The Last Station: Reflections

Last night (at long last) we watched The Last Station, a movie about Tolstoy's final days.  I have long been fascinated by this chapter in history—the battle over the rights to Tolstoy's work, the conflict between his ideals and his living, his flight from the world he created (and his complex wife), his dying—a media spectacle—at the Astapova train station.  Jay Parini, an author of many books, an elaborator on many moods, published the book in 1990.  The movie, starring Christopher Plummer,...