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The Kreutzer Sonata
When Marshal of the Nobility Pozdnyshev suspects his wife of having an affair with her music partner, his jealousy consumes him and drives him to murder. Controversial upon publication in 1890, The Kreutzer Sonata illuminates Tolstoy’s then-feverish Christian ideals, his conflicts with lust and the hypocrisies of nineteenth-century marriage, and his thinking on the role of art and music in society.
In her Introduction, Doris Lessing shows how relevant The Kreutzer Sonata is to our understanding of Tolstoy the artist, as well as to feminism and literature. This Modern Library Paperback Classic also contains Tolstoy’s Sequel to the Kruetzer Sonata .
In her Introduction, Doris Lessing shows how relevant The Kreutzer Sonata is to our understanding of Tolstoy the artist, as well as to feminism and literature. This Modern Library Paperback Classic also contains Tolstoy’s Sequel to the Kruetzer Sonata .
128 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1889
810 people are currently reading
30.7k people want to read
About the author
Leo Tolstoy
7,233books27kfollowersLev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (Russian: Лев Николаевич Толстой; most appropriately used Liev Tolstoy; commonly Leo Tolstoy in Anglophone countries) was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays. His two most famous works, the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and a pinnacle of realist fiction. Many consider Tolstoy to have been one of the world's greatest novelists. Tolstoy is equally known for his complicated and paradoxical persona and for his extreme moralistic and ascetic views, which he adopted after a moral crisis and spiritual awakening in the 1870s, after which he also became noted as a moral thinker and social reformer.
His literal interpretation of the ethical teachings of Jesus, centering on the Sermon on the Mount, caused him in later life to become a fervent Christian anarchist and anarcho-pacifist. His ideas on nonviolent resistance, expressed in such works as The Kingdom of God Is Within You, were to have a profound impact on such pivotal twentieth-century figures as Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.
His literal interpretation of the ethical teachings of Jesus, centering on the Sermon on the Mount, caused him in later life to become a fervent Christian anarchist and anarcho-pacifist. His ideas on nonviolent resistance, expressed in such works as The Kingdom of God Is Within You, were to have a profound impact on such pivotal twentieth-century figures as Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 2,731 reviews
August 1, 2019
One of the best stories I have ever read.
Written by one of the greatest story tellers.
A bold, and authentic discussion of: Lust.
Love. Marriage. Children. Jealousy. Madness.
Strong stuff!
Written by one of the greatest story tellers.
A bold, and authentic discussion of: Lust.
Love. Marriage. Children. Jealousy. Madness.
Strong stuff!
March 13, 2023
I am not sure I understood the purpose of the work. The man's confession killed his wife, and he admits it openly. This evil expects to be permanently available to satisfy her sexual needs, a violent man who insulted and beat her in front of his children. This dreadful man nevertheless professes feminist ideas, wishing for the education of women and the control of their bodies for their sake. Provide access to some form of contraception.
He denounces the complete hypocrisy of society, which sells virgin and pure young girls to men who know all the perversions, with an institution of marriage that then binds these beings forever.
Therefore, this mixture of a disgusting man with progressive ideas disturbed me, especially as the tone is not humorous. On the contrary, the characters are dark and not distinguished by their features. Moreover, the interlocutor does not speak to give his opinion.
He denounces the complete hypocrisy of society, which sells virgin and pure young girls to men who know all the perversions, with an institution of marriage that then binds these beings forever.
Therefore, this mixture of a disgusting man with progressive ideas disturbed me, especially as the tone is not humorous. On the contrary, the characters are dark and not distinguished by their features. Moreover, the interlocutor does not speak to give his opinion.
January 21, 2025
O „înțelepciune� populară care a rămas neschimbată pînă azi: „Frica, iaca ce trebuie să sălășnuiască mai strașnic în sufletul femeii�.
Nu există, probabil, nicăieri în opera lui Tolstoi vreo scenă erotică. Pînă și în Sonata Kreutzer (prima ediție s-a tipărit în 1891), unde o astfel de scenă ar fi cerută de însăși logica întîmplării narate, Pozdnîșev, bărbatul înșelat (întors pe neașteptate acasă), își suprinde soția și amantul, un violonist, stînd la masă în „salonaș�, și nu în patul din dormitorul femeii, cum s-ar cuveni (și ar fi mai firesc). În definitiv, juridic vorbind, dovada adulterului e incompletă. Ipoteza nu devine certitudine. Transcriu:
„M-am furișat tiptil, am deschis brusc ușa. Mi-amintesc de expresia fețelor lor. Țin minte această expresie, fiindcă mi-a stîrnit o bucurie atroce. Era o expresie de groază. Tocmai asta voiam... El sta, mi se pare, la masă, dar văzîndu-mă ori auzindu-mă, a sărit în picioare și a rămas cu spatele spre bufet. Chipul lui nu exprima decît groaza, o groază care nu lăsa nici umbră de îndoială. Pe fața ei am citit aceeași expresie de groază, dar mai era și altceva. Dacă n-ar fi fost decît groaza, poate că nu s-ar fi întîmplat ceea ce s-a întîmplat [Pozdnîșev își înjunghie nevasta, n. m.]; dar expresia feței ei, cel puțin așa mi s-a părut în primul moment, vădea și mîhnire, supărare, pentru că-i era tulburată idila amoroasă și fericirea pe care o resimțea alături de el. S-ar fi zis că nu voia nimic altceva decît să fie lăsată să-și guste fericirea acelor clipe...
M-am oprit o clipă în pragul ușii, cu pumnalul la spate. În aceeași clipă el zîmbi și, pe un ton nepăsător pînă la ridicol, rosti:
- Cum vezi, facem muzică...� (traducere de Cezar Petrescu și C. Recevschi).
Asta e tot. Ce-i drept, exclamația stupidă a amantului ar fi meritat o pedeapsă exemplară. Din norocire pentru el, violonistul nu este un cavaler medieval, nu sare în apărarea femeii, ci o ia la sănătoasa. Scapă cu viață. Fuga e rușinoasă, dar sănătoasă. În schimb, comentariul lui Pozdnîșev nu este deloc stupid și are suficient haz pentru a-l cita în încheiere:
„Am vrut să pornesc în urmărirea lui, dar mi-am dat seama că ar fi fost ridicol să fug în ciorapi după ibovnicul soției mele, și nu voiam să fiu caraghios, ci năprasnic�.
Cum vedem, pudoarea autorului este maximă. Și nu e vorba numai de pudoare. Tolstoi sugerează adesea repulsia cea mai violentă față de orice element carnal. Prezentarea unei scene erotice vine în contradicție cu principiile sale (destul de rigide) despre căsnicie și eros, ca să nu spun mai mult. Mariajul trebuie să respecte abstinența cea mai strictă. La Tolstoi, violența și cruzimea nu au niciodată aspect erotic.
Că întreg comportamentul prozatorului a contrazis principiile sale, asta e o altă discuție...
November 24, 2022
“Más yo os digo que cualquiera que mira a una mujer para codiciarla, ya adulteró en ella su corazón� San Mateo, Cap. V, 28
Es evidente que Tolstói atravesaba una crisis que abarcaba lo matrimonial, lo ético y lo religioso cuando escribió este libro, dado que todas las ideas que él tiene claramente ordenadas en la cabeza (repito: en ese momento de su vida) las plasma en la mente del verdadero narrador principal de la historia que es Pozdnishev y no el supuesto personaje que sube al tren y se mezcla en una acalorada discusión los pasajeros que se encuentran en ese vagón.
Se nota también que la historia es demasiado fuerte para la época en la que fue publicada (1889) y por la violenta naturaleza de los hechos que se suceden hacia el final, además de la escabrosa forma que aborda ciertos temas como son el matrimonio, las relaciones sexuales dentro y fuera de este, la ética, la infidelidad y el asesinato.
Demasiado fuertes tal vez para una sociedad rusa que, como otras tantas, sin ser ingenuas, no estaban tan preparadas como hoy para “digerir� una historia tan transgresora como esta.
Creo que allí está el mérito de Tolstói, quien intenta transformar este trágico hecho ficticio en una enseñanza para las generaciones posteriores, basándose en su propia experiencia, que abarcan el sermón de la montaña, los Evangelios y Jesucristo.
Lo que también es de destacar es la notoria actualidad que el tema de la novela, puesto que lo que él plasma en 1889 sigue sucediendo en todo el mundo aún hoy en 2022.
Creo y concuerdo con otros lectores que el capítulo final “Comentario� está un poco demás. Como si el autor hubiera reconsiderado lo excesivamente arriesgado de la historia narrada, máxime teniendo en cuenta el cambio que se había producido en su vida.
Aunque se le reconoce el hecho de que él aconseje a la juventud de su época, estos (al igual que ahora) no le habrían hecho caso, especialmente teniendo en cuenta la naturaleza de la sociedad de la Rusia zarista.
Luego de haber leído varios libros de Tolstói, reconozco que me ha maravillado la manera en que trabaja a sus personajes desde el punto de vista psicológico y existencial.
Los moldea de un modo distinto a Fiódor Dostoievski, tal vez más simple, pero sin dejar de ahondar en la psiquis del personaje que está siendo sometido a la presión de lo que está viviendo.
En el caso de Pozdnishev, me encuentro con un personaje que relata su experiencia en forma maquinal y que más allá de que se apasiona por lo que cuenta, lo hace fríamente, como un racconto de sucesos a los que les agrega esa mezcla de sentimientos que lo embargaban en ese momento sumado a lo que siente hoy en el presente cuando todo pasó, porque realmente, contar con lujo de detalles cómo fue pertrechando el asesinato nos da una idea de su sangre fría al momento del relato.
Yo personalmente percibo eso. No logro detectar hasta qué punto está arrepentido, ya que no parece sufrir, con excepción de ciertos sollozos al final cuando cuenta lo que tuvo que vivir. Es como que aceptó el seguro destino que le tocaría, la prisión y la quita de sus hijos, quienes ya crecidos, le dan vuelta la cara.
Siempre es difícil posicionarse uno en el lugar de Pozdnishev, sobre todo porque es muy complicado saber si uno llegaría a tales extremos ante la desconfianza, los celos y una posible infidelidad.
Para finalizar vuelvo a reconocer la maestría de Tolstói al escribir una novela corta pero efectiva, adelantada a su época por los temas que toca, narrada con fluidez, imposible de dejar de leer de principio al final (si la leí de un día para otro fue por causas de fuerza mayor), sumado a que con el mínimo de personajes logra un máximo de efecto y nos da una novela contundente que dio mucha tela para cortar en 1889 y que sigue cautivando lectores aún hoy en el siglo XXI.
Es evidente que Tolstói atravesaba una crisis que abarcaba lo matrimonial, lo ético y lo religioso cuando escribió este libro, dado que todas las ideas que él tiene claramente ordenadas en la cabeza (repito: en ese momento de su vida) las plasma en la mente del verdadero narrador principal de la historia que es Pozdnishev y no el supuesto personaje que sube al tren y se mezcla en una acalorada discusión los pasajeros que se encuentran en ese vagón.
Se nota también que la historia es demasiado fuerte para la época en la que fue publicada (1889) y por la violenta naturaleza de los hechos que se suceden hacia el final, además de la escabrosa forma que aborda ciertos temas como son el matrimonio, las relaciones sexuales dentro y fuera de este, la ética, la infidelidad y el asesinato.
Demasiado fuertes tal vez para una sociedad rusa que, como otras tantas, sin ser ingenuas, no estaban tan preparadas como hoy para “digerir� una historia tan transgresora como esta.
Creo que allí está el mérito de Tolstói, quien intenta transformar este trágico hecho ficticio en una enseñanza para las generaciones posteriores, basándose en su propia experiencia, que abarcan el sermón de la montaña, los Evangelios y Jesucristo.
Lo que también es de destacar es la notoria actualidad que el tema de la novela, puesto que lo que él plasma en 1889 sigue sucediendo en todo el mundo aún hoy en 2022.
Creo y concuerdo con otros lectores que el capítulo final “Comentario� está un poco demás. Como si el autor hubiera reconsiderado lo excesivamente arriesgado de la historia narrada, máxime teniendo en cuenta el cambio que se había producido en su vida.
Aunque se le reconoce el hecho de que él aconseje a la juventud de su época, estos (al igual que ahora) no le habrían hecho caso, especialmente teniendo en cuenta la naturaleza de la sociedad de la Rusia zarista.
Luego de haber leído varios libros de Tolstói, reconozco que me ha maravillado la manera en que trabaja a sus personajes desde el punto de vista psicológico y existencial.
Los moldea de un modo distinto a Fiódor Dostoievski, tal vez más simple, pero sin dejar de ahondar en la psiquis del personaje que está siendo sometido a la presión de lo que está viviendo.
En el caso de Pozdnishev, me encuentro con un personaje que relata su experiencia en forma maquinal y que más allá de que se apasiona por lo que cuenta, lo hace fríamente, como un racconto de sucesos a los que les agrega esa mezcla de sentimientos que lo embargaban en ese momento sumado a lo que siente hoy en el presente cuando todo pasó, porque realmente, contar con lujo de detalles cómo fue pertrechando el asesinato nos da una idea de su sangre fría al momento del relato.
Yo personalmente percibo eso. No logro detectar hasta qué punto está arrepentido, ya que no parece sufrir, con excepción de ciertos sollozos al final cuando cuenta lo que tuvo que vivir. Es como que aceptó el seguro destino que le tocaría, la prisión y la quita de sus hijos, quienes ya crecidos, le dan vuelta la cara.
