motivations for their desires, with the sardonic ennui of Kornakov being the most interesting – especially his dismissive descriptions of the dozen or so people he sees at the ball where the couple meet. Tolstoy is at his best in describing ‘the emptiness of the social relations of people … who assume that the purpose of life can be found in the artificial maintenance of these same social relations.’ Later, he refers to ‘this unnatural sphere called society.’ The departure of the Countess, her fateful encounter with her husband later, the introduction of a model of personal depravity – Dolgov, a visit to the home of a group of gypsies, and finally, a visit to a brothel round out this story of youthful romance and disappointment. Mastefrfully done, although I have no explanation for what the word ‘Christmas” is doing in the title.
The Forged Coupon (61pp.)
This is a truly masterful story, up there with Hadji Murat, Ivan Ilyich and Christmas Night as the best by far in this collection. It is told in two parts, with a descent into criminality, depravity, violence and ill temper dominating the first part while a spirit of universal love, redemption, altruis
A Spark Neglected Burns the House (15pp.)
Prefaced by a quote from Matthew on forgiveness of debts, the story involves an escalating feud between neighbors. It could very well be a sermon from a priest were it not for Tolstoy’s amazing sense of the dramatic episode in storytelling and ability to put philosophical tenets into dialogue without seeming to interrupt the narrative flow.
Two Old Men (19pp.)
Bible quote: form John, on true believers. Elim and Elisha are old men who set out on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Wanting a drink of water, Elisha stops at a hut on their way while Elim goes ahead. Elisha saves the family there from starvation, spends most of his money, and return. Elim makes it to Jerusalem, where he thinks he sees his friend at the Holy Sepulchre. Returning home, he meets the family Elisha had saved and when he sees his friend again, doubts whether it was he or Elisha who had truly been granted their boon by God, since one must love others and help them, as Elisha had done. Lovely contrast, strong moral.
Where Love Is, God Is (11pp.)
Martin, a poor but honest cobbler, has lost his wife and all but one of their children. When the final son dies as well, he despairs, only to be counselled by a pilgrim to read the Gospels. Doing so, he hears a voice saying ‘I will come tomorrow’. Impatiently expecting to see Christ, instead Martin is moved to help an old man clearing snow, a woman with a baby and an old lady and a young boy. Tolstoy’s theme, exemplified by the Matthew quote on forgiveness of debt, is that one finds Christ by helping others: that is the true God (good?) Kinda way too preachy.
The Story of Ivan the Fool… (20pp.)
A thoroughly charming folk-tale type legend or fable exemplifying the virtues of honest, hard labor as opposed to the supposed gallantry of war and acquisitiveness of business. The attempts by the minions of the Devil and then by the very Devil himself to get the better of ‘the fool’ Ivan are at times hilariously fruitless for Ivan is a good, honest, caring, hard-working, ‘fool’ – (i.e., holy one?) Truly excellent.
Stories Told from Pictures (12pp.)
In ‘Evil Allures, But Good Endures’, a slave owner’s faith allows him to subvert the Devil’s plan to disrupt harmonious relations with his slaves; in ‘Little Girls Wiser Than Men’, a spat between adults is foreshortened by the example of the very children whose injudicious actions initially led to the problem, and in ‘Ilyas’ true happiness is shown to be found in poverty and hard labor. Just past 10% gone in this volume, and I’m really getting tired of the simplistic Christian message of tolerance, good will, labor and no ill feeling – without dissatisfactions, little if anything would ever get done in the world!
The Death of Ivan Ilyich (48pp.)
As with all Tolstoy, an exceptionally well written narrative of the last few months in the life of a self-important judge. His troubled marriage, the vacuous nature of his profession, his distance from his children, his vanity about his new home, his ambition to get ahead in terms of his social status, his lack of faith in the entire medical profession, and his willingness to see how his doctors put on an air of superiority when they really know little of what’s going on – exactly as he often did in his courtrooms are all described in minute detail and with penetrating insight into what Tolstoy saw as the selfishness, vanity and basic wrong-headedness of the society of the upper middle classes. Only a strong, young peasant who helps Ivan through his illness seems to truly care about what his master must be going through. And again, unfortunately, as with all Tolstoy there is a semi-religious, simplistic ‘feel sorry for them, not for yourself’ conclusion that allows the title character to finally see the light and pass away.
