“Who, What Am I?”: Tolstoy Struggles to Narrate the Self

Description

"An account of Tolstoy's lifelong attempt to find adequate ways to represent the self, to probe its limits and, ultimately, to arrive at an identity not based on the bodily self and its accumulated life experience. This book guides readers through the voluminous, highly personal nonfiction writings that Tolstoy produced from the 1850s until his death in 1910"-- Contents Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter 1. “So That I Could Easily Read Myself”: Tolstoy’s Early Diaries Interlude: Between Personal Documents and Fiction Chapter 2. “To Tell One’s Faith Is Impossible. . . . How to Tell That Which I Live By. I’ll Tell You, All the Same. . . .” Tolstoy in His Correspondence Chapter 3. Tolstoy’s Confession : What Am I? Chapter 4. “To Write My Life ”: Tolstoy Tries, and Fails, to Produce a Memoir or Autobiography Chapter 5. “What Should We Do Then?”: Tolstoy on Self and Other Chapter 6. “I Felt a Completely New Liberation from Personality”: Tolstoy’s Late Diaries Appendix: Russian Quotations Notes Index