Siempre es difícil posicionarse uno en el lugar de Pozdnishev, sobre todo porque es muy complicado saber si uno llegaría a tales extremos ante la desconfianza, los celos y una posible infidelidad.
Para finalizar vuelvo a reconocer la maestría de Tolstói al escribir una novela corta pero efectiva, adelantada a su época por los temas que toca, narrada con fluidez, imposible de dejar de leer de principio al final (si la leí de un día para otro fue por causas de fuerza mayor), sumado a que con el mínimo de personajes logra un máximo de efecto y nos da una novela contundente que dio mucha tela para cortar en 1889 y que sigue cautivando lectores aún hoy en el siglo XXI.
May 6, 2021
Este libro trata sobre un cuñao que coge por banda a un señor que estaba tan tranquilo en un tren nocturno por Siberia y le da la tabarra durante toda la noche contándole su matrimonio fotograma a fotograma con dos objetivos la mar de inquietantes:
- Convencerle de que el amor, la música y la sensualidad son las perdiciones del ser humano.
- Justificarse por haber matado a su mujer después de haberla pillado con las manos en la masa con un apuesto violinista.
El libro es insoportable y se me ha hecho larguísimo aún siendo una novela corta. Lo peor de todo es que no he entendido la finalidad del mismo: no sé si es un alegato contra las relaciones carnales, a favor de los celos o contra los viajes en tren.
Solo he sacado dos conclusiones: que no recomiendo este libro y que es mejor evitar conversar con desconocidos en el transporte público porque nunca puedes saber realmente si esa persona tiene todos los patitos en fila.
- Convencerle de que el amor, la música y la sensualidad son las perdiciones del ser humano.
- Justificarse por haber matado a su mujer después de haberla pillado con las manos en la masa con un apuesto violinista.
El libro es insoportable y se me ha hecho larguísimo aún siendo una novela corta. Lo peor de todo es que no he entendido la finalidad del mismo: no sé si es un alegato contra las relaciones carnales, a favor de los celos o contra los viajes en tren.
Solo he sacado dos conclusiones: que no recomiendo este libro y que es mejor evitar conversar con desconocidos en el transporte público porque nunca puedes saber realmente si esa persona tiene todos los patitos en fila.
August 22, 2022
This was a disturbing read. The story is a confession of a disturbed man whose suspicion and jealousy led him to carry out a heinous crime - the murder of his wife, the mother of his children. The story is written as a direct narrative by the offender himself. Surprisingly, Tolstoy has chosen such a style. Perhaps, he thought it would be the honest and truest way to convey the story to the reader. But this directness, in my opinion, made the reading all the more uncomfortable, and that is all that I have to say as regards the story.
If however one sets aside the contents of the story and probes a little into the views expressed on love, marriage, the conduct of men and women, etc., one finds that Tolstoy's views on these themes intruding on the storyline. More than the story itself, his views held my interest. The protagonist's conduct has many similarities with Tolstoy's personal life. Like him, Tolstoy was carrying out debauchery as a youngster; like him, Tolstoy insisted his intended wife read his journal entries which have recorded his previous conduct before their marriage; like him, Tolstoy was not very happy in his marriage; and like him, Tolstoy was tormented by jealousy towards a musician friend of his wife with whom she played together. Since Tolstoy was not as happy in his marriage as he expected him to be, he turned towards religion and formed new opinions on the above themes. And through Kreutzer Sonata he found a way of expressing them. I said above that Tolstoy's views interested me, but that is only in an objective way. Subjectively, as a modern-day reader and a woman, his views are disconcerting.
I knew a little of Tolstoy's life before this reading, and honestly, that helped me to endure this unpleasant story. And it also prevented me from becoming completely shocked. However, I really prefer the Tolstoy who wrote Anna Karenina, when he was more balanced and happy.
If however one sets aside the contents of the story and probes a little into the views expressed on love, marriage, the conduct of men and women, etc., one finds that Tolstoy's views on these themes intruding on the storyline. More than the story itself, his views held my interest. The protagonist's conduct has many similarities with Tolstoy's personal life. Like him, Tolstoy was carrying out debauchery as a youngster; like him, Tolstoy insisted his intended wife read his journal entries which have recorded his previous conduct before their marriage; like him, Tolstoy was not very happy in his marriage; and like him, Tolstoy was tormented by jealousy towards a musician friend of his wife with whom she played together. Since Tolstoy was not as happy in his marriage as he expected him to be, he turned towards religion and formed new opinions on the above themes. And through Kreutzer Sonata he found a way of expressing them. I said above that Tolstoy's views interested me, but that is only in an objective way. Subjectively, as a modern-day reader and a woman, his views are disconcerting.
I knew a little of Tolstoy's life before this reading, and honestly, that helped me to endure this unpleasant story. And it also prevented me from becoming completely shocked. However, I really prefer the Tolstoy who wrote Anna Karenina, when he was more balanced and happy.
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December 2, 2019I was inspired to read this after finishing because the theme of seemed to closely mirror an episode Sofia described in which her husband became jealous of a musician friend of hers and of the hours they spent playing music together. That real life connection gave the novella an extra relevance for me but otherwise I found it difficult to understand. I think I prefer the Tolstoy of and of to the more fundamentalist and intensely angry Tolstoy who wrote this novella. However, the work introduced me to Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata, a wonderful piece of music which has become a favourite. I have the Itzhak Perlman version but this one is fine too:
December 8, 2022
5 �
‘The Kreutzer Sonata (1901)� oil painting by René-Xavier Prinet
Probably not what most would recommend as your first Tolstoy but, nevertheless, this was mine and I found it absolutely captivating.
Published in 1889, during Tolstoy’s Post-Christian-conversion era, it’s a peculiar mix of both unorthodox (or rigidly orthodox, depending on your beliefs) religious zealotry and progressive feminist ideals. It ebbs and flows between absurdly misogynistic and anticipatedly anti-patriarchal.
While I don’t think anyone in our modern times would give this full marks for its message (unless of course you’re a bit of a radical Christian anarchist like Tolstoy), I am doing so for its facility, while not needing to relate to the main protagonist or his negative experience-driven ideals, to coerce the reader into reflection on elements of society and relationships which have simply become the unquestioned and for granted norm. That and the honesty with which Tolstoy, in the guise of the main protagonist, Pozdnyshev, expresses his beliefs, however vitriolic they may, at times, come across. It’s incredibly compelling and dare I say a little bit perversely cathartic, like a vicariously ingested emotional purgative, to enter the mind of such a tormented and paranoid, but otherwise lucid, soul and marvel, with raised eyebrows, at the chaos and madness of their thoughts. Tolstoy’s wife, Sophia, may not agree but this kind of unguarded truthfulness in personal expression is something I don’t think should ever be censored.
The Russian authorities didn’t agree with me either and this novel caused instant scandal on its publication. The censor was going to ban it, but a compromise was reached by allowing it in an edition too expensive for ordinary people. This coming from the guy who renounced Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony for being morally irresponsible, elitist, and corrupting� Ok!
The synopsis reads, “When Marshal of the Nobility Pozdnyshev suspects his wife of having an affair with her music partner, his jealousy consumes him and drives him to murder.� That’s pretty much it, in a nutshell. But within the scope of this narrative, Tolstoy force feeds the reader his beliefs regarding Christian ideals (not of the church, with whom he disagrees, but his own interpretation of the Bible) and his lamentations regarding the hypocrisies inherent in 19th-century marriage. He even finds time to relay his beliefs on the proper role of music and the arts in society.
So, what’s he preaching? Well, a lot of things but I’ll just share a couple to give, hopefully, an accurate idea of this novel. The first is, what he believes to be, the Christian idea that physical love, pushed and supported by society, is responsible for many of the evils that are committed in the world (indeed, Pozdnyshev never takes complete ownership of his awful deeds and uses this as his main excuse) and that Chastity, as an ideal (not demanding strict adherence) is the way beyond this.
”When people take on an external obligation to live together all their lives—and even from the second month they hate each other and want to separate, and yet they go on living together—then follows that terrible hell from which they try to escape by drinking, by duels, by killing and poisoning themselves and others�
One should not seek “carnal love� or marriage as it is only a hindrance to the service of God and therefore a fall. If one (some might say inevitably, as is human nature) succumbs to the temptation than it should be considered the one and only slip-up and, in this case, the couple should enter into actual and indissoluble marriage.
Want Children? Don’t even think about it buddy! Help the ones that already exist and are without food and water, do not even think about procreating! But, what of the human race?
“Well, why shouldn’t the human race perish?�
Wow, that’s dark man! How convenient that Tolstoy’s philosophy changed so drastically after he fathered 13 children of his own; the last of which was born just 2 years before the publication of this novel! The hypocrisy is strong with this one!
Tolstoy (sorry, I mean Pozdnyshev) believes that society’s championing of marriage is a tool of the patriarchy and that women are essentially born into slavery with the ultimate goal in life, the only agreeable goal in life, being to seduce the best possible partner and bear him children. High society has become a “luxurious brothel� and, in resentment, women have become wicked and treacherous:
“Women, like queens, hold ninety per cent of the human race as prisoners in slavery and hard labor. And all this because they have been kept down, deprived of their equal rights with men! And so they avenge themselves by taking advantage of our passions, by ensnaring us in their nets.�
So, all of these things manifest themselves, within relationships/marriages, in the form of resentment, and even deeply disturbing and repulsive hate in Pozdnyshev’s case:
“In me, at least, hatred of her boiled terribly. I often looked at her when she was drinking tea, dangling her crossed leg, bringing her spoon to her mouth to sip from it, swallowing—I hated her for this very trifle as if it were the worst of crimes.�
And in the case of Pozdnyshev’s wife (name never given), it allegedly manifests itself in adultery. But, was their really an affair? Well, not to condone the crime committed as a result but, if you’ll hear me, there most certainly was!! If you’ll allow me to proceed with tongue in cheek, when Pozdnyshev comes home to find his wife and violinist, Trukachevsky, alone in the piano room, they say “Oh we just piano and chillin�, y’know, haven’t decided what to play at our little concert in a couple of days� BULLshit! That would mean that Pozdnyshev’s wife, who had largely given up on the piano until very recently, would have to have learned the piano part of THE KREUTZER SONATA (!!) in just a couple of days; no sir, they had clearly already practiced this piece and were enjoying some extra-curricular activities. Not only that but, knowing that your husband was already more than a little bit uneasy about your relationship with this man, why would you select a piece which was widely regarded as a sensual and lusty piece in its time; incredibly and unnecessarily provocative!
Highly recommend! It might infuriate you, but it’s very compelling nonetheless! Adieu.
‘The Kreutzer Sonata (1901)� oil painting by René-Xavier Prinet
Probably not what most would recommend as your first Tolstoy but, nevertheless, this was mine and I found it absolutely captivating.
Published in 1889, during Tolstoy’s Post-Christian-conversion era, it’s a peculiar mix of both unorthodox (or rigidly orthodox, depending on your beliefs) religious zealotry and progressive feminist ideals. It ebbs and flows between absurdly misogynistic and anticipatedly anti-patriarchal.
While I don’t think anyone in our modern times would give this full marks for its message (unless of course you’re a bit of a radical Christian anarchist like Tolstoy), I am doing so for its facility, while not needing to relate to the main protagonist or his negative experience-driven ideals, to coerce the reader into reflection on elements of society and relationships which have simply become the unquestioned and for granted norm. That and the honesty with which Tolstoy, in the guise of the main protagonist, Pozdnyshev, expresses his beliefs, however vitriolic they may, at times, come across. It’s incredibly compelling and dare I say a little bit perversely cathartic, like a vicariously ingested emotional purgative, to enter the mind of such a tormented and paranoid, but otherwise lucid, soul and marvel, with raised eyebrows, at the chaos and madness of their thoughts. Tolstoy’s wife, Sophia, may not agree but this kind of unguarded truthfulness in personal expression is something I don’t think should ever be censored.
The Russian authorities didn’t agree with me either and this novel caused instant scandal on its publication. The censor was going to ban it, but a compromise was reached by allowing it in an edition too expensive for ordinary people. This coming from the guy who renounced Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony for being morally irresponsible, elitist, and corrupting� Ok!
The synopsis reads, “When Marshal of the Nobility Pozdnyshev suspects his wife of having an affair with her music partner, his jealousy consumes him and drives him to murder.� That’s pretty much it, in a nutshell. But within the scope of this narrative, Tolstoy force feeds the reader his beliefs regarding Christian ideals (not of the church, with whom he disagrees, but his own interpretation of the Bible) and his lamentations regarding the hypocrisies inherent in 19th-century marriage. He even finds time to relay his beliefs on the proper role of music and the arts in society.
So, what’s he preaching? Well, a lot of things but I’ll just share a couple to give, hopefully, an accurate idea of this novel. The first is, what he believes to be, the Christian idea that physical love, pushed and supported by society, is responsible for many of the evils that are committed in the world (indeed, Pozdnyshev never takes complete ownership of his awful deeds and uses this as his main excuse) and that Chastity, as an ideal (not demanding strict adherence) is the way beyond this.
”When people take on an external obligation to live together all their lives—and even from the second month they hate each other and want to separate, and yet they go on living together—then follows that terrible hell from which they try to escape by drinking, by duels, by killing and poisoning themselves and others�
One should not seek “carnal love� or marriage as it is only a hindrance to the service of God and therefore a fall. If one (some might say inevitably, as is human nature) succumbs to the temptation than it should be considered the one and only slip-up and, in this case, the couple should enter into actual and indissoluble marriage.
