Title: "Who, what am I?" : Tolstoy struggles to narrate the self /
Authors: Paperno, Irina
Year: 2014
Subjects: Tolstoy, Leo,; Tolstoy, Leo, Criticism and interpretation.; Russian prose literature History and criticism; Autobiography Authorship; Identity (Psychology) in literature.; Self in literature.; Autobiography Authorship; Identity (Psychology) in literature.; Russian prose literature; Self in literature.
Abstract: "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: 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. Tolstoys 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.