Mario’s Reviews > Four Great Russian Short Novels > Status Update

Master and Man is not Tolstoy's best work. It seems to be an effort to remake his much earlier story "The Snowstorm," by giving some meaning behind the facts of the event itself. Ultimately, I'm just not sure he chose the right moral. The dichotomy between the way Vasili treats Nikita and Nikita treats Mukhortui was what I thought was interesting, but the story went elsewhere.

First Love was a pleasant story, inherently relatable, but not as heart-breaking as you might expect. It's more like a story of grief, you see and recognize the process, and empathize with it without sharing it. Very nice.