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    The Kreutzer Sonata
    The Kreutzer Sonata
    The Kreutzer Sonata
    Audiobook3 hours

    The Kreutzer Sonata

    Written by Leo Tolstoy

    Narrated by Jonathan Oliver

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    One of Tolstoy’s most important shorter works, The Kreutzer Sonata presents a problematic view of the relationship between the sexes and promotes abstinence as the solution. Pozdnyshev jealously observes the intimacy that emerges between his wife and a violin player. Haunted by ‘The Kreutzer Sonata’ over which they bonded; it plays round and round in Pozdnyshev’s head driving him to distraction and to an unquenchable rage. The Kreutzer Sonata is a psychologically fascinating novella, offering interesting insights into the power play between the sexes.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNaxos Audiobooks
    Release dateJun 1, 2010
    ISBN9789629549633
    Author

    Leo Tolstoy

    Count Lev (Leo) Nikolaevich Tolstoy was born at Vasnaya Polyana in the Russian province of Tula in 1828. He inherited the family title aged nineteen, quit university and after a period of the kind of dissolute aristocratic life so convincingly portrayed in his later novels, joined the army, where he started to write. Travels in Europe opened him to western ideas, and he returned to his family estates to live as a benign landowner. In 1862 he married Sofia Behr, who bore him thirteen children. He expressed his increasingly subversive, but devout, views through prolific work that culminated in the immortal novels of his middle years, War and Peace and Anna Karenina. Beloved in Russia and with a worldwide following, but feared by the Tsarist state and excommunicated by the Russian Orthodox church, he died in 1910.

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    Reviews for The Kreutzer Sonata

    4/5

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    • 3/5
      On a train ride, a man named Pozdnyshev overhears a conversation about love and marriage and divorce. He is reminded of his dark past, and begins telling us a tale of how he came to fall in and out of love, resulting in murdering his own wife.Pozdnyshev is a hard character to like, or to sympathize with. He seemed irrational and crazed to the utmost, not to mention perverted. He has a craving obsession for dirty, filthy, forbidden things such as prostitutes and sexual gratification, and seems set on describing these things in the most appalling way possible. He frequently compares these habits of his to those of an animal, which is how he comes to see himself.He and his wife sink into disinterest in each other, and eventually to bitterness and hatred. The extent of Pozdnyshev's rage toward her could certainly be called abuse. The climatic scene where he commits murder was a terrible one, and quite memorable. For a moment, the blindingly furious man checks himself and realizes what he has done, and it is a very dark moment in the book. However, within just a few sentances, he is back to being the abhorrent villain, as he begins telling his wife that he forgives her.Forgives her? It is HIM who needs forgiving! He has made every day of her life absolute hell, and now he has murdered her. And yet he "forgives her."Tolstoy has written an impacting story for such a small number of pages, but I wish that the main character had been more relatable and the story drawn out into a bit more detail.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Man, this is a vicious little thing. It grabbed me and shook me like a dog catching a squirrel.

      My homegirl Heather suggested that it'd make a good companion read to Dom Casmurro, which was a brilliant idea. It's an awesome double feature.

