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Title: Tolstoy: A Biography by A. N. Wilson ISBN: 0-393-32122-3 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: March, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.8 (5 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: An objective look into the life of a great author
Comment: This book is something you can easily read over the span of several sittings, as it is sectioned into several chapters that chronicle each era of Tolstoy's life, making it easy to read. An excellent source of both research and simple enjoyment.
Being a lover of Tolstoy's literature and philosophy, and having read brief snippets of Tolstoy's life in the preface of his novels, I was interested in learning more about the man himself. Wilson has produced a well researched biography that is informative and interesting to read. What I especially like is its clarity on what is fact and what are speculations based on his erratic diaries, using painstaking quotes, footnotes, literary excerpts, and bibliography to back up the author's and literary community's theories.
The result is a portrait of a man at odds with himself, who like Dostoevsky was a living representation of the duality of man. No wonder these writers were so profound at portaying the the human condition, mind, spirit, and soul. If only we could go back in time and walk with these men and speak with them personally, how rich we would be.
Rating: 5
Summary: Not the average biography
Comment: Tolstoy is one the greatest writers during what must be considered the heroic age of novel writing. He never makes a wrong move in his writing, but probably was one of the most unpleasant people ever to live. Wilson here gives us a view of both the sublime artist and the opinionated gad fly of his friends, family and country and presents a fairly complete picture of a divided man. This is a tell all book, but not in the usual sense. Wilson focuses on the inner life of Tolstoy rather than his day to day experiences which probably were not as meaningful to him as what went on inside. This probably is the best biogrpahy of Tolstoy in English. It is good for those who are familiar with Tolstoy's works and for those who are not.
Rating: 5
Summary: Vibrant and Funny Literary Biography
Comment: Among it's more traditional strengths, Wilson's life of Tolstoy must be added to the exceedingly select list of laugh out loud biographies of Russian novelists. Throughout the book's considerable length and passionate examinations of Tolstoy's writing and the Russian history from which they grew, are superb jokes, asides, and sarcasm - in no way denigrating the tempestuous creator of War and Peace, but keeping a keen-eyed perspective on the many paradoxical facets of his long life.
Wilson's account is suffused with a deeply felt love of Tolstoy's writings, perfectly balanced by an appreciation for his absurdities. If you have read and loved War and Peace, Anna Karenina, or any of Tolstoy's works, this biography yields a rich and absorbing account of the life and history from which they sprung.
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Title: Great Short Works of Leo Tolstoy by Leo Tolstoy ISBN: 0060830719 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 01 June, 1967 List Price(USD): $8.99 |
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Title: Tolstoy by Henri Troyat, Nancy Amphoux ISBN: 0802137687 Publisher: Grove Press Pub. Date: 30 March, 2001 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: The Cambridge Companion to Tolstoy (Cambridge Companions to Literature) by Donna Tussing Orwin ISBN: 0521520002 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 01 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $23.00 |
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Title: The Kingdom of God Is Within You by Leo Tolstoy ISBN: 0803294042 Publisher: University of Nebraska Press Pub. Date: 01 January, 1985 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: A Confession and Other Religious Writings (Penguin Classics) by Leo Tolsyoy, Jane Kentish ISBN: 0140444734 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 January, 1988 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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