Tag Archives: Leo Tolstoy

Fani Willis’s Big Baggy Monster

The Georgia Trump indictment is like a “big baggy monster” whereas Jack Smith’s narrower indictment is like a Flaubert novel.

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Ukraine: What Would Leo and Fyodor Do?

Dostoevsky and Tolstoy’s novels work as indictments of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

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Crucial Support in the Face of Death

In “Women of Brewster Place” a character charges into a scene of despair and refuses to let death triumph.

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Tolstoy’s Kitty and a Dying Patient

My favorite episode in “Anna Karenina” is Kitty showing Levin she can handle a dying patient better than he can.

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The Very Model of a Modern Russian General

Tweeters have been busy finding literary allusions to capture the incompetence of Russia’s armed forces in Ukraine.

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Reading Poetry as Religious Experience

There is a spiritual dimension to reading literature that is worth exploring.

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Putin Quoting Tolstoy? Puleeze!

Putin claimed to quote Tolstoy but didn’t in his meeting with Biden. What he says is reminiscent of Flannery O’Connor’s Misfit, however.

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Is GOP a Death Cult? Ask Tolstoy

Has the GOP become a death cult. Tolstoy’s description of suicidal behavior from Napoleon’s soldiers suggests yes.

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Russian Lit and Moscow’s Gentleman

Towles’s “Gentleman in Moscow” is filled with allusions to Russian poets and fiction writers.

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