If Leo wrote Novels-in-Verse

If Tolstoy had written novels-in-verse, it's a good bet they would read like Craig Raine's History: The Home Movie. Coincidence? Not really.

Craig Raine's History: The Home Movie reads like War and Peace, and Anna Karenina even more so. Like Tolstoy, Raine is influenced by his own family history, and uses family members as models for his characters. A family tree is provided in the front material -- sound familiar? Yet Raine uses his family's real names, and one gets the feeling he sticks closer to actual events than did Tolstoy.

Interestingly, Craig Raine's uncle Eliot married poet and novelist Boris Pasternak's youngest sister Lydia. How much was the young Raine influenced by this Russian literary connection? You tell me!

(Seriously, check it out. I'd like to know what you think!)

Click here to read my (first?) article on History: The Home Movie.