The Last Station: A Novel of Tolstoy's Final Year
Jay Parini
NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTUREStarring Helen Mirren, Christopher Plummer, & James McAvoyIn 1910, Count Leo Tolstoy, the most famous writer in the world, is caught in the struggle between his devoted wife and an equally devoted acolyte over the master's legacy. Sofya Andreyevna fears that she and the children she has borne Tolstoy will lose all to Vladimir Chertkov and the Tolstoyan movement, which preaches the ideals of poverty, chastity, and pacifism.As Tolstoy seeks peace in his final days, Valentin Bulgakov is hired to be his secretary and enlisted as a spy by both camps. But Valentin's loyalty is to the great man, who in turn recognizes in the young idealist his own youthful struggle with worldly passions.Deftly moving among a colorful cast of characters, drawing on the writings of the people on whom they are based, Jay Parini has created a stunning portrait of an enduring genius and a deeply affecting novel.
$7.25 (USD)
Amazon.com Review
Book Description
Set in the last tumultuous years of Leo Tolstoy's life, The Last Station centers on the battle for his soul waged by his wife, Sofya Andreyevna, and his leading disciple, Vladimir Cherkov.
Torn between his professed doctrine of poverty and chastity and the reality of his enormous wealth, his thirteen children, and a life of relative luxury, Tolstoy makes a dramatic flight from his home. Too ill to continue beyond the tiny rail station at Astapovo, he believes that he is dying alone, while over one hundred newspapermen camp outside awaiting hourly reports on his condition. A brilliant re-creation of the mind and tortured soul of one of the world's greatest writers, The Last Station is a richly inventive novel that dances between fact and fiction.
The Last Station is now a major motion picture based on the novel, starring Christopher Plummer as Leo Tolstoy, Helen Mirren as Sofya Tolstoy, James McAvoy as Valentin Bulgakov, Paul Giamatti as Vladimir Chertkov, and Anne-Marie Duff as Sasha Tolstoy. Enjoy these images from the film, and click the thumbnails to see larger images
Set in the last tumultuous years of Leo Tolstoy's life, The Last Station centers on the battle for his soul waged by his wife, Sofya Andreyevna, and his leading disciple, Vladimir Cherkov.
Torn between his professed doctrine of poverty and chastity and the reality of his enormous wealth, his thirteen children, and a life of relative luxury, Tolstoy makes a dramatic flight from his home. Too ill to continue beyond the tiny rail station at Astapovo, he believes that he is dying alone, while over one hundred newspapermen camp outside awaiting hourly reports on his condition. A brilliant re-creation of the mind and tortured soul of one of the world's greatest writers, The Last Station is a richly inventive novel that dances between fact and fiction.
The Last Station is now a major motion picture based on the novel, starring Christopher Plummer as Leo Tolstoy, Helen Mirren as Sofya Tolstoy, James McAvoy as Valentin Bulgakov, Paul Giamatti as Vladimir Chertkov, and Anne-Marie Duff as Sasha Tolstoy. Enjoy these images from the film, and click the thumbnails to see larger images
Reviewed in the United States on February 11, 2010
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I bought this book after seeing a trailer for the new movie starring Christopher Plummer as Leo Tolstoy in the final year of his life and Helen Mirren as his embattled wife. It was immediately clear that these were fine roles for two great actors; was the movie based on an equally great book?
In some ways, it did not need to be, for the greatness was already there in Tolstoy's writings and example. In the second part of his life, following the inclinations of his own Levin in ANNA KARENINA, he took up a simpler life in the country, working alongside the peasants and at least attempting to renounce his wealth. In 1910, when Parini introduces him to us, he is living at his estate of Yasnaya Polyana surrounded by a virtual commune of Tolstoyans (one of several such communities in Russia and abroad) almost worshipping the master and trying to live by his tenets of chastity, poverty, and peace. For Tolstoy himself, this involved many contradictions; the still-married father of numerous children was an unlikely prophet of celibacy, and Russia's most celebrated author might live simply but was certainly not poor. There were also great tensions with his wife, Sofya Andreyvna (Sonya), who was unwilling to renounce the comforts she felt she was due as Countess Tolstoy and mourned the distancing of the affections of her once-beloved husband.
