Russian Short Stories Part 4: More Gogol

Combing through literature's past reveals a seemingly endless stream of fun surprises, and Gogol's stories certainly count among them. He is the first uniquely Russian writer, and his profound influence on subsequent literary giants cannot be overestimated. His all too short life leads one to wonder what further contributions he might have made had he lived past the age of forty three.  Gogol's writing sprawls across many genres, making his work difficult to categorize. His work reveals a writer both realist and romantic, balancing elements of the fantastic and supernatural with real life struggles and recognizable characters. It is a blend of the Ukrainian folkloric past and the modern-day Russia in which he lived. His humor lends perhaps the most humanizing touch to his storytelling. Writing genuinely funny and (simultaneously) meaningful stuff is hard, and his natural sense of the absurd and ironic is something that is impossible to fake. Gogol had it all.

I was taught that the American contribution to world literature is the short story. But as I've explored the short stories of Russia, I have come to believe that while the Americans may have invented the form, the Russians perfected it. In fact, Russia emerged from the cultural wilderness in the mid-nineteenth century with a firm grasp on both the conciseness and immediacy of the short story and the sprawling, large scale scope of the novel. Russia's literature appears to have arrived mature and fully formed, seemingly all at once, and Gogol's stories were the first flowering of Russia's new literary identity. Had he lived to finish his groundbreaking novel Dead Souls, a partially realized, multi-volume reworking of Dante's The Divine Comedy in his modern day Russia--he would have  even further cemented a reputation as one of his nation's leading creative forces on the cutting edge of a cultural renaissance.

Thus, in describing his work, one is almost reduced to saying things like, "This is so cool!" and "Whoa! This guy could really write!" As it is true with all literary criticism, description underserves the work, and there's no substitute for immersing oneself in his stories. Both the author and the Russia he knew no longer exist, but his stories have a timeless quality to them. Here are some more gems:

The Mantle and Other Stories (18??) by Nikolai Gogol

The funny thing about translated literature is that you'll often find several English titles for the same work. Such is the case here. The title story is actually Gogol's signature work, "The Cloak", a story we've already explored as part of Taras Bulba and Other Tales. You can read about it here. 

Also included in this collection is "The Nose", a surreal masterpiece about a civil servant who has lost his nasal appendage to a careless barber. As the story opens, the barber finds the nose in a loaf of bread served by his wife at the breakfast table. He hastens out the door to throw it off a bridge, relieved to be free of culpability. The nose's owner, a civil servant named Kovaloff, awakens to find a blank space where his nose once was and tries everything he can to track down his nose and return it  to its rightful place. A source of even further humiliation is that his nose has achieved a higher social rank, strutting about in more elaborate clothes and riding in carriages that indicate a superior social position. The police don't take him seriously, and his attempt to place an ad for his lost nose is also unsuccessful.

This is a brilliant story, combining sharp social satire of the lives of civil servants in St. Petersburg with playful, surreal imagery that recalls Terry Gilliam's animated cartoons for Monty Python's Flying Circus. Gogol even addresses the absurdity of the tale with a flash of metafiction in the story's closing pages as he anticipates criticism for such a fantastic tale. This is another Rod Serling-esque story. Excellent stuff.

"Memoirs of a Madman" (often titled "Diary of a Madman" to avoid confusion with Gustave Flaubert's work of the same name, only to face further confusion in 1981 with the release of the identically titled Ozzy Osbourne album), is another of Gogol's great achievements. It is a first person account of one man's descent into insanity that cleverly takes more than a few satirical swipes at Russian society. A titular counselor--the lowest rank of civil servant at the time and one of Gogol's favorite character types--displays a gradual but thorough loss of his hold on reality in his diary. This story is paced perfectly, from his initial inkings of fancy that dogs are able to secretly speak and write letters, to the full blown delusions of grandeur that he is, in fact, a Spanish monarch. All of this is balanced by Gogol's measured prose (in English, of course), which becomes bolder and more outlandish as the piece progresses. Darkly funny, indeed.

The remaining two stories have deep roots in Cossack folk tales with characteristically Gothic touches. "A May Night" is part comedy of errors and part supernatural folktale with a surprisingly intricate plot. This is the story of a love triangle involving Levko, the son of the village headman (a sort of Cossack village leader), his father and a pretty young girl. It also involves a local legend about the death of a young girl whose widower father married a vengeful witch who drove her stepdaughter to suicide by drowning herself in a nearby pond. These two plot elements resolve in a well executed moonlit climax in which young Levko and the ghost of the drowned girl help one another find to satisfaction and revenge. Along the way, we meet many village characters drawn with Gogol's signature wit and perception. This story leaves the reader with a similar sense of satisfaction, being perhaps the best combination of Ukrainian folk lore and wry social comment in the stories we have explored.

