En gal manns opptegnelser og andre fortellinger

by Leo Tolstoy, Astrid Bjønness (Translator)

Innhold: En gal manns opptegnelser ; Djevelen ; Guddommelig og menneskelig

Genres: Fiction, Russia

124 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1890

About the author

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.

See also:
French → Léon Tolstoï
Spanish → León Tolstói

Reviews

[Thuraya]

i ran into a bookstore about to close down and ended up in a conversation too long to leave empty handed. the book itself was cheaper than most chocolate bars, and treated me to a couple short stories to read at night before falling asleep. the sentences were smooth, each gliding into the next without ever feeling too dense or heavy. a solid accidental find.

[Ingeborg]

Melankolsk, klaustrofobisk og til tider relaterbar

[Joel Sommer]

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.

4/5 GUDDOMMELIG OG MENNESKELIG
ekte.

[Johan Riksfjord]

Tolstoj er mannen!

[John]

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.

[Kyrre Hannestad]

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..

[Truls Tørnblom Toftevåg]

Å skyte seg selv i hodet som en radikal feministisk handling.

[Christian Etwin]

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

[Sverre Eikill]

Den ene historien her handler om en fyr som er så kåt at han tar livet av seg

[May Johnsen]

Fin skrivestil og lett og komme gjennom