Family Happiness
Encyclopedia
Family Happiness is an 1859 novella
written by Leo Tolstoy
, first published in The Russian Messenger
. The story concerns the love and marriage of a young girl, Mashechka, and the much older Sergey Mikhaylych, an old family friend. After a somewhat awkward courtship, the two are married and move to Mikhaylych's home. Over the course of the 100-page story, Mashechka finds that married life and her feelings for Mikhaylych are much more complex than she had thought and have little to do with her previous, slightly naive, notions of marriage, hence the ironic overtones of the title, "Family Happiness".
:
"I have lived through much, and now I think I have found what is needed for happiness. A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one's neighbor--such is my idea of happiness. And then, on top of all that, you for a mate, and children perhaps--what can more the heart of man desire?"
A passage is also quoted in the book Into the Wild:
The last page of the story is also quoted in full in the Phillip Roth novel "The Counterlife
."
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".
Novella
A novella is a written, fictional, prose narrative usually longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000...
written by Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays. His two most famous works, the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and a pinnacle of realist...
, first published in The Russian Messenger
The Russian Messenger
The Russian Messenger has been the title of three notable magazines published in Russia in the 19th century.-The Russian Messenger of Sergey Glinka:...
. The story concerns the love and marriage of a young girl, Mashechka, and the much older Sergey Mikhaylych, an old family friend. After a somewhat awkward courtship, the two are married and move to Mikhaylych's home. Over the course of the 100-page story, Mashechka finds that married life and her feelings for Mikhaylych are much more complex than she had thought and have little to do with her previous, slightly naive, notions of marriage, hence the ironic overtones of the title, "Family Happiness".
Popular culture
A passage of the book is quoted in the book and film Into the WildInto the Wild (film)
Into the Wild is a 2007 American biographical drama film directed by Sean Penn. It is an adaptation of 1996 non-fiction book of the same name by Jon Krakauer based on the travels of Christopher McCandless across North America in the early 1990s. The film stars Emile Hirsch as McCandless with...
:
"I have lived through much, and now I think I have found what is needed for happiness. A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one's neighbor--such is my idea of happiness. And then, on top of all that, you for a mate, and children perhaps--what can more the heart of man desire?"
A passage is also quoted in the book Into the Wild:
The last page of the story is also quoted in full in the Phillip Roth novel "The Counterlife
The Counterlife
The Counterlife is a novel by the American author Philip Roth. It is the fourth full novel to feature the fictional novelist Nathan Zuckerman. When The Counterlife was published, Zuckerman had most recently appeared in a novella called The Prague Orgy, the epilogue to the omnibus volume Zuckerman...
."
The Mountain Goats
The Mountain Goats
The Mountain Goats is an American indie rock band formed in Claremont, CA by singer-songwriter John Darnielle. For many years, the sole member of the Mountain Goats was Darnielle himself, despite the plural moniker....
song "Family Happiness" takes its name from the novella and includes the line "Started quoting Tolstoy into the machine
Cassette deck
A cassette deck is a type of tape recorder for playing or recording audio compact cassettes. A deck was formerly distinguished from a recorder as being part of a stereo component system, while a recorder had a self-contained power amplifier...
/I had no idea what you meant".