7 h 11 minAudiobook8 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
On a train across Russia, a stranger turns talk of love into a fierce confession about marriage.
In Leo Tolstoy’s The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories, respectable lives come under painful pressure. Pozdnyshev tells a fellow traveler about his marriage, its early happiness, and the jealousy that enters it. His anger reaches beyond his own home. He attacks a society that, he claims, prepares men and women for desire and display rather than a shared life.
The Death of Ivan Ilyich follows a comfortable judge whose illness forces him to question what his life is worth. In Family Happiness, Masha discovers how love changes after marriage. The Devil brings Evgeny Irtenev’s wish for order into conflict with an old attachment, while Father Sergius follows Prince Stepan Kasatsky into a monastery in search of holiness.
What you’ll discover
- A confession in motion Listen as Pozdnyshev turns a train conversation into an attack on love and marriage.
- Comfort under pressure Face Ivan Ilyich’s fear as illness unsettles the comfortable life he has built.
- Love beyond its beginning Follow Masha as early hopes meet the slower changes of married life.
- Respectability and hidden conflict Look beneath outward respectability to the desires and doubts these characters struggle with.
- Kindness without easy comfort Meet Gerasim, whose simple care for Ivan Ilyich offers a different response to suffering.
Who will love it
For readers who love short, serious fiction about marriage, conscience and mortality, and who enjoy a writer who argues with his own characters.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A stranger confesses on a night train
- Pozdnyshev attacks how society treats love
- Music enters the marriage and so does jealousy
- The Death of Ivan Ilyich asks how to live
- Marriage, temptation and faith in the shorter tales
- Themes and the art of telling in these stories
Who’s who
- PozdnyshevA landowner who tells his story to a fellow traveler on a train and condemns the way his society understands love and marriage.
- Ivan Ilyich GolovinA correct and ambitious judge who has built a comfortable life and must face what it is worth when illness arrives.
- GerasimA young servant in Ivan Ilyich's house who treats the sick man with simple kindness and does not fear death.
- MashaA young woman in Family Happiness who marries an older neighbor and learns how love changes over the years.
- Evgeny IrtenevA young landowner in The Devil who wants an orderly life and is troubled by an old attachment.
- Prince Stepan KasatskyA proud officer in Father Sergius who leaves the world for the monastery in search of holiness.
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- Paperback
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- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
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- Large print hardcover
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The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories
by Leo Tolstoy
A stranger on a night train turns his ruined marriage into a furious confession about love, desire and jealousy.
Medium level5–10 hours to read25 languages
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In short
The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories gathers work by Leo Tolstoy from the years after his great novels, when he had turned to hard questions about marriage, desire, death and how a person ought to live. The title novella, The Kreutzer Sonata, was published in 1889.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A stranger confesses on a night train
The Kreutzer Sonata opens on a long train journey across Russia. The passengers fall into talk about marriage, love and divorce. A lady in the carriage argues that a marriage should rest on affection and respect between two people. A quiet man named Pozdnyshev listens and gives a short, bitter laugh. He says that he knows something about the matter, and the others fall silent.
Later most of the travelers have left, and Pozdnyshev is alone in the compartment with the man who will tell us his story. Tolstoy uses a frame here. One man listens and says very little, while the other talks through the night as the train stops at small stations. The confession is told in a voice that is restless and sometimes harsh. He drinks tea, he moves about, and he breaks off and starts again.
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What is The Kreutzer Sonata about?
It is a novella in which a man named Pozdnyshev tells a fellow train passenger how his marriage went wrong. Through his story Tolstoy attacks the way society treats love, desire and marriage.
Why is it called The Kreutzer Sonata?
The title comes from Beethoven's Violin Sonata number nine, known as the Kreutzer Sonata. Music from this piece plays a part in the marriage, and the narrator distrusts the strong feelings it stirs in him.
Why was The Kreutzer Sonata banned?
Russian censors banned it after it appeared in 1889 because of its sharp views on marriage and sexuality. Even so, copies circulated widely and it caused heated public argument.
The author
Leo Tolstoy
1828–1910 · Russian novelist and moral philosopher
Leo Tolstoy was a Russian author born in 1828 at Yasnaya Polyana, where he lived for much of his life. He wrote novels, stories, and essays. War and Peace appeared in 1865–1869 and Anna Karenina in 1875–1877. He died in 1910 at Astapovo, Russia.
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