The Kreutzer Sonata, by Leo Tolstoy

[inverarity]

One-line summary: A 50-page abstinence rant in the form of a story about a jealous man who kills his wife.

Comments

[ardys_the_ghoul]

Okay, so I'm a self-ascribed prude and a woman who considers herself asexual, and Tolstoy makes me look like a harlot. I think my jaw hit the floor.

I'm planning on reading Anna Karenina--I think I'll stick to that one and give this weirdness a miss.

(I don't know if the "Voluntary Human Extinction Movement" is meant to be a joke or not, but your reference made me laugh more than I should have.)

[books_n_cats]

Um... wow. So that's how you turn out when you lose your virginity to a prostitute at a young (14ish) age...

[inverarity]

Reading Tolstoy's Wikipedia page, it became apparent that Posdnicheff basically was Tolstoy. Except Tolstoy didn't kill his wife. (Though I can't help thinking that he was inserting a bit of wish fulfillment fantasy along with anti-sex screed in The Kreutzer Sonata...)

[books_n_cats]

Did you see the part about him 'sinning' at least 13 times? At least, according to the number of children.

Of course, his wife was probably cheating on him... /snerk

[swissmarg]

All I can say is, Was he serious? o_O

Awesome review.

[savannah_wingo]

Hmm.. sounds a bit interesting.. also, since I work in a library, have grown up in libraries, and am currently in library school, when I saw the bit about not being able to find Kreutzer Sonata Bearing Fruit my mind immediately thought "Aha! A challenge!!" So, in the last fifteen minutes have located two copies with the help of my searching skills. That's two copies, in the ENTIRE COUNTRY. There may be a couple other copies hidden away in some basement of a library (I really have no doubt about that at all) but I have located and requested a copy through the ILL service at my library. It seems to be part of a special collection so we shall see if it comes through. In the mean time, I can read The Kreutzer Sonata.

:-P

[inverarity]

That's awesome.

I want a review of Kreutzer Sonata Bearing Fruit after you read it. :D

[savannah_wingo]

Well, we'll see, it's probably not going to get here, but we'll see what the ILL says at my library.

[savannah_wingo]

small insight to what might be in Kreutzer Sonata Bearing Fruit:

I went searching for anything about it on Google. As you can imagine alot of hits for just Kreutzer Sonata and about ninety percent were the last bit at the end of the story saying to read Kreutzer Sonata Bearing Fruit. But there was a two sentence review in a "Catholic World" Journal in an article about new books. They were not impressed it seems:

"Concerning Kreutzer Sonata Bearing Fruit, by Pauline Grayson, for which the publisher, J. S. Ogilvie (New York), begs "careful reading and fearless criticism," we have only to say that it does not seem to call for either. In writing it the authoress has somehow missed the woman's natural point of view without getting at the man's."

That's litterally it, that's all they wrote. After that, they start a new paragraph and move right along to another person. Now I'm really curious as to what this person did. Still waiting on ILL to get back to me.

[edenic]

I loooooove Tolstoy but had not heard of this one. It sounds pretty interesting. Thanks for the great review and for linking to the free version on Gutenberg!