Leo Tolstoy. Hadji Murad. 1911.
September 30, 2009
Lev Tolstoy’s Favorite Bench
I recently downloaded and read from Google Books Tolstoy’s novella Hadji Murad. It’s one of the very last pieces of fiction he wrote, finishing it in 1904, published in 1911, the year of his death. The short novel, about 200 pages on an ereader, has always been praised as an exquisitely crafted work of art. Tolstoy allows the structure and interplay of events to speak for themselves, eschewing nearly all temptation to explain to the reader his intentions and meaning. For precisely this reason, the book may be an especially challenging one. Before stating what I think of Hadji Murad, I must touch on my very long relationship with Tolstoy….
Now available in
The Myth of the Enlightenment: Essays
Forthcoming, September, 2014.
https://www.earthrisepress.net/myth_of_the_enlightenment.html
