Resurrection

About the book

Maslova's movement from prison toward the courtroom places official procedure beside a living person whose history the proceedings cannot easily contain. The encounter that follows draws a man of privilege into a sustained confrontation with his own past and with the institutions that have helped protect him from its consequences. Tolstoy moves through legal offices, households, prisons, and journeys, asking what responsibility might require once sympathy becomes inconvenient. Attempts to help do not automatically free the helper from pride or misunderstanding. The novel gives practical obstacles as much weight as moral declarations, making reform a problem of conduct rather than merely a change of feeling. Its breadth grows from the difficulty of connecting an individual's awakening with the lives and systems beyond that individual.

• Responsibility and privilege
• Justice
• Moral change

Why read it

For a large social novel that keeps testing good intentions against their practical consequences.

Louise Maude English translation