As Leo Tolstoy's life draws to a tumultuous close, his tempestuous wife and most cunning disciple are locked in a whirlwind battle for the great ma...
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Sep 23, 2011
Chrissie
rated it: 
Was the book enjoyable? No. (Do you enjoy watching family brawls?)
Was it interesting? Yes, definitely!
You do laugh sometimes.
After reading this book I felt I better understood Leo Tolstoy and who he had become at the end of his life. If you are looking for an in-depth biography of his entire life, look elsewhere. This book only looks at the philosophy and thoughts central to this writer at the very end of his life, right before his death at 82. You look at the last More...
Was it interesting? Yes, definitely!
You do laugh sometimes.
After reading this book I felt I better understood Leo Tolstoy and who he had become at the end of his life. If you are looking for an in-depth biography of his entire life, look elsewhere. This book only looks at the philosophy and thoughts central to this writer at the very end of his life, right before his death at 82. You look at the last More...
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May 30, 2008
Jennifer (JC-S)
rated it: 
This novel is based on the last year of Leo Tolstoy's life. By combining fact an fiction, Jay Parini provides both an interesting novel and an interpretation of a fascinating man. I doubt that I'll watch the movie: Mr Parini's imagery is all the visual interpretation I need.
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Dec 17, 2007
GUD
rated it:
Parini's The Last Station is a study of the end of Russian author Leo Tolstoy's life. You don't need to be a fan of Tolstoy to enjoy it--you don't even need to have read any of his novels. This book stands on its own merits.
Told in multiple first person narratives, the book explores how the various players see themselves and each other, enabling the reader to make up their own mind about their characters and motives. Personally, I came to like Tolstoy's long-suffering wife Sofya And More...
Told in multiple first person narratives, the book explores how the various players see themselves and each other, enabling the reader to make up their own mind about their characters and motives. Personally, I came to like Tolstoy's long-suffering wife Sofya And More...
Dec 22, 2010
Karen
rated it:
I seldom read a book after I have seen the film. In this case, though I am a Parini fan, for some reason I skipped the book when it came out. Once I saw the film, I was even less inclined as I found it flat and too involved with the lovelife of the minor character narrator, Tolstoy's young secretary. I found the choice of narrator even more perplexing now that I have read the book, as its multiple narrators offered much better choices. The book successfully depicts the conflict beween Cherto
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Nov 28, 2010
Jim
rated it:
I’ve seen The Last Station criticised because it focuses on Sofya, Tolstoy's wife. I really can’t see how it could do otherwise. She’s by far the most interesting character. It’s she that turns this from an engrossing piece of academia into a real page-turner. Sofya’s mood swings are extreme, the whole gamut from empress to madwoman. A number of other reviewers have noted that The Last Station is a film script masquerading as a novel and I can’t disagree. My main problem with it is that you real
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Oct 21, 2010
Juanita
rated it:
Three stars of Five is about right. I look forward to the movie to see what Helen Mirren can do to redeem/realize the character of Tolstoy's Wife who is cast by this novel (surprise?) as the crazy ball-and-chain spouse who drives the poor idealistic husband wild, poor thing. In the absence of any credible historical setting, I asked myself why write this book? Yes, there are 'interesting' characters, and since Parini worked with diaries and papers of those many others, that is supposedly what
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Jun 27, 2010
watched the film-The book is next on my list:
Film Review
In THE LAST STATION, set in pre-Revolutionary Russia, in the year 1910, Valentin, JAMES MCEVOY, a young man who almost worships the aged writer, Tolstoy, CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER, is hired by Chertkov, PAUL GIAMATTI, to be the great man's secretary and, at the same time, to spy on his wife, Countess Sofya, HELEN MIRREN...
Valentin discovers that, in the commune where Tolstoy's disciples live in social equality as celibate More...
Film Review
In THE LAST STATION, set in pre-Revolutionary Russia, in the year 1910, Valentin, JAMES MCEVOY, a young man who almost worships the aged writer, Tolstoy, CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER, is hired by Chertkov, PAUL GIAMATTI, to be the great man's secretary and, at the same time, to spy on his wife, Countess Sofya, HELEN MIRREN...