      Be ready to put the Kreutzer Sonata on as soon as they start playing it, around page 100 or so. It totally enhances the climax of the book.
    • 3/5
      This was a short, depressing story about a man trying to explain why it was ok that he had killed his wife. He basically tells his story to a stranger sitting on a train and explains his thoughts on things like love is not something real and not a part of marriage, women are bad, children are problems, and all women do are make men jealous. There is nothing positive about this story at all, and Tolstoy himself write a few pages at the end explaining how according to Christianity, people should not be married in the first place. I think this was during Tolstoy's late life Christian phase, but in terms of this being literature, it was not a very satisfying read.
    • 2/5
      Not a memorable work.
    • 3/5
      Rusland, ca 1885Godsejeren Posdnyschów fortæller på en togrejse til en medrejsende hvorfor han dræbte sin kone. Han er blevet overbevist om at den kødelige kærlighed er roden til alt ondt. Man burde hylde jomfruelighed og bandlyse al seksuel omgang, der ikke foregår i ægteskabet med det formål at frembringe afkom. Hans kone og han har levet som hund og kat i et miserabelt ægteskab. Børnefødsler har taget hårdt på hans kone og lægen hjælper med prævention så hun blomstrer op igen. Faktisk så meget at hun begynder at spille på klaver og måske også så meget at hun indleder et forhold til spillelæreren Truchatschewskij. Skænderierne mellem mand og kone er ulidelige og de bruger børnene som våben i krigen. En søndag spiller konen og spillelæreren Beethoven's Kreutzer-sonate, hvilket udløser mandens jalousi. Nogle dage efter vender han uventet hjem, rasende af jalousi og stikker en kniv i konen.Udefra set er det helt urimeligt. Set gennem hans øjne det modsatte.Tolstoy mener det alvorligt og har i et efterskrift uddybet sine meninger. Synspunkterne ligner dem som Taliban fremfører i vore dage.Prostitution er en synd. Utroskab mellem ægtefolk er en synd. Ægteskabelig samkvem under diegivningen er en synd. Man bør opdrage sin børn efter andre mål end blot det smukke, velplejede legeme. Menneskene bruger for meget af deres tid og møje på at søge efter en partner.Et noget ramsaltet syn på verden
    • 4/5
      OH BOY, DO I HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS ABOUT THIS BOOK. Most especially, about the choice to include it in a series titled Great Loves. Despite the fact that the narrator begins his tale with a rant on how awful love is -- I would argue that there is very little love on display in this book. Rather, a great deal of possessiveness, and also the stifling nature of heteronormativity. Despite all that (which did frequently get on my nerves), this is still Tolstoy, so it's still somehow fascinating and compelling even as I often wanted to hold the main character's face under water. (And yes, it seems clear that he is the character Tolstoy identifies with.) I was drawn along, rooting for the wife and for the man to gain any inkling of his inherent ass-hattedness, even though it is clear from the very beginning of his tale that neither will happen. A compulsive but frustrating but train-wrecky NOT-A-LOVE-STORY.
    • 5/5
      Praised by many as Tolstoy's best short story—or novella, really—I'm shocked that I've never read this until now, if only for the reason that Tolstoy's best inevitably means one of the best novellas ever written. And The Kreutzer Sonata is definitely that; it's also one of the beginning texts of existentialist literature, and I can imagine Camus and even Proust reading this with relish.

      In a mere hundred or so pages, Tolstoy attacks everything: the oppressive system of gender inequality; the class system; capitalism, money, and the ignorance in which children are reared; marriage; religion; medicine; the legal system—in short, every subject under the sun is scrutinized and unashamedly bashed to pieces here, in a novella that renders the act of confession as the only means of redemption in a world of lost faith, principles, and morals, a motif that pairs this rather well with Camus's La chute, whose own narrator seems oddly reminiscent at times with Tolstoy's in Kreutzer.

