dfloyd
12-21-2009, 12:57 PM
is how this book came to be, or the story behind the story. Having read Tolstoy's War and Peace and Anna Karenina, I have always avoided his third and last novel, Resurrection. But this week, regardless of the fact that critics have said that this novel doesn't have the artistic merit of his other two long novels, I started Resurrection. It is a story based upon a tale told to Tolstoy by a lawyer friend about a young Russian nobleman who seduces a young maid in his Aunt's household. The maid becomes pregnant and is dismissed from service. Now fast forward about eight years. the nobleman is called to jury duty, and the person who is on trial is the maid. She is on trial for robbery and murder, so the nobleman, who started the young girl on the path of destruction is on the horns of a dilemma.
But reading the Introduction to the novel didn't tell me why the seventy-year-old Tolstoy would start another long novel after not writing a novel for twenty-five years. It seems there was a pacifist group in Russia called the Dukborors. They were an embarrasment to the Tsar and he wanted rid of them. Canada offered to take in the 12,000 Russians if Russia would pay for their tranportation. Russia would condone the emigration but wouldn't pay for their passage. Enter Tolstoy. The author had prefiously given up all his copyrights to whomever wanted to publish his works as part of his late-in-life spiritual tranformation. So to get the money for the 12,000 Dukobnors' passage, Tolstoy had to write another long novel. This was his final novel, Resurrection, Maybe not as artistic as his previous novels, but the autobiography of Tolstoy's spiritual awakening, and an interesting story non the less.
But reading the Introduction to the novel didn't tell me why the seventy-year-old Tolstoy would start another long novel after not writing a novel for twenty-five years. It seems there was a pacifist group in Russia called the Dukborors. They were an embarrasment to the Tsar and he wanted rid of them. Canada offered to take in the 12,000 Russians if Russia would pay for their tranportation. Russia would condone the emigration but wouldn't pay for their passage. Enter Tolstoy. The author had prefiously given up all his copyrights to whomever wanted to publish his works as part of his late-in-life spiritual tranformation. So to get the money for the 12,000 Dukobnors' passage, Tolstoy had to write another long novel. This was his final novel, Resurrection, Maybe not as artistic as his previous novels, but the autobiography of Tolstoy's spiritual awakening, and an interesting story non the less.