"The Viy" is a no-holds-barred horror story, ideal for campfire gatherings and certain to terrorize children and unsettle grownups in a young monastery student, terrorized by a witch when stopping at an old woman's farm for lodging, is inexplicably summoned back to the countryside to perform funeral rights at the specific request of a young girl who has died. "The Viy" has everything--scary supernatural gnome-type creatures, freaky form-shifting witches, dark quasi-religious overtones, and wonderfully detailed characters. This story is scary and entertaining in a very over-the-top way. Fantastic stuff, easily spoiled by my brand of bloggy encapsulation. If you like stories like this, you'll want to read it yourself.

French author Prosper Mérimé, whose novel, Carmen was adapted by Bizet into the famous opera of the same name, provides some dismissive introductory notes that pretty much belittle all the aspects of Gogol's style that I enjoy most. This is the type of preface that can really ruin a reader's experience of a good book and should be heartily ignored or at least postponed until you've read all the stories so you can make up your own mind. To be fair, Mérimé wrote his remarks before Gogol's work could be put into historical context, so we can forgive him a little shortsightedness. But we don't have to be influenced by his opinions prior to reading Gogol's stories. So skip it until you've finished the book.

Download The Mantle and Other Stories from Project Gutenberg

We'll look at some more Russian short stories next time. 

If you enjoy the books offered on Project Gutenberg, please consider making a small donation so that they can continue to do the incredible, important work that they do. It's only fair.

Are you out there? Let me hear from you! I know that you're reading this because The Overleaf has received thousands of hits since it first went live in October, 2012. And yet...I have not received a comment or an email from a single soul out there. Please don't be shy! Drop me a line or leave a comment. I know you're out there--I can hear you breathing! Help me know for sure.

Russian Short Stories Part 3: Nikolai Gogol

Nikolai Gogol 1809-1852

We're foregoing chronology for context again;  we simply can't go any further in our exploration of Russian short stories until we give Nikolai Gogol his due. 

Let's face it; Russian literature isn't exactly packed full of belly laughs. In Dostoyevski's works, there are a few chortles attributable to Gogol's influence. Chekhov displayed a keen wit. In Turgenev, one might find an occasional poignant and restrained chuckle, but always with a heavy sigh. And Tolstoy isn't very funny at all. But Gogol was funny;  his characters are still familiar to us, and his comic timing, vivid imagination and sense of irony blurs the boundaries of genre. This guy was very much of and ahead of his time.

Gogol's work straddles the end of the Romantic age, when Russian literature primarily imitated European forms and styles, and the age in which the tables of influence would begin to turn as Russian realism made its indelible mark on European literature. His stories give us a view of what Russian literature was and of what it would become. The effect of his influence in Russia was almost immediate, and while it would take time for European and American writers to embrace the new perspective, its effect, through the work of Turgenev, Dostoyevski, Tolstoy and Chekhov, would be long lasting.  

Taken together, these stories are an intriguing patchwork of absurdist humor, satire, fantasy and folklore. Government workers and small town potentates are ridiculed. Paupers make deals with the Devil for riches and marital bliss that don't quite pan out. An impoverished scribe gets a hard-earned brand new coat and the newfound respect of his coworkers, only to have it taken off his back. Menacing figures climb out of spooky portraits to ruin the lives of artists. A bunch of fifteenth century Cossack warriors invade Poland for fun.  Underscoring all of this is a deeply felt humanity and commitment to truths much larger than the ordinary people he depicts. This is rich, colorful stuff indeed.

So let's have a look at the first of two anthologies of his work from the 1830s and 1840s we'll explore on The Overleaf.

Taras Bulba and Other Tales (18??) by Nikolai Gogol

"Taras Bulba" is a novella that is atypical in style. In fact, this novella is the end result of a failed attempt to write the definitive, multi-volume Ukrainian history. It's the story of a Cossack leader and his two sons, Ostap and Andrii, who have just returned from Kiev upon graduating from university. Ostap is a born warrior like his father, and Andrii is sensitive and more prone to romantic feelings. But both sons are expected to fight by their father's side in defense of Cossack glory. After a brief family reunion, Taras takes his sons to join their compatriots.

When not waging war, the Cossacks tended to hang around and party a lot. Restrained by pesky peace treaties and chomping at the bit to cause holy mayhem, they cast their wine gourds aside and pick up their swords to wage war against Poland after hearing news of an alleged Jewish/Polish/Catholic plot that threatens their beloved Orthodox church.  

