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Title: The Forged Coupon by Leo Tolstoy, David Patterson ISBN: 0-393-30300-4 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: June, 1986 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $8.95

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Average Customer Rating: 3.5 (2 reviews)

Rating: 3
Summary: A perhaps greater novel slopped out here in 88 pages
Comment: After reading THE FORGED COUPON, I concluded that Leo Tolstoy would have me believe that if I cut off some other motorist on the freeway tomorrow, the anger I generate in that other driver could reverberate from individual to individual and eventually cause someone halfway around the world having a bad hair day to push the Nuclear Button. Thank goodness I'm not paranoid!

The premise of Tolstoy's last short novel, written in 1904, is that the effects of individual actions, whether good or bad, ripple through society causing unexpected consequences far removed in time and place from the original deed. THE FORGED COUPON begins with a father angrily denying his son an advance on his allowance, causing the latter to forge an inflated value on the coupon he's given instead. (In the storyline's time and place, coupons clipped from interest-bearing documents were commonly used as money.) The eventual repercussions of this act provide the background against which Tolstoy lashes out against the flaws he perceived in pre-Revolution Russian society: upper class greed, the oppression of the peasant class, the spiritual and moral bankruptcy of the Russian Orthodox Church, the unfairness of the justice system, and the intellectual banality of the political leadership up to and including the Tsar. As a solution to his societyís ills, the author proposes a return to Christian fundamentalism based solely on scripture, and fictionally illustrates how acts grounded in such can be just as influential in the long term as those generated by mankind's baser motives.

The reader will perhaps find truths in THE FORGED COUPON depending on his/her personal value system. But is the book well done? The front cover of my edition calls it "a classic tale of crime and guilt". Well, it's certainly a tale of crime and guilt, but it misses being classic simply because it's too short. It's as if Tolstoy, who died in 1910, realized his life was coming to a close and thought he'd better crank this one out in a hurry. Had he taken the time to expand the novel to several hundred pages and develop the characters and storyline more, it perhaps would have had more impact. THE FORGED COUPON comes across as a rush job. Indeed, the CliffsNotes version is probably longer than the 88 pages of my edition of the original. Its greatest value was to provide me with some small insight into Russian social structure of the period - a structure swept away forever in the next decade by World War One and the revolutions of 1917.

Rating: 4
Summary: What goes around...
Comment: Short, simple, and yet truly profound, The Forged Coupon reads like Tolstoy's last wish for humanity; compassion, kindness, and responsibility toward our fellow man/woman.

Young Fedor Mikhailovich needs money to repay a debt. After his father angrily refuses to give him any more money, Fedor simply changes a $2.50 note to read $12.50. What follows is an intricate tale of how one evil deed, one selfish act, affects the lives of dozens of others. Tolstoy wrote this novella in his last years, after his excommunication, and he relishes the chance to unveil the pseudo-piety and hypocrisy of organized religion. Yet, his belief in the individual's capacity to find truth is unwavering. Regardless of the theological overtones, however, this novella is priceless for its Aesopian message...that every act, good or bad, goes out into the world like so many ripples.

I give The Forged Coupon four stars only because The Death of Ivan Illych is superior. Still, I wouldn't want my bookshelf to be without this work from the master.

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