Jay Parini

En cette année 1910, suite à la publication de Guerre et Paix et d''Anna Karénine, Léon Tolstoï est l''écrivain le plus célèbre au monde. Mais la notoriété a un prix. Déchiré entre ses exigences ascé

Set in the tumultuous last year of Leo Tolstoy´s life, The Last Station centres on the battle for his soul waged by his wife and his leading disciple. Torn between his professed doctrine of poverty and chastity on the one hand and the reality of his life Set in the tumultuous last year of Leo Tolstoy´s life, The Last Station centres on the battle for his soul waged by his wife and his leading disciple.

Herman had often walked these streets, eyeing the forest of tall ships, their blackened strakes handsomely curved, masts like crosses, empty of sails ...1841. A young Herman Melville is yet to write Moby Dick. He sets out on a voyage aboard a whaling ship. What happens on that trip will give him enough material for a lifetime of writing. But what of the dark things Melville encounters on his journey, and the illicit relationships he embarks upon that are to torment him once he returns home to his wife Lizzie? All is revealed as Jay Parini lifts the lid on one of the greatest writers of the nineteenth century ...

"1910. Tolstoj e ormai vecchio, circondato da tanti discepoli, oggetto di una vera e propria adorazione, assistito da sempre da sua moglie Sofja, dal suo medico, il suo segretario, la figlia Sasha... Pur avvolto da questa rete di presenze, la sua vecchiaia non e serena: avverte infatti intorno a lui i primi conflitti per il futuro del suo patrimonio e crescono le pressioni per controllare il suo testamento. A chi andranno i diritti della sua opera? Alla moglie, che ne fara fonte di arricchimento familiare o, come vogliono i suoi discepoli, alla collettivita, per diffondere il tolstoismo? Lacerato da questi contrasti, Tolstoj litiga con la moglie, ma nello stesso tempo non vuole soccombere alla volonta dei discepoli; non trovando altre soluzioni, per liberarsi da tutti, sceglie un gesto disperato: la fuga. Ma anche cosi non trovera pace ne evitera i conflitti; arrivera solo all''ultima stazione... "

Parinis The Last Station is a study of the end of Russian author Leo Tolstoys life. You dont need to be a fan of Tolstoy to enjoy ityou dont even need to have read any of his novels. This book stands on its own merits. Told in multiple first person narratives, the book explores how the various players see themselves and each other, enabling the reader to make up their own mind about their characters and motives. Personally, I came to like Tolstoys long-suffering wife Sofya Andreyevna the best, if only because all the other characters are ranged against her. Shes depicted by them as insane, hysterical, controlling, and I dont know what else, when all she wants is to secure the royalties from Tolstoys work to their descendants. This simplesome might say, laudableambition finds her ranged against her husband, their daughter Sasha, and various of Tolstoys adherents and hangers-on. As it becomes obvious to her that shes failed, she rages in various frighteningand impotentways, and finds herself excluded from her husbands deathbed. The winners write the history: she drove Tolstoy from his lifetime home; she wouldnt let him die in peace. But Parini makes sure Sofyas voice is also heard. Russia stands on the brink of momentous change, but this novel, like Tolstoys own work, is more about the personal than the political. Tolstoy may despise the luxury in which he lives, but hes unable to break away from it. He may wish to make the grand gesture of leaving his work to the nation, but he does it in secret, fearing a confrontation with his wife. What we see is a man whos lionised by everyone around himexcept Sofyabut who is too weak to live up to their perception of him. Yet his feet of clay go unobserved. Hes already an icon, no longer a man. All thats left to him, therefore, is to die. Parini writes well, and does a good job of distinguishing the various narratorsSofya, Tolstoy himself, their daughter Sasha, Tolstoys new secretary Bulgakov, his doctor Makovitsky, and the scary Chertkov, the leader of Tolstoys fan club. The most likeable character is B

Este romance recria os últimos anos da vida de Walter Benjamin, um dos maiores filósofos e críticos de literatura do século XX.Durante a década de 1930, o judeu alemão Walter Benjamin escreveu seus p

Inspirándose en los diarios de León Tolstoi, así como en los de familiares y allegados, Jay Parini sumerge al lector en los últimos tiempos de la vida del gran escritor ruso, un hombre atormentado por la relacion con su esposa Sofia, la cual temia no convertirse en la heredera de sus lucrativos derechos de autor. Dividido moralmente entre valores como la pobreza y la castidad, el amor a Dios y la entrega a los demas, y la realidad de una vida privilegiada y llena de placeres, asediado por unos y por otros y desesperado por encontrar la paz al final de su vida, Tolstoi, a los ochenta y dos años, decide desprenderse de su mundo material para respetarse a si mismo y ser consecuente con sus propias creencias.