This historical romance, Homeric in tone and form, is a pretty gripping tale of honor, love, betrayal and adventure. The main hurdle for modern readers will likely be the cringe-inducing anti-Semitism. The Cossacks' short list of folks they love to hate includes Poles, Catholics, Muslims and most vehemently, Jews, who are grotesquely portrayed in shifty and money-grubbing caricature. In all fairness, this bias is very true to life, reflecting a cultural norm in the historical period it depicts and of the nineteenth century. There is a broader context to consider, and while twenty first century hackles might be raised when the Jewish peddler Yankel enters the story, the plot, pacing and finely wrought prose are only somewhat diminished. 

"St. John's Eve" is a classic deal-with-the-Devil story in which a poor young man wins the hand of a beautiful young girl when he accepts sacks of gold from the Devil himself. Not surprisingly, there is a major catch in the deal. This is a Cossack folk tale retold in great romantic style with eerie Gothic touches. Great setup, great ending. It's pretty scary, too.

Gogol's Cossack roots figure prominently in his whole body of work, whether spinning variations of Ukrainian folk tales or describing contemporary urban characters in St. Petersburg or Moscow from an outsider's perspective. "The Cloak" marks where Russian literature really begins. It has been cited by the major Russian writers of the nineteenth century as a singular source of inspiration that set the tone for just about everything that would arise in its wake. 

This is a wicked satire of Russian urban life, where hapless clerks are resigned to a life of meekness and poverty, police and government officials display incredible hubris, and injustice is avenged from the grave. Without spoiling it for you, a miserable government clerk crimps and saves for a new coat for months. His new coat elevates his status in the eyes of his peers, but the sudden loss of the garment brings him face to face with arrogant policemen and obstinate, egotistical bureaucrats. Great ending too, but you didn't hear it from me. The real meat of this story is to be found in the descriptive details.

In "How the Two Ivans Quarreled", two longtime friends, both prominent citizens of a small Ukrainian town take a petty disagreement over the ownership of a Turkish gun to absurd heights. ending in willful destruction of property, endless litigation and the nursing of a grudge that lasts for years. The outcome of the tale is utterly plausible because the characters are so recognizable. What would satire be without a hefty dose of realism? It would be farce--something Gogol never resorts to, no matter how ridiculous the actions of his characters.

My favorite story in this collection is "The Mysterious Portrait", a chilling tale of a down and out artist who visits a shop full of cheap, second and third rate paintings and spends the last of his money on a portrait of an old man that both haunts and fascinates him. On the verge of being evicted from his rooms, the artist has a terrifying dream in which the figure in the painting comes to life bearing packets of gold ducats. When visited by his landlord and a police officer demanding his back rent, he accidentally finds that the picture frame has dispensed to him the money he saw in his dream.

One can imagine what happens next. Enamored of his newfound fortune, he changes his lifestyle, moves into a swank neighborhood and becomes a fashionable artist, moving in exclusive circles and neglecting his considerable talent as an artist to live the good life. The tone, dialogue and moral gravity of the story is not dissimilar to the essential elements of a Rod Serling screenplay for "The Twilight Zone". And that's a good thing.

"The Calabash", local landowners hobnob with offices when the cavalry establishes a new base in a podunk town. One of them, Pythagoras Chertokutsky, well in his cups while playing cards with the boys, brags about his four thousand ruble carriage and invites the party of officers to see it the next day. After more drinking and merriment that keeps him out until four in the morning, he awakens, surprised to find his new, expectant friends have arrived. This story is brief by Gogol's standards--a succinct study of social climbing and braggadoccio with a quick punch line.

By the way, the introduction to this collection is well worth reading. Lots of background information on Gogol, especially relating to the creation of "Taras Bulba".

Download Taras Bulba and Other Tales from Project Gutenberg

Next time, we'll look at another collection of stories by Gogol.

As always, if you download, read and enjoy books from Project Gutenberg, please consider making a small donation so they can continue to do the fine work that they do.

Russian Short Stories Part 2: Leo Tolstoy in the 1880s

The midlife crisis that seized Tolstoy after the massive popularity of War and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina (1877) led him to disavow his literary successes and pursue a very different course, prompting him to reevaluate how to best use his literary gifts for the benefit of mankind. 

