Some really solid stories in here!!

I'm not sure how to review a collection of stories. Am I commenting on the stories themselves, or on the editors' choices -- which stories they included, the value of the Introduction, and other such choices? So I've mixed all such considerations together and pulled four stars out of my furry ushanka hat. One factor that diminished my rating is simply the poor quality of the print in this particular book. The ink is thick and blobby on many of the rather flimsy pages. I shouldn't have been so cheap in purchasing Tolstoy's great short works -- I will want to own these works for my lifetime, and I'm sure you will too, so don't skimp like I did.

On the other hand, perhaps it is more fitting to not get the deluxe edition of Tolstoy's great short works. Surely Hadji Murad did not spend his rubles on fancily bound books. It was nothing in Ivan Illyich's library that redeemed him in his last minutes. And likewise, both "Master" and "Man" were able to act out of truth not because of a treasured book they'd owned but because of...divine inspiration? Sudden insight into their own and others' true nature? An abrupt shifting of perspective away from small self to vastness? However one wishes to phrase it, these heroes of Tolstoy's great short works didn't do their pivotal acts out of intellectual understanding; more importantly, they didn't do them out of habit; and most importantly, Tolstoy somehow actually isn't moralizing about all this, at all. -- Or, if he is, he somehow gets away with it, without alienating moralizing-phobic readers like myself.

Perhaps its a sign of our degenerate times that we would even need such stories as these to contemplate, in order to be closer to truth. But we do -- there is so much nontruth pulling at us, screaming for our attention, pleading with us to accept and repeat its litanies. We certainly don't need to develop peasant-envy, but we do need to let ourselves get as close as we can stand to be to what is certain and what is fresh about being alive. It's evident that Tolstoy longed to be as close as he could be to life, and that he must have contemplated the essential truths of life (that we keep going for pleasure and trying to avoid pain, that we get sick, that we die) consistently for many years, all the while not missing out on any of the details that make those truths flesh and blood.

So to read his stories (especially the three I referenced above -- there are a couple stories in this collection that I can't rave about) is to sort of have someone do the work for you -- he lays bare the condensed fruit of his contemplations (now that's a weird mixed metaphor, but I can't think of how other to say it). We just sit in bed or wherever and read his work, which seems very second-hand -- but actually, reading these stories isn't painless. Ivan Illyich is not for hypochondriacs! Master and Man is not for the judgmental, and Hadji Murad is not for sissies. So gather your courage, open your mind, do spend money on a nice copy, and read your Tolstoy!

Read Master and Man...best short story ever.

I disliked most of these and did not finish several of them. Also, they’re not all short! Some very long and boring. Sorry!

Collections are hard, because there are always going to be some you like more than others. For me, personally, the best was and is and has always been Master and Man.

try Pevear & Volokhonsky translation first before relegating Tolstoy to the depths of the cranial abyss

best stories: Alyosha the Pot, Father Sergius, The Death of Ivan Ilych

runners-up: the devil, the Kreutzer sonata, Hadji Murad, family happiness

left much to be desired: the cossacks (too abrupt an ending and not enough character development although the sloe-eyed Circassian beauty does leave an indelible mark on the imagination), master and man (drastic change in protagonist seems implausible in the way it was written)

The death of Ivan Illich is a haunting short story that will stay with you. The story has the power to shake you from the comfortable sleep of normal existence.

Tolstoy speaks with such simplicity. These stories are filled with ethos but do so in a way that is not moralizing.

I had this book for a class freshman year, and returned to it for a class this year. I was reaffirmed my love for Tolstoy. He's an absolute literary genius and a short story expert.

I really enjoy Tolstoy's short works. Some are okay, and some are quite brilliant with deep, inspiring messages.

I can't remember if I read all of these stories or not, but I do recall really enjoying a couple of them. "Family Happiness" stands out as a real winner... maybe it should have been called "Family Unhappiness"!

بهترین اثر تولستوی.

I already had read The Cossacks, Family Happiness and The Death of Ivan Ilych in a previous collection. Hadji Murad was the most disappointing, reflecting I suppose, Tolstoy's conclusion at that stage of his life, the futility of men gaining anything noble in war. Kreutzer Sonata is "a story told in first person on a train ride" of the (IMO) deranged husband justifying the murder of his wife for her assumed infidelity. Master & Man and the short short of Alyosia the Pot are both stories of living a life of noble purpose, the first of the master realizing it only in the last two days of life and Alyosia living that way from the very beginning of his short humble life. Conflict in our own soul is the theme of Father Sergius and The Devil about what we should do and why; and what about when we fail?