The Kreutzer Sonata

[Idril]

(First, sorry for bad English, not a native language).
Well, he (Tolstoy) used to practice sex quite frequently at young age considering that healthy, fashionable and something fitting the image of ‘come il faut’ man. But with the age he grows more spiritual and under the light of his purified views he condemns that kind of passion as something not able to be related with GOOD. Why?

I had read that too, that that rejection of women and sex came later in life but reading his biography it seems like it was something that he struggled with from the beginning. He would be determined to keep himself pure and strong but inevitably, he would succumb to temptation and then feel like a complete failure. This is an exerpt from a diary entry when he was in the Caucasus, I think he was around 24 or 25 at the time:

Could not hold out. I motioned to something pink which looked very nice from a distance. I opened the back door. She came in. Now I can't stand to see her any more; everything is vile and ugly; I hate her, because she drove me to break my resolution....I bitterly repent of it. I have never felt it so strongly as now.

I think that shows that he was never completely resolved to the idea of sex, it filled him with shame and regret almost every time. He may have been a sexually active young man, but he never felt good about it.

[Dori]

I just finished "The Kreutzer Sonata" yesterday. Needless to say, I thought this book was startling, but I was perhaps not as startled as any given woman. However, I must admit that, to a certain extent, I agree with the following quotes:

"It is a marvelous thing how full of illusion is the notion that beauty is an advantage. A beautiful woman says all sorts of foolishness, you listen and you don't hear any foolishness, but what you hear seems to you wisdom itself. She says and does vulgar things, and to you it seems lovely. Even when she does not say stupid or vulgar things, but is simply beautiful, you are convinced that she is miraculously wise and moral."

"Ask an experienced coquette who has set herself the task of entrapping a man, which she would prefer to risk: being detected in falsehood, cruelty, even immortality, in the presence of the one whom she is trying to entice, or to appear before him in a badly made or unbecomig gown,---and everytime she would choose the first."

I reluctantly agree with the first one, being a guy and subject to such perceptions. However, I have found that these perceptions decrease with age, that is men see women more for their personality and whatnot as they mature, or at least such is my experience. As for the second quote, I must say this is applicable to many women as far as I can tell.

I recommend reading Robert G. Ingersoll's review of "The Kreutzer Sonata." It can be found here.

As for biographies on Leo Tolstoy, the following one was listed in the "Further Reading" section of my edition of "The Kreutzer Sonata":

Wilson, A. N. Tolstoy: A Biography.