Beginning in the 1880s until the end of his life in 1910, he would write stories and religious and philosophical tracts that sought to express a moral point of view in line with the actual teachings of Christ. The moral standard he espoused rejected adherence to religious and civil authority in favor of individual conscience. He insisted that the actions of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Tsarist state should be held accountable to the Gospels which they officially endorsed, although their actions frequently contradicted the core of Christ's teachings of social equality, compassion and nonviolence. Publicly calling out Russia's ruling class as a bunch of hypocrites cost him dearly, resulting in his excommunication from the church and raising the ire of the government. By the end of his life, he was hailed as a hero by the people and a reviled as a pariah by those in power. 

Although his priorities and literary voice changed, he was still Tolstoy, a man of incredible gifts and insight. He was an idealist, and however utopian his ideals may seem to us now, his writings from this period had very real, far reaching influence. Mohandas Ghandi and Martin Luther King took him seriously, successfully putting Tolstoy's belief in nonviolence to the test against imperial power and the tyranny of racial segregation. 

These real world successes lend some credence to his convictions. Tolstoy took up the cause of the Russian peasant and oppressed peoples everywhere, pleading for tolerance and understanding. His philosophy was passionate, erratic, sometimes contradictory, but the man's heart was in the right place. His writerly skill. firm conviction and purity of intention can disarm our skeptical impulses and sometimes suspend our disbelief. In the hands of a lesser writer, the fruits of such zeal would be disastrous, but even in service to a philosophical agenda, however flawed, his literary gifts never failed him. Tolstoy's rawness of feeling draws us in.

Both of these collections are short reads, and with one exception, are ideal for lunch hour perusal. They are so deftly and thoroughly written that it's hard to discuss them without spoiling them before you've had the chance to read them, but I've attempted to do so here.

1901 Russian edition of The Kreutzer Sonata

The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories (1889) by Leo Tolstoy

In the very famous title story (actually a novella), Posdnicheff, an aggrieved man on a train, confides in his fellow passenger of how he came to murder his wife--a crime for which he was acquitted. His story is a diatribe that skewers the hypocrisy of gender roles, social rites, the mysterious transformative power of music, declining morals and the state of the institution of marriage. Although many of his points are difficult to argue with, his remedy for these ills is perfect abstinence from some enormously popular and time-honored human pastimes, like drinking, smoking, eating meat and engaging in premarital sex.

"The Kreutzer Sonata" is a cautionary tale about the evils of unrestrained sensuality, the double standards imposed on men and women regarding morality, and the perils of living a life not in accordance with Christian spiritual and moral principles, but the message I took away from this story is that it's best to exercise caution when engaging a fellow train traveler in conversation because he might just turn out to be a crazy person.

But from the opening dialog between various passengers about the changing social status of women, men and marriage to the final, violent crescendo of his wife's murder, "The Kreutzer Sonata" is masterfully written. In Posdnicheff's confession, Tolstoy maintains a focused, maniacal intensity that never lets up. In fact, you might have to take a break after reading this one.

"Ivan the Fool" is a fairy tale that paints a picture of a Christian anarchic utopia in which those who toil for money and power are brought to ruin and those who work for the betterment of themselves and their neighbors live happy lives. Well wrought, but as with many fairy tales (and like all propaganda), one gets the feeling that the message is laid on a bit thick. ."A Missed Opportunity" is based on the parable of the unforgiving servant from the Gospel of Matthew. Both are beautifully crafted and both offer points of view that, like most utopian philosophies, are tinged with truths that are easy to grasp and equally difficult to practice. 

"A Lost Opportunity" is a tale in simple language about two peasant farming families who once lived in harmony, sharing resources and helping each other. But relations between the two families rapidly break down when a squabble about a chicken laying an egg in the neighbor's yard escalates to a dizzying height of pettiness, litigation, destruction and violence that extends to the surrounding village. All of this could have been avoided by a simple act of forgiveness. A point well taken in any age. 

"Polikushka" dates from 1863 and while the straightforward style fits in with the other stories in this collection, its fatalism is a little out of place. It is a tale of redemption thwarted by circumstance when a servant with a reputation for thieving is summoned by his noblewoman for an errand to collect a large sum of money and return it to her. Determined to prove himself trustworthy, he sets out to fulfill his duty. Therein lies the spoiler. We will tiptoe past it now...

The final piece, "The Candle", depicts the era of brutality and degradation of Russia's serfs as the setting for a simple story about good triumphing over evil. But there is a healthy dose of irony and darkly tinged humor here, elevating this piece above the deceptively simple morality tale it pretends to be. That's all you get, else the stories are in danger of being spoiled. I suggest you read the last two stories back to back to see how his style and perspective had changed in twenty years.  