Despite this far-too-trite thematic tidying up, an exceptional story. Like The Kreutzer Sonata’s focus on jealousy, this story’s focus on death was truly masterful in both conception and execution.
The Three Hermits… (6pp.)
A Bishop encounters three hermits who live on a remote, nameless island and teaches them the Lord’s Prayer. It would appear, from the final events in the story, that the hermits represent the Holy Trinity.
The Imp and the Crust (4pp.)
The Devil and his minion, the imp of the title finally win one by creating alcohol out of a surplus harvest of corn. It would appear to argue that subsistence is better than accumulated wealth.
How Much Land Is Enough? (14pp.)
The Devil wins again by taking advantage of Pahom’s insatiable greed for land. One should never bite off more than one can chew.
A Grain As Big as a Hen’s Egg (3pp.)
Almost communist in its espousal of ‘God’s Law’ that one should benefit only by one own’s labour, and never covet the products of another’s labour.
The Godson (13pp.)
A long, involved parable of mystic events culminating in advice to cease caring about yourself, cleanse your heart, cast away fear of death, make your life fast in God, let your heart burn warmly another’s heart may be kindled from it.
The Repentant Sinner (3pp.) The actual sins and saying of Peter, King David and John the Divine allow the title character to enter heaven.
The Kreutzer Sonata (89pp.)
I hadn’t realized how misogynist the main character of this story is: he believed women are trained in coquetry for their sole purpose of snaring a husband. Previous review:
This is a novella detailing one man's story of how he came to murder his wife. Set during a train trip in which the narrator allows Pozdnischeff to recount his courtship, marriage, honeymoon, increasing estrangement from and hatred towards his wife, his strong suspicion of her infidelity with a violinist, Trookhatschevsky, and his eventual surprising of them on an unexpected return late one night when, after the violinist runs away, he stabs his wife to death. The guilt or innocence of the perpetrator is never an issue - indeed, it is in almost a minor passing comment partway through his story that he relates the fact that a jury acquitted him of the crime, intent as he was, they believe, on maintaining his family's honor against his unfaithful spouse. It is his attitude to love, to marriage, to children, and to the society of the well-to-do in Russia at the time that Tolstoy seems to have been most interested, and the murderer makes a telling argument of the depravity behind almost all of these supposedly hallowed institutions. Men are almost never virgins when they marry, and almost never intend to be faithful to their wives. To marry for love is to delude oneself. Women live for nothing but to catch a man, an endeavor in which their mothers actively connive to ensnare the husband-to-be. When alone, a betrothed couple - or at least, the one in this novella, can find absolutely nothing to talk about, so separate are their worlds and interests. By the time of their honeymoon, the husband was already hating his wife, a feeling which she passionately returned. The five children they had together did nothing to relieve the stress of their incompatibility. Illnesses, doctors, visits to different locales for medical reasons - all of these pressures add to his already strained nerves and make their marital relations worse. Actual violence erupts, with him on one occasion telling her to leave his study before he does something they'll both regret and her calling to the children when he takes hold of her arm to come and see their father beating her. Told to refrain from any having any more children, she actually becomes more beautiful in his eyes over the next two years, and takes up the piano. This is the occasion for her meeting with the violinist and her husband's palpable sense of outraged jealousy. Particularly their performance of Beethoven's piece which gives the story its title worked to inflame his jealousy. As he puts it, unlike a march, a dance or a mass, with which one actually has a reactive counterpart, in the opening presto movement of this piece, there is nowhere for the listener's feelings to go to have an objective release; thus, they work to build up the intensity of any feeling inside him. It would appear that she really wasn't unfaithful to him in any real way, but things had deteriorated so severely between them that his murderous actions really come as a logical conclusion to their pitiful life together. Hoping for her admission of guilt on her death-bed, she instead replies with the hateful admonition that she will forever deprive him of his children, who indeed are sent to live with her sister, their aunt. A gripping tale, with far less of the moral sermonizing one comes to expect from Tolstoy. It appears that in this essentially psychological analysis of the motivations behind a heinous and violent act, Tolstoy came closest to the domain well charted by his only major rival in Russian novel writing, Dostoevsky. Very, very good.
The Devil (39pp.)
