Resurrection - Leo Tolstoy

Date Started: 1/4/12
Date Finished: 1/26/12

One-Word Summary: Inspiring

I decided to start the year off with a light read - ha! I found this one in a half-price book store and didn't recognize the title so I bought it on a whim, figuring that I like everything that Tolstoy writes. True to form, he didn't disappoint.


What an epic story. We follow the main character, Prince Nekhlyudov ("N", which by the way, I had no idea how to pronounce in my head as I read this...) as he sits on a jury and discovers that the woman who is on trial he once loved, seduced and abandoned, setting her on her current path. He immediately decides he has to right the wrong and sets about to do so. His story takes the reader though the prison systems of Russia, though legal chambers and the upper echelon of society in St. Petersburg. As the back of the book states, it is "an angry denunciation of government, the upper classes, the judicial system and the Church, and a highly personal statement of Tolstoy's belief in human redemption."

As a lawyer, I was amazed with the legal aspects of this book (which make up a large portion of it). I actually can't believe this isn't required reading in law school -  it's such an eye-opening account of what NOT to do as a member of the legal system. And it was amazing reading this account of the legal system in Russia before the country became communist. The similarities to today are shocking. As much as things change, they stay the same.

So what of the woman, Katusha, who N decides he will follow to Siberia and marry? He does follow her and keeps his offer open, but she refuses to accept and decides to stay in Siberia and marry Simonson, even after her sentence is commuted. I was torn in my view of her character. Was she trying to do the right thing in not allowing N to marry her (she knew it would ruin his life)? Or was she unable to see the efforts he was making? On reading the introduction to the book, which I never do until after I've read the whole story, the translator makes the argument that Katusha is the only Divinely inspired character in the book, always doing the right thing. And on that reading, I could see that argument.

Overall I thought this, Tolstoy's last epic novel, was an amazing book. It's more manageable in size than War and Peace but just as outstanding - perhaps even more so because it makes the reader feel so much. We are shocked and horrified along with N as he learns more and more about the penal system. I wish I was a good enough person to agree with everything N comes to realize about prisoners. I'm not there yet, but if this book shows us anything, it's that all of us have the capacity for change.