      One can see why this was banned and why there was such a scandal when Tolstoy published this in 1889, and many of its subjects and concerns are still sadly relevant today.
    • 3/5
      I may not have completely understood The Kreutzer Sonata, but it made me kind of angry and bored at the same time. For one the protaganist had so much anger for his wife it was very hard for me to identify with him. I also felt the blame he placed on society for his mistakes was, though possibly more deserved at that time, still exaggeratory. Otherwise surely men would be killing their wives for their sexual deception all over the place? The other short stories, however, were almost like fairy tales, and were much more enjoyable.
    • 2/5
      The story is set on a train in Russia where the passengers are debating about the future of marriage. One passenger who had been silent speaks up. He is Pozdnyshev, who is infamous for killing his wife who he suspected of infidelity. The rest of this short novel is told by Pozdnyshev who recounts the story of his marriage and how it led to him murdering his wife. He shares his views on how the act of marriage subjugates the woman and hardly differs from prostitution. He is incredibly extreme and zealous on his views about lust and the hypocrisy of marriage. Based on his final act of killing his wife who he suspects of having an affair, but is never positive, it seems clear that Pozdnyshev is crazy. What I found disturbing was the afterword in the book written by Tolstoy, where he discusses his own views on women and marriage and he is as extreme as Pozdnyshev. This is the same man who wrote War and Peace and Anna Karenina? The Kreutzer Sonata was written near the end of Tolstoy's life after a late conversion to Christianity. What a different type of novel compared to his other works. I have loved both War and Peace and Anna Karenina, especially the altruistic behavior of many of his characters. Wow - what a different take by the same author.
    • 3/5
      The Kreutzer Sonata is one of Tolstoy’s later works and revolves around his moral beliefs about lust, love, and marriage. To the point: a conversation takes place on a train between passengers about love and marriage. One passenger, Pozdnyshev, becomes agitated and says (I paraphrase), love and marriage are a bunch of crap. He then recounts in detail how and why he killed his wife in a jealous fit.This is Tolstoy, so the story is well-crafted and all the other key words and catch phrases that describe excellent writing. What I found interesting is that Pozdnyshev blames society’s loose morals for setting him up for failure in his marriage. As a young man he partied. He slept around, drank, etc. He goes on to say his former purely pleasure driven relations with women, which for the most part were secretly accepted by society if not openly condoned, ruined his relationship with his wife. "Yes, my relations with women were lost forever. Pure relations with women, from that time forward, I could no longer have. I had become what is called a voluptuary; and to be a voluptuary is a physical condition like the condition of a victim of the morphine habit, of a drunkard, and of a smoker. Just as the victim of the morphine habit, the drunkard, the smoker, is no longer a normal man, so the man who has known several women for his pleasure is no longer normal. He is abnormal forever. He is a voluptuary. Just as the drunkard and the victim of the morphine habit may be recognized by their face and manner, so we may recognize a voluptuary. He may repress himself and struggle, but nevermore will he enjoy simple, pure, and fraternal relations toward woman. By his way of glancing at a young woman one may at once recognize a voluptuary; and I became a voluptuary, and I have remained one."I find the idea interesting in light of today’s obsession with sexuality and porn. The book is an insight into Victorian morality (Can it be Victorian if it’s Russian?,) and it can actually be read as an early feminist text.Is it worth reading? If you’re interested in the aforementioned topics and want a quick Russian literature read, yes. If you want action and intrigue and don’t care what people thought about sex, love, and marriage in the olden days, no.
    • 3/5
      A novella. Tolstoy uses this novella to express his ideals of marriage, love, sex and his promotion of abstinence. Pozdynyshev overhears a conversation about love and divorce and becomes so agitated that he interjects himself into their conversation and challenges their ideas of love and he states that the only right state is abstinence. After they leave he tells his story of how he came to kill his wife to an unnamed passenger. Pozdyyshev became so jealous of his wife that he killed her. Tolstoy evolved a new Christianity based on his own interpretation of the Gospels. He did not believe that Jesus created marriage but the church created marriage.
    • 4/5
      "The Kreutzer Sonata" is a fascinating short novella by Leo Tolstoy. This is a quick and easy read but also pretty interesting. The tale focuses on two passengers on a train -- one man talks about how he killed his wife in a jealous rage while promoting the idea of sexual abstinence. There's a lot here to examine in this short work.
    • 3/5
      Two men sitting on a train alone during the night - the main character, Pozdnyshev, lay bare his soul and tells about the reason why he killed his wife - and the event that lead up to it - and why he got away with it. The narrator is the one who hear this brutally honest story.The main themes of this menage-a-trois are the eternal battle of the sexes - and jealousy within marriage - and infidelity (perhaps). As a story alone it's shocking, filled with indignation and rage - mainly towards the institution of marriage and the idea of romantic love - but also towards the emancipation of women.The unfortunate thing is that Tolstoy had to write a "postludium" - sort of a tract telling us readers what moral ideas he wanted to communicate with his story. I would almost say: Don't read it. It will maybe spoil the whole story. I disagreed with almost everything Tolstoy said in this postscript - and it really wasn't necessary - only made me more confused - Tolstoys dismissal of romantic love, the evil of sex, his denial of marriage as an institution, his gloomy look on women in general is not really worth to bother about.
    • 4/5
      Memorable work for me. This book gave me a totally different perspective on some thoughts I thought I was decided on.
    • 5/5
      Disturbing but with some interesting things to say about the cults of love and sex ... as someone living in a society that is still making its “transition” away from traditional mores, this probably resonated more for me than for others. The narrator Jonathan Oliver was simply superb. I’m tempted to move on to The Cossacks next just to hear him do Tolstoy again.
    • 4/5
      Here Tolstoy wraps a lecture on the role of "carnal love" in our society, into a poignant story of a husband who kills his wife for cheating on him. In it he presents many good arguments as to the challenges of being married, as well as the illusions of love. Although I don't necessarily agree with all of the ideas in this book (in fact I only agree with a few) I still think that it is important to be presented with the argument in order to better develop personal opinions. I did have one issue with the story: the main character was constantly condemning actions of humans as being animal-like, swinish, and beastly. However, he also continually returns to the argument that humans should act more naturally, as the animals do. This continued contradiction was helpful in developing the nature of the character and his "madness," but it was annoying to read none the less. Overall I liked it, not my favorite Tolstoy, but still great.
    • 4/5
      Well, what a strange little book this turned out to be from the master.

