Lev and Sonya

By Louis Smoluchowski

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0399132368
• ISBN13: 9780399132360
• Release Date: June 1987
• Publisher: Putnam Publishing Group
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 3.40 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A great and tragic love story

The Tolstoys' marriage was a great and tragic love story. It was in a sense problematic from the beginning and problematic throughout as Tolstoy himself was always problematic. The combination of tremendous lust and tremendous idealism , the demandingness of an incredible genius from himself and from others meant that life with him would be incredibly difficult. The devoted wife Sonya( nee Behrs) who helped him in the physical work of rewriting his greatest masterpieces also went through thirteen pregnancies and brought him a large and also very problematic family. This work chronicles their story by reading their diaries. It is not an easy tale, but it is an illuminating and often moving one. For their passionate contradictory and difficult souls combined and collided in many different ways. In old age it was the money, the property her desire to look after her childrens' interest and his desire to save the world which moved them finally apart. His legendary last escape to the railroad station where he died seems to say something to us all about the ' hell ' of marriage. And theirs certainly had more than its share of hell. But it also had love and greatness . This book tells the story with sympathy for both of these torn souls. It fills out details and adds to the extant literature. It may not be the last word but it is a welcome addition to the literature.