Download The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories from Project Gutenberg

Post-midlife-crisis-era Leo Tolstoy

What Men Live By and Other Tales (1885) by Leo Tolstoy

Of these two collections, this one is the most overtly religious in tone. All of the stories are good, all are parables, and the last of the stories is a knockout masterpiece. These stories were written to be understood by people from peasants to kings, and their beauty and potency is in their simplicity. 

"What Men Live By" is the story of a shoemaker named Simon who encounters a man named Michael who is naked, cold and hungry, while on an errand to collect money owed for his services and buy himself a sheepskin coat. In an act of Christian charity, he takes the man home to his wife, feeds and clothes him and takes him on as an apprentice. There are several hints that reveal to us that Michael is not of this world, and not surprisingly, he turns out to be an angel send back to Earth by God to learn a lesson for his disobeyance while going about the business of collecting a soul. At the end, it is revealed that the lessons he learns are what dwells in man, what is not given to man and what men live by. Enough said.

"Three Questions" contains a message that pretty much anyone of any time, age or culture can understand. A king summons all who would advise him to ponder three questions. The story begins:

"It once occurred to a certain king, that if he always knew the right time to begin everything; if he knew who were the right people to listen to, and whom to avoid; and, above all, if he always knew what was the most important thing to do, he would never fail in anything he might undertake."

Yeah? No kidding! Who among my readers wouldn't like to know the answer to these questions? Not surprisingly, everyone he consults has differing answers to his queries, so the king ventures out to seek the advice of a reclusive wise man. Long story short with no spoilers: He finds out, and the answers he gets are good ones.

In "The Coffee-House of Surat" we find a banished Persian theologian whose considerable scholarly efforts have only led him to question the existence of God. After drinking a cup of opium, he openly asks his African slave if he believes in God. This exchange is heard by the establishment's diverse coterie of foreign travelers, leading to a discussion that reveals many different viewpoints on the subject. This story is a concise, eloquent plea for tolerance. Nicely written with an easily digestible message.

Which brings us to "How Much Land Does One Man Need?", a perfectly drawn tale that I can't tell you too much about without spoiling the experience of reading it. James Joyce thought that this story is one of the greatest in all of literature and I thoroughly agree with him. A farmer and landowner, tempted by the Devil into pride and greed, seeks to acquire more land to improve his family's stature and standard of living. But how much is enough and to what lengths will he go to get it? Sorry…you'll have to read this one for yourself. because I'm not going to give it away. What an ending!  But don't take my word for it. click on the link below and enjoy it.

Download What Men Live By and Other Tales from Project Gutenberg

Next time, we'll look at stories by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol, the father of Russian literature in the 19th century.

If you'd like to know more about Tolstoy, here is an excellent documentary film from the BBC. It's really fabulous and I can't recommend it enough. In fact, this film provided much of the biographical detail I've included in these posts.

As always. if you read eBooks prepared by Project Gutenberg, please make a donation to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. 

Russian Short Stories Part 1: Leo Tolstoy 1852-1859

"It does not matter much where you begin with him; you feel instantly that the man is mighty, and mighty through his conscience; that he is not trying to surprise or dazzle you with his art, but that he is trying to make you think clearly and feel rightly about vital things with which "art" has often dealt with diabolical indifference or diabolical malevolence." --William Dean Howells (Introduction to Sebastopol, 1887 edition)

I agree with W. D. Howells. Discovering Tolstoy has been one of the great joys in life for me. Tolstoy stirs the reader's moral sense without condescension, telling truths about human experience in a voice so powerful yet so personal and confiding. But I disagree with Howells on one point; It really does matter where one begins with Tolstoy. Instead of ripping right into the borscht-intensive main course that is War and Peace, there are several smaller but still rich and satisfying delicacies by Leo Tolstoy to graze upon. 

My first taste of Tolstoy was the same book that introduced Howells to his work. The Cossacks (1863), is about a Russian socialite who, in an attempt to flee his from his social obligations (and a few outstanding gambling debts) to find meaning, joins the army and lives among the people in the Caucasus mountains at the beginning of the Crimean War. It was a revelation to me. Disarmed by the novel's enormous heart, I fell in love with it instantly. It is a novel that is sensitive, brutal and intensely personal in a way I hadn't encountered before in literature. When I was finished reading it, I felt a longing that I can't define. I felt so close to it that writing about it for the blog proved difficult. Only through reading have I been able to achieve such a heightened mental and emotional state. I was hooked and had to learn more.

