Funny how a single page is enough to see oneself before a great soul. What is the difference between the great writer to the average writer? Leaving aside aesthetics, the great writer addresses the great questions of life. And Tolstoy, in this essay called A Confession, shows why he is among the greatest writers of all times: he recognizes and faces the greatest human problems. Why live, if life is about destroying everything that exists? Why make any effort if the end is invariably nothing? How can not consider life as the supreme evil, since it always leads to sickness and mortification? Is there anything that death does not destroy? How to accept fate, or rather: how to interpret it? These and other questions fill the few pages of this magnificent work, like everything I have come into contact with from the pen of this genius. One page, I repeat, one page of Tolstoy is enough to understand that great literature will never be about only telling a good story—that also does the shallow literature. Great literature is thirsty for a reply to the tormenting question: Why?

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