2008 Book 1: The Last Station - Jay Parini
The Back of the Book
1910. Anna Karenina and War & Peace have made Leo Tolstoy the world's most famous author. But fame comes at a price.
In the tumultuous final year of his life, Tolstoy is desperate to find respite, so leaves his large family and the hounding press behind and heads into the wilderness. Too ill to venture beyond the tiny station of Astapovo, he believes his last days will pass in isolation. But as we learn through the journals of those closest to him, the battle for Tolstoy's soul will not be a peaceful one.
What I thought
I knew Tolstoy was popular in his time, but until I read this book, I had no idea he was such an inspiration to others, nor did I have much idea of his politics in spite of having read both Anna Karenina and War & Peace.
Previous readers have said that it was easy to dislike everyone in the book, but I was able to find some sympathy for most of them. The one exception was Chertkov, maybe because he was the one major character who was never, as far as I remember, given the chance to tell a part of the story himself. While I didn't agree with or like the actions of the others, I felt I could at least understand their motivations, why each of them thought they were doing the right thing, and that made it easier to accept their actions. However there was nothing to make me think of Chertkov as anything but a cynical glory-seeker.
On my to-be-read-one-day notional list are some of Tolstoy's more philosophical writings, as my quote to remember from this book is: God is not love, but the more love there is in man, the more is God made manifest in him, and the more truly does he exist.
And, by the by ...
I finished this book yesterday in, of all places, the very city where the person I have to send it to on a ring lives. Had I only been organised and sent the 'your turn' PM as the end of the book drew near I could have saved the postage!
1910. Anna Karenina and War & Peace have made Leo Tolstoy the world's most famous author. But fame comes at a price.
In the tumultuous final year of his life, Tolstoy is desperate to find respite, so leaves his large family and the hounding press behind and heads into the wilderness. Too ill to venture beyond the tiny station of Astapovo, he believes his last days will pass in isolation. But as we learn through the journals of those closest to him, the battle for Tolstoy's soul will not be a peaceful one.
What I thought
I knew Tolstoy was popular in his time, but until I read this book, I had no idea he was such an inspiration to others, nor did I have much idea of his politics in spite of having read both Anna Karenina and War & Peace.
Previous readers have said that it was easy to dislike everyone in the book, but I was able to find some sympathy for most of them. The one exception was Chertkov, maybe because he was the one major character who was never, as far as I remember, given the chance to tell a part of the story himself. While I didn't agree with or like the actions of the others, I felt I could at least understand their motivations, why each of them thought they were doing the right thing, and that made it easier to accept their actions. However there was nothing to make me think of Chertkov as anything but a cynical glory-seeker.
On my to-be-read-one-day notional list are some of Tolstoy's more philosophical writings, as my quote to remember from this book is: God is not love, but the more love there is in man, the more is God made manifest in him, and the more truly does he exist.
And, by the by ...
I finished this book yesterday in, of all places, the very city where the person I have to send it to on a ring lives. Had I only been organised and sent the 'your turn' PM as the end of the book drew near I could have saved the postage!