In this series, we'll begin to explore Russian short stories with a look at two collections by Tolstoy written in the period between 1852 and 1859. I think modern readers will be pleasantly surprised by the tightness and even pacing of his prose. Though a towering giant in the world of literature, Tolstoy is very readable. Whatever knowledge of nineteenth century Russia you may lack will be answered by brief and helpful footnotes. The universality of the themes easily overshadows most of the historical and cultural particulars, and his compassionate voice draws our attention to haunting, uncomfortable truths about ourselves. Here are two very good places to start.

A Russian Proprietor and Other Stories (1888) by Leo Tolstoy

This volume collects some early short stories of the twentysomething Tolstoy. I know that I've warned readers of The Overleaf to avoid introductions in the past, but in this case, the preface by translator Nathan Haskell Dole is actually useful, giving us a few contextual clues without spoiling anything. 

"A Russian Proprietor" is an unfinished novel that, as Dole points out, stands well on its own. It's the story of an idealistic young Russian landowner who drops out of college to manage his property and attend to his serfs' needs in the hopes of improving their lives. He soon discovers that his education and idealism have done little to prepare him for the reality of their conditions and temperament. The clash between his ideals and their reality makes for some awkward and often comic situations that force him to rethink his plans and to sort his altruistic intentions from his egotistic impulses. Dole tells us that these stories have many parallels with Tolstoy's own life, which explains much. The autobiographical character of his writing is perhaps what makes his words feel so intimate. One gets the sense that Tolstoy has learned many of the lessons in these stories for himself.

Breaking through social barriers in search of a genuine human connection is a theme shared by a few of these stories. "Lucerne" finds a well-to-do traveller at a Swiss resort, is irritated by the cold formality of English tourists and craves a real conversation with a real human being. He notices and befriends a street musician whose mere presence in the hotel drinking champagne causes a chain reaction of snobbery, from the rich hotel guests to the waiters and kitchen servants. In "Albert", an aristocratic man brings home a brilliant but troubled violinist from a party in the hopes of reforming him only to find that Albert is incapable of fitting in with his new friend's plans for him. "Three Deaths"  tells of two consumptive people of different social classes who befall the same fate under markedly different circumstances. No spoiler from me on the third death, however.

There are two stories in which gambling and roguery figure prominently--subjects that Tolstoy knew of firsthand in his younger days. "Recollections of a Scorer" tells  of a man's downfall from the perspective of a scorekeeper in a pool hall. In an almost naturalist narrative style (an extreme rarity for Tolstoy), the scorer relates without judgement a nobleman's pathetic demise and ruination from compulsive gambling. 

"Two Hussars" is an engaging tale that contrasts two generations of cavalrymen. The elder Count Turbin, whose pleasing good looks, formidable dancing skills and penchant for wild times that costs him his life contrasts favorably with his more sensible but less remarkable son. It's interesting to see Tolstoy's developing style; The pacing of the first half is very effective, but the resolution in the second half is abrupt. One gets the feeling he's trying to apply various approaches to express the ideas in his head. Plenty of good stuff there, though.

"A Prisoner in the Caucasus" is an adventure story written for children about a Russian soldier who is captured and held for ransom by a group of Tartars.  The simplicity of Tolstoy's prose and the quick-moving story can turn any willing reader into an eleven-year-old kid. A little violent by today's standards and the Tartars are certainly not treated as heroes, but a pretty gripping read.

Download A Russian Proprietor & Other Stories from Project Gutenberg

The young soldier Leo Tolstoy in 1854

Sebastopol (1887) by Leo Tolstoy

Between 1853 and 1856, France and Britain waged war against Russia's Tsar Nicholas I, who attempted to salvage the bedraggled remains of the Ottoman Empire in an effort to control the Mediterranean Sea, the holy grail of European conquest and influence. Things did not go as planned. This book of three short stories gives us a view of the conflict from the point of view of Russian soldiers in the city of Sebastopol on the Black Sea in what is now the Ukraine where Tolstoy served in the army. 

In the first piece, "Sebastopol in December, 1854", Tolstoy describes in vivid detail what he must have seen upon his arrival. We see a bubbling cauldron of human activity in the army encampment very close to the front lines, the piles of artillery, the horses, the tattered refugees trying to get passage away from the carnage by boat, and busy soldiers in transit. Tolstoy doesn't spare the reader the grim nightmare that is the makeshift hospital with its mutilated soldiers howling in dire agony, awaiting help as they lay on stretchers next to the corpses of their comrades. We see the town itself as soldiers and locals frequent restaurants and shops with the eerie pretense of normality. We hear the sound of gunfire and cannons of the fourth bastion where the fiercest fighting takes place. We see the trenches on the front lines where thousands of young men, full of courage and patriotism, met with their doom.  The first of the three sketches is patriotic in tone, but underscored by chilling visions of the reality of war.

