This review is part of the Literature World Tour.

I don't do well with 'classics'. Great Expectations almost put me to sleep, I could only manage one chapter at a time. So I'm not afraid to say I've never read anything by Tolstoy. The Last Station was just there on the shelves, so I picked it up.

The story is basically a novelisation of the last year of Tolstoy's life, based on letters and journal entries from the man himself, as well as the people around him. From what I gathered, he was a rich and successful writer with legions of fans, but his wealth was at odds with his professed desire for a simple life. And that's the 'fun' of this book.

Poor Tolstoy's wife Sofya, who was simply trying to make sure her children would be taken care of! Tolstoy and his 'disciples' made her life a living hell! She may have come across as a complete nutcase, but I really felt for her.

What I found most interesting about the novel was how (if true) people try to be 'moral' and adhere to a set of principles when it is clearly against human nature - celibacy is a good example, both Tolstoy himself and his secretary Bulgakov showed themselves to be utterly incapable of keeping it in their pants.

The ending is utterly unreal, in that 'truth is stranger than fiction' sort of way - Tolstoy, in running from his wife, holes up in a railway station (the 'last station' in question) and that is where his remarkable life comes to an end. It's almost comic, yet extremely bleak. The possibility that becoming one of the world's greatest living writers could ultimately be a curse is something definitely worth thinking about.

Previously in Russia: Jim Murdoch's review of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

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