Un-narrativing

What happens when the story unravels?

“Tolstoy & I, 8-13-25,” 10”x8” blue pencil on original pages

Leo Tolstoy's correspondence with Ghandi is credited with initiating the ideas behind civil disobedience. However, in his personal life, based on my readings of her extensive diaries, it seems he was so emotionally abusive to his wife Sofia, that on more than one occasion, she was driven to suicide attempts. Publicly, Tolstoy based his thinking on Christian theology, including sexual abstinence. Privately, he used that as a pretext to be withholding and judgemental even as he kept having sex with Sofia and getting her pregnant: 16 times.