Lynn's Musings

Have you ever had the experience of picking up a book that you thought was going to be captivating at the least,  or just one great spiritual insight at the most?  Before I read Resurrection, I had already read Tolstoy's War and Peace, The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Anna Karenina.   I expected Resurrection to be the best one of all.  I probably put this book down in anger three or four times, not intending to pick it back up again. Only to have to finish it, because I was again drawn to it, out of a sense of "duty" to complete a task or because I wanted to find out what happened.

I am a political hack, so, every time Tolstoy would seemingly  favored socialism over capitalism, I would say to myself, "OK, that's it.  I am not going to finish it."  One of my literary heroes was slipping off his white horse. 

Frustration reigned until the very end, I truly could not figure out exactly where Tolstoy was going, where his viewpoint would lie, and whether he would land on the true Gospel.  

A Russian nobleman, around the turn of the twentieth century, finds his life in a shallow rut.  Not knowing what to do about it, he apathetically succumbs to his surroundings.  He is called to serve on a jury and his past meets his future. The trial he is assigned to is the trial of a girl who is accused of poisoning a man to death.  As the girl comes into the courtroom, his world turns upside down. She is a girl that he forced himself on ten years before.  She, since that time, has given into the vision that she thought he had of her and has become a prostitute. This begins his journey of redemption.  

The book has as many twists and turns as a Jack Bauer episode of 24, yet not so much with plot turns, as with emotional, psychological, political, social, and spiritual twists.  One minute I would think that Tolstoy's answer to life's evils was a political answer, then I thought he was advocating a new social order, etc...etc.....At one point I was so frustrated with the main character I wanted to scream.  He was arrogant, self-absorbed, and self righteous.  This is exactly what Tolstoy is brilliant at.  He knew human beings and human nature. I also knew that in this novel Tolstoy was expressing his point of view.  It was the last novel he ever wrote.  It honestly did not come together for me until the very end.  

I learned a great deal about the Russian experience of that time.  It comes across abundantly clear why the Bolsheviks were able to take over at the time that they did.  The nation was truly ripe for "change" and revolution.  Something had to change, the system was broken.  

I have given you my impressions without giving away the story, because reading it is a must, and I do not want give it away.  

It is considerably shorter in length than some of his other novels, so if you haven't read Tolstoy yet, this one might be the one to read first.  It would, I promise, be the #1 book of the year in a book club, because it would be the source of the absolute greatest discussions.  Give it a go!