Like Ivan Ilyich’s exploration of death and the Kreutzer Sonata’s of jealousy, this story is a microscopic analysis of adultery. Eugene’s affair with the peasant girl Stepanida, initially entered into ‘solely for my health’, is terminated with his marriage to a lovely wife of his own, much higher social station. However, Eugene cannot shake off his lust for his former lover. The dual endings supplied are both engagingly unsatisfying, making one believe that Tolstoy more than likely had firsthand experience of these feeling and, as well, could see no satisfactory away around the moral dilemma is represented. Certainly such would seem to be the case with Stepan, Anna’s brother in Anna Karenina. The almost religious nature of this sin involved is exemplified by the title character being the peasant girl, who is presented throughout as an attractive, fun-loving, more than willing participant in adulterous activities.
Father Sergius (39pp.)
A very engaging story of a young military officer whose discovery of his fiancee’s chequered past leads him to become a monk, how he is moved to a metropolitan monastery where he encounters doubts and temptations, then how he becomes a hermit, a healer, and almost a rock-star religious celebrity only to leave all that and become an itinerant holy man who is eventually sent to Siberia for not having a passport. His encounters with women are of critical importance in developing and testing his faith, while his pride and personal vanity are also major hurdles for him to overcome on his journey to serve God. His conclusion ‘the less importance he attached to the opinion of men the more did he feel the presence of God within him. Reminded me of Tolstoy’s novel Resurrection in that they both document the difficult task of one who sincerely wants to do good and truly believe. Highly recommended.
The Empty Drum (7pp.)
A magical folk tale of how a simple peasant, along with his wife and her supernatural powers, manage to subvert the machinations of a king who wishes to wrest the pretty wife away from her haband. Er mother, an old woman in the forest, also aides their efforts.
Francoise (8pp.)
Adapted from an original story by de Maupassant, this is a convoluted but still quite direct condemnation of prostitution, culminating in the violent phrase: ‘they are all somebody’s sister!’
A Talk Among Leisured People (5pp.)
A sort of introduction to the following, much longer story, with a group of well to do aristocratic types bemoaning the fact that the lives they lead are ungodly and unchristian; however, when anyone makes a proposal to do something different, the imagined discomforts associated with such a change prevent them from taking any real action; an excellent story to exemplify an ‘all talk no action’ situation.
Walk in the Light While There Is Light (43pp.)
One of the most heavy-handed, didactic, sermonizing works I’ve ever read. Purportedly set in the 1st century A.D. in Cilicia under the Roman Empire, it tells the story of Julius, an Roman citizen of the upper class and his friend Pamphilius, who leaves to join a band of Christians. Page after page is filled with Pamphlius preaching to Julius about the virtues of love in a Christian sense, in which men are told to only work for others, to use submission rather than violence and to give things away rather than acquire them. In many respects, their society is almost a communist one. Julius is so frustrating with familial, political and economic difficulties (despite staying quite wealthy) that he three times chooses to leave his secular life and join his former friend among the Christians. One each of these occasions, he encounters an otherwise unnamed physician who dissuades him from casting off his real life for one of the Christian soul. In this respect there is somewhat of an even-handedness to the arguments pro- and anti-Christian, but it only makes for a much more turgid diatribe of a ‘story’. For this historical setting and a much more engaging set of personal characters, I much prefer Sienkiewicz’s Quo Vadis.
Master and Man (39pp.)
Basically, a retelling of the short story ‘A Snow Storm’ from the first volume of collected stories. The master, Vasili Andreevich and his man, Nikita, set off to a not-too-far-away village so that the master can complete a business deal regarding the purchase of a forest grove. An intense snow storm intervenes, they lose their way repeatedly, are offered shelter for the night at a village they stumble into twice, but refuse: ‘Business!’. The story was, like it’s counterpart in the first volume, rather tedious until the final ten or so pages, in which the dreams and aspirations of the two personalities are allowed to wander as they both face the very real prospect of death. Quite engaging and only – thankfully! – a little religious.
Hadji Murad (106pp.)
