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36 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"My business is to do what my conscience demands of me.", July 14, 2004
Resurrection (1899) is the last of Tolstoy's great novels and unlike the previous War and Peace and Anna Karenina the architectural lines are fairly unique. Whereas in the previous novels attention is continually shifted from one hero to another, in Resurrection Tolstoy follows Dimitri Nekhlydov step by step, drilling to the core of his thoughts, commenting on his actions, analyzing his motives, evincing his engendered acts, and verbalizing the purging of his soul that inexorably manifests into a non-Christian regeneration process. Tolstoy hardly lets Nekhlydov out of sight for an instant: his conscience continually demands of him to atone for his sin. Interwoven with the flow of the story is Nekhlydov's painful realization of the demoralization that develops into such perfect madness of selfishness. If it had not been for the Doukhobors, who was accused of fighting against the spirit of God by the Orthodox Church, Tolstoy might never have finished the novel, the idea for which had been suggested to him ten years previously in order to raise fund for the sect. A nobleman, namely, Dimitri Nekhlydov, serves on a jury and recognizes the prostitute on trial for theft and poisoning a merchant as a girl he had seduced and loved when he was a young man. Katusha (Maslova), who is a yellow-card prostitute sanctioned by the government, has a checkered fate. She is wrongfully convicted as the jury inadvertently left out the phrase "no intent to take life" in the verdict. She is found not guilty in the theft but guilty of administering a powder and is sentenced to hard labor in the outlandish Siberia. As Nekhlydov embarks on the campaign to appeal for Katusha and do her justice, in the depth of his soul he becomes so conscious of all the cruelty, cowardice, and baseness - not only of this particular action of his but of his whole idle, dissolute, selfish and complacent life. The dreadful veil that has all this time, for ten years, conceals from him his sin, and the whole of his life, dictated by the religious sophisms, begins to wobble. He has to confront with his entire being that the faith of his is farther than anything else from being the right thing. One can gauge the progress of Nekhlydov's awakening by Katusha's attitude toward him. Ten years of prostitution has not completely extinguished the spiritual spark in her. This can be proven by the merchant's trust in her, the truth behind the poisoning of which she was accused, her behavior with a breath of equanimity at the trial toward the real culprits, the attitude of her fellow prisoners, and the outburst in which she would not allow Nekhlydov to gain his salvation at her expense. When Nekhlydov witnesses the cruelty of the government officials who put duties and responsibilities of office above humanity and the sufferings of the innocent people who have not in the least transgressed against justice or committed lawless acts but merely because they are an obstacle hindering the officials and the rich from enjoying the wealth they amass from the people, he repents of his selfishness and a spiritual resurrection dawns on him. Simplicity of the explanation seems very overwhelming: the officials can insensibly ill-treat others without feeling any personal responsibility for the evil they do because they are completely devoid of not only compassion but the chief human attribute, that is, love and pity for one another. As Nekhlydov becomes the mouthpiece for the innocent in Siberian prison, in whom Tolstoy expresses his own deepest aspirations and views on aspects of human existence. Nekhlydov's ambitious and heroic search to discover the purpose of life not only has become readers' striving, rekindled Katusha's love for him, but also unites with Tolstoy's ideals. Through the convoluted relationship between Nekhlydov and Katusha, Tolstoy treats the themes of love, passion and death with such compelling sincerity that one's heart is infected by pity and compulsive need to crusade against cruelty, injustice and repression. Resurrection is psychologically superb in the treatment of one man's thoughts and feelings, which stem from a study of his physical being. Tolstoy deftly builds up this "dramatis personae" line upon line, and through which he turns a highly critical eye on the law, the penal system and above all, the Church. He ridicules the usual sophisms that so inveterately dictate his hero's life, that the enlightened ones plunge the people into greater darkness with their hypocrisy and heresy. Line by line Tolstoy sets up Nekhlydov's awakening in which he must overcome the laborious path of expiation stimulated by a voluntarily moral desire to repent. This very teaching brings Tolstoy at loggerhead to the Church, whose practices of deceit and delusion Tolstoy vehemently rejects with utter intransigence. Resurrection gives us a vision that is beyond the historical reality of the given time period. A literary masterpiece it is, Tolstoy propagates his faith and moral ideals through his hero. Resurrection is an ultimate achievement of literary power that accentuates life of people in Russia. 2004 (43) ©MY
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35 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Art In It's Purest Form, July 26, 2000
