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The Last Station by Jay Parini  |
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Originally published in 1990, Jay Parini’s The Last Station (Anchor, 2009) was republished this November to coincide with its movie release on December 23. Parini’s story delves deep into the life of Leo Tolstoy, his wife and children, and personal associates that surrounded him during the tumultuous final year of his life. At times it reads like an Orwellian satire but it is rooted in the real-life events of Tolstoy’s last year.
Leo Tolstoy, the Russian literary giant best-known for his works Anna Karenina and War and Peace, died in 1910 at the age of eighty-two. He was surrounded by his family and his closest followers as he took his last ragged breath in a stranger’s home next to a train station far from his home. Tolstoy had taken ill after he left his family’s estate at Yasnaya Polyana running from his wife. She had come to represent all that was objectionable in his life, serving as the face of his conscience.
Tolstoy was born into the Russian aristocracy and led a privileged life. He took advantage of his situation indulging in women, drinking, and gambling. A turning point occurred in his life and he renounced his old ways. Through his writing he established what he believed a moral life should encompass. Two of his ideals were celibacy and avoiding marriage. He set a poor example having his own wife and thirteen children plus one known illegitimate son. It comes as no surprise his wife was imbalanced by the end of their forty-eight years together.
Despite Tolstoy’s own hypocrisy, he amassed numerous followers that established a religion worshiping the writings of Tolstoy and his revolutionary ideas against government and the lavish lifestyles of the rich. His proclamations were taken as gospel and followers came to his home to worship him by basking in his presence or as close proximity to it they could get. A man with his kind of power to influence others to accepting and following his values will attract those who wish to wield his power. The man who won the position was Vladimir Chertkov. Eventually he became powerful enough to feel he knew Tolstoy better than Tolstoy did. The only person in his way of full control was Sofya Andreyevna, the wife.
The Last Station is an emotional rollercoaster continually playing between pity and disgust for many of the characters. There is a battle being waged, not between armies of nations, but between a man and a woman fighting for control of Tolstoy’s works and the dominant player at Tolstoy’s side.
Parini toys with each character, giving them a chance to voice their side of the story then replaying their actions through the eyes of others. He plays the omniscient god who has the advantage of knowing both sides of the story and toying with the reader’s allegiances. Everyone takes a turn being the villain until all that’s left are…villains.
Jay Parini is a poet, novelist and biographer. He incorporates all three of these into The Last Station, declaring it a work of fiction based on diaries of actual people who knew Tolstoy and wrote about their experiences with him. He intersperses the story with poetry of his own written about Tolstoy creating as a whole a literary work of art pinpointing the frailty of man.
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