Want Children? Don’t even think about it buddy! Help the ones that already exist and are without food and water, do not even think about procreating! But, what of the human race?
“Well, why shouldn’t the human race perish?�
Wow, that’s dark man! How convenient that Tolstoy’s philosophy changed so drastically after he fathered 13 children of his own; the last of which was born just 2 years before the publication of this novel! The hypocrisy is strong with this one!
Tolstoy (sorry, I mean Pozdnyshev) believes that society’s championing of marriage is a tool of the patriarchy and that women are essentially born into slavery with the ultimate goal in life, the only agreeable goal in life, being to seduce the best possible partner and bear him children. High society has become a “luxurious brothel� and, in resentment, women have become wicked and treacherous:
“Women, like queens, hold ninety per cent of the human race as prisoners in slavery and hard labor. And all this because they have been kept down, deprived of their equal rights with men! And so they avenge themselves by taking advantage of our passions, by ensnaring us in their nets.�
So, all of these things manifest themselves, within relationships/marriages, in the form of resentment, and even deeply disturbing and repulsive hate in Pozdnyshev’s case:
“In me, at least, hatred of her boiled terribly. I often looked at her when she was drinking tea, dangling her crossed leg, bringing her spoon to her mouth to sip from it, swallowing—I hated her for this very trifle as if it were the worst of crimes.�
And in the case of Pozdnyshev’s wife (name never given), it allegedly manifests itself in adultery. But, was their really an affair? Well, not to condone the crime committed as a result but, if you’ll hear me, there most certainly was!! If you’ll allow me to proceed with tongue in cheek, when Pozdnyshev comes home to find his wife and violinist, Trukachevsky, alone in the piano room, they say “Oh we just piano and chillin�, y’know, haven’t decided what to play at our little concert in a couple of days� BULLshit! That would mean that Pozdnyshev’s wife, who had largely given up on the piano until very recently, would have to have learned the piano part of THE KREUTZER SONATA (!!) in just a couple of days; no sir, they had clearly already practiced this piece and were enjoying some extra-curricular activities. Not only that but, knowing that your husband was already more than a little bit uneasy about your relationship with this man, why would you select a piece which was widely regarded as a sensual and lusty piece in its time; incredibly and unnecessarily provocative!
Highly recommend! It might infuriate you, but it’s very compelling nonetheless! Adieu.
Read
September 19, 2019Plainly the only reason for reading Tolstoy's Kretzer Sonate is to be able to begin the review with and to end the review with .
As to the story I am disappointed, for which I blame Janacek.
To go back to the beginning, lets imagine you are travelling on a train, it is going to be a fairly long journey, more than a day, I get on and sit opposite you and begin to tell you a boring story full of tiresome ideologies. I had settled on reading Ms Appletree's , flicking through and reading a couple of pages of Ms Apfelbaum's book at more or less random convinced me that it was likely to be a deeply silly tome and that I would need some strengthening beforehand before embarking upon it, my stomach suggested Tolstoy's Kreuzer Sonata, which I had never read but I knew that Janacek's first violin sonata had been inspired by it and since that is a passionate, engaging and a powerful piece of music I led my myself to believe that the work that inspired it must be at least that good. After reading I'm at a loss what to do with my stomach - does it need some of those fancy yoghurt things with friendly bacteria, or a stiff glass of 80% spirits to kill off a billion or two microbes and enable a different floral consensus to emerge in my intestine?
As short stories go it is a bit complicated in its structure. It was first published in 1889, the edition I read has an extra section from 1890 in response to the 'many letters received asking me "what's it all about Lev Nikolilich?"', this extra section is about 15% of the complete length and outlines that Tolstoy is (at least) more Christian than the Church, also implicitly that the only person qualified to interpret Tolstoy is his prophet Tolstoy.
The main story has a narrator (who may or may not be Tolstoy ) travelling on a long train journey, one of the other passengers is a somewhat nervous and agitated fellow eager to share his opinions on love and the relative positions of men and women in society, it emerges he has a special interest in these questions because he murdered his wife in a fit of jealousy, he was acquitted by a jury of his peers on the grounds of the supposed adultery of his wife. And eventually he tells the narrator the story of how he came to murder his wife with a dagger in a state of absolute clarity.
I suppose my disappointment is twofold, since as a biased and limited person that I am I would have two (at least) expectations from the above, that the author through their literary skill puts me in a position in which I experience that state of passion and am myself a vicarious murderer (since through literature we can get to live the lives that to our own good fortune we never get to live and can with Dr Johnson say upon seeing the condemned man on the way to the gallows there but for the Grace of God or historical materialism,fate, accumulated Karma, or luck go I) secondly that I believe the character in the story is capable of being a murderer.
As to the first I was left feeling that the story teller was simply silly, perhaps in need of a thick ear, or having his head plunged repeatedly into a barrel of cold water. As to the second I could believe that he might drive his partner to suicide by jumping out of a moving train, or more likely that they'd get off at the next stop wherever the hell it was, station or no, rather than endure more of his babble, but a murderer?
Anyhow, the good Count in 1890 decided to rescue all literate humanity and tell all of us fools that the entire point of everything is that one must be a vegetarian and be celibate. Otherwise you end up stabbing your wife repeatedly through her corset with a dagger obviously.
Reading the details of the murderer's narration - largely drawn from Tolstoy's own life, pre-marital vigorous indulgence in prostitutes, marriage, frequent sex with the young peasant women of his estate, children, his wife's difficulty in breast feeding their first born, I wondered given his combination of disgust at sexual expression between men and women coupled with unrelenting intercourse with a volcanic sexual drive, if maybe homosexuality might have suited him better? Then again that would probably have simply given him a completely new set of complexities and problems. I recall that there was in the backwoods of Russia a sect that practised castration , I don't know why, perhaps having observed that you can make a bull into an ox and a cockerel into a capon that by analogy perhaps they thought by the same means to make man into superman?
Well Tolstoy is what he is, from the Janacek I had constructed a different story in my imagination, a narrator noticing exchanged glances, lingering touches, and his increasingly intense reactions to these, but that isn't the story he wants to tell, or maybe preach.
The change from 1877 to 1889 Kreutzer Sonata is remarkable, even regressive - less emotionally wide ranging, even weirder (despite common elements ), less sympathetic to the emotional integrity of all his characters.
Anyway, having finished I'm all the more amused by the Janacek connection given his own irrepressible adultery, which in a manner of speaking led to his death.
As to the story I am disappointed, for which I blame Janacek.
To go back to the beginning, lets imagine you are travelling on a train, it is going to be a fairly long journey, more than a day, I get on and sit opposite you and begin to tell you a boring story full of tiresome ideologies. I had settled on reading Ms Appletree's , flicking through and reading a couple of pages of Ms Apfelbaum's book at more or less random convinced me that it was likely to be a deeply silly tome and that I would need some strengthening beforehand before embarking upon it, my stomach suggested Tolstoy's Kreuzer Sonata, which I had never read but I knew that Janacek's first violin sonata had been inspired by it and since that is a passionate, engaging and a powerful piece of music I led my myself to believe that the work that inspired it must be at least that good. After reading I'm at a loss what to do with my stomach - does it need some of those fancy yoghurt things with friendly bacteria, or a stiff glass of 80% spirits to kill off a billion or two microbes and enable a different floral consensus to emerge in my intestine?
As short stories go it is a bit complicated in its structure. It was first published in 1889, the edition I read has an extra section from 1890 in response to the 'many letters received asking me "what's it all about Lev Nikolilich?"', this extra section is about 15% of the complete length and outlines that Tolstoy is (at least) more Christian than the Church, also implicitly that the only person qualified to interpret Tolstoy is his prophet Tolstoy.
The main story has a narrator (who may or may not be Tolstoy ) travelling on a long train journey, one of the other passengers is a somewhat nervous and agitated fellow eager to share his opinions on love and the relative positions of men and women in society, it emerges he has a special interest in these questions because he murdered his wife in a fit of jealousy, he was acquitted by a jury of his peers on the grounds of the supposed adultery of his wife. And eventually he tells the narrator the story of how he came to murder his wife with a dagger in a state of absolute clarity.
I suppose my disappointment is twofold, since as a biased and limited person that I am I would have two (at least) expectations from the above, that the author through their literary skill puts me in a position in which I experience that state of passion and am myself a vicarious murderer (since through literature we can get to live the lives that to our own good fortune we never get to live and can with Dr Johnson say upon seeing the condemned man on the way to the gallows there but for the Grace of God or historical materialism,fate, accumulated Karma, or luck go I) secondly that I believe the character in the story is capable of being a murderer.
As to the first I was left feeling that the story teller was simply silly, perhaps in need of a thick ear, or having his head plunged repeatedly into a barrel of cold water. As to the second I could believe that he might drive his partner to suicide by jumping out of a moving train, or more likely that they'd get off at the next stop wherever the hell it was, station or no, rather than endure more of his babble, but a murderer?
Anyhow, the good Count in 1890 decided to rescue all literate humanity and tell all of us fools that the entire point of everything is that one must be a vegetarian and be celibate. Otherwise you end up stabbing your wife repeatedly through her corset with a dagger obviously.
Reading the details of the murderer's narration - largely drawn from Tolstoy's own life, pre-marital vigorous indulgence in prostitutes, marriage, frequent sex with the young peasant women of his estate, children, his wife's difficulty in breast feeding their first born, I wondered given his combination of disgust at sexual expression between men and women coupled with unrelenting intercourse with a volcanic sexual drive, if maybe homosexuality might have suited him better? Then again that would probably have simply given him a completely new set of complexities and problems. I recall that there was in the backwoods of Russia a sect that practised castration , I don't know why, perhaps having observed that you can make a bull into an ox and a cockerel into a capon that by analogy perhaps they thought by the same means to make man into superman?
Well Tolstoy is what he is, from the Janacek I had constructed a different story in my imagination, a narrator noticing exchanged glances, lingering touches, and his increasingly intense reactions to these, but that isn't the story he wants to tell, or maybe preach.
The change from 1877 to 1889 Kreutzer Sonata is remarkable, even regressive - less emotionally wide ranging, even weirder (despite common elements ), less sympathetic to the emotional integrity of all his characters.
Anyway, having finished I'm all the more amused by the Janacek connection given his own irrepressible adultery, which in a manner of speaking led to his death.
November 1, 2022
Are you sitting comfortably? Reading this, you probably are. Somewhere. At home, perhaps. In that chair with the sag and extra pillow for the small of your back. You feel safe. Right? But of course you do. What's there to fear? The doors are locked. The windows are shut. Besides, the neighborhood isn't bad. A pumpkin you left out front went missing that Halloween. But that's just kids. Nothing to worry about. Your neighbors are alright. Those you see will say "hi." Any others are quiet which is fine because you like, how you do like, to read.
Now, imagine you've booked an Uber and the driver tells you he committed a murder. The ride is a long one and there's nowhere to get out. Picture long stretches of empty landscape. Made emptier because it's dark. Nothing to break the darkness except your driver's voice telling you how he did it (rather messily) and why (he gets almost poetic here, and philosophical about marriage and . . . music).
But, it's a train, you say. Of course, there were no Ubers in Tolstoy's day. And when was the last time you rode through the night on a train with . . . compartments? Not those lengths of seats like in a plane all facing the back of the seat in front. COMPARTMENTS. Those tiny cubicles in which four or, in a pinch, even six people pressed up against each other, sit. They have curtains which someone always shuts. So that people going past can't see in. Inside, the heat is generally pumping when it's not just hot from bodies eating, sleeping, and waiting. Claustrophobic even to those who aren't usually bothered (unless vodka and pretzels are shared around), its intimacy is inescapable as a prison cell with roommates you don't choose. That train is Tolstoy's setting. And one passenger is a murderer.
It's no whodunnit. This story is a confession. And like the passenger who is confided in, the reader must listen. Nothing more or less.
When did someone last touch you like that?
Now, imagine you've booked an Uber and the driver tells you he committed a murder. The ride is a long one and there's nowhere to get out. Picture long stretches of empty landscape. Made emptier because it's dark. Nothing to break the darkness except your driver's voice telling you how he did it (rather messily) and why (he gets almost poetic here, and philosophical about marriage and . . . music).
But, it's a train, you say. Of course, there were no Ubers in Tolstoy's day. And when was the last time you rode through the night on a train with . . . compartments? Not those lengths of seats like in a plane all facing the back of the seat in front. COMPARTMENTS. Those tiny cubicles in which four or, in a pinch, even six people pressed up against each other, sit. They have curtains which someone always shuts. So that people going past can't see in. Inside, the heat is generally pumping when it's not just hot from bodies eating, sleeping, and waiting. Claustrophobic even to those who aren't usually bothered (unless vodka and pretzels are shared around), its intimacy is inescapable as a prison cell with roommates you don't choose. That train is Tolstoy's setting. And one passenger is a murderer.
It's no whodunnit. This story is a confession. And like the passenger who is confided in, the reader must listen. Nothing more or less.
When did someone last touch you like that?
Read
June 30, 2017I read Doris Lessing's introduction to this and I was a bit stunned, angry almost. Why would a writer pen such a semi negative image of a book in her introduction, I wondered. A critique, yes, but why write an introduction for it at all? There is a moment when she even questions his lovemaking skills: "At some point one does have to ask if perhaps the trouble was really a simple one: Tolstoy was no good in bed." Whaaat? A bit personal, no?
