...and other short stories, by Leo Tolstoy(!). I haven't even finished the first story in this book of shorts by Tolstoy, but I have been thinking about it since I started it. I didn't start reading Tolstoy to expecting to enjoy it. I started it to challenge myself. I have heard a lot of people speak in equal awe of his talent and tediousness. But the book i stumbled upon (on your shelf) is a book of short story's, and i can never resist a book of short stories. I would be willing to bet its a very appropriate median for an author who takes up chapters describing what might have been in the corner of the room, had it not been shadowed. So, the first story revolves around an unlikely romance between a seventeen year old girl and 37 year old man. For the first half whether or not they will even have a romance is left up in the air for the reader, so when they finally, against all odds, are married I thought it was the end. But it wasn't, and I believe that is where my feeling of foreboding began.
“If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.” Stopping a story at all for Leo Tolstoy is obviously very difficult, and the happy couple were described living contentedly in the country side for so long that the main character, the 17 year old young wife, grew very bored, and insisted they visit 'society'. The rest of the story describes every single moment which contributes to their falling out of love, which the characters are ignorant of until after its happened. I wanted to look away, but I had to keep reading. Tolstoy notices things about human interaction that i doubt anyone else has ever consciously registered. In this case, his endless love for detail makes the story. I still hate him for putting me through the slow motion wrecking of their marriage, but maybe hell make it up to me in the next story.
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