In "Sebastopol in May, 1855", we return to the battle scarred city and the tone changes from one of patriotism to one of disillusionment. Amidst the carnage, soldiers try to carry on with the business of warfare, focusing on their appointed jobs to keep the insanity of their situation at bay. We see white gloved officers putting on airs of gentility and asserting their civilian social status--one of many incongruities in a place where all men potentially face the same fate. The officers are to an extent detached from the reality of their surroundings yet still experience the horrors of war. Tolstoy criticizes their vanity and pettiness and notes an ambivalent mixture of good and evil in men. Truth, he concludes, is the true hero of the story of the war.

In "Sebastopol in August, 1855", the idealism and disillusionment of the two previous sketches are brought together. Volodiya Koseltzoff, a young ensign, volunteers to leave his quiet post at St. Petersburg to join his older brother Mikhail  at Sebastopol. We follow him as he reunites with his brother and travels on to find his new post. He is filled with idyllic visions of fighting alongside his brother as they journey towards the front lines, but the sight of a ward full of gruesomely wounded soldiers and the sound of gun and cannon fire fill him with terror and dread. He is at first appalled by what he perceives as his own cowardliness, but as he meets the men with whom he will serve--apparently oblivious to the horror of their situation and more concerned with griping about their gambling debts--he begins to feel more at ease. The closer he gets to battle, the braver he becomes.

That's all I can tell you without being a rotten spoiler, so you'll have to find out for yourself the fate of these two brothers. Tolstoy's descriptions of war, his firsthand understanding of the psychology of war and the terror felt in men's hearts, and his moral outrage at the senseless loss of human life make these stories compelling and unforgettable. Technically, the writing becomes more focused as the stories progress. Not an easy read, but an excellent example of the young writer's growing talents. Very moving.

Read Sebastopol online at Google Books

The short stories are a good way to get to know Tolstoy. In fact, short stories are a good way to become familiar with Russian literature. Don't forget to have a look at my piece on Turgenev's A Sportsman's Sketches, which is another superb collection of Russian short fiction. Next time, we'll look at some stories by Tolstoy written after War and Peace and Anna Karenina that reveal a very different voice.

By the way, if you read eBooks downloaded from Project Gutenberg, I'd like you to consider making a small donation to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. They're doing very important work by digitizing great literature and making untold volumes of human knowledge and expression available to everyone for free. That's worth a few bucks, surely.

Thérèse Raquin by Émile Zola

 Émile Zola 1840-1902

Despite being a loud-mouthed American who writes a blog about electronic editions of precious works of world literature, I feel it is my calling--nay, my duty--to try to write well-reasoned, insightful and penetrating observations about the great books I encounter. If I can't say something constructive, I will usually withhold comment. I don't trash books here, and I don't define my literary tastes in terms of what I don't like. The Overleaf  is a place for inclusiveness that seeks to make literature accessible, not to show off how cool and fancy my tastes are. I like to think of my readers coming along for the ride as we discover books together.

To respect, admire and enjoy a work of literature is the trifecta of a fulfilling reading for me.  If I finish a book and I'm able to apply those three words to the experience, I know that something truly speaks to me. Not that I expect books to consistently deliver on all three levels; sometimes the story or plotting aren't so hot, but the characters are brilliantly rendered. Now and then I'll encounter a work where the language may be a little stilted and the dialog somewhat stiff, but the theme is compelling. One can admire execution while expressing reservations about the overall result (or vice versa) without trashing a book. If I read something that I just don't care for, I usually keep mum about it here.

For the past couple of months, we have been looking at the development and influence of naturalism in the works of Ivan Turgenev, Theodore Dreiser, George Moore and James Joyce. I couldn't justify covering this topic without exploring at least one book by one of the granddaddies of naturalism, Émile Zola. French authors can be intimidating because it seems like those guys really enjoyed composing dense, grand, seemingly impenetrable, multi-volume novels it would take you a lifetime to read. And Émile Zola has a doosey--the Rougon-Macquart series, a twenty volume novel about life under Napoleon III. I'm sure it's wonderful, but no thanks! I just wanted a taste so I could put what I had learned about naturalism into broader perspective.