And then I read the book. Ehn-ehn. On a plane to Chicago, I read. At the Chicago Riverwalk, flanked by pigeons, I read. At a teashop, I read. While waiting for my husband to end his day at a conference for lawyers, I read. And then I started to be angry at myself for choosing it. I threw the book on the park bench, kept walking, turned around, and came back for it. It was small, fit snugly into a small backpack, seemed easy for travel, so I chose it from my home library. Ehn-ehn, silly mistake. There I was, in a different city, no paperback to read, a few books on Audible, yes, but it still wasn't the same.
Alas, this is one I did not, could not complete. Tolstoy wrote this during the spiritual crisis that reshaped his life. He was a "rationalist" and "moralist" and his views on marriage had become skewed. He stopped writing, until friends like Turgenev, on his deathbed, convinced him to keep writing. Of course we're glad he did, because we have possibilities, like . However, putting aside the preposterous plot, the tone of this book was disconcertingly bitter and anguished, a bit psychotic and egotistical, and just plain ignorant as relates to female sexuality. Perhaps Tolstoy should have listened to his friend Chekhov when he told him he "talked nonsense about female sexuality." I just could not take another moment of Pozdnyshev's condescension, even if at some points he had great insight about man's hypocrisy. On to the next. (My next planned Tolstoy reread: ).
And then I read the book. Ehn-ehn. On a plane to Chicago, I read. At the Chicago Riverwalk, flanked by pigeons, I read. At a teashop, I read. While waiting for my husband to end his day at a conference for lawyers, I read. And then I started to be angry at myself for choosing it. I threw the book on the park bench, kept walking, turned around, and came back for it. It was small, fit snugly into a small backpack, seemed easy for travel, so I chose it from my home library. Ehn-ehn, silly mistake. There I was, in a different city, no paperback to read, a few books on Audible, yes, but it still wasn't the same.
Alas, this is one I did not, could not complete. Tolstoy wrote this during the spiritual crisis that reshaped his life. He was a "rationalist" and "moralist" and his views on marriage had become skewed. He stopped writing, until friends like Turgenev, on his deathbed, convinced him to keep writing. Of course we're glad he did, because we have possibilities, like . However, putting aside the preposterous plot, the tone of this book was disconcertingly bitter and anguished, a bit psychotic and egotistical, and just plain ignorant as relates to female sexuality. Perhaps Tolstoy should have listened to his friend Chekhov when he told him he "talked nonsense about female sexuality." I just could not take another moment of Pozdnyshev's condescension, even if at some points he had great insight about man's hypocrisy. On to the next. (My next planned Tolstoy reread: ).
April 20, 2025
An unpleasant book to say the least about murder, hate, cruelty, jealousy, suspicion, uneasiness and chronic disillusionment. Not an easy read though from the second greatest writer ever, even Leo Tolstoy has limits. Pozdnyshe lets be clear is a creep, unstable, always a man that never trust anyone particularly his pretty wife, whose name isn't stated. On a long endless train trip mostly with just another mute passenger in the carriage with Pozdnyshe, when he narrates his life story to yet an additional unnamed citizen during the Russian era of the Czars. As the locomotive rushes by on the rails past small towns, dark images seen maybe are lonely farms, dilapidated buildings, ghosts in the vast night which quickly disappear, with frequent stops at the remote depots. Mysterious grinding noises from the outside, still the man drones on and on, the listener begins growing shall we say, a little uncomfortable. Battles between the couple with five children get progressively harsher, the intensive words show the decline of their relationship, a slice of a bad marriage. The reader feels more unclean but why do they continue to read...for the simple reason we are fascinated by train wrecks if you forgive the pun. The psychopath speaks in unemotional words unfolding in his sick mind, reveals the belief that an able though amateur musician was the lover, Trukhachevsky is having an illicit affair with the wife. He the crazed husband becomes very paranoid seeing things not real, a figment of imagination however it develops into pain and suffering. Anger permeates his every thought, revenge will and must be afflicted but to whom, how and by what degree. I must reiterate not the best novel for any but the most dedicated bookworm. A portrait of a gentleman that lacks a certain something, call it humanity if you wish. Oh yes in my view that isn't a surprise or the only one. Not to forget, the best writer who ever put pen to paper was and is Mr. William Shakespeare which I soon will devour another of his amazing plays ... The last words no matter the talent there is nothing to give a work of art substance, worth and renown, that doesn't lift a product, but this instead repels ... but to immortality... no. And I love Tolstoy having consumed five of his novels including the two books considered some of the best in history War and Peace and Anna Karenina...
December 27, 2018
What happened to Tolstoy the jolly sensualist who liked getting his leg over? I know late-19th century Russia folks were struggling with sexuality problems, and how to deal with human lust with minimum oppression, misery, and offence to God, but this novella still shocked me. At the time some even despised him forever over it.
Banned by the Russian censors this is probably LT's most controversial work, and it's easy to see why, even the most fraught relationship is unlikely to approach the crazy and deranged union described in Tolstoy’s story. First published in 1891 only after the writer’s indefatigable wife, Sonya � the very person who must have felt most humiliated by it � appealed to the Tsar. Seldom, if ever, has such a crackpot polemic also proved to be as riveting a fiction. Riveting yes, but still, it's not the same Tolstoy many have come to know and love. It all takes place on a train, where, after overhearing a conversation about marriage, the narrator listens as a nervous, almost demented fellow passenger, Pozdnyshev, begins to tell him the story of how he killed his wife. The crime becomes almost incidental as he rails against jealousy, the evils of sexual love, and the wiles of women.
The narrative is firmly rooted in Tolstoy's later-in-life anti-sex opinions, where he started to believe that sexual intimacy was actually the work of the devil, where desire would only end in destruction. His views could be seen as venomous, encouraging repression and limiting the ecstasy people are able to gain from life and love. He does raise thought-provoking questions on Christianity and marriage, but the story itself was lacking a spark, and didn't carry any of the old Tolstoy magic from other novels.
Although well written, I found it a little depressing, and the social issues he writes about is done in a rather cold manner. Over all a decent enough read, but it never left a lasting impression on me when comparing to some of his other work.
Banned by the Russian censors this is probably LT's most controversial work, and it's easy to see why, even the most fraught relationship is unlikely to approach the crazy and deranged union described in Tolstoy’s story. First published in 1891 only after the writer’s indefatigable wife, Sonya � the very person who must have felt most humiliated by it � appealed to the Tsar. Seldom, if ever, has such a crackpot polemic also proved to be as riveting a fiction. Riveting yes, but still, it's not the same Tolstoy many have come to know and love. It all takes place on a train, where, after overhearing a conversation about marriage, the narrator listens as a nervous, almost demented fellow passenger, Pozdnyshev, begins to tell him the story of how he killed his wife. The crime becomes almost incidental as he rails against jealousy, the evils of sexual love, and the wiles of women.
The narrative is firmly rooted in Tolstoy's later-in-life anti-sex opinions, where he started to believe that sexual intimacy was actually the work of the devil, where desire would only end in destruction. His views could be seen as venomous, encouraging repression and limiting the ecstasy people are able to gain from life and love. He does raise thought-provoking questions on Christianity and marriage, but the story itself was lacking a spark, and didn't carry any of the old Tolstoy magic from other novels.
Although well written, I found it a little depressing, and the social issues he writes about is done in a rather cold manner. Over all a decent enough read, but it never left a lasting impression on me when comparing to some of his other work.
March 23, 2018
What a creepy, unpleasant read. Not what I expected from Tolstoy, at all.
September 8, 2019
"I wanted to run after him, but remembered that it is ridiculous to run after one's wife's lover in one's socks; and I did not wish to be ridiculous but terrible."
Tolstoy is to me without a doubt one of the greatest writers ever, with Anna Karenina in my opinion his greatest work, one of the greatest works ever. He was also an accomplished short story writer, as evidenced by, for example, the excellent “The Death of Ivan Illich,� which I also re-read this year. Woody Allen made a film, Love and Death, based on his appreciation of Russian novelists and his observation that all great literature was basically about one or two subjects, which are often intertwined, love and death. This novella fits.
A man riding a train, in hearing some discussion of love and marriage, makes his confession/explanation of why he killed his wife. But it demands some background, he says, and a more than a lot of annoying preaching about the evils of sex/desire/adultery in the dissolution of society some of which mirrors Tolstoy’s own emerging conservative religious views. But over time, we get to the jealous rage that leads to the murder of his wife, who had taken as a friend a fellow musician with whom she plays Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata, which he claims ignites dangerous emotions.
This novella was published in 1886, some years after Anna Karenina. In Anna he had intended to embody his denunciation of Moscow High Society, materialism, and moral dissolution, but in the process Tolstoy (ironically? Or, of course?) fell in love with his main character, and she emerged, Eliza Doolittle-ishly, a more richly complex character than he had ever imagined. Kreutzer is an example of later fictional work where more of his moralizing comes into play, his didacticism, and though the story does make the main character come alive, I didn’t find it ultimately convincing, and less than sympathetic about human failings. It feels almost mean-spirited in depicting the crack-pot murderer.
Tolstoy later wrote, to clarify his intentions,
Let us stop believing that carnal love is high and noble and understand that any end worth our pursuit � in service of humanity, our homeland, science, art, let alone God � any end, so long as we may count it worth our pursuit, is not attained by joining ourselves to the objects of our carnal love in marriage or outside it; that, in fact, infatuation and conjunction with the object of our carnal love (whatever the authors of romances and love poems claim to the contrary) will never help our worthwhile pursuits but only hinder them.
But he only muddies the water for me. Why be opposed to desire altogether? I was raised in a very strict Calvinist environment, and this feels very familiar to me. He’s become almost anti-humanist, against love and the arts.
And yet, for writing about sex and society, America’s own favorite moralist and rough-rider Teddy Roosevelt called Tolstoy a "sexual moral pervert." I don’t think so. He writes well, and sure, sex is a problem with the divorce rate and porn and domestic abuse and sexual trafficking, but I still wouldn’t start here with Tolstoy.
Tolstoy is to me without a doubt one of the greatest writers ever, with Anna Karenina in my opinion his greatest work, one of the greatest works ever. He was also an accomplished short story writer, as evidenced by, for example, the excellent “The Death of Ivan Illich,� which I also re-read this year. Woody Allen made a film, Love and Death, based on his appreciation of Russian novelists and his observation that all great literature was basically about one or two subjects, which are often intertwined, love and death. This novella fits.
A man riding a train, in hearing some discussion of love and marriage, makes his confession/explanation of why he killed his wife. But it demands some background, he says, and a more than a lot of annoying preaching about the evils of sex/desire/adultery in the dissolution of society some of which mirrors Tolstoy’s own emerging conservative religious views. But over time, we get to the jealous rage that leads to the murder of his wife, who had taken as a friend a fellow musician with whom she plays Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata, which he claims ignites dangerous emotions.
This novella was published in 1886, some years after Anna Karenina. In Anna he had intended to embody his denunciation of Moscow High Society, materialism, and moral dissolution, but in the process Tolstoy (ironically? Or, of course?) fell in love with his main character, and she emerged, Eliza Doolittle-ishly, a more richly complex character than he had ever imagined. Kreutzer is an example of later fictional work where more of his moralizing comes into play, his didacticism, and though the story does make the main character come alive, I didn’t find it ultimately convincing, and less than sympathetic about human failings. It feels almost mean-spirited in depicting the crack-pot murderer.
Tolstoy later wrote, to clarify his intentions,
Let us stop believing that carnal love is high and noble and understand that any end worth our pursuit � in service of humanity, our homeland, science, art, let alone God � any end, so long as we may count it worth our pursuit, is not attained by joining ourselves to the objects of our carnal love in marriage or outside it; that, in fact, infatuation and conjunction with the object of our carnal love (whatever the authors of romances and love poems claim to the contrary) will never help our worthwhile pursuits but only hinder them.
But he only muddies the water for me. Why be opposed to desire altogether? I was raised in a very strict Calvinist environment, and this feels very familiar to me. He’s become almost anti-humanist, against love and the arts.
And yet, for writing about sex and society, America’s own favorite moralist and rough-rider Teddy Roosevelt called Tolstoy a "sexual moral pervert." I don’t think so. He writes well, and sure, sex is a problem with the divorce rate and porn and domestic abuse and sexual trafficking, but I still wouldn’t start here with Tolstoy.
May 5, 2018
Sorry but reading this was making me really hate Tolstoy and I’d rather think of the works that I still more respect and fondness. The Kreutzer Sonata sounded interesting but it is just a guy on a train, mansplaining warped views of women to random strangers on a train. Nah. Next.
February 1, 2023
Повесть, созданная в момент сильнейшего душевного кризиса, вызванного, в том числе проблемами великого писателя в его собственной семье, не может не быть провокационной. Несмотря на малый объем, произведение � сложное. Толстой поднимает огромный комплекс проблем, связанных с понятиями любви и семьи. Он считает, что браки устроены «как капкан», а люди живут в узаконенном многоженстве и многомужестве. Что ж, какая-то доля правды в этих словах есть, но не во всех браках и не для всех людей. Он поднимает вопрос о различии и связи между любовью духовной и телесной. На мой взгляд, это совершенно разные вещи. Брак Позднышева и его жены (имени ее не называется) был браком эгоистов и инфантильных людей, неготовых к браку. Оба они ждали, что брак будет чудесным и полным любви. Но разве он может быть таким, если ничего для этого не делать? Влюбленность быстро истощилась удовлетворением чувственности. Конечно, их ждало полное разочарование, сменившееся затем непониманием и ненавистью.
