num_pages: 288
description: While "The Kreutzer Sonata" caused a public sensation, Tolstoy's wife, Sonya, was hurt and furious that he should have enriched his scathing indictment of marriage with private details from theri own life together. Tolstoy, during two years of obsessive unhappiness, had become convinced that the idea of a "Christian marriage" was an impossibility. Here he lets loose all his frustration and disgust at human sexuality, and the humiliating, ungodly, sensual tie that binds men to women. The curious result, part self-lacerating, confession, part Christian polemic, is moving, above all, as the story of a man whose sexual jealousy, inflamed by guilt, drives him to murder his wife.
language: English
title: The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories
titlecomplete: The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories (Penguin Classics)
genres: Fiction, Russian Literature, 19th Century, Classics, Religion, Novella, Russia, Literary Fiction, Literature, Short Stories
ratings_count: 2798
publisher: Penguin Classics