Much as Michael Shaara had done in his Gettysburg novel THE KILLER ANGELS, Parini tells the story of Tolstoy's final year through a series of different voices: his wife Sonya, his daughter Sasha, Makovitsky his doctor, Chertkov his closest disciple and agent, and his new secretary Bulgakov; there are also letters and diary entries by Tolstoy himself and three poems by the author. Most of this is based on actual documentary material, but Parini is most effective, I think, when he most uses his own imagination as a novelist. Sonya's reminiscences of their courtship, for example, have a grace that offsets the mentally ill woman she eventually became. Sasha's service as her father amanuensis and ally is humanized by the warmth of a growing love for another woman. And Bulgakov's arrival at the estate is delicious, as an avowed celibate who immediately falls under the spell of one of the master's more attractive acolytes, a worldly-wise young woman called Masha.
The main downsides are that it can be hard to get one's bearings at first, some of the switches between novel and documentary are a bit abrupt, and the book tends to be rather episodic; I have noticed this problem in other biographical novels such as THE MASTER, Colm Toibin's book about Henry James. Towards the end, though, when the 82-year-old Tolstoy finally abandons his wife and home to set out as a wanderer, only to fall ill at a tiny railroad station, the historical events carry everything on their tide. The book offers a facinating insight into the character of this literary lion turned lamb, and I am sure that a good screenplay will smooth out the few rough edges. [LATER: Having just seen the movie, I certainly think that its evocative setting and the warmth of the central performances gives it a rich coherence that the book does not quite have, with its many discursions and changing points of view. The only part of Parini's story that I really miss is the lesbian relationship involving Sasha, but I can see why this had no place in the screenplay.]
In some ways, it did not need to be, for the greatness was already there in Tolstoy's writings and example. In the second part of his life, following the inclinations of his own Levin in ANNA KARENINA, he took up a simpler life in the country, working alongside the peasants and at least attempting to renounce his wealth. In 1910, when Parini introduces him to us, he is living at his estate of Yasnaya Polyana surrounded by a virtual commune of Tolstoyans (one of several such communities in Russia and abroad) almost worshipping the master and trying to live by his tenets of chastity, poverty, and peace. For Tolstoy himself, this involved many contradictions; the still-married father of numerous children was an unlikely prophet of celibacy, and Russia's most celebrated author might live simply but was certainly not poor. There were also great tensions with his wife, Sofya Andreyvna (Sonya), who was unwilling to renounce the comforts she felt she was due as Countess Tolstoy and mourned the distancing of the affections of her once-beloved husband.
Much as Michael Shaara had done in his Gettysburg novel THE KILLER ANGELS, Parini tells the story of Tolstoy's final year through a series of different voices: his wife Sonya, his daughter Sasha, Makovitsky his doctor, Chertkov his closest disciple and agent, and his new secretary Bulgakov; there are also letters and diary entries by Tolstoy himself and three poems by the author. Most of this is based on actual documentary material, but Parini is most effective, I think, when he most uses his own imagination as a novelist. Sonya's reminiscences of their courtship, for example, have a grace that offsets the mentally ill woman she eventually became. Sasha's service as her father amanuensis and ally is humanized by the warmth of a growing love for another woman. And Bulgakov's arrival at the estate is delicious, as an avowed celibate who immediately falls under the spell of one of the master's more attractive acolytes, a worldly-wise young woman called Masha.
