The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories

About the book

During a train journey, a discussion among strangers gives way to one traveller's disturbing account of jealousy and marriage. The Kreutzer Sonata makes the act of listening uncomfortable: a speaker can explain himself at length without becoming a trustworthy guide to another person's experience. This volume also contains Ivan the Fool, A Lost Opportunity, Polikushka, and The Candle, together with prefatory and explanatory material. Their different forms extend the collection beyond the title narrative into questions of work, power, quarrelling, and responsibility. Readers should distinguish the claims made by a character from the effects produced by the story around that character. Taken together, the pieces show how Tolstoy can use both psychological intensity and apparently simple narrative situations to disturb an easy moral judgment.

• Jealousy and interpretation
• Responsibility
• Power and belief

Why read it

For contrasting narrative forms that invite a critical response to the moral certainty of a speaker.

Story collection with prefatory and explanatory material · English text