Толстой правильно устанавливает время совершения убийства Позднышевым, что не тогда он убил и не ножом, а гораздо раньше, тогда же, когда убил слабые зачатки любви.
Толстой совершенно неадекватно рассуждает о женщинах, например, что мужчина и женщина сотворены, как животное, после брака наступает беременность, кормление, при которых и матери, и ребенку вредны плотская любовь. Из чего он делает вывод, о природной необходимости во��держания. Из этой неверной посылки он делает вывод, что у женщины два выхода � уничтожить в себе исконно женское, то есть отказаться от материнства и исключительно услаждать мужчину, либо «наперекор природе» быть одновременно и матерью, и кормилицей, и любовницей. Если говорить о моем мнении по женскому вопросу, то сейчас роль современной женщины к этому и сводится, плюс одновременно и работник в компании, госслужбе или бизнесе, причем с меньшей оплатой труда, чем у мужчин, плюс неоплачиваемый и невозблагодаримый труд в качестве домашней прислуги с полным объемом работ от уборщицы до кухарки (справедливости ради нужно отметить, что не во всех семьях и партнерствах), плюс возможные другие нагрузки, как то � общественная деятельность, активизм, благотворительность, творчество, помощь и уход за престарелыми родителями и много еще чего. Почему женщина вынуждена завлекать мужчину ради замужества? Из-за неравенства. Если бы труд женщин оплачивался также как мужской, если бы домашний труд приравнивался к труду в корпоративном или государственном секторах, и тоже оплачивался, то необходимость женщины искать мужскую любовь сводилась бы только к ее желанию иметь секс или иметь детей естественным путем. Поэтому порабощение женщины возникло с незапамятных времен именно из-за природы мужчин.
Соглашаясь с определением: «истинно разврат именно в освобождении себя от нравственных отношений к женщине, с которой входишь в физическое общение.», я уточню, что если из-за общественной морали в толстовские времена секс с посторонней женщиной непременно оплачивался, чтобы не было «обязательства», то из-за существенных изменений в морали такое освобождение от нравственных отношений к женщине у мужчин массово произошел давно. Люди годами живут вне брака, и если женщина в таком союзе считает себя связанной отношениями, то мужчина, как правило, чувствует себя свободным, пары расходятся в одно мгновение, иногда даже с прижитыми детьми. С Толстым только можно согласиться, что женщина была порабощена изначально. И если Толстой считает, что это рабство может быть побеждено воздержанием, то я считаю, что это может быть решено равенством в первую очередь, экономическим, а также политическим, юридическим и социальным (например, в аспектах насилия).
Во времена Толстого все эти идеи только зарождались, но его заслуга в том, что сделал этот вопрос широко обсуждаемым.
Продолжая обзор произведения, не может не возмущать, что Позднышев остался оправданным за убийство жены, которую он подозревал в измене. Ведь самого факта измены мы не видим, он застал их ужинающими вместе. И даже если бы измена была, может ли измена оправдать убийство? Не в этом ли рабство женщины? И насколько мерзок герой, что в момент убийства думал только о том, чтобы не выглядеть смешным и помнил о том, что он в чулках. У него не было никаких чувств по отношению к жене, пока она умирала в агонии. Он просто осознал ее смерть и что он натворил лишь на третий день, когда она умерла. Мне показалось, что не только суд оправдал Позднышева, но и автор.
Толстой правильно устанавливает время совершения убийства Позднышевым, что не тогда он убил и не ножом, а гораздо раньше, тогда же, когда убил слабые зачатки любви.
Толстой совершенно неадекватно рассуждает о женщинах, например, что мужчина и женщина сотворены, как животное, после брака наступает беременность, кормление, при которых и матери, и ребенку вредны плотская любовь. Из чего он делает вывод, о природной необходимости во��держания. Из этой неверной посылки он делает вывод, что у женщины два выхода � уничтожить в себе исконно женское, то есть отказаться от материнства и исключительно услаждать мужчину, либо «наперекор природе» быть одновременно и матерью, и кормилицей, и любовницей. Если говорить о моем мнении по женскому вопросу, то сейчас роль современной женщины к этому и сводится, плюс одновременно и работник в компании, госслужбе или бизнесе, причем с меньшей оплатой труда, чем у мужчин, плюс неоплачиваемый и невозблагодаримый труд в качестве домашней прислуги с полным объемом работ от уборщицы до кухарки (справедливости ради нужно отметить, что не во всех семьях и партнерствах), плюс возможные другие нагрузки, как то � общественная деятельность, активизм, благотворительность, творчество, помощь и уход за престарелыми родителями и много еще чего. Почему женщина вынуждена завлекать мужчину ради замужества? Из-за неравенства. Если бы труд женщин оплачивался также как мужской, если бы домашний труд приравнивался к труду в корпоративном или государственном секторах, и тоже оплачивался, то необходимость женщины искать мужскую любовь сводилась бы только к ее желанию иметь секс или иметь детей естественным путем. Поэтому порабощение женщины возникло с незапамятных времен именно из-за природы мужчин.
Соглашаясь с определением: «истинно разврат именно в освобождении себя от нравственных отношений к женщине, с которой входишь в физическое общение.», я уточню, что если из-за общественной морали в толстовские времена секс с посторонней женщиной непременно оплачивался, чтобы не было «обязательства», то из-за существенных изменений в морали такое освобождение от нравственных отношений к женщине у мужчин массово произошел давно. Люди годами живут вне брака, и если женщина в таком союзе считает себя связанной отношениями, то мужчина, как правило, чувствует себя свободным, пары расходятся в одно мгновение, иногда даже с прижитыми детьми. С Толстым только можно согласиться, что женщина была порабощена изначально. И если Толстой считает, что это рабство может быть побеждено воздержанием, то я считаю, что это может быть решено равенством в первую очередь, экономическим, а также политическим, юридическим и социальным (например, в аспектах насилия).
Во времена Толстого все эти идеи только зарождались, но его заслуга в том, что сделал этот вопрос широко обсуждаемым.
Продолжая обзор произведения, не может не возмущать, что Позднышев остался оправданным за убийство жены, которую он подозревал в измене. Ведь самого факта измены мы не видим, он застал их ужинающими вместе. И даже если бы измена была, может ли измена оправдать убийство? Не в этом ли рабство женщины? И насколько мерзок герой, что в момент убийства думал только о том, чтобы не выглядеть смешным и помнил о том, что он в чулках. У него не было никаких чувств по отношению к жене, пока она умирала в агонии. Он просто осознал ее смерть и что он натворил лишь на третий день, когда она умерла. Мне показалось, что не только суд оправдал Позднышева, но и автор.
December 19, 2023
Tolstoy probably says some harsh truths about marriage in this book, given that people can still be upset by it. What I find more intriguing is his willingness to convey these views through the voice of such a villainous character—a murderer, no less.
November 24, 2017
دوستان� گرانقدر، این داستان از 21 بخش تشکیل شده است... در ایران با عنوانِ "انتقام شوهر" ترجمه شده است
داستا� در کوپهٔ قطار روی میدهد... مسافرانی با یکدیگر به بحث و گفتگو در موردِ عشق و زن و مرد و زندگی زناشوئی، میپردازند... سپس راویِ داستان با مردی کوتوله قد که بنظرِ من کوتوله شعور و مذهبیِ بیخرد نیز میباشد، واردِ گفتگو میشود
ای� موجودِ کوتوله و بیخرد <پوزونیشیوف> (پوتنسویچ) نام دارد که به دلیلِ شک داشتن به همسرش او را با چاقو کشته است و فرزندانش را بی مادر کرده است... چراکه از روی نادانی تصور کرده است که همسرش با یک نوازنده رابطهٔ پنهانی داشته است
چند� از جملاتِ نابخردانه را که در این کتاب آمده و نشان از بیشعوری تمام و خطرناک بودنِ موجوداتِ پایبند به اصولِ دینی و مذهبی دارد را در زیر برایتان مینویسم... بدونِ تردید چنین موجوداتِ پست و نادان در سرزمینِ خودمان بسیار دیده میشوند که به دلیلِ باورهایِ مذهبی و اعتقاد به ادیانِ سامی و ابراهیمی، برایِ جنسِ با ارزشِ زن ارزش قائل نمی باشند... متأسفانه تا زمانی که باورهایِ دینی و مذهبی بر عده ای موجودِ بیخرد فرمانروایی میکند، له کردنِ جنسِ مهربان و باشعورِ زن، ادامه خواهد داشت
جملات� را که انتخاب کرده ام را بخوانید و در آن بیاندیشید و داوری کنید
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ز� باید همیشه از شوهرِ خویش بترسد و به فرمانِ او گوش دهد، تمامِ قوانینِ آسمانی و کتبِ مقدس این امر را تأیید کرده اند
اگ� مرد با زنِ خود به خشونت رفتار کند، زن نمیتواند به راهِ بد و خیانت به شوهر کشیده شود .. مرد با خشونت باید از همان نخست جلویِ سرکشی ها و تمایلاتِ جنسِ زن را بگیرد... مثلی وجود دارد که میگوید: از اسبِ خود در میدانِ جنگ و از زنِ خود در خانه، غافل مباش
طرز� لباس پوشیدن و آرایش کردنِ زن، هزار بار خطرناکتر از قماربازی میباشد.. زیرا خطرِ آن متوجه روح و اخلاق میشود.. در حالیکه خطرِ قماربازی فقط متوجه مال و ثروت است
زمان� که زنی آرایش کرده را میبینم، احساسِ وحشت میکنم و درنظرم میگذرد که پاسبان را صدا کنم و از او بخواهم مرا از این خطر حفظ کرده و هرچه زودتر مرا از شرِ آن نجات دهد
ت� هنگامی که انسان وجود دارد، پیوسته میخواهد مقصودِ بالاتری داشته باشد، این مقصود بالاتر و عالی، عملی نخواهد شد.. مگر آنکه انسان پرهیزگار و پاکدامن شود و به خویشتن علاقه نداشته باشد و خیرِ دیگران را بخواهد
تمام� ادیان گفته اند که دنیا دیر یا زود نابود خواهد شد... پس بشر باید فرزندی به وجود آورد که بتواند بر غریزهٔ جنسی اش چیره گردد و رابطهٔ جنسی با زنان نداشته باشد. بدینگونه شاید نسلِ بشر منقرض شود... ولی دیر یا زود طبقِ گفتهٔ ادیان، این اتفاق روی میدهد
مقصود� یک دختر، هر چقدر هم فهمیده و تحصیل کرده باشد، عبارت از این خواهد بود که او میتواند جلبِ نظرِ عدهٔ زیادی از مردان را بنماید و سرِ فرصت از میانِ آنها هرکدام را که مایل است انتخاب کند... بعضی از زنان پس از ازدواج نیز کماکان تلاش میکنند تا نظر مردان را به خود جلب کنند
زنا� تمامِ هوش و حواس و نیرنگ هایِ خود را بکار میبرند تا مگر پست ترین غرائز و احساسات را در مردان برانگیخته و آنها را در آن دامی که مردان گسترده اند، بیفکنند.... زن وجودِ خود را آلت و بازیچهٔ مرد قرار داده و با تأثیرِ مخوفی که در مرد دارد، مرد نمیتواند از رویِ اطمینان به او نزدیک شود ... از این رو وقتی به محیطی که زن در آن قرار دارد، وارد میشود، یکمرتبه حس میکند که مطیع و تسلیمِ زیبایی و دلفریبیِ او شده است... ارادهٔ وی در مقابلِ نیرویِ زن نابود میشود ... مرد بندهٔ حسی است که زن آن را در او برمی انگیزد
زنان� دلفریب و زیبا، اغلب گفتارشان پوچ و بی معنی و بعضی اوقات حرکات و رفتارشان زشت و زننده است.. ولی گفته ها و حرکاتِ آنها را خوب و به نوعی دیگر تلقی میکنیم
مردا� همیشه به دنبالِ شهوت میروند و دروغ میگویند که نجابت و عشقِ پاک را خواستارند ... مردان از زن، بدنِ نرمِ او را میخواهند نه درستی و پاکیِ افکار و اخلاقِ او را... به همین دلیل است که زنان به این موضوع پی برده و لباس هایِ تنگ به تن کرده و برآمدگی هایِ بدنشان را نمایش میدهند و سینه و بازوهایِ خود را آشکار میکنند
زنان� فقیر از طبقاتِ پایینِ جامعه، برایِ فریبِ مردان آرایش میکنند و زیورآلات به خودشان آویزان میکنند... زنانِ طبقاتِ عالیِ اجتماع نیز همینکار را دقیقاً انجام میدهند.... اصولاً زنان سر و ته، یک کرباسند
جنس� زن همواره سعی دارد تا مقاصدِ خود را پسِ پرده ای از دروغ و نیرنگ پنهان نماید
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امیدوار� روزی فرا رسد که چنین موجوداتِ بیخرد و زشت نهاد در رویِ این کرهٔ خاکی و همچنین بر رویِ سرزمینمان ایران، کمتر و کمتر شده و وجودِ کثیفشان همراه با افکارِ ضد انسانی و خطرناکشان نابود شود
�<پیروز باشید و ایرانی>
داستا� در کوپهٔ قطار روی میدهد... مسافرانی با یکدیگر به بحث و گفتگو در موردِ عشق و زن و مرد و زندگی زناشوئی، میپردازند... سپس راویِ داستان با مردی کوتوله قد که بنظرِ من کوتوله شعور و مذهبیِ بیخرد نیز میباشد، واردِ گفتگو میشود
ای� موجودِ کوتوله و بیخرد <پوزونیشیوف> (پوتنسویچ) نام دارد که به دلیلِ شک داشتن به همسرش او را با چاقو کشته است و فرزندانش را بی مادر کرده است... چراکه از روی نادانی تصور کرده است که همسرش با یک نوازنده رابطهٔ پنهانی داشته است
