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A review by msand3
Boyhood by Leo Tolstoy
5.0
The second part of Tolstoy’s autobiographical trilogy, published two years after [b:Childhood|2359878|Childhood|Leo Tolstoy|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1328040092s/2359878.jpg|50778762], takes up where that narrative left off, continuing the recollections of Nikolai as he transitions from childhood to young adulthood. It’s a stormy transition (indeed, Tolstoy begins with Nikolai’s description of a sudden thunderstorm that moves across the countryside as he rides in a carriage). We see how the young man copes with life without his mother, the transition from being under the care of his beloved German tutor to a more strict French tutor, and the first spark of his interest in women. To cope with these changes, Nikolai turns even more inward with his philosophical musings. He invents long imaginative narratives in his mind as fantasies to offset the turbulent changes in his life.
In one of the more memorable sections, Tolstoy offers a first-person account of the German tutor's difficult life to contrast with Nikolai’s own narrative, which we discover is rather less harsh by comparison. This is an important moment because Nikolai not only comes into his own understanding as an individual with agency, but he also begins to recognize others -- especially servants and villagers -- as being individual people with their own lives, rather than merely “serfs.” He grapples with the same three Big Ideas as in Childhood (life, love, and death), as well as his first encounters with (and resistance to) authority.
Despite chronicling a very specific time, place, and culture, Tolstoy’s narrative has a universal appeal. We share in Nikolai’s anguish that “the world is against him” because it is the same feeling we all experience at that age. Once again, Tolstoy has penned an insightful, gripping, intellectual, and emotionally resonant work -- at the age of 25!
In one of the more memorable sections, Tolstoy offers a first-person account of the German tutor's difficult life to contrast with Nikolai’s own narrative, which we discover is rather less harsh by comparison. This is an important moment because Nikolai not only comes into his own understanding as an individual with agency, but he also begins to recognize others -- especially servants and villagers -- as being individual people with their own lives, rather than merely “serfs.” He grapples with the same three Big Ideas as in Childhood (life, love, and death), as well as his first encounters with (and resistance to) authority.
Despite chronicling a very specific time, place, and culture, Tolstoy’s narrative has a universal appeal. We share in Nikolai’s anguish that “the world is against him” because it is the same feeling we all experience at that age. Once again, Tolstoy has penned an insightful, gripping, intellectual, and emotionally resonant work -- at the age of 25!