Valentin discovers that, in the commune where Tolstoy's disciples live in social equality as celibate More...
Mar 01, 2010
Carole
rated it:
The book is narrated by each of the people closest to Tolstoy in his final year, by alternating chapters.
Sofya Andreyevna - his wife for nearly 50 years - to me had the loudest voice. She was an extremely complex character and not someone that I liked at all. She was paranoid, neurotic and extremely jealous of all the people surrounding Tolstoy. She was constantly trying to find out what he'd written about her; she wanted to read his diaries and letters. They even sent letters to eac More...
Sofya Andreyevna - his wife for nearly 50 years - to me had the loudest voice. She was an extremely complex character and not someone that I liked at all. She was paranoid, neurotic and extremely jealous of all the people surrounding Tolstoy. She was constantly trying to find out what he'd written about her; she wanted to read his diaries and letters. They even sent letters to eac More...
Jan 25, 2012
Nurul
rated it:
The first time I read a book that's written like diary entries or monologues of different people, it was Orhan Pamuk's Red. I did not enjoy that book for being tediously written, so I had my reservations the first tens of pages of this. Soon it began to be coherent, and even more, very realistic and dynamic in the sense that one can first form an opinion based on something written by Bulgakov, for example, and then read another point of view of the same thing from Chertkov's perspective. I thoug
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Jan 08, 2012
CaterinaAnna
rated it:
I knew Tolstoy was popular in his time, but until I read this book, I had no idea he was such an inspiration, nor did I have much idea of his politics in spite of having read both Anna Karenina and War Peace.
While 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 More...
While 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 More...
Dec 25, 2011
K.D.
rated it:
It's about the final years of Leo Tolstoy. These final years include the dispute on who should own the works (War and Peace, Anna Karenina, etc) and the riches of the famous Russian novelist: his wife or his minions who claim that his works belong to the people. The story of this final years is said to be one of the "saddest in literary world." And this adjective almost always make me run to the nearby bookstore and get myself a copy of the book. I am a sucker for saddest books.
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Jul 17, 2010
Mike
rated it:
I actually did not know that Tolstoy died in the middle of a trip, at a small station along his intended route.
Although this is a fictional account, it draws heavily on the journals and diaries of the people close to Tolstoy. In found the book a bit awkward in places, but overall liked both the concept and execution pretty well.
Unless you are an English major or literature historian, it is easy to forget how "big" Tolstoy was both in and outside of his native la More...
Although this is a fictional account, it draws heavily on the journals and diaries of the people close to Tolstoy. In found the book a bit awkward in places, but overall liked both the concept and execution pretty well.
Unless you are an English major or literature historian, it is easy to forget how "big" Tolstoy was both in and outside of his native la More...
Feb 07, 2010
Matt
rated it:
This little Novel about the last year of Tolstoy's life is certainly worth the read.
Told from multiple perspectives the plot revolves around the coflict between Tolstoy's wife and his disciples over the great author's legacy and the copyright to his works.
Depending on whose point of view strikes you as most accurate, Tolstoy is either a great man fighting his flaws, a misguided extremist failing to accept his humanity, or a hero who, despite his flaws, stands for values More...
Told from multiple perspectives the plot revolves around the coflict between Tolstoy's wife and his disciples over the great author's legacy and the copyright to his works.
Depending on whose point of view strikes you as most accurate, Tolstoy is either a great man fighting his flaws, a misguided extremist failing to accept his humanity, or a hero who, despite his flaws, stands for values More...