چند� از جملاتِ نابخردانه را که در این کتاب آمده و نشان از بیشعوری تمام و خطرناک بودنِ موجوداتِ پایبند به اصولِ دینی و مذهبی دارد را در زیر برایتان مینویسم... بدونِ تردید چنین موجوداتِ پست و نادان در سرزمینِ خودمان بسیار دیده میشوند که به دلیلِ باورهایِ مذهبی و اعتقاد به ادیانِ سامی و ابراهیمی، برایِ جنسِ با ارزشِ زن ارزش قائل نمی باشند... متأسفانه تا زمانی که باورهایِ دینی و مذهبی بر عده ای موجودِ بیخرد فرمانروایی میکند، له کردنِ جنسِ مهربان و باشعورِ زن، ادامه خواهد داشت
جملات� را که انتخاب کرده ام را بخوانید و در آن بیاندیشید و داوری کنید
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ز� باید همیشه از شوهرِ خویش بترسد و به فرمانِ او گوش دهد، تمامِ قوانینِ آسمانی و کتبِ مقدس این امر را تأیید کرده اند
اگ� مرد با زنِ خود به خشونت رفتار کند، زن نمیتواند به راهِ بد و خیانت به شوهر کشیده شود .. مرد با خشونت باید از همان نخست جلویِ سرکشی ها و تمایلاتِ جنسِ زن را بگیرد... مثلی وجود دارد که میگوید: از اسبِ خود در میدانِ جنگ و از زنِ خود در خانه، غافل مباش
طرز� لباس پوشیدن و آرایش کردنِ زن، هزار بار خطرناکتر از قماربازی میباشد.. زیرا خطرِ آن متوجه روح و اخلاق میشود.. در حالیکه خطرِ قماربازی فقط متوجه مال و ثروت است
زمان� که زنی آرایش کرده را میبینم، احساسِ وحشت میکنم و درنظرم میگذرد که پاسبان را صدا کنم و از او بخواهم مرا از این خطر حفظ کرده و هرچه زودتر مرا از شرِ آن نجات دهد
ت� هنگامی که انسان وجود دارد، پیوسته میخواهد مقصودِ بالاتری داشته باشد، این مقصود بالاتر و عالی، عملی نخواهد شد.. مگر آنکه انسان پرهیزگار و پاکدامن شود و به خویشتن علاقه نداشته باشد و خیرِ دیگران را بخواهد
تمام� ادیان گفته اند که دنیا دیر یا زود نابود خواهد شد... پس بشر باید فرزندی به وجود آورد که بتواند بر غریزهٔ جنسی اش چیره گردد و رابطهٔ جنسی با زنان نداشته باشد. بدینگونه شاید نسلِ بشر منقرض شود... ولی دیر یا زود طبقِ گفتهٔ ادیان، این اتفاق روی میدهد
مقصود� یک دختر، هر چقدر هم فهمیده و تحصیل کرده باشد، عبارت از این خواهد بود که او میتواند جلبِ نظرِ عدهٔ زیادی از مردان را بنماید و سرِ فرصت از میانِ آنها هرکدام را که مایل است انتخاب کند... بعضی از زنان پس از ازدواج نیز کماکان تلاش میکنند تا نظر مردان را به خود جلب کنند
زنا� تمامِ هوش و حواس و نیرنگ هایِ خود را بکار میبرند تا مگر پست ترین غرائز و احساسات را در مردان برانگیخته و آنها را در آن دامی که مردان گسترده اند، بیفکنند.... زن وجودِ خود را آلت و بازیچهٔ مرد قرار داده و با تأثیرِ مخوفی که در مرد دارد، مرد نمیتواند از رویِ اطمینان به او نزدیک شود ... از این رو وقتی به محیطی که زن در آن قرار دارد، وارد میشود، یکمرتبه حس میکند که مطیع و تسلیمِ زیبایی و دلفریبیِ او شده است... ارادهٔ وی در مقابلِ نیرویِ زن نابود میشود ... مرد بندهٔ حسی است که زن آن را در او برمی انگیزد
زنان� دلفریب و زیبا، اغلب گفتارشان پوچ و بی معنی و بعضی اوقات حرکات و رفتارشان زشت و زننده است.. ولی گفته ها و حرکاتِ آنها را خوب و به نوعی دیگر تلقی میکنیم
مردا� همیشه به دنبالِ شهوت میروند و دروغ میگویند که نجابت و عشقِ پاک را خواستارند ... مردان از زن، بدنِ نرمِ او را میخواهند نه درستی و پاکیِ افکار و اخلاقِ او را... به همین دلیل است که زنان به این موضوع پی برده و لباس هایِ تنگ به تن کرده و برآمدگی هایِ بدنشان را نمایش میدهند و سینه و بازوهایِ خود را آشکار میکنند
زنان� فقیر از طبقاتِ پایینِ جامعه، برایِ فریبِ مردان آرایش میکنند و زیورآلات به خودشان آویزان میکنند... زنانِ طبقاتِ عالیِ اجتماع نیز همینکار را دقیقاً انجام میدهند.... اصولاً زنان سر و ته، یک کرباسند
جنس� زن همواره سعی دارد تا مقاصدِ خود را پسِ پرده ای از دروغ و نیرنگ پنهان نماید
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امیدوار� روزی فرا رسد که چنین موجوداتِ بیخرد و زشت نهاد در رویِ این کرهٔ خاکی و همچنین بر رویِ سرزمینمان ایران، کمتر و کمتر شده و وجودِ کثیفشان همراه با افکارِ ضد انسانی و خطرناکشان نابود شود
�<پیروز باشید و ایرانی>
June 12, 2018
I couldn't stand that story, found it repulsive and terribly depressing and Tolstoy misogynistic. It was so full of bad emotions, disdain and hypocrisy and felt really wrong to me. It was unbearably didactic and Tolstoy showed himself as sanctimonious prick. I know he was undergoing some crisis then, faith and value, and that probably coloured some of his views. But still.
Contradictions are inscribed in human nature but in Tolstoy’s life they manifested all too strong. As for a man who preached that much about morality and resurrection and spirituality he surprisingly indulged himself in carnal pleasures. Gambler, visitors of brothels, count dressed in peasant’s tunica, eulogist of ascetism and marital chastity that fathered thirteen children in marriage and some other extramarital. Thus his stigmatising of hypocrisy and egoism and vulgarity and carnality in The Kreutzer Sonata seemed to me height of duplicity.
And while I loved and I still can't grasp why this one has a status of being masterpiece. Actually, I've read more of his shorter prose and think longer form definitely served him better.
April 5, 2019
Music is the shorthand of emotion. Emotions, which let themselves be described in words with such difficulty, are directly conveyed to man in music, and in that is its power and significance.
-Leo Tolstoy
4.5*/5*
No one could make the claim that Tolstoy was not an opinionated man. Whether Pozdnyshev is a direct representation of Tolstoy or an amalgamation of sources is subject for scrutiny, but what is certain is the author's voice is forceful and present in The Kreutzer Sonata. I have to admit to some cumbersome reading in the middle of the story (told as relayed from Pozdnyshev to a narrator on a train ride). But, once certain repetitions cease Tolstoy engages as only he can and captivates. The tension is nearly choking by the end and arrives as such a natural consequence of the story that I was not considering what I was reading anymore--I was reacting.
-Leo Tolstoy
4.5*/5*
No one could make the claim that Tolstoy was not an opinionated man. Whether Pozdnyshev is a direct representation of Tolstoy or an amalgamation of sources is subject for scrutiny, but what is certain is the author's voice is forceful and present in The Kreutzer Sonata. I have to admit to some cumbersome reading in the middle of the story (told as relayed from Pozdnyshev to a narrator on a train ride). But, once certain repetitions cease Tolstoy engages as only he can and captivates. The tension is nearly choking by the end and arrives as such a natural consequence of the story that I was not considering what I was reading anymore--I was reacting.
December 9, 2013
I am only wondering why I did not end up reading this earlier. It's an excellent masterpiece of a work, keeping aside all the criticisms, reasons why this was banned in early 19th century, etc. This is a must read for all.A novella that tells a lot about the kind of person the author was or perhaps, maybe was not.
Review to follow!
Review to follow!
August 5, 2011
This must be the most disturbing view of love, sex and marriage I've come across in classical literature. I wish Tolstoy in his time had an opportunity to explore his feelings about his sexuality with a good psychotherapist. According to him, sex is vile and degrading, being sexually attracted to even one's spouse is disgusting, having sex for any reason other than procreation is disgusting, women are disgusting objects of men's disgusting desires. Every person's life goal should be chastity and abstinence. Good grief!
What is chiefly vile about this is that in theory it is taken for granted that love is something ideal and elevated; whereas in practice love is something low and swinish, which it is shameful and disgusting to speak of or remember. You see it is not without reason that nature made it shameful and disgusting.
The author of might be onto something.
What is chiefly vile about this is that in theory it is taken for granted that love is something ideal and elevated; whereas in practice love is something low and swinish, which it is shameful and disgusting to speak of or remember. You see it is not without reason that nature made it shameful and disgusting.
The author of might be onto something.
July 13, 2015
Well that was disturbing. Not what I was expecting from Tolstoy. It was the ramblings of a psychopath, which Tolstoy portrayed with way to much energy. And I understand he used an actual event with his wife and a musician as the basis for this story. Scary. I don't know enough about Tolstoy to know his views on romance, marriage, sex, etc. to make judgement's, but the views expressed and acted out by the protagonist were, as I said at the beginning, very disturbing.
December 17, 2020
“Atraía os olhares dos homens. Era como uma égua bem alimentada que tivessem retido muito tempo para depois lhe darem rédea solta. Mas na realidade já não havia rédea nenhuma que a prendesse, como sucede a noventa e nove por cento das mulheres.�
É com tiradas como esta que Tolstoi, em 1889, nos traz Pozdnichev, uma das personagens mais obtusas, misóginas e intolerantes que já conheci e, no entanto, em ponto algum me irritou ou insultou, porque a loucura é tanta, o discurso é tão delirante e estapafúrdio, que só dá vontade de rir e de abanar a cabeça. É um chorrilho de insultos e de críticas a tudo, desde o casamento ao divórcio, passando pelas meninas casadoiras e suas ansiosas mães, aos prostíbulos e aos métodos anticoncepcionais, sendo por isso que o protagonista advoga a castidade e a abstinência sexual como solução para tanta pouca-vergonha. É para mim sinal de grande mestria um autor ter um pensamento retrógrado, mesmo tendo em consideração a época em que foi escrito, e ainda assim me prender a atenção e cativar. Em vários pontos parei para admirar a modernidade da escrita e de situações como esta: “Não falando já das doenças, da maneira de as tratar, dos processos de educação, dos métodos de ensino, a minha mulher procurava por toda a parte, nas conversas e nas leituras, as diversíssimas regras de conduta que estão constantemente a ser substituídas.(...) Cada semana que passava trazia-nos, ou melhor, trazia-lhe novos preceitos sobre a maneira de vestir, de banhar, de adormecer, de dar de beber, de tomar ar...�
Depois de ter lido ou ter tentado ler outros russos (russos, não russas) que me cheiraram a cânfora, estou desejosa de pegar nas obras que cá tenho em casa e perceber se serei, afinal, Team Tolstoi.
É com tiradas como esta que Tolstoi, em 1889, nos traz Pozdnichev, uma das personagens mais obtusas, misóginas e intolerantes que já conheci e, no entanto, em ponto algum me irritou ou insultou, porque a loucura é tanta, o discurso é tão delirante e estapafúrdio, que só dá vontade de rir e de abanar a cabeça. É um chorrilho de insultos e de críticas a tudo, desde o casamento ao divórcio, passando pelas meninas casadoiras e suas ansiosas mães, aos prostíbulos e aos métodos anticoncepcionais, sendo por isso que o protagonista advoga a castidade e a abstinência sexual como solução para tanta pouca-vergonha. É para mim sinal de grande mestria um autor ter um pensamento retrógrado, mesmo tendo em consideração a época em que foi escrito, e ainda assim me prender a atenção e cativar. Em vários pontos parei para admirar a modernidade da escrita e de situações como esta: “Não falando já das doenças, da maneira de as tratar, dos processos de educação, dos métodos de ensino, a minha mulher procurava por toda a parte, nas conversas e nas leituras, as diversíssimas regras de conduta que estão constantemente a ser substituídas.(...) Cada semana que passava trazia-nos, ou melhor, trazia-lhe novos preceitos sobre a maneira de vestir, de banhar, de adormecer, de dar de beber, de tomar ar...�
Depois de ter lido ou ter tentado ler outros russos (russos, não russas) que me cheiraram a cânfora, estou desejosa de pegar nas obras que cá tenho em casa e perceber se serei, afinal, Team Tolstoi.
