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4.01 AVERAGE
4.01 AVERAGE
Brilliantly written case study on life and on death. Ivan's entire life was a shell. He was completely miserable only for a few days of his life did he find anything resembling enjoyment. This shows how miserable he was even before he discovered his injury:
So they began living in their new home -- in which, as always happens, when they got thoroughly settled in they found they were just one room short -- and with the increased income, which as always was just a little (some five hundred rubles) too little, but it was all very nice.
All his thoughts, worries, regrets, animosity, it continued to grow up until his final day.
Tolstoy goes to great lengths to show you the desperation of order as Ivan lays dying. Everything must be put into place, everyone must have a reason.
His interaction with Death is classic. They why, why couldn't I have had more, Why couldn't I have had a good life, Why didn't I live a better life, Why didn't I make better decisions.
Profound and leaves me wondering at all the things I have remaining incomplete in my own life. I believe that was the author's intent. To place ourselves in Ivan's position. To go through the motion of that mental checklist of what we have remaining. To look at the wasted relationships. The wasted rat race of working to make more money to spend more money to life as a shell of a thing that in the end we look back at and detest.
So they began living in their new home -- in which, as always happens, when they got thoroughly settled in they found they were just one room short -- and with the increased income, which as always was just a little (some five hundred rubles) too little, but it was all very nice.
All his thoughts, worries, regrets, animosity, it continued to grow up until his final day.
Tolstoy goes to great lengths to show you the desperation of order as Ivan lays dying. Everything must be put into place, everyone must have a reason.
His interaction with Death is classic. They why, why couldn't I have had more, Why couldn't I have had a good life, Why didn't I live a better life, Why didn't I make better decisions.
Profound and leaves me wondering at all the things I have remaining incomplete in my own life. I believe that was the author's intent. To place ourselves in Ivan's position. To go through the motion of that mental checklist of what we have remaining. To look at the wasted relationships. The wasted rat race of working to make more money to spend more money to life as a shell of a thing that in the end we look back at and detest.
challenging
dark
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This book just hits differently at 56 than it does at 24. When I first read this, I was impressed by how much was conveyed with such brevity. Now, the nostalgia of a life lived (but was it well enough?), the anger at that life being cut short, the despair and horror at such an end...they all mean very different things than they did to my invincible mid-20s self.
There is the drama of his unhappy marriage, from which he escapes to a career that betrays him. Then the resurgence - a new life on offer only to result in his eventual death.
I am reminded of years ago, reading about a woman who died after sitting on a wine glass. I was struck by the fact that this detail was actually included in the obit - the summary of someone's life in print typically glosses of how that life ended. It felt so senseless. Tolstoy captures the senselessness and waste of Ivan's death
There is the drama of his unhappy marriage, from which he escapes to a career that betrays him. Then the resurgence - a new life on offer only to result in his eventual death.
I am reminded of years ago, reading about a woman who died after sitting on a wine glass. I was struck by the fact that this detail was actually included in the obit - the summary of someone's life in print typically glosses of how that life ended. It felt so senseless. Tolstoy captures the senselessness and waste of Ivan's death
First of all, I rarely read classics or any other literature for adults, and I know almost nothing of Russian history. So if you need a relevant, insightful review, skip mine.
However, I'm really glad for the cover illustration (The Metropolitan Josif Semasko in his Study by Ivan Formic Kruckij, which was on the edition I read [b:The Death of Ivan Ilych & Other Stories|18385|The Death of Ivan Ilych & Other Stories|Leo Tolstoy|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1386912817s/18385.jpg|47254548]ISBN 9781593080693), and which shows a drawing room decorated with lovely furniture and paintings; exactly the kind of room where Ivan Ilych has a minor accident which seems to be of no consequence, but later is blamed for his slowly-growing-and-unremediably-excruciating pain, which leads him to re-cast his entire life in a dark and depressing light, which results in him questioning his purpose and value in life.
The quaint loveliness of the cover illustration is the perfect demonstration of how and why many people might also have lived (or now live) a life just like Ivan Ilych - it looks so lovely and comfortable and apparently meaningful and sophisticated and circumspect. Yet Tolstoy's writing clearly shows how much personal torment can exist within that pretty picture.
I can't say it's an enjoyable read. I also can't say that it's very enlightening - because I didn't start out thinking that a mundane but successful life in law or bureaucracy ever had much attraction for me. Given that Tolstoy, in 1886, probably expected this story to be read by literate, well-placed Russians and other people, some reading it in translation, it is still hard for me to see how it would inspire a reader to live a life that is more meaningful, fulfilling, and purposeful than Ivan Ilych's.
So I suspect that Tolstoy mostly needed to describe his own despair, and wasn't much more sure how to escape it than his character Ivan Ilych was.
And it would seem colossally arrogant of me to say that if Ivan Ilych had simply chosen a career and a life partner and hobbies and things to focus on that were more deeply significant to humanity, or even simply more meaningful to him in the first place, then when he came into the grip of a degenerative illness, he may not have tormented himself or his family so dreadfully. Tolstoy's own life can't have been as bereft of meaning as Ivan Ilych's, and yet, from all accounts, he made himself miserable thinking it was. (Do you think maybe he was using opium or morphine, and it made him paranoid & self-hating?)
I guess the important part is that I didn't feel ANY empathy for Ivan Ilych or any other character in the story. Assuming Tolstoy is a genius and I'm an average reader (not terrible), his point seems to have been to show an entirely unsympathetic portrayal of a waste of a human being.
