Reviews for Evelina

The average rating for Evelina based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-07-05 00:00:00 Richard Osborn Let me just preface this by saying, Tolstoy can do no wrong in my eyes. This is what you may call a biased review… with that being said, I shall proceed! Childhood was the first work of fiction written by young Leo Tolstoy. It was supposedly his one and only attempt at writing like Charles Dickens, a major idol of his. Historian Simon Schama described Childhood as, "...one of the most mawkish and awkward and forced and sentimental and disingenuous of all the things that Tolstoy did…" Which in fact is true, especially when you compare it to his major works, such as Anna Karenina. Childhood doesn't even come close to scratching the endless and cosmic surface of Anna Karenina. What it does do is show the little brilliances that were inside him from the very beginning. Those little brilliances will later multiple and become the groundbreaking prose that make up his major works. Childhood Boyhood Youth is a trilogy chronicling the early years of our narrator Nikolenka, who was born into a family of high standing in Russian society. We follow him from his childhood as an innocent and doting son, through his boyhood and early schooling, into his youth as he works towards his university studies. The trilogy doesn't conform to a structured plot, but shows Nikolenka's evolution through his thoughts, beliefs, and actions. My personal favorite out of the three parts was Childhood. The tender relationship (child) Nikolenka had with his mother felt palpable, like their love came off the page. "When Mama smiled, as fine as her face was, it was made incomparably better, and everything around seemed more cheerful. If in the difficult moments of my life I could have had a glimpse of that smile, I would never have known the meaning of sorrow." As Nikolenka grows up and experiences loss, and therefore his loss of innocence, we see a great change in him. "Only those capable of strong love can experience strong grief, but the very need to love serves as a counterweight to their grief and heals them." In Boyhood we see him develop from a sheltered child into an insecure and uncertain boy. This part of his life is filled with trepidation and a desire to belong, while trying to figure out what kind of person he wants to become. Later in Youth, Nikolenka's arrogance and bigotry replaces his feelings of inadequacy. His high ranking position and the faulty influence of others proves to make him into a less than likable person. The subtle brilliance of this story lies in the sincerity and clarity with which his growth is represented. Tolstoy doesn't just tell a story, he holds up a mirror to society and shows us (past and present readers) the world we all inhabit. To quote Simon Schama again, "What Tolstoy did was go to a different place, and that different place he went to was into the modern world. He's as much a part of our experience, more so perhaps then he was of the 19th century. And what he did not want to do eventually, was be theatrical like Dickens. He doesn't actually have characters in his books, he has people. They're ordinary names for ordinary people." Unlike Dickens with characters such as: Magwitch, Micawber, or Scrooge. Tolstoy puts purpose into each name, not to describe their character or theatricality, but their position in life, specifically Russian society. I will use Anna Karenina as an example. Anna's name holds sophistication and tantalizing beauty as it rolls off the tongue. It represents her as a Russian aristocrat. While her full name represents her marital status, which is the most important aspect of her story. Then we have the character nicknamed Kitty, full name Princess Katerina Alexandrovna Shtcherbatcky. The name Kitty holds a feeling of innocence and naivety, which directly relates to her position in society and the story as a whole. These same facets were first present in Childhood. The brilliance is not in the overzealous style of Dickens, but the honesty of Tolstoy. What I think Tolstoy is trying to show us through Nikolenka, is how even though we as individuals make our own choices, those choices are a direct result of an endless amount of outstanding circumstances. To list a few: your position in society, your upbringing, your family and friend/the people you surround yourself with, your education, your outlook on life, your obligations, your relationships, your personal expectations, societal expectations, your plans for the future, and on and on and on… These are fundamental aspects of who a person was, who a person is, and who a person becomes. And why Tolstoy's works stand the test of time, is because the modern reader is dealing with this, just as 19th century readers were dealing with this. It is a part of living that time doesn't come close to touching. We 21st century readers still read Tolstoy because we can relate and sympathize with the people that live among his words. When reading a work of Tolstoy's, you don't just see characters, you see yourself reflected back in that metaphorical mirror I referred to earlier. Essentially, Tolstoy is immortal because he lives on in all of us. That is what I call brilliance!

Review # 2 was written on 2013-11-07 00:00:00 Rob Hobbs Childhood, Boyhood and Youth was Tolstoi's first novel, it is the novel, along with Turgenev's 'Sketches' which, at least in it's first part 'Childhood', best celebrates Russian country life and the peasantry. Some of the descriptions of nature would not look out of place from Turgenev's best works, a lot of the character portraits, sympathetic descriptions of lost, pathetic people, obviously influenced Chekhov. It is also nice to see elements of Leo's oft contradictory personality begin to emerge in the book; from his selfless love of other people to his boundless egoism, from his compassion to his vast imagination, the book is a description of the emergence of a genius; one even sees Tolstoi's literary alter ego's emerge; shy, awkward mawkardishly romantic Levin can be sensed in many of the ball scenes, where an embarassed Leo glowers in the corner. Overall a beautiful book and well worth a read.