November 6, 2015
Inquietudine ed incanto sono le opposte sensazioni che lascia la lettura di questo romanzo breve di Tolstoj. Un’opera che va contestualizzata per capirne la portata quasi rivoluzionaria per l’epoca. Tolstoj la scrisse in un tardo periodo della sua produzione letteraria, dopo una intensa crisi spirituale che sfociò nella sua adesione esaltata ad un cristianesimo evangelico. Lui la definì la sua rigenerazione morale. Per la scabrosità degli argomenti , sorprendenti per l’epoca, lo scrittore ebbe molti problemi per la sua pubblicazione. Il libro è un aperto atto d’accusa contro l’ipocrisia dell’istituzione matrimoniale basata sull’inganno, dal momento che la tanto sbandierata felicità coniugale non è altro che un legame bestiale basato sul sesso, santificato dalla società fin dalla più giovane età di uomini e donne che vengono preparati gli uni ad essere conquistati come schiavi dei loro istinti e le altre ad essere oggetti del desiderio, vittime ma anche carnefici della schiavitù maschile. Tutto questo emerge dal racconto che un tale Pozdnysev, appartenente alla nobiltà russa, fa durante un viaggio in treno ad uno sconosciuto, esordendo con lui in modo sorprendente, con la confessione di essere un uxoricida. Si snoda così un racconto dal ritmo serrato, una storia di lucidissima follia la cui protagonista è la gelosia, con un continuo scavo psicologico dei moti più intimi dell’animo del protagonista, il quale, pur nella ossessione dei pensieri che lo animano, non perde la razionalità nei comportamenti (tanto che mi sono chiesta se un giudice dovesse giudicarlo oggi lo riterrebbe incapace di intendere e di volere o invece pienamente imputabile). Sotto il profilo letterario, dunque, nulla da dire, è un racconto notevole ed anche modernissimo, visti i casi di raptus di follia e omicidi passionali che riempiono le pagine dei giornali. Quando poi vai a leggere la postfazione scritta dallo stesso Tolstoy per “giustificare� ai lettori quella sua opera che tanto scandalo suscitò, nella quale Tolstoj si propone come un castigatore di costumi, predicando il valore morale dell’astinenza dal sesso quale altissimo ideale cristiano, allora si sente la lontananza dalla nostra concezione di vita. Nel 2015, in un’epoca in cui la Chiesa stessa è travolta da continui scandali sessuali, le parole di Tolstoj sull’ideale del cristiano, l’amore verso Dio e il prossimo, la rinunzia a sé stessi per servire Dio, e sul peccato, che è rappresentato dall’amore carnale, che è un ostacolo alla dedizione a Dio e agli altri, hanno un sapore di rancido come un cibo andato a male.
January 30, 2020
Ο συγγραφέας ως προπαγανδιστής και η προσκόλληση στο παιδικό στάδιο της ανάγνωσης
Αν ερωτηθώ ενώπιον δικαστηρίου, δεν πρόκειται επισήμως να παραδεχτώ πως υπάρχουν βιβλία που οφείλει κάποιος να διαβάσει προτού διαβεί την πόρτα προς το Μεγάλο Πουθενά. Ανεπισήμως, όμως, στο πλαίσιο του ταπεινού μου blog και με μόνο κριτή τη συνείδησή μου, το πιστεύω ακράδαντα. Αν όχι για τους άλλους, τουλάχιστον για μένα.
Η "Άννα Καρένινα" και το "Πόλεμος και ειρήνη" του Τολστόι είναι δύο από αυτά. Πρόκειται για θεμελιώδη κείμενα, τα οποία προφανώς δεν έχουν ξεπεραστεί από ό,τι ακολούθησε (ρωτήστε και τον Φόκνερ), καθιστώντας το έργο των επιγόνων ακόμα πιο επίμοχθο, καθώς οι αναπόφευκτες συγκρίσεις είναι πάντα εις βάρος τους. Το αυτό ισχύει και για νουβέλες όπως ο "Θάνατος του Ιβάν Ιλίτς", μεταξύ άλλων.
"Η σονάτα του Κρόιτσερ" δεν εμπίπτει στην κατηγορία των "απαραίτητων αναγνωσμάτων", κι όχι εξαιτίας των σκοταδιστικών απόψεων που πρεσβεύει. Ο Τολστόι δεν άλλαξε αξιακό πλαίσιο στα γεράματα. Η ιδεολογική πορεία του είναι καταγεγραμμένη και μη επιδεχόμενη αμφισβήτησης, ιδίως σε ζητήματα σχέσεων των δύο φύλων, γυναικείων δικαιωμάτων κ.ο.κ.
Επαναλαμβάνω, δεν θα είχα οποιοδήποτε πρόβλημα με τις απόψεις του οιουδήποτε, οσοδήποτε ακραίες κι αν είναι (Σελίν, τα σέβη μου!), αρκεί να τηρείται απαρέγκλιτα μία και μόνο συνθήκη: ο καλλιτέχνης να μην παραχωρεί τη θέση του στον προπαγανδιστή/ ιδεολόγο. Ως προς αυτό παραμένω απηνής, ανεξαρτήτως αν οι απόψεις των δημιουργών με εκφράζουν στον μέγιστο ή στον ελάχιστο βαθμό. Αν και οπαδός της πολιτικής ορθότητας και αστικής ευγένειας στην καθημερινότητα, παραμένω απόλυτα αμοραλιστής, ελιτιστής και υποστηρικτής της Πεφωτισμένης Ολιγαρχίας σε ό,τι έχει σχέση με την Τέχνη και τις παραφυάδες αυτής.
Τούτου δοθέντος, στην εν λόγω νουβέλα, ο Λογοτέχνης εκπίπτει ξεκάθαρα σε προπαγανδιστή, κάτι που στα μάτια μου αποτελεί έγκλημα καθοσιώσεως. Η αίσθηση που αποκόμισα καθ' όλη τη διάρκεια της ανάγνωσης ήταν πως ο συγγραφέας απλά εμφύσησε ζωή σε χαρακτήρες χάρτινους που απλά τοποθετήθηκαν "επί σκηνής", χωρίς να υπακούν σε κάποια εσωτερική αναγκαιότητα, πλην του να προπαγανδίσουν τις ιδέες του, με αφόρητα διδακτικό τρόπο.
Αίφνης εμφανίζονται στο προσκήνιο κάποιοι δευτερεύοντες χαρακτήρες που απλά λειτουργούν προβοκατόρικα -προτού επιστρέψουν στη λήθη- δίνοντας "πάσα" στους δύο πρωταγωνιστές που θα ξεδιπλώσουν απροκάλυπτα ως το τέλος τις απόψεις του συγγραφέα. Φρονώ πως θα ήταν πολύ πιο τίμιο για τον Τολστόι να αφήσει στην άκρη τη μυθιστορηματική φόρμα και να γράψει ένα άρθρο που θα μας διαφωτίζει σχετικά με τις απόψεις του περί σεξουαλικού ενστίκτου, ιατρικής επιστήμης και λοιπών. Όπως ακριβώς κάνει στον διευκρινιστικό Επίλογό του, τον οποίο βρήκα τελικά πολύ πιο ενδιαφέροντα και ειλικρινή σε σχέση με την ατυχή "μυθοπλασία" που προηγήθηκε.
Το Επίμετρο της μεταφράστριας ήταν ιδιαίτερα χαριτωμένο, καθότι έκανε φιλότιμες προσπάθειες να λειάνει τις γωνίες και να συμμαζέψει τα ασυμμάζευτα, προκειμένου να πειστεί το αγοραστικό κοινό πως ο Τολστόι δεν ήταν αντιδραστικός μισογύνης με μεσαιωνικές απόψεις. Λες και για τον αναγνώστη (θα πρέπει να) έχει την παραμικρή σημασία το ποιόν ή οι προθέσεις του δημιουργού, πέραν του τελικού αποτελέσματος.
Φυσικά και η μεταφράστρια, όπως και οι θεράποντες και θεραπαινίδες της τρέχουσας εκδοτικής παραγωγής, γνωρίζουν πολύ καλά τη διαδικασία ταύτισης (προσκόλληση στο παιδικό στάδιο της ανάγνωσης) του κοινού με τον καλλιτέχνη, οπότε σπεύδουν με κάθε τρόπο να καθησυχάσουν το ποίμνιο πως ο αγαπημένος τους συγγραφέας δεν είναι τόσο φασίστας/ μισογύνης/ μισάνθρωπος/ σκατόψυχος κ.ο.κ., αλλά συχνά παρεξηγημένος, ενίοτε λοξός, πλην όμως έμπλεος ψυχικής ομορφιάς, κάτι που αποκομίζει όποιος έρθει σε επαφή με το έργο του.
Δεν είναι διόλου τυχαίες οι μετά θάνατον κρίσεις του τύπου: "Μεγάλος καλλιτέχνης, μα και μεγάλος Άνθρωπος!" και παρεμφερή γλυκανάλατα, για ένα κοινό που δεν κατανοεί πως η Υψηλή Αισθητική είναι από μόνη της ηθική στάση/ άποψη, πολύ πιο σημαντική από τη χύδην τρέχουσα, τουλάχιστον σε ό,τι έχει να κάνει με την Τέχνη. Λες και οι αναγνώστες (είδος που σπανίζει) έχουν λιγότερο ανάγκη από μεγάλους Λογοτέχνες παρά από καλούς καγαθούς γραφιάδες της σειράς.
Πόσο όμως πιο ανακουφιστικός είναι ο καλόψυχος, ηδυεπής και ευγενής καλλιτέχνης (σε αφήνει να κλάψεις στοργικά στον ώμο του και σου πασάρει τέχνη που μπορείς να αναγνωρίσεις εύκολα τον εαυτό σου, με λογάκια που θα μπορούσες ίσως να έχεις γράψει και εσύ), από τον μεγαλοφυή Δημιουργό (σου δείχνει πώς είναι οι απάτητες κορυφές, η τέχνη που σε ξεπερνά, που ποτέ δεν θα μπορούσες να μιμηθείς, παρά μόνο να θαυμάσεις), ο οποίος απλά παραδίδει το μεσσιανικό έργο του στους πεινώντες και διψώντες (ότι αυτοί χορτασθήσονται), για να επιστρέψει στην ολύμπια αταραξία του, μακριά από τις οιμωγές και την πεπερασμένη λατρεία του πλήθους, των oi polloi.
Συγκεφαλαιώνοντας, το βασικό πρόβλημα στη "Σονάτα του Κρόιτσερ" δεν είναι πως ο Μέγας Λέων υπήρξε "αντιδραστικός" ή ό,τι άλλο μπορούμε να του προσάψουμε άτυπτα, αλλά κάτι χειρότερο: μέτριος λογοτέχνης.
December 29, 2022
Arguably, the worst kept secret in classic literature is that Leo Tolstoy could flat-out write. In The Death of Ivan Ilych, Tolstoy put me inside the head of a dying man. I believed it, I felt it, I went out the next day and bought life insurance. Here, LT has posited me firmly in the mindset of a homicidally jealous husband. If I were married I might be pondering how to hide a body in the crawlspace�
January 12, 2012
Well that was a short, sharp burst of Tolstoy all wrapped up in the pleasingly presented package that is the Great Loves series by Penguin. Constrained to the length of a train journey, two men sharing a carriage also share a secret. One explains to the other how you can be transformed from ardent lover to cold blooded killer within a few short years of marriage. So how does one make the smooth transition from Don Juan to homicidal maniac?
There are some fairly sexist, misogynist and antiquated views relating to women and marriage expressed in this book but I suppose it has be taken within the context of the time in which it was written. I did laugh out loud when they described all women as "fragile vessels" though. I'm 6 foot tall and work in a construction led industry and spend most of my time up to my eye balls in mud and concrete while yelling at hapless builders... I think Tolstoy might have found it hard to pigeon hole me in this manner. The bottom line in this tale is that as a man you're forgiven your act of murder if you were driven to it by a) carnal lust cos then it's just nature and not your fault or b) a woman because it's a well known fact that all have secret powers to control men. Essentially the pitfalls generated by women which trapped poor easily led Pozdnyshev can be summed up thusly:
1. Never marry a woman on the basis that you like how she looks in a tight dress
2. Don't be taken in by flirting - its like female sorcery and will leave you powerless
3. Don't let your wife play musical instruments with another man
4. Don't even think about having sex, ever. You'll end up in all sorts of trouble!
The whole books is an argument for abstinence and is somewhat autobiographical (Tolstoy also gave his young wife a copy of his diary to read so she could understand how debauched his life was prior to their marriage) and Tolstoy himself summed up his lusty tale of moral mayhem by saying;
"Let us stop believing that carnal love is high and noble and understand that any end worth our pursuit -- in service of humanity, our homeland, science, art, let alone God -- any end, so long as we may count it worth our pursuit, is not attained by joining ourselves to the objects of our carnal love in marriage or outside it; that, in fact, infatuation and conjunction with the object of our carnal love (whatever the authors of romances and love poems claim to the contrary) will never help our worthwhile pursuits but only hinder them."
Sounds like Leo was a real hoot to have around the place doesnt' it? Although his views on carnality do explain how he managed to father 13 kids and after reading this I now mostly just feel pretty sorry for poor old Mrs Tolstoy.
September 3, 2018
A Different View of Tolstoy
I have long known about this novella, but this is my first time reading it. Whoa! It is not at all what I expected, and I don't quite know what to make of it. I think it might be best to tackle it in layers: the story, my first reactions on reading it, thoughts on Tolstoy's appendix, responses to Doris Lessing's introduction to this edition, thoughts on Tolstoy's use of music, and finally an appendix of my own on other adaptations.