The main downsides are that it can be hard to get one's bearings at first, some of the switches between novel and documentary are a bit abrupt, and the book tends to be rather episodic; I have noticed this problem in other biographical novels such as THE MASTER, Colm Toibin's book about Henry James. Towards the end, though, when the 82-year-old Tolstoy finally abandons his wife and home to set out as a wanderer, only to fall ill at a tiny railroad station, the historical events carry everything on their tide. The book offers a facinating insight into the character of this literary lion turned lamb, and I am sure that a good screenplay will smooth out the few rough edges. [LATER: Having just seen the movie, I certainly think that its evocative setting and the warmth of the central performances gives it a rich coherence that the book does not quite have, with its many discursions and changing points of view. The only part of Parini's story that I really miss is the lesbian relationship involving Sasha, but I can see why this had no place in the screenplay.]
Reviewed in the United States on October 17, 2010
Verified Purchase
As one who is fascinated with historical fiction, and yet usually disappointed in it, I found this a surprisingly sensitive and intelligent interpretation of the last year of Tolstoy's life. I believe it is also about as historically accurate as it is possible for a novel to be. We follow the aged genius, unable to take the expected pride in his literary accomplishments or bask in their rewards. Instead, he is afflicted with regrets for his over-privileged life and obsessed with the need for atonement through grand gestures of pacifism, self-abnegation, and Christian service...
Unable to participate in such lofty idealism stands his wife of fifty years, the Countess Sofya, and the novel examines unsparingly their still-loving but deeply conflicted relationship. A creature of intelligence and passion, the countess is steeped in aristocratic values and determined to maintain a life of enlightened privilege for herself and her family. She is deeply fearful of losing all she holds dear (including some of her children) to her husband's enthusiasms. Her fears, which have rendered her increasingly unstable, are not without foundation; neither is her self-image of one who has sacrificed her own life to her wifely duties. Like so many women, she was willing to do that as long as she felt cherished and appreciated, but not in her perceived state of physical and emotional abandonment.
Theirs was a tragic estrangement, through which vestiges of their former passion sometimes reappear, and it is Parini's great
achievement that he can divide our sympathies equally and include both in his understanding, affection, and respect.
The novel's other characters are also skillfully etched, including the quite chilling acolyte Vladimir Chertkov, the young disciple Bulgakov (any relation to the author of "The Master and Margarita"?), and several of the Tolstoy offspring. And
excerpts from actual letters and diaries add a special interest to an unusually humane and beautiful work.
Unable to participate in such lofty idealism stands his wife of fifty years, the Countess Sofya, and the novel examines unsparingly their still-loving but deeply conflicted relationship. A creature of intelligence and passion, the countess is steeped in aristocratic values and determined to maintain a life of enlightened privilege for herself and her family. She is deeply fearful of losing all she holds dear (including some of her children) to her husband's enthusiasms. Her fears, which have rendered her increasingly unstable, are not without foundation; neither is her self-image of one who has sacrificed her own life to her wifely duties. Like so many women, she was willing to do that as long as she felt cherished and appreciated, but not in her perceived state of physical and emotional abandonment.
Theirs was a tragic estrangement, through which vestiges of their former passion sometimes reappear, and it is Parini's great
achievement that he can divide our sympathies equally and include both in his understanding, affection, and respect.
The novel's other characters are also skillfully etched, including the quite chilling acolyte Vladimir Chertkov, the young disciple Bulgakov (any relation to the author of "The Master and Margarita"?), and several of the Tolstoy offspring. And
excerpts from actual letters and diaries add a special interest to an unusually humane and beautiful work.
Reviewed in the United States on April 2, 2011
Verified Purchase
Jay Parini has created an outstanding literary work in his novel, The Last Station. The novel presents the end times for Leo Tolstoy and captures the experiences and thoughts of a great man realizing that his days are ending but who never loses his desire to live and write or his great love and respect for the less fortunate in society. Parini's description of Tolstoy's last year with his wife is the classic tragic comedy. The comic portions are dwarfed by the agony the woman put Tolstoy through. The contrast in the strong characters that surrounded Tolstoy in his final year adds to the reader's attraction for the novel. This is very well written, very interesting and definitely a five star novel.
Tom Roe, Author of The Gaelic Letters
Tom Roe, Author of The Gaelic Letters
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