So bleak and disparaging of love (especially physical love) and marriage ever existing in the same space, The Kreutzer Concerto is best read only if you're in a strong enough mood to handle its darkness...or if you're already in agreement with main character Pozdnyshev. Either way, the short novel is gripping and overwhelming (not necessarily in a good way)...and best followed with something happy.

 I prefer the views of a woman who appears briefly in the opening scene where a small group of people are discussing their takes on women, men, love and marriage. The lone female says:

"Ah, but what you say is terrible...there certainly exists among human beings this feeling which is called loved, and which lasts, not for months and years, but life."

On the other hand, there is almost an appealing frankness to Tolstoy's that society was better off when marriages were arranged and none of "what is this?...The young girls are seated, and gentlemen walk up and down before them, as in a bazaar, and make their choice." Leo Tolstoy seems honestly conflicted between how things should be and how they are, what is natural and what is not.

Much of what he writes in The Kreutzer Sonata is not friendly to women or romantic love, but he's being true to his own views, good ones or bad. In Epilogue To The Kreutzer Sonata, published in 1890, Tolstoy shared see what he saw as the novella's central theme:

"Let us stop believing that carnal love is high and noble and understand that any end worth our pursuit -- in service of humanity, our homeland, science, art, let alone God -- any end, so long as we may count it worth our pursuit, is not attained by joining ourselves to the objects of our carnal love in marriage or outside it; that, in fact, infatuation and conjunction with the object of our carnal love (whatever the authors of romances and love poems claim to the contrary) will never help our worthwhile pursuits but only hinder them."               

 

 



 

 

 

 

In the early 90s I subscribed to Time Life's AM Gold 1960s cd series. I was helplessly addicted and loved when each new package came in the mail. Of all the years, 1969 is my favorite...every single song on it except "Hair I played often.

 

 

I still own and love that cd and find a ridiculous amount of peace and happiness in listening to it on quiet nights like these, where the window is open, a soft breeze floats in and (for as long as the album lasts) I forget everything else in this crazy world.

 

 

My favorite single from it is Mercy's "Love (Can Make You Happy)." Its message is timeless, even if the cover art for the album it's from is not.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rF3MEpMciNA

 

(lyrics by Jack Sigler, Jr.)

 

Wake up in the morning with the sunshine in your eyes
And the smell of flowers blooming fills the air.
Your mind is filled with the thoughts of a certain someone - that you
love;
Your life is filled with joy when she is there.
Love can make you happy if you fine someone who cares
To give a life time to you and who has a love to share.
If you think you've found someone you'll love forevermore,
Then it's worth the price you'll have to pay (pay).
To have, to hold's important when forever is the phrase
That means the love you've found is going to stay.
Love can make you happy if you find someone who cares
To give a life time to you and who has a love to share.
La-love, la-love
Love can make you happy.
Love can make you happy.
Love can make you happy.
Love...

 

 



 

I will never understand boredom. To me it seems like a wasted luxury. There are so few free hours in the world to do extra things like read the books you want to read or go for nature walks, explore the larger world or have time to do whatever just for yourself. When you get that extra time it feels like a gift.

As if The Novel: A Biography wasn't giving me more ideas of what to read there's the above which is much more comprehensive and less mainstream than I would have thought. It's full of fascinating ideas for what to read next, including a rarely mentioned novel by Daniel Defoe called Roxana:

 

 

1001 Books starts chronologically from the 1600s and goes until now; the selections are varied and intriguing. Many of the ones mentioned that were written before the 1920s can be downloaded for free by going to Google Play and looking them up title:

Google Play

I love the unz website; it's addictive because there are so many old magazines from the early 20th century with charming romantic short stories and sweet covers. 

There's also mystery and fashion and occasional "tawdriness" to combat the overall quaint sense of a completely different time, even if it was mostly illusion.

http://www.unz.org/Pub/AllPeriodicals

I'm in awe of The Beginning Of Us, which I just finished and was immensely relieved (though surprised) had a happy, realistic ending, true to the spirit of the book.

There are so many beautiful things about the novella, especially the writing and mood.

But something else that I loved about it is how Tara and Eliza slowly (very slowly) fall in love and how it's all about the day trips they share and their common interests in nature and literature. When they stay overnight during one of their first weekend trips, they sleep in separate beds. There is not one sex scene anywhere in the story and I find that so incredibly refreshing and sweet, only lovely passages, like this one, that make my heart skip a few beats:

One evening on a walk in the snow, I broke a stick off a bush and wrote I LOVE YOU, ELIZA in the snow, and instead of telling me I had crossed some boundary, you laughed and told me one of the reasons you loved me so much was that I knew how to use commas properly.

In the author information following the end of The Beginning, Sarah Brooks says she writes the lesbian fiction she wishes she could read. I totally get that and sincerely hope she writes lots more in the future.