By A Customer
When the prostitute Maslova stands accused of murder, Prince Nekhlyudov must serve on the jury at her trial. He recognizes Maslova as the innocent young girl he, himself, once loved, seduced and then, cruelly abandoned. What follows is a mature panorama of Russian life, shot through with spiritual intensity.The chief themes of Resurrection are the basic themes inherent in all art: love, passion and death, but Tolstoy treats them with such a burning sincerity and unique vitality that they seem almost as fresh and pure as newly fallen snow. Resurrection is the great imaginative synthesis of Tolstoyism, ripe with the fruits of a lifetime of agony and questioning. In Resurrection, Tolstoy takes aim at the underworld of nineteenth-century Russian life: the legal and penal systems and, above all, the Church. In the central figure of Nekhlyudov, Tolstoy has created the last of his great self-portraits. In Nekhlyudov he expresses his own deepest aspirations, his own views on every aspect of human existence. The theme of this book is not new to Tolstoy. The fallen man and his decidedly non-Christian process of regeneration has been explored by this author before, but this time he presents it in an entirely different perspective. In Resurrection, Tolstoy sets out to produce the artistic rendition of the resurrection of a fallen man. Since he, himself, does not recognize the Christian concept of resurrection, it is Nekhlyudov's regeneration that he describes instead. Nekhlyudov's life, however, had been one long regeneration after another. Inherited wealth has enabled him to change one lifestyle for another the minute one set of ideals was supplanted by another. A diletannte extraordinaire, Nekhlyudov's life is akin to an unfinished painting, so that when he recognizes Maslova in the witness box he is ripe for another "purging of the soul," as he terms his periodic reappraisals. And, each time, Nekhlyudov, charts his new course in life with "tears of tender emotion at his own goodness," and vows that this course and this course only, is the one and only true direction in life. Superficially, the Nekhlyudov's of this world are the ones who are perceived to care for their fellow men, grieve with them and right their wrongs. However, when their mood changes and one inspiration is replaced with something new, all that they had sympathized with is easily forgotten and no longer affects them. This is pointed out beautifully in Resurrection when Maslova, recognizing Nekhlyudov's superficiality, refuses to take advantage of the pardon obtained for her; she would rather marry Simonson and follow him to the mines. Nekhlyudov is so thoroughly preoccupied with the search for a new "cause" that the sight of several hundred prisoners suffering in their cells, the dead body of a consumptive to whom he had grown "particularly fond," and other horrors straight out of Dante's Inferno, fail to even make an impression on him. He doesn't even wonder how Maslova will survive the punishment she does not deserve and of which he, himself, is the cause. The technique employed in Resurrection equals Tolstoy's great epics (including Anna Karenina and War and Peace) but actually covers more ground since the essence of a lifetime of suffering and thought and spiritual change is packed into its pages. Tolstoy's concern in Resurrection is with the "grave, noble face of truth," and he compels us to look at what is bad in society and attempts to inflict upon us the desire to make the necessary improvements. The same exuberant writing style employed in War and Peace thirty years earlier can be seen in Resurrection, however, there is one great difference. Where Tolstoy's earlier novels shifted their focus from one hero to the other, Resurrection follows Nekhlyudov step by step, barely letting him out of its sight. Other characters have validity only in so far as they affect the protagonist. From a psychological standpoint, Resurrection is perfect. In order to know a character, Tolstoy studies him in all his aspects. We see, not a moment in time, but the accumulated expression of an entire lifetime. The most clear-seeing of all writers, Tolstoy's genius allows us to see not only an overview but the minute manifestations that make up everyday life: the ill-fitting clothes of a peasant, the crooked limp, the squinting eyes. His vision, as always, goes beyond the ordinary to encompass the transcendent. Resurrection is the perfect title for any book dealing with Russian life. The Russian Christian, more than any other, has been preoccupied with the search for, and the idea of, immortality. For the Russian mystic (and most Russians contain something of the mystic) morals are thoroughly grounded in the faith in eternal life. In Resurrection, Tolstoy voices his own conflicts with the Church, conflicts that he numbered as being among the most bitter in his life as he searched for the source of absolute truth. He confined his quest to the ethical plane, however, and when confronted with resurrection or death, he, of course, chose death, having been formally excommunicated from the Church by a decree dated 22 February 1901. Resurrection is the expression of a mature Tolstoy, one whose search allowed him no indifference, no sparing of himself. As such, it is a book that transcends mere literary masterpiece and aspires to something higher. Something most people would term art is its purest form.
