This will always be the greatest book I've ever read. No writer has ever ripped their heart out and let the pages soak it up so much, no one has spoken so honestly about themselves, so earnestly and sincerely about the existential terror of everyday life while assuring the reader past all the futility of this world there is still light at the end of the tunnel. Just thinking of Tolstoy gives me peace, the simple thought of him telling me "you are not alone" 150 years ago gives me confidence that I can do better and I can try to make things better.
>>25189061dostoevsky is better
>>25189763hahahahahahahahahawhatever you say, dr peterstein
>>25189763Turn 21. >>25189061I meant to read this but I lost it as soon as I fucking bought it. It should be somewhere, I’ll find it if I look hard enough.
>>25189061Yeah, his nonfiction is incredible. Has given me goosebumps all over. Like "finally! Someone that gets it!" Pretty much everyone else falls into ideological traps; Tolstoy you can tell has very carefully pursued the truth and considered many different options and never let his mind become enslaved by word games, partisan prisons, etc. His views on religion and aesthetics might seem overly strict and narrow but he provides really strong arguments and you can tell they're the result of thousands of hours of thinking and of challenging dogma. He was an original, sincere thinker, with the cerebral horsepower to deliver profound results.
I look forward to reading it after AK.
>>25189763Quite irrelevant but whatever
>>25189874It's very fascinating to read because it gives you a look into the artistic process and what Tolstoy's state of mind was while writing Anna Karenina. Many parts of the book are in A Confession verbatim because Levin's crisis towards the end was Tolstoy's crisis in real life, and the conclusion Tolstoy came to in A Confession was Levin's conclusion. Over time this changed after he wrote it but you can see the connections and how Tolstoy was working out a private struggle through artistic means with Anna Karenina. I can't really think of another artist in history whose life was so intertwined with his work
