Literary Parlor – Tolstoy Selections

Join bibliophile, Kate Howe, for a lively discussion about several works by Leo Tolstoy. Firstly, a short story entitled “How Much Land Does a Man Need”  is an 1886 short story by Leo Tolstoy about a man who, in his lust for land, forfeits everything. Secondly, the group will discuss The Kreutzer Sonata, a novella named after Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata published in 1889 and promptly censored by Russian authorities. The work is an argument for the ideal of sexual abstinence and an in-depth first-person description of jealous rage. The main character, Pozdnyshev, relates the events leading up to his killing of his wife: in his analysis, the root causes for the deed were the “animal excesses” and “swinish connection” governing the relation between the sexes.