Here is an old book jot from August, 2021…still getting caught up with posting these!

I just finished reading Boyhood (1854) by Leo Tolstoy, translated by Judson Rosengrant. It’s the second novel in his autobiographical trilogy. The first book, Childhood, was the first work Tolstoy published.

The prose is beautiful, natural, and simple. It was a great pleasure to read. The story is related through the eyes of the narrator, Nikolenka, who is roughly twelve in the beginning of the book. He is at a point in his life at which he’s becoming increasingly self-aware and cognizant of the world and people around him. His inner thoughts—his fears and insecurities and hopes and musings—are interwoven with observations of many of the people closest to him.

Tolstoy communicates the inner life of Nikolenka in an immediate, relatable manner and I was struck with how authentic many of his life’s episodes felt. For example, the description of a burgeoning friendship that develops towards the end of the novel feels as if it could have happened in one’s own past.

I’ve enjoyed the first two books in this trilogy and look forward to the third, Youth.

“Among the countless thoughts and daydreams that pass through your mind and imagination without a trace, there are a few that leave a deep, sensitive furrow behind, so that even after you’ve forgotten the essence of the thought, you still remember that there was something good in your mind and sense the thought’s trace and try to reproduce it.”