Family Happiness
| File:Familys happiness novel by Leo Tolstoy.jpg The Russian Messenger, № 7–8 April 1859 | |
| Author | Leo Tolstoy |
|---|---|
| Original title | Семейное счастіе |
| Translator | April Fitz Lyon (1953) |
| Language | Russian |
| Genre | Fiction |
Publication date | 1859 |
| Publication place | Russia |
| Pages | 214 p. (Hardcover) |
Family Happiness (pre-reform Russian: Семейное счастіе; post-reform Russian: Семейное счастие, romanized: Seméynoye schástiye) is an 1859 novella written by Leo Tolstoy, first published in The Russian Messenger.
Plot
Critical reception
In Russia the initial response to Family Happiness was lukewarm. The newspaper Sankt-Peterburgskiye Vedomosti (the July 1859, No. 155 issue) and the magazine Severny Tsvetok (Northern Flower, No. 22 1859) published positive, but very brief reviews. The major pro-democracy publications failed to mention its release, much chagrined, apparently, by the fact that Tolstoy chose for the publication the right-wing Katkov-edited journal which at the time was engaged in bitter feuds with Sovremennik. Three years later in an essay called "The Outstanding Works Overlooked by Our Critics" (Vremya, Nos. 1 and 9) Apollon Grigoriev made an attempt to "rehabilitate" the Family Happiness and called it Tolstoy's "best piece of work to date." Sovremennik (1865, No.4) retaliated by warning the "critics of the aesthetic school" against praising the backward-looking novel that was idealizing the ruling class's way of life. According to the Soviet scholar Vladimir Lakshin, "Grigoriev was right in crediting Tolstoy as a shrewd psychologist, who'd succeeded in portraying so vividly in this novella 'the way romantic passion gradually deteriorates into something completely different.'"[1]
In popular culture
As referenced in the non-fiction book Into the Wild (as well as its film adaptation), a copy of Family Happiness was found among Chris McCandless' remains, with several passages highlighted.[2] The last page of the story is also quoted in full in the Philip Roth novel The Counterlife. The novella is referenced in 4321 by Paul Auster, as the favorite Tolstoy work of the protagonist's mother.[3] The Mountain Goats song "Family Happiness" takes its name from the novella and includes the line "Started quoting Tolstoy into the machine/I had no idea what you meant". The 2012 film of Julia Strachey's 1932 novel Cheerful Weather For the Wedding shows Dolly, the uncertain bride-to-be reading a copy of Family Happiness. Pyotr Fomenko's Theater Atelier in Moscow adapted the novella to the stage. The play premiered in September 2000 and remains part of the theater's repertoire.[4]
See also
References
- ↑ Vladimir Lakshin. Commentaries to Family Happiness. The Works of L.N. Tolstoy in 12 Vols. Vol.3. Stories and novellas, 1857-1863. Pp. 408-409
- ↑ Krakauer, Jon (1997). Into the Wild. Anchor. pp. 37, 256. ISBN 9780307476869.
- ↑ Auster, Paul (2017). 4 3 2 1 (1st ed.). New York: Henry Holt and Company. p. 41. ISBN 978-1-62779-446-6.
- ↑ Theater Atelier Piotr Fomenko. Family Happiness
External links
- Family Happiness Text in English
- Family Happiness, full text from RevoltLib.com
- Family Happiness, full text from Marxists.org
- Family Happiness, full text from TheAnarchistLibrary.org
- Family Happiness, full text from WikiSource.org
- Family Happiness Audio in English
- File:Speaker Icon.svg Family Happiness public domain audiobook at LibriVox
- Family Happiness Text in Russian
- Family Happiness, full Russian text, as edited by J.D. Duff
- Full text of Семейное счастье in the original Russian
