Eowyn and Anna Karenina: Freedom, Responsibility, and Power

Last week those of us in the Carolinas got a reminder of how we’re all connected to everything, including things we’d maybe rather not be, like hurricanes. Nature, as it turns out, is indifferent to those kinds of petty desires. The question of how we are all interconnected, whether we like it or not, and […]

“A Hero of Our Time” by Mikhail Lermontov

A Hero of Our Time Mikhail Lermontov The first thing I ever read in Russian that was an actual piece of text and not an example sentence was a story about a young Russian officer who ends up amongst a household of smugglers and gets tricked by a pretty girl who, it turns out, is […]

“The Living Corpse” by Leo Tolstoy

The Living Corpse Leo Tolstoy In 1900, more than 20 years after finishing his masterpiece “Anna Karenina,” Tolstoy returned to a character named Karenin in a troubled marriage, although this Karenin seems to have no blood relation to the original. Still, it’s a fascinating indication that, for all the dislike he felt for the novel […]

“Tolstoy: A Russian Life” by Rosamund Bartlett

Tolstoy: A Russian Life Rosamund Bartlett “Tolstoy: A Russian Life” is, fittingly, nearly as capacious and baggy a work as those of its subject. Delving into everything from Tolstoy’s ancestors to the fate of his children after his death to recipes of favorite desserts cooked by his wife, this biography meanders charmingly back and forth […]