1. The Story. The narrator is on an overnight train journey. People get on and off. One of the passangers, a man with nervous mannerisms and extraordinarily brilliant eyes, corners him and begins a rant on sexual desire, intercourse, and marriage. All this is prelude to the story of his own unhappy marriage, leading to the scene several years later in which he murders his wife for what he believes is her adultery with the violinist with whom she has been playing Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata, which gives the novella its title. The husband, Pozdnyshev, is imprisoned for a year awaiting trial, but is eventually acquitted—an obvious fact that he tells the narrator up front.
2. First Reactions. While I knew the basic story, I was surprised at how long it took to get started. It is not until halfway through that Pozdnyshev's wife (always unnamed) decides that she is through having children and takes up the piano again, and many pages after that before we come to the performance of the actual sonata. What comes before that is a long diatribe against sex that is so violent as to read like pornography, even though its message of chastity is the precise opposite. Here is a sample:
3. Tolstoy's Appendix. Reading the above, I was wondering whose voice we hear in Pozdnyshev. Surely not the author who had given us the loves of Natasha and Pierre in War and Peace or Kitty and Levin in Anna Karenina? Is there not some ironic distance here, by which the author may distance himself from his character's excesses? But no. Tolstoy wrote an appendix or epilogue (here called a sequel) in answer to the "many letters from strangers who ask me to express my opinion clearly and simply." Clearly and simply, no; the pages of quasi-theology that follow are neither clear nor simple, but they leave us in no doubt that Pozdnyshev's opinions are the author's own. He advocates an interpretation of Christianity that rejects the pharisaical rules of marriage, instead advocating a different kind of free love, one that rejects the physical component entirely. But this, of course, is a much later Tolstoy, 20 years after War and Peace, 12 years after Anna Karenina, the Tolstoy who would spend his final years at the center of a utopian commune. It is interesting to compare Ilya Repin's portrait of the late ascetic Tolstoy with the famous painting of the novella by René François Xavier Prinet (a scene, incidentally, that may never have taken place):
4. Doris Lessing. This Modern Library Classics edition has a substantial introduction by Doris Lessing that I postponed reading until I had reached this point in my review. It is both factual and opinionated, and makes entertaining reading. Did it do anything to change my own opinion, though? Not much, though she points out that Levin in Anna Karenina was already a few steps along the road to becoming the Pozdnyshev character, though Tolstoy treats his jealousy with affection. She also says that even in later years, Tolstoy was quite sexually active, despite his preaching, and that poor Sonya, his wife, must have had a hard time of it with eleven children, four of whom died. And of course Lessing belongs to the generation that has been liberated by the ready availabilty of contraception, against which Tolstoy fulminated so strongly:
5. Musical Content. In a comment elsewhere, a ŷ friend makes the joke that, when it comes to the Kreutzer Sonata, she "prefers Beethoven's version." There are in fact three works with the same title, but little obvious connection between them: Beethoven's Violin Sonata No. 9 in A, Op. 47, the Tolstoy novella named after it, and Leos Janacek's String Quartet No. 1, named after the Tolstoy. All three are full of passion and anguish, from Beethovenian Sturm und Drang to Freudian Angst. Would the Kreutzer have been so famous had Tolstoy chosen some different work? Possibly, possibly not. It does have the reputation of being the most technically difficult of the sonatas—almost certainly too difficult for Pozdnyshev's wife, who had only recently returned to the piano. Here, with Joshua Bell and Yuja Wang, is the that Tolstoy mentions specifically. And here is former US Poet Laureate Rita Dove in her poem sequence taking the voice of the violinist for whom the piece was originally written (until they also fell out over a girl), the mulatto prodigy George Polgreen Bridgetower:
6. Modern Adaptations. Since posting this, I have been worrying about the apparent mismatch between the passionate, but still basically classical nature of the Beethoven sonata and the enormous emotional structure Tolstoy puts upon it. How might it be in other media, I wondered, where the early chapters could be omitted, and the relationship of the action to the music compressed? Looking through YouTube, I found the following trailers and snippets, which interested me by their range of possibility. They are listed in order of conception; the times are those of the given excerpt.
I have long known about this novella, but this is my first time reading it. Whoa! It is not at all what I expected, and I don't quite know what to make of it. I think it might be best to tackle it in layers: the story, my first reactions on reading it, thoughts on Tolstoy's appendix, responses to Doris Lessing's introduction to this edition, thoughts on Tolstoy's use of music, and finally an appendix of my own on other adaptations.
1. The Story. The narrator is on an overnight train journey. People get on and off. One of the passangers, a man with nervous mannerisms and extraordinarily brilliant eyes, corners him and begins a rant on sexual desire, intercourse, and marriage. All this is prelude to the story of his own unhappy marriage, leading to the scene several years later in which he murders his wife for what he believes is her adultery with the violinist with whom she has been playing Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata, which gives the novella its title. The husband, Pozdnyshev, is imprisoned for a year awaiting trial, but is eventually acquitted—an obvious fact that he tells the narrator up front.
2. First Reactions. While I knew the basic story, I was surprised at how long it took to get started. It is not until halfway through that Pozdnyshev's wife (always unnamed) decides that she is through having children and takes up the piano again, and many pages after that before we come to the performance of the actual sonata. What comes before that is a long diatribe against sex that is so violent as to read like pornography, even though its message of chastity is the precise opposite. Here is a sample:
"What is vilest about this," he went on, "is that in theory love is something ideal and elevated, whereas in practice love is something low and swinish—something shameful and disgusting to mention or remember. You see, it was not without reason that nature made it shameful and disgusting� and, as such, it should be recognized and known by all. But we, on the contrary, pretend that what is low and shameful and disgusting is beautiful and elevated."Pozdnyshev is no simple mysogynist. He accepts that women can have higher ambitions in life; he even encourages them; but always it is this fact of carnal desire that drags them down. He hates the church for sanctifying lust for its own profit. He hates the medical profession for enabling contraception. More than anything, he hates himself:
"They emancipate woman in the colleges and in the law courts, but they still look on her as an object of enjoyment! Train her, as she is trained among us, to regard herself in this light, and she will always remain a lower creature. Either she will, with the assistance of conspiring doctors, prevent the birth of her offspring—in other words, she will be a kind of prostitute, degrading herself not to the level of a beast but to the level of a thing—or she will be what she is in the majority of cases, heartsick, hysterical, unhappy, without hope of spiritual life."
3. Tolstoy's Appendix. Reading the above, I was wondering whose voice we hear in Pozdnyshev. Surely not the author who had given us the loves of Natasha and Pierre in War and Peace or Kitty and Levin in Anna Karenina? Is there not some ironic distance here, by which the author may distance himself from his character's excesses? But no. Tolstoy wrote an appendix or epilogue (here called a sequel) in answer to the "many letters from strangers who ask me to express my opinion clearly and simply." Clearly and simply, no; the pages of quasi-theology that follow are neither clear nor simple, but they leave us in no doubt that Pozdnyshev's opinions are the author's own. He advocates an interpretation of Christianity that rejects the pharisaical rules of marriage, instead advocating a different kind of free love, one that rejects the physical component entirely. But this, of course, is a much later Tolstoy, 20 years after War and Peace, 12 years after Anna Karenina, the Tolstoy who would spend his final years at the center of a utopian commune. It is interesting to compare Ilya Repin's portrait of the late ascetic Tolstoy with the famous painting of the novella by René François Xavier Prinet (a scene, incidentally, that may never have taken place):
4. Doris Lessing. This Modern Library Classics edition has a substantial introduction by Doris Lessing that I postponed reading until I had reached this point in my review. It is both factual and opinionated, and makes entertaining reading. Did it do anything to change my own opinion, though? Not much, though she points out that Levin in Anna Karenina was already a few steps along the road to becoming the Pozdnyshev character, though Tolstoy treats his jealousy with affection. She also says that even in later years, Tolstoy was quite sexually active, despite his preaching, and that poor Sonya, his wife, must have had a hard time of it with eleven children, four of whom died. And of course Lessing belongs to the generation that has been liberated by the ready availabilty of contraception, against which Tolstoy fulminated so strongly:
…and now young women depart from all over Europe in droves for holiday shores where they screw, presumably enjoyably, with males who wait for them like Inuits for migrating moose.Lessing also points out something that I had wondered but not yet mentioned: that there is absolutely no evidence that Pozdnyshev's wife was guilty of the crime that her husband accused her of; the Prinet picture (which was used for many years in perfume ads) is pure speculation. So Pozdnyshev, like Othello, has two things to reproach himself for: not just the murder, but the insane jealousy that is the real poison fruit of his sexual self-loathing. Which brings me to another question at the back of my mind: where is he going on that train? Wikipedia suggests an answer: Nowhere. Like a latter-day Ancient Mariner, he travels the trains solely in order to confess his crimes and obtain absolution from strangers.
Hedonism rules, okay?
What has happened? Birth control has.
5. Musical Content. In a comment elsewhere, a ŷ friend makes the joke that, when it comes to the Kreutzer Sonata, she "prefers Beethoven's version." There are in fact three works with the same title, but little obvious connection between them: Beethoven's Violin Sonata No. 9 in A, Op. 47, the Tolstoy novella named after it, and Leos Janacek's String Quartet No. 1, named after the Tolstoy. All three are full of passion and anguish, from Beethovenian Sturm und Drang to Freudian Angst. Would the Kreutzer have been so famous had Tolstoy chosen some different work? Possibly, possibly not. It does have the reputation of being the most technically difficult of the sonatas—almost certainly too difficult for Pozdnyshev's wife, who had only recently returned to the piano. Here, with Joshua Bell and Yuja Wang, is the that Tolstoy mentions specifically. And here is former US Poet Laureate Rita Dove in her poem sequence taking the voice of the violinist for whom the piece was originally written (until they also fell out over a girl), the mulatto prodigy George Polgreen Bridgetower:
He frightens me. I've never heard musicBut Tolstoy's Pozdnyshev goes even farther, describing the performance in words that make it sound like a different piece. This is not a man indifferent to music. Indeed, he is entralled by it, transported, exalted, degraded; it is identical to his feelings about sex. Passages like this make the story, once the preaching is over, intensely musical. Not the music of energy and regeneration, but its perverted opposite, the sound-track of self-loathing and destruction.
like this man's, this sobbing
in the midst of triumphal chords,
such ambrosial anguish,
jigs danced on shimmering coals.
Oh, I can play it well enough-hell,
I've been destined to travel these impossible
switchbacks, but it's as if I'm skating
on his heart, blood tracks
looping everywhere, incarnadine
dips and curves . . .
I'm not making sense.
You're making ultimate sense
he seems to say, nodding
his rutted, heroic brow.
"They played Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata," he finally went on to say. "Do you know the first Presto? You do know it?" he cried. "Ugh! That sonata is a terrible thing. And especially that movement! Music in general is a terrible thing. I cannot comprehend it. What is music? What does it do? And why does it have the effect it has? They say music has the effect of elevating the soul—rubbish! Nonsense! It has its effect, it has a terrible effect—I am speaking about its effect on me—but not at all of elevating the soul. Its effect is neither to elevate nor to degrade but to excite. How can I explain to to you? Music makes me forget myself, my real situation. It transports me into a state that is not my natural one. Under the influence of music it seems to me that I feel what I do not really feel, that I understand what I do not really understand, that I can do what I can’t do. …]
"Indeed it is a terrible power to place in anyone’s hands. For example, how could anyone play this Kreutzer Sonata, the first Presto, in a drawing room before ladies dressed in low-cut gowns? To play that Presto, then to applaud it, and then to eat ices and talk over the last bit of scandal?
6. Modern Adaptations. Since posting this, I have been worrying about the apparent mismatch between the passionate, but still basically classical nature of the Beethoven sonata and the enormous emotional structure Tolstoy puts upon it. How might it be in other media, I wondered, where the early chapters could be omitted, and the relationship of the action to the music compressed? Looking through YouTube, I found the following trailers and snippets, which interested me by their range of possibility. They are listed in order of conception; the times are those of the given excerpt.
� 1971. that combines a concert performance of the sonata by Grigory Feygin and Lubov Timofeyeva with a variety of old black-and-white footage, some but no means all of which seems to come from earlier filmed versions of the Tolstoy. [16'20"]
� 1994. Bernard Rose's film starring Jeroen Krabbé and Gary Oldman shows various episodes in the life of Beethoven. This one is especially interesting. The narrator (Krabbé) attends a rehearsal of the sonata played by George Polgreen Bridgetower (see above), and is buttonholed by the already-deaf Beethoven (Oldman). Anachronistic or not, the words that the composer speaks are taken almost verbatim from Tolstoy!
� 2008. From the director of Immortal Beloved, this is updated, and clearly takes liberties with the original, but the trailer at least is closely edited to wring maximum passion from the combination of Tolstoy and Beethoven. [1'43"]
� 2009. as a dramatic monologue. The trailer is to the Gate Theatre production by Natalie Abrahami who, according to the New York Times, brings in the music (and the musicians) "in seemingly random fragments at first, which coalesce into something transcendent." The result, so far as I can tell, is to distill the essence of both Tolstoy and Beethoven into a single compelling act. [1'20"]
� 2015. The first three-quarters of this trailer involves three principal dancers with the violinist and pianist playing onstage. I find it elegant rather than passionate, but it is the only version that acknowledges the pre-Romantic nature of the sonata. Then towards the end, the music is replaced by the Janacek String Quartet, and everything changes. Unfortunately, the clip is very short, but this is the section that I would really like to see. [3'17"]
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