Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth (Modern Library Classics) [Paperback]

Leo Tolstoy (Author), Michael Scammell (Translator)

Book Description

Series: Modern Library Classics | Publication Date: April 9, 2002

Begun in 1851, when Tolstoy was twenty-three and serving as a cadet in the Russian army, Childhood, the first part of Tolstoy’s first novel, won immediate praise from Turgenev and others, and marked Tolstoy’s emergence as a major writer. Its originality was striking, as Tolstoy sought to communicate with great immediacy the “poetry” of childhood—the intense emotions, confusions, and fears attendant upon a young boy, Nikolenka, as he grows up. In the years following, Boyhood and Youth appeared (a fourth volume was planned but never executed), each replete with psychological and philosophical subtleties hitherto unknown in Russian literature. In Scammell’s resplendent translation, Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth remains one of Tolstoy’s major works.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“No one has ever excelled Tolstoy in expressing the specific flavour, the exact quality of a feeling.” —Isaiah Berlin

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Russian

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Product Details

• Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: Modern Library (April 9, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375759441
• ISBN-13: 978-0375759444
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.9 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #908,846 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great introduction to Tolstoy and his first ideas on love, March 8, 2000

By 

Igor Otshelnik - See all my reviews

This review is from: Childhood, Boyhood and Youth (Everyman's Library Classics & Contemporary Classics) (Hardcover)

This is Tolstoy's first trilogy, his first ever attempt at fiction. Semi-autobiographical and full of precious recollections of those great little things in life we all cherish so much, it is already a magnificent introduction to Tolstoy's great insightful mind and his striving for love and goodness through his characters. One Russian critic called "Childhood, Boyhood and Youth" the poetry of one's childhood. It truly is. Among the numerous little occurrences and funny stories, you can deeply feel the purpose of the book: love is everything that matters in this world and without love, our existence loses its meaning and our aspirations are dead. You can see it especially in Mother's letter and the character of Natalia Savishna. If you decide to read this wonderful book, make sure you picked the right translation. There are two slightly different versions of this work, thanks to the Russian editor Katkov, who made a lot of changes to the original without Tolstoy's consent. This "bad" version is represented in C.J. Hogarth's translation (Everyman's Library). Coupled with plain poor translating, it made reading the text unbearably dry and boring. Don't buy this translation! You will not find original Tolstoy there! After this book was published for the first time by Katkov, Tolstoy wrote a letter to him, where he complained about the changes. I have read both versions and I can say: the difference is significant. The most spicy, candid and beautiful moments are just not there. I would recommend translations by Prof. Leo Wiener or Rosemary Edmonds, although I haven't read much of the latter. As long as it begins as "Childhood" and NOT "The History of My Childhood", it should be alright. This book is not as consistent and in-depth as Tolstoy's later works, but for a 24-year-old officer, who had just begun to express himself on paper, this is a really magnificent work, easy to read and full of emotions. This is why I am giving it five stars.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Hidden Gem for Lovers of Russian Literature, April 7, 2008

By 

Tebes "Buchlieber" (Niagara Region, ON) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth (Modern Library Classics) (Paperback)

Most people when they think of Tolstoy, War and Peace comes to mind. Others, Anna Karenina which is in large part due to Hollywood, the popular media and the numerous translations available over the years (Constance Garnet, Maud, etc..).

When people think of Nineteenth Century Russian Literature as whole, names like Dostoevsky, Pushkin and Chekhov come to mind. "Crime and Punishment", "Eugene Onegin" and "The Cherry Orchard" are works we might randomly associate with the novel, the narrative-poem and the plays of the great Russian masters.

Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth is that work which stands on the periphery, not only of Tolstoy's works but also of Russian literature in general. It feels Russian, the characters are Russians but the influences come from French literature (Rousseau) and Germany (Schiller, Goethe). There is a Bildungsroman element but I wouldn't want to label it a novel of development. There is also something more. Feeling, wonder, innocence, they too appear in the French and Germanic influences but there is also a great deal of sensation (a "novel of sensation"?). Reading this book, I could feel the narrator's home, I could feel his emotions. It is a work that explores the visceral aspects of being young, growing up and trying to find one's way in society.

Tolstoy's work often carry a great philosophical and moral weight. He was heavily influenced by Arthur Schopenhauer and his theories about the "will-to-live" and the endless cravings of "desire". Not only that, he was reading up on the works of the Shakers, their celibacy stance. The Kreuzer Sonata and The Devil are essentially works in which Tolstoy is maddened with lust and morality.

Here, you could say is the lighter Tolstoy, a Tolstoy of impressions, beauty, and tender emotions. There is no moralizing or foreboding, no fear of judgment, no murdering of wives. It is novel that looks forward to Proust in its dreamlike presentation of being young. While reading this book I felt like I disappeared into the child I once was and still am. A true hidden treasure and also the perfect example of how all Russian literature is not necessarily dark and murky.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Promising Prose But Little Drama from Tolstoy in His Twenties, August 24, 2007

By 

J. E. Robinson - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Childhood, Boyhood and Youth (Everyman's Library Classics & Contemporary Classics) (Hardcover)

I have read most of Tolstoy's major work including his most well known short stories. This is an early work from 1852 to 1856 and it is considered to be semi-autobiographical. It is not up to the standards of his later works, although it is long and detailed and made up of three stories that flow together as one.

Tolstoy was born in 1828 and he was in his twenties when he wrote this early work. He his famous for detailed physical descriptions combined with emotional drama. For example, read that wonderul short story Master and Man that combines those two elements. The present work has the detailed descriptions but lacks the emotional appeal and lacks the great characters that we see in other works, i.e.: a crying youth because he is humiliated is hardly a great emotional experienece.

Tolstoy remains as one of the leading writers of novels. His impressive legacy includes three of four monumental works including War and Peace, Anna Karenina, and the novella The Death of Ivan Ilych. According to his own estimate, he has over 400 works - as he describes in one of his non-fiction works.

Tolstoy's writing can be divided into three phases: the early years up to 1860 to 1861, the mid-career years from approximately 1861 to 1890, and his final years when he turned to non-fiction polemics. His most important fiction was written in the middle period, and it started with the release of The Cossacks in 1863. That story contains emotional elements and descriptions similar to what we read in Anna Karenina. His writings before The Cossacks contains his famous detail but lacks the same level of drama and emotion.

The present work is a good example of his early work pre-1961. Tostoy follows a Gogol like approach to produce a lengthy and detailed account of a young man growing up. The narrative is about a young man living in rural Russia. He goes on to attend university in Moscow and he is the son of a landowner as was Tolstoy himself. The story covers the boy's experiences from around the age of ten to the age of twenty. The character is based on one of Tolstoy's childhood friends and includes other characters based on real people that he knew. The story is a work of fiction. Tolstoy's own father died when he was still young as did his mother who died before his father.

This is a very slow read. It took me a week on and off to get through 314 pages in small font. Readers should not confuse this work with his famous works that came in his mid-career. The prose is excellent, especially the description of the thunderstorm about one third of the way into the book, but the story lacks drama and charm. Considering the author and his complete body of work, this is just 4 stars among the stories by Tolstoy.

As a side note, this is a beautifully bound hardcover book.