townesvanfaulkner

Writing Style-8.3
Originality-8.2
Plot-7.7
Merit(whatever that means)-8.4
Overall-8.0

This edition consisted of four stories: The Death of Ivan Ilych (obviously), The Kreutzer Sonata, Master and Man, and Family Happiness. I had read The Kreutzer Sonata and Master and Man previously but decided to go ahead and reread them because I enjoyed them the first time and thought that I could perhaps glean something more out of them with a rereading. Actually, The Kreutzer Sonata is my favorite of Tolstoy’s “short” stories.

So we’ll start with that one. I thought that perhaps I was just particularly in the mood for a story of this nature when I read it several years ago. But upon rereading, I found that it was every bit as good as I felt it was the first time.

The Kreutzer Sonata is a Beethoven sonata for piano and violin. You should definitely check it out if you have not heard it. In fact, it would be a nice touch to listen to it as you read this story. The story is about a guy who kills his wife in a jealous rage (I’m not giving the ending away here, you learn this early on in the story). His wife plays piano and has been playing with a professional violinist for fun. It is their playing the passionate Kreutzer Sonata that helps bring about the main character's rage. The mood of the story is set perfectly when the jealous husband boards a late night train and begins to tell a follow passenger his story after there had just been a debate among the passengers about marriage and divorce.

Similarly, Family Happiness is about an unhappy marriage. Unhappy marriages seem to be a common theme in Tolstoy’s stories. Especially those that he wrote later in life. The Death of Ivan Ilych has another unhappy marriage. Another great story that wasn’t in this edition is called The Devil. It’s about marriage, lust, and infidelity too.

Master and Man is a very touching story about a master and his servant going on an ill-advised trip one evening because the master needs to make a real estate deal with someone in town. There is a fierce snowstorm that they are trying to make their way through and they keep getting lost by wandering off the road into the fields because they can’t see where the road is for all the snow. It’s about the social class dynamic between the master and the servant. Very powerful.

I’m not sure why they chose The Death of Ivan Ilych as the main story in this edition. I didn’t care for it nearly as much as Kreutzer or Master. This story takes place at the wake (or funeral?) of Ivan Ilych as they look back on his life, which was pretty shallow.

Family Happiness was pretty decent but the weakest story of the lot. It’s sort of about what makes a man happy with his family life and what attributes make for a happy, smoothly running family. I’m reminded of the first line of Anna Karenina about how each happy family is alike, but each unhappy family is unhappy in their own way.

If you are curious about Tolstoy but are intimidated by the length of War and Peace (which I loved) or Anna Karenina (which I hated) then it might be worthwhile to check out some of these novella-length stories first to see if you like his writing style and common themes. If you really like a couple of them and don't get very bored reading any of them then you can feel pretty confident about taking on War and Peace.

# posted by townesvanfaulkner @ 3:57 PM