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Feb 25, 2010
Sharon
rated it:
This was not a book that I could not put down, but one that was intriguing, and pushed me to learn more about Tolstoy. I would not have placed him within the same era, as Mahatma Ghandi, so that was definitely a new learning. I did not realize that though he had denounced the aristocracy, as a burden to the poor, he never relinquished his own title of "Count" and the inherited lands and homes. His wish to do so, caused a rift between he and his wife. He abandoned it all just days
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May 31, 2011
Judy
rated it: 
This book almost turned me off reading. Two dimensional, vapid characters who are all absolutely boring. Nowonder Tolstoy chose to leave - who could put up with the soul destroying banalness of those surrounding him. Sofia is characterised as a cloying shrew - a fact that was surely taken from the opinions of the Tolstoyans who influenced the author and his later writings. It seems impossible to believe that Android intelligent, strong-willed woman who was integral to his early success would bec
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Oct 03, 2010
Sue
rated it: 
Huge disappointment, especially because the subject - Tolstoy - is himself the author of one of my favorite novels. However this book is so dull that I couldn't wait for the old geezer to kick the bucket so I could get on to something better. Parini calls his book is a novel, but it's more like a documentary: the characters are flat and there is little narrative pace. The point of view shifts from one character to another as we look into the "diaries" of each one, but they all spea
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Feb 21, 2010
Kathy
rated it:
The story of Tolstoy's running away from home at the end of his life is well known. This particular version has been made into a movie with award-winning stars, so I was curious . . . and disappointed. First of all, I was slightly annoyed that the main character was called Leo Nicholaevich rather than the Russian Lev Nicholaevich. Secondly, it is difficult to understand Lev and Sofia's alleged estrangement unless you know a lot more about their backgrounds, their marriage, and their personali
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Dec 23, 2010
Paul
rated it:
The book tells of 1910, the last year of Tolstoy's life. He was the most famous author in Russia, and possibly the world. After Anna Karenina and War and Peace and the short stories, he wrote religious tracts. The books is written from multiple points of view, each chapter alternating characters of the story. At times two persons tell the of the same encounter in consecutive chapters. The author has used Tolstoy's words in dialogue but has had to use his imagination in other set pieces. I felt t
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Apr 19, 2010
Meme
rated it:
Our book club went to see the movie and then I read the book. Jay Parini is a professor at Middlebury where I went to college. The movie was terrific (Helen Mirren and Christopher Plummer); the book tells the story in voices of several people: Tolstoy himself, his wife Sophia, his amenuensis, his young assistant, and his daughter, interspersed with poems by Parini. I never knew much about Tolstoy in his later years when he was trying to give up material possessions for a spiritual life, long
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Oct 31, 2007
Canongate
rated it:
Great way of telling a story, through letters and journal entries of all the parties involved.
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Feb 14, 2011
Leire
rated it:
It is such a good portrait of Tolstoy's last days. Easy to read, interesting an accurate. I highly recommend it.
Some quotes I enjoyed:
"People seem to forget that we all must die .... We ought to spend our energies not on useless conflicts but on doing what is clearly good."
"Thinking is the only way to make sense of life, to learn to live with the fact of death, the possibility of extinction."
"I do not believe that young men should More...
Some quotes I enjoyed:
"People seem to forget that we all must die .... We ought to spend our energies not on useless conflicts but on doing what is clearly good."
"Thinking is the only way to make sense of life, to learn to live with the fact of death, the possibility of extinction."
"I do not believe that young men should More...
Aug 31, 2010
Jane
rated it:
I loved the book, even more after we started to talk about it. Several people felt that the multiple viewpoints, and constant repetition of a particular event from different perspectives, was tiresome. But others (myself included) felt that this added to the depth of the book, I found Jon'a comments about the fact that Sofya was a victim, that since she didn't have any power in the marriage, she was the one who wasn't able to exert any control, completely true. I kept thinking about the way To
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Oct 11, 2011
Felix
rated it:
Das Buch, das auf Original-Tagebüchern, -Briefen und ähnlichen Quellen der handelnden Personen basiert, stellt das letzte Jahr im Leben Tolstois vor, geprägt von einem zunehmenden Konflikt zwischen seinem Drang zu einem einfachen, schlichten Leben, und dem Wunsch seiner Frau nach Luxus und Wohlstand.
Parini schrieb das Buch aus der Sicht verschiednester Personen rund um Tolstoi, sodass sich mehrere Nebenhandlungen aufspannen. Das Buch ist geprägt von Details, und spart auch nicht an Beschreibunge More...
Parini schrieb das Buch aus der Sicht verschiednester Personen rund um Tolstoi, sodass sich mehrere Nebenhandlungen aufspannen. Das Buch ist geprägt von Details, und spart auch nicht an Beschreibunge More...
