SOURCE: “Tolstoy's Final Days,” in Los Angeles Times Book Review, September 9, 1990, p. 4.

In the following review, Condren offers a positive evaluation of The Last Station.

Tolstoy was one of the greatest novelists in any language. As a man whose ideals often contradicted his life, he has a less certain reputation.

Among his many idiosyncrasies, none seems more apparent, nor more responsible for tormenting his last months, than his habit of laying guilt upon others to atone for his own excesses; or, to turn the same coin on its opposite side, his fondness for half-baked ideals which actually arose from some personal inability. For example, though he was born to the wealthy, land-owning nobility, his opulence embarrassed him, since he believed—and continually lectured those around him—that to own property is to be a thief; yet the only possessions he ever tried to give away were the copyrights...