Bedford Public Library

Creating Anna Karenina, Tolstoy and the birth of literature's most enigmatic heroine, Bob Blaisdell ; foreword by Boris Dralyuk

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages [375]-377) and index

contains biographical information

illustrations

index present

non fiction

Creating Anna Karenina

bibliography

1181891726

Bob Blaisdell ; foreword by Boris Dralyuk

Tolstoy and the birth of literature's most enigmatic heroine

"The story behind the origins of Anna Karenina and the turbulent life and times of Leo Tolstoy. Anna Karenina is one of the most nuanced characters in world literature and we return to her, and the novel she propels, again and again. Remarkably, there has not yet been an examination of Leo Tolstoy specifically through the lens of this iconic novel. Critic and professor Bob Blaisell unravels Tolstoy's family, literary, and day-to-day life during the period that he conceived, drafted, abandoned, and revised Anna Karenina. In the process, we see where Tolstoy's life and his art intersect in obvious and unobvious ways. Readers often assume that the self-conscious, robust, brooding Tolstoy depicted himself as Konstantin Levin, who in fact shares many of Tolstoy's biographical experiences. But in truth, it is within Anna that the intense consciousness and dynamic energy flow in the same complex depths as within Tolstoy. Her fateful suicide is the road that Tolstoy nearly traveled himself. Through Blaisdell's examination of the novel--and its drafts--as well as the voluminous correspondence between Tolstoy and his friends, editors, and family, we learn how Tolstoy's inner life and the development of his heroine intersect. By turns a biography, an account of Tolstoy's creative process, and the story of his relationship to the Russian literary world of the 1870's, Creating Anna Karenina will enthrall the thousands of readers whose lives have become deeper and clearer after experiencing this hallmark of world literature."--Inside cover

adult