The featured image is of Tolstoy’s Art and Thought, 1847-1880 by Donna Tussing Orwin, one of the “travel books” I got at Yes Books the other day. I’ve read up to page 63 of Volume XIV of The Novels and Other Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi or Chapter X of The Death of Ivan Ilyitch.… Continue reading Tolstoy Journal, July 21, 2017: “Stop your foolish lies!”
The featured image is of a mass market I bought today at Yes Books. It’s a late 60s (1967) protest kind of book with essays by Tolstoy on pacifism and civil disobedience. Here is the back cover copy: “‘The helpless positions of governments, which more and more increase their armaments: the multiplication of taxation and… Continue reading Tolstoy Journal, July 20, 2017: “But much more than his capacity to irritate, he has a power to disturb, to unsettle, to upset.”
I have finished Volume XIII of The Novels and Other Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi and read 21 pages of Volume XIV, which places me at the start of Chapter III of The Death of Ivan Ilyitch. The last two stories in Volume XIII were “Family Happiness” and “A Prisoner of the Caucasus.” The featured image… Continue reading Tolstoy Journal, July 19, 2017: Face to Face with It
Above is Volume II of Leo Tolstoy by Ernest J. Simmons, one of my Tolstoy “travel books.” I have not finished reading Volume I yet, but am trying to show previews of highlights to come, including quotes from the travel books. Last night I read up to page 66 of Volume VI of the Works,… Continue reading Tolstoy Journal, March 22, 2017: “Great is good; not great is bad.”
Today’s “travel book” is Rosemary Edmond’s translation of War and Peace. This is the version I read about half of before I dropped it, not because I wasn’t mesmerized but I just got interested in another book and way led on to way. The cover illustration is a detail from “The 1812 Retreat–The Battle of… Continue reading Tolstoy Journal, March 21, 2017:”the barking of a dog.”
The Last Station: A Novel of Tolstoy’s Last Year by Jay Parini is today’s travel book, though I will be quoting Roland Blythe again. This novel was made into a movie which I would like to see. Last night I read up to page 230 of Volume V or Chapter XIII of Part Twelve of… Continue reading Tolstoy Journal, March 15, 2017:”Our happiness is like water in a net”
Today’s travel book is The Death of Ivan Iiyich translated by Lynn Solotaroff and with an introduction by Roland Blythe. I have read this at least twice and look forward to reading it again. It is hard to read because it faces death so squarely, unflinchingly. And I love the portrait of Tolstoy on the cover… Continue reading Tolstoy Journal, March 14, 2017: “Of the insurgent flesh.”
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