A Confession - Leo Tolstoy Audiobook

Written by Leo Tolstoy
Read by Simon Vance
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Length: 2 hrs and 25 mins
Release date: 01-31-11
Publisher: christianaudio.com

“At this time I began to write, from vanity, greed, and pride. In my writings I did exactly as in life. In order to possess the glory and the wealth for whose sake I wrote, it was necessary to conceal the good, and to display the bad. And so I did.“

Tolstoy’s autobiographical essay is a dissection of his soul, a study of his life’s movement away from the religious certainties of youth, and a vital piece of reading which contextualizes the great works he is best known for. Marking the point at which his life moved from the worldly to the spiritual, Tolstoy’s philosophical reassessment of the Orthodox faith is a work that holds vital spiritual and intellectual importance to this very day.

A review - First things first: Simon Vance is, as usual, an impeccable narrator. This book takes you right down to the bottom of where you actually stand on the mystery of life. And it seems to give you only two options out of your unavoidable dilemma: (1) Ignore the mystery, that is, run away from it; or (2) Accept the galling truth that you can’t solve the mystery of why we’re here and must recognize, and finally succumb to, its remote, implacable power over us. Actually you have a third, radically compromised, option: (3) Believe in what you can, work for whatever good you can accomplish by doing so, and don’t let the lingering unanswered questions trick you into denying the worth of life. You don’t know the worth of life. Respect the force, albeit the sometimes brute force, of what you can’t and never will understand. That’s the deal we get, the only deal, from the day we’re born until the end of our perplexing journey here.