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A review by darwin8u
The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Short Stories by Leo Tolstoy
3.0
"Love, marriage, family,—all lies, lies, lies."
- Leo Tolstoy, The Krutzer Sonata
First, let me start this review by stating I think [b:Anna Karenina|152|Anna Karenina|Leo Tolstoy|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1350285139s/152.jpg|2507928] might just be a perfect novel. So, I love Tolstoy. [b:War and Peace|656|War and Peace|Leo Tolstoy|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1413215930s/656.jpg|4912783], also amazes me and easily belongs on the list of Great World Novels. But 'The Kreutzer Sonata' plays like the writings of an over-indulged, philosophically-stretched, cranky, Fundamentalist older man. It is the sad, second wife to Anna Karenina*. That said, I enjoyed the structure. It is basically a man, Pozdnyshev, discussing his feelings on marriage, morality, and family on a train ride with some strangers. During this discussion he admits that in a jealous rage he once killed his wife (and was later aquited).
The story was censored briefly in 1890 (its censorship was later overturned), but that didn't stop Theodore Roosevelt calling Tolstoy a "sexual moral pervert". The novel does allude to masturbation, immorality, adultery, abortion, etc. Which is funny, because the whole premise of the book is to rage against our moral failings. In a later piece Tolstoy wrote (Lesson of the"The Kreutzer Sonata") defending the novella, he basically explained his views:
1. Men are basically immoral perverts with the opposite sex when young. Society and families wink at their dissoluteness.
2. The poetic/romantic ideal of "falling in love" has had a detrimental impact on morality.
3. The birth of children has lost its pristine significance and the family has been degraded even in the "modern" view of marriage.
4. Children are being raised NOT to grow into moral adults, but to entertain their parents. They are seen as entertainments of the family.
5. Romatic ideas of music, art, dances, food, etc., has contributed and fanned the sexcual vices and diseases of youth.
6. The best years (youth) of our lives are spent trying to get our "freak on" (my term, not Count Tolstoy's). That period would be better spent not chasing tail, butserving one's country, science, art, or God.
7. Chasity and celibacy are to be admired and marriage and sex should be avoided. If we were really "Christian" we would not "bump uglies" (again, my term not the Count's).
It might seem like I am warping Tolstoy's argument a bit, but really I am not. I think the best response to Tolstoy came in 1908 at a celebration of Tolstoy's 80th* from G.K. Chesterton (not really a big libertine; big yes, libertine no):
"Tolstoy is not content with pitying humanity for its pains: such as poverty and prisons. He also pities humanity for its pleasures, such as music and patriotism. He weeps at the thought of hatred; but in The Kreutzer Sonata he weeps almost as much at the thought of love. He and all the humanitarians pity the joys of men." He went on to address Tolstoy directly: "What you dislike is being a man. You are at least next door to hating humanity, for you pity humanity because it is human”
* There are even a couple lines that seem to borrow scenes from, or allude to, Anna Karenina:
"throw myself under the cars, and thus finish everything."
"I was still unaware that ninety-nine families out of every hundred live in the same hell, and that it cannot be otherwise. I had not learned this fact from others or from myself. The coincidences that are met in regular, and even in irregular life, are surprising."
** Which, if the backward math works, means Kreutzer Sonata was written/published when Tolstoy was in his early 60s.
- Leo Tolstoy, The Krutzer Sonata
First, let me start this review by stating I think [b:Anna Karenina|152|Anna Karenina|Leo Tolstoy|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1350285139s/152.jpg|2507928] might just be a perfect novel. So, I love Tolstoy. [b:War and Peace|656|War and Peace|Leo Tolstoy|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1413215930s/656.jpg|4912783], also amazes me and easily belongs on the list of Great World Novels. But 'The Kreutzer Sonata' plays like the writings of an over-indulged, philosophically-stretched, cranky, Fundamentalist older man. It is the sad, second wife to Anna Karenina*. That said, I enjoyed the structure. It is basically a man, Pozdnyshev, discussing his feelings on marriage, morality, and family on a train ride with some strangers. During this discussion he admits that in a jealous rage he once killed his wife (and was later aquited).
The story was censored briefly in 1890 (its censorship was later overturned), but that didn't stop Theodore Roosevelt calling Tolstoy a "sexual moral pervert". The novel does allude to masturbation, immorality, adultery, abortion, etc. Which is funny, because the whole premise of the book is to rage against our moral failings. In a later piece Tolstoy wrote (Lesson of the"The Kreutzer Sonata") defending the novella, he basically explained his views:
1. Men are basically immoral perverts with the opposite sex when young. Society and families wink at their dissoluteness.
2. The poetic/romantic ideal of "falling in love" has had a detrimental impact on morality.
3. The birth of children has lost its pristine significance and the family has been degraded even in the "modern" view of marriage.
4. Children are being raised NOT to grow into moral adults, but to entertain their parents. They are seen as entertainments of the family.
5. Romatic ideas of music, art, dances, food, etc., has contributed and fanned the sexcual vices and diseases of youth.
6. The best years (youth) of our lives are spent trying to get our "freak on" (my term, not Count Tolstoy's). That period would be better spent not chasing tail, butserving one's country, science, art, or God.
7. Chasity and celibacy are to be admired and marriage and sex should be avoided. If we were really "Christian" we would not "bump uglies" (again, my term not the Count's).
It might seem like I am warping Tolstoy's argument a bit, but really I am not. I think the best response to Tolstoy came in 1908 at a celebration of Tolstoy's 80th* from G.K. Chesterton (not really a big libertine; big yes, libertine no):
"Tolstoy is not content with pitying humanity for its pains: such as poverty and prisons. He also pities humanity for its pleasures, such as music and patriotism. He weeps at the thought of hatred; but in The Kreutzer Sonata he weeps almost as much at the thought of love. He and all the humanitarians pity the joys of men." He went on to address Tolstoy directly: "What you dislike is being a man. You are at least next door to hating humanity, for you pity humanity because it is human”
* There are even a couple lines that seem to borrow scenes from, or allude to, Anna Karenina:
"throw myself under the cars, and thus finish everything."
"I was still unaware that ninety-nine families out of every hundred live in the same hell, and that it cannot be otherwise. I had not learned this fact from others or from myself. The coincidences that are met in regular, and even in irregular life, are surprising."
** Which, if the backward math works, means Kreutzer Sonata was written/published when Tolstoy was in his early 60s.