Accessibility Tools

  • Content scaling 100%
  • Font size 100%
  • Line height 100%
  • Letter spacing 100%

The Tolstoy Estate by Steven Conte

by
October 2020, no. 425

The Tolstoy Estate by Steven Conte

Fourth Estate, $32.99 pb, 410 pp

The Tolstoy Estate by Steven Conte

by
October 2020, no. 425

During Operation Barbarossa in 1941, the Germans occupied Yasnaya Polyana – the former estate of Leo Tolstoy – for just forty-five days and converted it into a field hospital. The episode features in the war reportage of Ève Curie (daughter of Marie), and sounds like tantalising, if challenging, source material for a novelist. There’s the brutal irony inherent in the home of a world-famous prophet of non-violence being occupied by, of all people, the Nazis. There’s the human loss and horror of the deadliest military operation in the deadliest war in history. And there’s audacity in invoking and responding to Tolstoy’s great epic of another – Napoleon’s – doomed invasion of Russia: War and Peace (1869).

With his second novel, The Tolstoy Estate, Steven Conte has ignored those challenges altogether and tried to write a bestseller. It’s an odd choice, given the literary invocation of the premise, and one that is likely to appal Tolstoy enthusiasts.

In fact, it is better not to approach the work with the great writer in mind at all. Although Conte describes it as the ‘love child’ of War and Peace and Curie’s accounts, the result is a middlebrow romp which includes a love affair between a Nazi doctor and a Bolshevik writer, their reflections on Tolstoy, and a lot of usually crass ribaldry on the side. (Nazi characters walk around saying things like: ‘Good God, man, what’s the point of being the master race if we can’t ogle a lady subhuman?’)

James Antoniou reviews 'The Tolstoy Estate' by Steven Conte

The Tolstoy Estate

by Steven Conte

Fourth Estate, $32.99 pb, 410 pp

From the New Issue

You May Also Like

Comment (1)

  • The initial premise, or at least title, looked enticing to a long time lover of Tolstoy's work but you'd successfully staunched my enthusiasm by the end of your second paragraph. Killed it stone dead when you recounted the Nazi saying, ‘Good God, man, what’s the point of being the master race if we can’t ogle a lady subhuman?’
    Posted by Stephen Kimber
    19 October 2020

Leave a comment

If you are an ABR subscriber, you will need to sign in to post a comment.

If you have forgotten your sign in details, or if you receive an error message when trying to submit your comment, please email your comment (and the name of the article to which it relates) to ABR Comments. We will review your comment and, subject to approval, we will post it under your name.

Please note that all comments must be approved by ABR and comply with our Terms & Conditions.