A truly amazing story of the Russian-Moslem war in the Caucasus. Much more a series of vignettes than a true narrative, the natures of the multiple participants in this conflict are fleshed out in truly dramatic fashion. Central to the story is the title character, whose antipathy to Shamil, another Moslem leader, causes him to defect to the Russians with dreams of being provided with an army, defeating Shamil and ruling all of Chechnya. Then there are the Vorontsovs – son and father, who receive Hadji with basic civility but at the same time are somewhat hamstrung in terms of exactly what to do with him. Eventually, the decision – or lack thereof – is made by Nicholas I, the Tsar, in consultation with Chernyshov, his advisor whose antipathy to the elder Voronstsov affects his advice. Complicating matters is the fact that Shamil holds Hadji’s family – his mother, two wives, grown son and five children – hostage, thus preventing Hadji from doing anything until they are ransomed or otherwise freed. Poltarsky, a Russian offcer who can’t keep his mind on cards when sitting beside a pretty young girl, Petrov, a major to whom the young girl is a mistress, Avdeev, a young soldier who volunteered to go in place of his older brother who had many children, Butler, a young Russian officer addicted to gambling, and Marya, a beautiful, coquettish but sincere young woman round out the characters: they are all part of the ethos of this time which Tolstoy observed and was able to recreate so convincingly. The spitefulness and ruthlessness of Shamil, the dunderheadness of Nicholas I, the sad pathetic end of Avdeev – all make for truly engaging short stories within this overall tableau. Moslem songs, usually quite plaintive and sad, are quoted. Truly a great ‘story’ – I only wish it had been longer.
Stories Given to Aid the Persecuted Jews (14pp.)
‘Essarhaddan, King of Assyria’ tells how the titular character is taught by the magic of an old man that all life is one and that to kill others diminishes oneself as well. ‘Work, Death and Sickness’ relates a supposed South American Indian legend of God’s frustration in trying to make men happy and cooperative by showing them not to accumulate more wealth than others, to live life fully since they don’t know wen they’re going to die and to care for the sick – mostly, these make men unhappy and contentious with one another. ‘Three Questions’ relates a King’s efforts to know the right time to do things, the right people to listen to and how to know the right thing to do; a hermit and a would-be assassin help him see that the right time is now, the right person is whomever one happens to be with and the right thing to do is good.
Fedor Kuzmich (20pp.)
Unfortunately, Tolstoy left this story unfinished at his death. The fragment that exists is highly interesting, as it describes the motivations behind the Tsar Alexander I to fake his death in 1825, and become the hermit of the title. (Checking with Wikipedia, there is little substantive evidence to support this claim, which was nevertheless widely held). His animosity to his grandmother, Catherine the Great, and sympathy for the plight of his mad father, Paul III, in whose murder he was himself complicit, starts what would have been a very engaging historical work of fiction.
A History of Yesterday (22pp.)
Almost stream-of-consciousness writing, supposedly influenced by Sterne’s A Sentimental Journey, and, like the previous story, unfinished. Despite the title, it is more a series of random musings on the practice of flirting, the habits of sleigh and carriage drivers, insulting nicknames, the relations one has with one’s servants, the need for a plan and/or an aim in one’s life. dreams, the process of falling asleep (first, the mind, then the emotions and finally the body succumb to unconsciousness), and then the decision to travel. Such pithy observations as the following make this a little above the rather tedious meandering that is essentially is: ‘I have noticed that men with moustaches are particularly sensitive about insults given to the carriages.’ Not very impressive.
A Christmas Night (29pp.)
A truly excellent story of young love, jaded perversity and frustrated yearning. Young Seriozha Ivin meets the Countess Scholing through the auspices of Prince Kornakov. Feelings rise, elation is in the air, the smiles are full of intense of intense emotion. The three characters all have different motivations for their desires, with the sardonic ennui of Kornakov being the most interesting – especially his dismissive descriptions of the dozen or so people he sees at the ball where the couple meet. Tolstoy is at his best in describing ‘the emptiness of the social relations of people … who assume that the purpose of life can be found in the artificial maintenance of these same social relations.’ Later, he refers to ‘this unnatural sphere called society.’ The departure of the Countess, her fateful encounter with her husband later, the introduction of a model of personal depravity – Dolgov, a visit to the home of a group of gypsies, and finally, a visit to a brothel round out this story of youthful romance and disappointment. Mastefrfully done, although I have no explanation for what the word ‘Christmas” is doing in the title.
The Forged Coupon (61pp.)
This is a truly masterful story, up there with Hadji Murat, Ivan Ilyich and Christmas Night as the best by far in this collection. It is told in two parts, with a descent into criminality, depravity, violence and ill temper dominating the first part while a spirit of universal love, redemption, altruis
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