Lev 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.
Syns det va en fin samling av noen "korte" Tolstoj noveller. Mange av Tolstoj’s mest kjente tanker blir skildret, tanker om: dødsangst, forsonelse med skjebnen og døden, fysisk begjær, dødsstraff, tyranni og anarki.
2,5/5 EN GAL MANNS OPPTEGNELSER ensidig, men tydelig.
3,5/5 DJEVELEN dårlig formuleringer (i forhold til andre Tolstoj tekster), men det skyldes sikkert bare dårlig oversettelse.
This is my introduction to Tolstoj, and compared to the other Russians his writing flows a little better although the themes are similarly dark. There is a clear evolution in the three stories, but they all are dark in the sense of death or madness. I found it good to begin reading something shorter by these classic Russian authors as the more significant books tend to be more tedious, while these ones kind of introduce the topic they struggle with, in a short and more concise manner. You get the gist and are ready for the greater works.
I may not agree with where Tolstoj went, but the way he writes gets you to think about what is the meaning of life and how to meet the struggles within when they occur. Taking your own life is way too extreme, but the struggles are sometimes real and a burden - as life is not always easy. Tolstoj forces you to think if you would have acted differently in the situation these characters were in, as they are all kind of pushed to their limits in some sense.
Det er kanskje litt vel strengt med en 2er her, men jeg tror ikke jeg og Tolstoj er helt på bølgelengde når det kommer til visse ting i livet og da får jeg ikke så mye ut av disse novellene dessverre..