A Confession (Dover Books on Western Philosophy) - Softcover

Tolstoy, Leo

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0486438511 ISBN 13: 9780486438511

Publisher: Dover Publications, 2005

Synopsis

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.

About this title

Review:

Confession is Leo Tolstoy's memoir of midlife spiritual crisis. In 1879, having written War and Peace and Anna Karenina, the 51 year-old Tolstoy began to believe that his life was meaningless. Confession is his account of the limited satisfactions he derived from his aesthetic and intellectual triumphs, and of his first yearnings for real faith. This book marks the turning point in his career as a writer: after 1880 he would write almost exclusively about religious life, especially devotion among the peasantry (in works such as The Death of Ivan Ilych and Resurrection). Near the end of Confession, Tolstoy describes the desolation he felt upon deciding that he could not solve his crisis of faith by taking refuge in the church. "I have no doubt that there is truth in the doctrine," he writes, "but there can also be no doubt that it harbors a lie; and I must find the truth and the lie so I can tell them apart." Confession does not find the full Truth, but it offers an inspiring example of a man rejecting the lies that cling to unthinking orthodoxy. Its final, exhilarating, heart-rending account of a spiritually awakening dream ranks with the best of Christian mystical writing. --Michael Joseph Gross

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.

About this edition

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0486438511
• ISBN 13: 9780486438511
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 96