I was pleased to have found Thérèse Raquin, a stand-alone novel and his first to attract attention to his talents. This novel seemed the best place to start, and indeed it was; it gave me a great deal of insight as to how naturalism originated and evolved as well as into why this guy is so lauded as one of the great French novelists. After reading it, I can honestly say that he was a heck of a writer. But did I enjoy the book and the experience of reading it? Like a relationship in flux on Facebook, "It's Complicated"…

Thérèse Raquin (1867) by Émile Zola

Consider Madame Raquin. a widow who adopts Thérèse, a niece in need of a home after the death of her mother. She raises her with her son, Camille, a boy whose sickliness causes her mother to smother him with affection and care. Consider also that, despite Thérèse's good health, her aunt treats her the same as Camille--forcing her to take the boy's medicine along with him, despite her strength and health. Thérèse plays the part of an obedient, compliant daughter and companion to her cousin. Consider also that it is expected for these first cousins to marry someday so that Madame Raquin can have peace of mind knowing that her son will be looked after when she dies. As this destiny is fulfilled, so the trouble begins in Thérèse Raquin.

Forced to play a role in her family that is the exact opposite of her nature, it is no surprise that she avails herself of the first opportunity to feel real passion as Laurent, a co-worker of Camille's, becomes a weekly guest for dinner and dominoes every Thursday night in the apartment above Madame Raquin's mercery shop. Captivated by one another, they soon secretly seek each other's company and carry on a lusty affair. Dissatisfied with having to sneak around, Thérèse and Laurent decide that the best way to ensure their continued happiness is to kill Camille so they can be married.

And so they do. They drown Camille and claim it was an accident, fool everyone around them and get away with it. But they are then seized with ferocious guilt for their actions and are haunted nightly by visions of Camille's drowned body. Those visions don't go away after they're married, either; things get considerably worse. As their fear intensifies, the passion that brought Thérèse and Laurent together fades, and the now married couple descends into a nightmare of fear, hatred and self destruction. I won't spoil the ending for you, but I don't need to tell you that all of this doesn't end well.

In his preface to the second edition of this novel (quoted in the preface to the 1901 edition available on Project Gutenberg), Zola says that temperament rather than character was his primary interest in creating this novel. He treats his characters as though they are subjects in a scientific experiment. Yet the narrator isn't entirely disinterested, as he freely refers to his protagonists as murderers, brutes and fools throughout the novel. But indeed, every character present acts out of selfishness or at least self interest. As a result, there's no one really likable in this novel, and those who seek characters they like and identify with (all too common these days) will be sorely disappointed--at least not those who are unwilling to plumb the depths of their souls to find affinity with people who have committed acts for which they are ashamed and horrified. And we all have at least one or two of those, even if they are acts we have only committed in our hearts. 

I can see why Victorian England was uncomfortable with racy French books like this one. Compared to George Eliot, Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy and W. M. Thackeray, this stuff is really off the hook. Zola speaks to the common undercurrent of guilt and fear that lurks in all human beings, and if you can't identify with that, you are probably fooling yourself. That's precisely why this novel works; it forces readers to confront their own unpleasant attitudes and experiences. That's one of the things truly great art does. Bravo to Émile Zola for using the medium of the novel so ingeniously, but one really wouldn't call the experience of reading it "fun". This book is well crafted, forward looking and disquieting. Worth reading? Definitely. But perhaps only once.

It would be easy to dismiss if it weren't so brilliantly written. The opening chapter that describes Madame Raquin's mercery shop and the greasy Paris neighborhood that surrounds it really draws the reader in with dark, exquisite detail. A gruesome chapter in which Laurent visits the morgue to see if his victim's body has been found is genuinely disturbing. The horrifying sights he sees are distressing enough to provide fodder for Laurent's nightmares and our nightmares as well. Zola describes the hideously bloated and mangled remains of drowning victims as they are observed by callous or indifferent onlookers. It is both chilling and a tremendous piece of writing. And the tension is maintained throughout the final third of the book leading to the final climax with meticulously well-metered prose. This guy knew how to write.

Thérèse Raquin depicts human beings at their absolute worst. Beneath the veneer of these middle class people lurk the hearts of savage beasts. Indeed, middle class gentility is scathingly rebuked to the point of being so over the top that it becomes almost comic. Maybe I'm a jaded twenty-first century reader who sees the middle class as too easy a target for such savage treatment. Perhaps I'm a bit nonplussed by Zola's oversized, overflowing coffers of boiling vitriol. I can't deny that Thérèse Raquin is an important novel that helped pave the way for modernism, the psychological novel, Jean Paul Sartre and Film Noir, but I can deny myself the anguish of a second read without much hesitation. My official verdict: Very good, but sheesh!

Download Thérèse Raquin from Project Gutenberg