8 h 13 minAudiobook6 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 8 h 13 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
Where do you look for God when the people around you go hungry?
In Maxim Gorky's The Confession, Matvei looks back on a life shaped by poverty and a restless search for faith. Unable to settle, he takes to the road. Monasteries, pilgrims and village crowds offer answers, but the suffering of ordinary people keeps him asking what those answers are worth.
An older wanderer, Iona, guides Matvei with the experience of the road. Beggars, monks and travellers bring other views of God, while villagers' hunger, work and small kindnesses test what he hears. Told as a plain, personal confession, this short novel explores doubt, human brotherhood and the hope of finding something that can hold people together.
What you’ll discover
- A voice worth hearing Matvei speaks as though you have time to listen, bringing his restless questions close.
- The pilgrim road Follow a poor wanderer through monasteries and village crowds, weighing the answers he receives.
- A guide with experience Meet Iona, whose long acquaintance with faith and wandering puts Matvei's ideas to the test.
- Faith under pressure Consider questions about God alongside hunger, cruelty and hardship that prayer does not ease.
- The pull of brotherhood Explore Gorky's argument about religious hope, socialism and what people might find in one another.
Who will love it
Readers who love Russian fiction, wandering heroes and stories where faith is argued out loud will find a companion here. It suits anyone drawn to questions about God, justice, work and what people owe one another.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A foundling finds a gentle teacher in Larion
- Savelko the thief shows that faith can sing
- Piety turns into a bargain with Titoff
- Love and doubt trouble Matvei
- A kind woman in a snowy town
- The monastery sells prayer like bread
- Anthony offers cleverness in place of God
- The road shows a land of lost seekers
- The search becomes a question about people
- What the story is really about
Who’s who
- MatveiA foundling and the narrator, who loses his faith through grief and wanders Russia asking where God is.
- LarionThe gentle red-haired sexton who raises Matvei, loves birds and teaches him that God leaves the living to help themselves.
- Savelko MigunA singing thief and Larion's friend, who mocks false miracles and believes people are better than they look.
- Yegor TitoffThe estate manager who takes Matvei in and draws him into cheating peasants, bargaining with God to excuse his thefts.
- OlgaTitoff's gentle daughter, whom Matvei loves and marries, and who fears she will die in childbirth.
- Father AnthonyA handsome, learned monk who lives in luxury and offers Matvei only mockery and doubt.
- JehudielA cheerful defrocked priest who walks the roads and sends Matvei toward a new way of seeing people and God.
- MikhailA young teacher in a factory town who explains to Matvei why pain isolates a person and unity brings strength.
Formats and delivery
- eBook
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- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 8 h 13 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 6 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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The Confession
by Maxim Gorky · 1908
A foundling raised by a bird-catching sexton walks across Russia to find where God hides.
Medium level5–10 hours to read25 languages
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In short
Where is God when a child is abandoned and the church sells miracles? Matvei, a foundling, puts his questions to priests, monks and pilgrims.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A foundling finds a gentle teacher in Larion
The gardener Danil finds the baby Matvei on the steps of a shrine on Mr. Loseff's estate. At four he goes to live with Larion, the lonely, red-haired sexton.
Larion teaches the boy to catch songbirds, and the birds crawl over his hair without fear. He sings funeral hymns in a thin voice because, he says, the dead are the only people anyone pities. When Matvei asks why God helps so little, Larion answers that God is there to make dying less terrible, while how to live is a person's own affair. He also tells the boy to keep a childlike heart, because truth lies there.
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What does The Confession say about religion?
The Confession tests religious belief against everyday treatment of others. Through Matvei’s encounters with priests, monks and pilgrims, it challenges faith used to excuse greed or demand obedience. Kindness from people such as Larion and Tatiana offers a contrasting measure of goodness.
Who is Larion in The Confession?
Larion is the red-haired village sexton who raises Matvei. He loves birds, sings funeral hymns, doubts the devil and teaches the boy that God's task is to ease death while people must help themselves.
Who is Jehudiel and why does he matter?
Jehudiel is a cheerful defrocked priest whom Matvei meets on the road near Perm. His warm, odd ideas about God and the people shake Matvei and send him to a factory town to learn from workers.
The author
Maxim Gorky
1868–1936 · Russian and Soviet novelist
Maksim Gorky (1868–1936) was a Russian and Soviet writer born in Nizhny Novgorod. His real name was Aleksey Maksimovich Peshkov. He wrote novels, stories and plays, including The Lower Depths (1902) and Mother (1906). He lived in Russia and Italy and died near Moscow.
More by Maxim Gorky
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