Books
by Leo Tolstoy
|
Anna Karenina |
Yes, another classic re-visited (last read at school). It is a marvellous book! I could criticize some things about it - Vronsky is a bit wooden, Anna over dramatic - but all in all it's still a totally involving story. Descriptions of life on country estates, Levin's search for meaning, the doings of the host of intimately observed minor characters, all became more real than my everyday life, for the duration.
(Annabel Bedini - bwl 57 Summer 2010) |
|
|
Anna Karenina |
Screen adaptations concentrate on Anna and Vronsky's doomed love affair but there are many concurrent stories: a landowner's social responsibility after the abolition of serfdom (autobiographical Tolstoy?), the descriptions of agriculture and the distance between the upper-levels of society lavishing money on high living and gambling, speaking French and wanting to be more Northern European than Russian. As usual confusion with those convoluted names - keeping a notepad handy to make a cast list helps greatly! A marathon read to be taken gently.
(Chris Cozens - bwl 97 Summer 2020) |
|
|
War and Peace |
The world's greatest novel? It is certainly vast in ambition and scope – Napoleon's doomed Russian expedition and its effects on society. Tolstoy brilliantly evokes the human reality of fighting armies, entwining them with the vicissitudes of his deeply oberved protagonists (goodness, the emotional and spiritual intensity!). I admit I got bogged down by his excursions into moral and historical philosophising, but, coming back as an adult, I am full of admiration. Yes, a truly towering work.
(Annabel Bedini - bwl 106 Autumn 2022) |
|
|
|