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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Study of Conscience, March 19, 2002
In 'Resurrection', Tolstoy states that "people live and act partly according to their own ideas, and partly because they are influenced by the ideas of others. The extent to which they do the one or the other is one of the chief things that differentiate men."Nekhlyudov, the protagonist of the novel, acted according to the influence of others, ten years prior to the setting of the novel. Scheduled to join the Russian army shortly, he believes himself entitled to a life of squander and debauchery, of loose morals, and even looser sense of responsibility, according to his pledge of his life to the cause of the army. If he is willing, and very likely, to die for his country, then the country owes him. Such was the sense of entitlement common in the mind of Russian men at the time. Following this belief, Nekhlyudov finds himself seducing young Katusha, and bedding her, on the eve of his departure. He abadons Katusha after succumbing to the lust he feels for her, and leaves her to whatever life brings, without a second thought. Ten years later, Nekhlyudov has that second thought, when he and Katusha are reunited, on opposite sides of the law. Katusha stands accused of robbing and poisoning a 'client,' as her life has led her to prostitution. Nekhlyudov sits on the jury that will decide her fate. When a guilty verdict is returned, and Katusha is sentenced to hard labor in Siberia, Nekhlyudov experiences a life-changing sense of guilt in the situation, believing that if he had not given into his animal desires with this girl, she never would have experienced such a downward spiral in life, and now he must make this up to her, by whatever means necessary, even if it means abandoning his life of priviledge and following the girl to Siberia, and marrying her, to right the wrong he did to her all those years ago. What follows is a journey of self-discovery for Nekhlyudov, as he learns some of life's most valuable lessons. (1) You can't ever go home again (2) Money cannot buy happiness, and (3) You cannot save someone unless they wish to be saved. Nekhlyudov fails to see anything but the girl he knew so long ago, still the same Katusha, but in unfortunate circumstances. With romantically idealistic eyes, he watches her in the courtroom, not realizing that perhaps she has grown in the past ten years, and perhaps she has reason for entering into a life of prostitution. Katusha herself explains to him that men, above all else, want the pleasure of the flesh and look upon her favorably enough that she can provide them with this simple pleasure. She sees it as fortunate for her that she is possessed of the good looks and slim figure to invite their lustful looks, and if she can provide this service and make a living at it, why not? Not exactly what you would expect 'the girl next door' to think. Sickened at the thought of Katusha having been led by him into such an existence, Nekhlyudov rejects the lifestyle of excess and grandeur that he leads, and becomes disgusted with his circle of contemporaries, and the lack of substance their lives entail. He embarks on a quest to be the savior of the unfortunate, taking details of convicts to the courts and begging them to reconsider the circumstances. He feels that, had all of these people had a better, more priviledged existance, perhaps they would have turned out very differently, and not have commited the crimes that put them in their present surroundings. Eventually, he realizes that everyone makes their own choices in life, rich or poor, and must accept the consequences of their actions. Throughout his desire to avail himself of Katusha's forgiveness and redeem himself for his past transgressions, Nekhlyudov turns a deaf ear time and again, as she tells him that what has befallen her is her own doing, and not his responsibility, and to leave her to it, and get on with his own life. Desperate to turn her life around, and save Katusha, Nekhlyudov overlooks the fact that Katusha herself has accepted her plight, and feels that the sentence she has been given is deserved. This is a wonderful read, never slow or plodding, occasionally becoming a grand commentary on the state of prisons in Russia in the late 1800's, as well as a vivid portrait of the lives of the lower classes, and a wonderful commentary on Communist beliefs in Russia at the end of the 19th century. The book ends.....very justly. There is no grand-scale Hollywood ending for Tolstoy, at least not here. The feeling one might walk away with is that though things did not end the way you might hope for...they ended exactly as they should....This was my first foray into Tolstoy, and will not be my last. I highly recommend this novel to anyone interested in a glimpse into the mind and convictions of a brilliant author.
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