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A Brief Guide to the Life and Work of Leo Tolstoy
Originally published in 1911 as a portion of the author’s larger “Essays on Russian Novelists,” this Kindle edition, equivalent in length to a physical book of approximately 32 pages, describes the life and work of Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy.
Sample passage:
I believe that the average man can learn more about life by reading Anna Karenina than he can by his own observation and experience. One learns much about Russian life in city and country, much about human nature, and much about one’s self, not all of which is flattering, but perhaps profitable for instruction.
This is the true realism—external and internal. The surface of things, clothes, habits of speech, manners and fashions, the way people enter a drawing-room, the way one inhales a cigarette—everything is truthfully reported. Then there is the true internal realism, which dives below all appearances and reveals the dawn of a new passion, the first faint stir of an ambition, the slow and cruel advance of the poison of jealousy, the ineradicable egotism, the absolute darkness of unspeakable remorse. No caprice is too trivial, no passion too colossal, to be beyond the reach of the author of this book.
Some novels have attained a wide circulation by means of one scene. In recollecting Anna Karenina, powerful scenes crowd into the memory—introspective and analytic as it is, it is filled with dramatic climaxes. The sheer force of some of these scenes is almost terrifying. The first meeting of Anna and Vronsky at the railway station, the midnight interview in the storm on the way back to Petersburg, the awful dialogue between them after she has fallen (omitted from the first American translation), the fearful excitement of the horserace, the sickness of Anna, Karenin’s forgiveness, the humiliation of Vronsky, the latter’s attempt at suicide, the steadily increasing scenes of jealousy with the shadow of death coming nearer, the clairvoyant power of the author in describing the death of Anna, and the departure of Vronsky, where the railway station reminds him with intrusive agony of the contrast between his first and last view of the woman he loved.
About the author:
William Lyon Phelps (1865-1943) was an American author, critic, scholar, and lecturer. He was Professor of English at Yale University, and was a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters. Other works include “Essays on Modern Novelists” and “Essays on Books.”
Sample passage:
I believe that the average man can learn more about life by reading Anna Karenina than he can by his own observation and experience. One learns much about Russian life in city and country, much about human nature, and much about one’s self, not all of which is flattering, but perhaps profitable for instruction.
This is the true realism—external and internal. The surface of things, clothes, habits of speech, manners and fashions, the way people enter a drawing-room, the way one inhales a cigarette—everything is truthfully reported. Then there is the true internal realism, which dives below all appearances and reveals the dawn of a new passion, the first faint stir of an ambition, the slow and cruel advance of the poison of jealousy, the ineradicable egotism, the absolute darkness of unspeakable remorse. No caprice is too trivial, no passion too colossal, to be beyond the reach of the author of this book.
Some novels have attained a wide circulation by means of one scene. In recollecting Anna Karenina, powerful scenes crowd into the memory—introspective and analytic as it is, it is filled with dramatic climaxes. The sheer force of some of these scenes is almost terrifying. The first meeting of Anna and Vronsky at the railway station, the midnight interview in the storm on the way back to Petersburg, the awful dialogue between them after she has fallen (omitted from the first American translation), the fearful excitement of the horserace, the sickness of Anna, Karenin’s forgiveness, the humiliation of Vronsky, the latter’s attempt at suicide, the steadily increasing scenes of jealousy with the shadow of death coming nearer, the clairvoyant power of the author in describing the death of Anna, and the departure of Vronsky, where the railway station reminds him with intrusive agony of the contrast between his first and last view of the woman he loved.
About the author:
William Lyon Phelps (1865-1943) was an American author, critic, scholar, and lecturer. He was Professor of English at Yale University, and was a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters. Other works include “Essays on Modern Novelists” and “Essays on Books.”
24 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 1, 2011
About the author
William Lyon Phelps
329 books9 followersProfessor of English at Yale University, 1892-1933.
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