A Confession
Mar 2012 · Courier Corporation
4.8star
18 reviewsreport
eBook
96
Pages
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About this eBook
Despite having written War and Peace and Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy, at the age of 51, looked back on his life and considered it a meaningless, regrettable failure. A Confession provides insight into the great Russian writer's movement from the pursuit of aesthetic ideals toward matters of religious and philosophical consequence.
Authentic and genuinely moving, this memoir of midlife spiritual crisis was first distributed in 1872 and marked a turning point in the author's career as a writer: in subsequent years, Tolstoy would write almost exclusively about religious life, especially devotion among the peasantry.
Generations of readers have been inspired by this heartfelt reexamination of Christian orthodoxy and subsequent spiritual awakening. Ranked among the best books on the subject, this timeless work is for anyone who has ever worried about the fleeting nature of life and speculated about the value of existence.
Authentic and genuinely moving, this memoir of midlife spiritual crisis was first distributed in 1872 and marked a turning point in the author's career as a writer: in subsequent years, Tolstoy would write almost exclusively about religious life, especially devotion among the peasantry.
Generations of readers have been inspired by this heartfelt reexamination of Christian orthodoxy and subsequent spiritual awakening. Ranked among the best books on the subject, this timeless work is for anyone who has ever worried about the fleeting nature of life and speculated about the value of existence.
Ratings and reviews
4.8
18 reviews
junior Louis
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1 December 2022
1st time I am reading the author work. short and well organized writing. I am planning on reading longer version of his work. worth reading. Basically, the author has an existential crisis and try to find why he's here. I don't remember he come to a conclusion of his existence.
David Hill
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29 May 2014
A Confession is my favorite essay on returning to faith because Tolstoy never tries to convert the reader, he just shares his experiences. He outlines his feelings on belief and disbelief and simply concludes that he needed faith. The reason I disagree is because I think Tolstoy asked the right questions, but in the wrong way. "What is the meaning of life?" requires meaning to come externally, not internally. In the end, Tolstoy needed faith in his life but didn't press his faith onto the reader.
11 people found this review helpful
April
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2 November 2023
god this is very good, the meaning it gives to life I love it I feel so identified that I couldn't help but cry because of how real it was.
About the author
Novelist, essayist, dramatist, and philosopher, Count Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) is most famous for his sprawling portraits of 19th-century Russian life, as recounted in Anna Karenina and War and Peace.
Aylmer Maude spent much of his life in Russia & was a personal friend of Tolstoy's.
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