      Is it a good read? Yes, it is. Structured around a series of short chapters and incidents, it's just right for the shot-away modern attention span (surely, the novella is the perfect form for our age?) You know what's coming, almost from the outset, because the protagonist, Troukhatchevsky, tells you so. And yet, by delaying the crucial moment and delaying it, Tolstoy builds unbearable tension. In other words, the story telling is as masterful as you would expect, as are the characterisation and fine detailing.

      The obsessive nature of the protagonist and the bizarre philosophy to which he adheres put me in mind of Raskolnikov. Well, it was after all the century of grand ideas, culminating not long after in that Republic of Ideas, the USSR. These peculiarities made Troukhatchevsky a less tragic, less sympathetic figure than otherwise he might have been. Even the counter-philosophies were rather difficult to take, from a 21st Century perspective. The theme of jealousy and its un-reason, on the other hand, remain powerfully and universally relevant, all the more so when developed by one of the great writers.
    • 1/5
      A rant that goes on and on about the horrible consequences of lust, reflecting the tendency of religion to warp sex.
    • 5/5
      The narrator of this story tells us about a conversation he has with a man on a train who introduces himself as the infamous man who has been in all of the papers for murdering his wife. He proceeds to explain to the narrator why he committed the murder and how the very nature of love and sexual attraction between men and women inevitably leads to heartbreak and anger.It was easy to empathize, if not exactly sympathize, with the murderer and his wife, and there were many facets of their relationship that I feel are true of every male/ female relationship. Tolstoy does an excellent job of telling us just how messed up our relationships are by using this character and the extreme nature of the way his marriage ended. Every note of Tolstoy's Sonata struck a chord with me as the reader and the book left me reexamining the very nature of my beliefs about love and marriage. While I didn't necessarily agree with the murderer's beliefs, it did make me reconsider some things.
    • 4/5
      Beethoven's "Kreutzer Sonata" is full of emotion, so no wonder it serves as a sort of a turning point in this novella whose story is so heart-rending. The distraught protagonist pours his heart out to a stranger on the train - giving his own pessimistic definition of "love", proclaiming the mockery of marriage within his class level in Russian society, and how his own poisonous relationship with his wife develops and is doomed from the start. The emotional torment permeates the novella and denouement is disastrous.I think this novella is monumental in the amount of meaning it carries as to its criticism of Russian society of that era. (To get a better feel of the storyline I had the famous sonata playing quietly in the background as I was reading). Tolstoy is more known for his longer and epical novels, so it was interesting to see him "squeeze" so much meaning in this short novella. But it was obviously what he observed and wanted to express. I wish I can get my hands on the Russian version one day - this is not to say that the translation (by Louise and Aylmer Maude) was not adequate, for it was.