Leo Tolstoy, the masterful 19th century Russian writer, was no stranger to hauntings. His mother died when he was two, his father when he was eight, and even the aunt who took him in died when he was 13. Despair was a daily part of his life. He later married and had 11 children, becoming famous from the publication of War and Peace and Anna Karenina. But death, depression, and the meaning of life itself nevertheless haunted him until his own passing.
“Perhaps I have overlooked something, or misunderstood something? It cannot be that this condition of despair is natural to man!” Tolstoy wrote. “Is there any meaning in my life that the inevitable death awaiting me does not destroy?”
It’s the fourth week of October and we’re hearing writing along the theme of haunted this month. Today, Natanya Biskar reads an excerpt from “War and Peace,” Leo Tolstoy’s classic novel. Orphaned at a young age, Tolstoy served in the Russian army as an artillery officer during the Crimean War before becoming a master of realist fiction, known for Anna Karenina, War and Peace, and many plays, novellas, and short stories.
Something I Heard is supported by Idaho Commission on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.