Nov 13, 2011
Paula
rated it:
"A Última Estação" fala-nos do último ano de vida do grande escritor russo Lev Tolstói. É certo que esta é uma história de ficção, no entanto é baseada "nos diários daqueles que integraram o seu círculo mais próximo (...) e também no legado do próprio Tolstói", assim ficamos a conhecer a pessoa que foi o escritor para além das suas diversas obras (como Ana Karenina e Guerra e Paz).
A narrativa decorre em 1910, Lev Tolstói está no auge da sua carreira, no entanto é atormen More...
A narrativa decorre em 1910, Lev Tolstói está no auge da sua carreira, no entanto é atormen More...
Oct 10, 2008
TonyAlmeida
rated it:
Uma obra construída como se de uma sinfonia se tratasse: o último ano da vida de Lev Tólstoi descrito pelas pessoas que lhe eram mais próximas e pelo próprio Tólstoi. Uma narrativa composta a várias vozes que confluem e dão corpo a uma única obra.
Reconheço a minha ignorância em relação a Tólstoi - ou Lev Nikoláevitch, como fazia questão de ser tratado depois de ter renunciado ao título de conde -, tanto na sua biografia como na sua obra literária. Nunca li o "Guerra e Paz" More...
Reconheço a minha ignorância em relação a Tólstoi - ou Lev Nikoláevitch, como fazia questão de ser tratado depois de ter renunciado ao título de conde -, tanto na sua biografia como na sua obra literária. Nunca li o "Guerra e Paz" More...
Feb 03, 2008
****
Parini's The Last Station is a study of the end of Russian author Leo Tolstoy's life. You don't need to be a fan of Tolstoy to enjoy it--you don't even need to have read any of his novels. This book stands on its own merits.
Told in multiple first person narratives, the book explores how the various players see themselves and each other, enabling the reader to make up their own mind about their characters and motives. Personally, I came to like Tolstoy's long-suffer More...
Parini's The Last Station is a study of the end of Russian author Leo Tolstoy's life. You don't need to be a fan of Tolstoy to enjoy it--you don't even need to have read any of his novels. This book stands on its own merits.
Told in multiple first person narratives, the book explores how the various players see themselves and each other, enabling the reader to make up their own mind about their characters and motives. Personally, I came to like Tolstoy's long-suffer More...
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Mar 31, 2011
Jennifer
rated it:
Sorry I really wanted to like this book but there weren't many suprises in it. What you read on the back cover blurb is exactly what is inside and from multiple viewpoints. That is not my cup of tea, in parts of the book it is okay but not change the viewoint every chapter and definitely not with poems by the author inserted between the chapters. Also I did not like that in a historical novel, the author has the last chapter - his own poem written at Tolstoy's graveside - still perhaps this book
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Feb 06, 2011
Bookmaniac70
rated it:
Много интересен роман за последните месеци от живота на Лев Толстой. Оказва се, че всички около него са писали дневници и всеки разкрива различна гледна точка към личността му, възгледите му и конфликта с деспотичната му съпруга. Прочетох го с истинско удоволствие.
Mar 29, 2011
James
rated it:
This is a wonderful evocation of Tolstoy's last days, the people surrounding him and the aura created by the event. Parini captures all the excitement and intrigue for here was not just a literary icon but a very wealthy man who, ironically, had no interest in the very wealth that he had amassed. Each chapter in the book is written as if in the first person by six different voices, including Tolstoy himself, Sophia, Vladmir Chertkov (Tolstoy’s companion and promoter of his work) and Tolstoy’s se
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Jul 28, 2011
Tolstoy's sycophantic hangers on want to disinherit his wife and kids for the cause, Tolstoy's wife wants to kick out the sycophants, Tolstoy's new secretary wants to pursue some 20th century free love with the intelligentsia women, Tolstoy's kids are caught in the middle, and Tolstoy himself does a runner and dies (thinking he is alone) at a train station with the Russian media vultures outside. I kept thinking that I should just go read the diaries of these people and not the fictionalized ve
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