If Tolstoy wanted this to act as a "mirror" to help readers see themselves, for whom will his point be effective? Ivan Ilych fooled himself by claiming (at first) that his career made his life meaningful, by appreciating his young wife when they were first together, and by stressing the connections and pride he felt in his effective accomplishments and friends, rather than merely on his trappings of success. Therefore, isn't it likely that readers for whom this is something of a "mirror" may also fool themselves, and get their own moment's realization of the futility of their existence too late because they won't fully identify with Ivan Ilych until they too are in excruciating pain? I'm sure Tolstory wrestled with this, because he includes the syllogism that failed to enlighten Ivan Ilych; "Caius is a man, men are mortal, therefore Caius is mortal..." which had "...seemed to him all his life correct only as regards Caius, but not at all as regards himself." Is that sufficient to enlighten readers?
I think those readers would benefit from further suggestions from Tolstoy indicating a direction toward a better life, one that is more deeply satisfying and fulfilling, if he could come up with any. Some reviewers suggest that the peasant Gerasim or Ivan Ilych's young son show that alternate life path - but their characters are insufficient! With ten pages of dispassionate description of Ivan Ilych's life from a mere acquaintance, nearly fifty pages of his interior monologue of moaning and regret, and barely one sentence uttered by Gerasim or the son, nobody could really think those two are the contrasting examples of an ethical, fulfilling life! And nobody will see either of them as a "mirror" because Gerasim and the son are too minimal, too shallow, and too superficial.
Perhaps Tolstoy wanted his story to act as a "window" aimed at readers who didn't/couldn't have the material success of Ivan Ilych anyway, hoping this object-lesson might lead them to want that vapid life even less. (...a motivation which I think fits in with Russian history, in general...) If so, I'm wondering how those readers take these facts of the story: Ivan Ilych didn't have to suffer so, he had the means to go to the doctor straight away; he was inordinately preoccupied with the appearance of his career and his drawing-room, abnormally so - and yet, from the description of his career, he was reasonable and good at it, so he deserved to be satisfied with his choices; and none of it was really his fault - the doctors failed to follow through with him, his wife was unsupportive & judgmental.
I understand that in 1886 doctors used opium and morphine. Could this also be a treatise against the side effects of those painkillers?
If this is the best writer humanity can produce on the topic of death, no wonder we all seem to have a hard time grasping it. However, I realize I'm being hypercritical, so I will leave with my favorite quote, from the end of Chapter X:
I kinda think that if Ivan Ilych could daydream about his coming death in contemporary terms of the physics of gravitational pull and how it relates to the speed of a stone falling into darkness, and patiently wait, staring at the sofa, for the shock of the fall, then his life was probably as meaningful as anyone else's - because he probably brought that consciousness to the rest of his interactions. And if that is not who Ivan Ilych really is, then I wonder if maybe Tolstoy got his own self confused with Ivan Ilych's self right there?
However, I'm really glad for the cover illustration (The Metropolitan Josif Semasko in his Study by Ivan Formic Kruckij, which was on the edition I read [b:The Death of Ivan Ilych & Other Stories|18385|The Death of Ivan Ilych & Other Stories|Leo Tolstoy|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1386912817s/18385.jpg|47254548]ISBN 9781593080693), and which shows a drawing room decorated with lovely furniture and paintings; exactly the kind of room where Ivan Ilych has a minor accident which seems to be of no consequence, but later is blamed for his slowly-growing-and-unremediably-excruciating pain, which leads him to re-cast his entire life in a dark and depressing light, which results in him questioning his purpose and value in life
Spoiler
, which finally culminates in a moment, just before his death, when he accepts himself, his superficial family, and his death, with just moments to spare - and far too late to craft anything meaningful from his realizationThe quaint loveliness of the cover illustration is the perfect demonstration of how and why many people might also have lived (or now live) a life just like Ivan Ilych - it looks so lovely and comfortable and apparently meaningful and sophisticated and circumspect. Yet Tolstoy's writing clearly shows how much personal torment can exist within that pretty picture.
I can't say it's an enjoyable read. I also can't say that it's very enlightening - because I didn't start out thinking that a mundane but successful life in law or bureaucracy ever had much attraction for me. Given that Tolstoy, in 1886, probably expected this story to be read by literate, well-placed Russians and other people, some reading it in translation, it is still hard for me to see how it would inspire a reader to live a life that is more meaningful, fulfilling, and purposeful than Ivan Ilych's.
So I suspect that Tolstoy mostly needed to describe his own despair, and wasn't much more sure how to escape it than his character Ivan Ilych was.
And it would seem colossally arrogant of me to say that if Ivan Ilych had simply chosen a career and a life partner and hobbies and things to focus on that were more deeply significant to humanity, or even simply more meaningful to him in the first place, then when he came into the grip of a degenerative illness, he may not have tormented himself or his family so dreadfully. Tolstoy's own life can't have been as bereft of meaning as Ivan Ilych's, and yet, from all accounts, he made himself miserable thinking it was. (Do you think maybe he was using opium or morphine, and it made him paranoid & self-hating?)
I guess the important part is that I didn't feel ANY empathy for Ivan Ilych or any other character in the story. Assuming Tolstoy is a genius and I'm an average reader (not terrible), his point seems to have been to show an entirely unsympathetic portrayal of a waste of a human being.
If Tolstoy wanted this to act as a "mirror" to help readers see themselves, for whom will his point be effective? Ivan Ilych fooled himself by claiming (at first) that his career made his life meaningful, by appreciating his young wife when they were first together, and by stressing the connections and pride he felt in his effective accomplishments and friends, rather than merely on his trappings of success. Therefore, isn't it likely that readers for whom this is something of a "mirror" may also fool themselves, and get their own moment's realization of the futility of their existence too late because they won't fully identify with Ivan Ilych until they too are in excruciating pain? I'm sure Tolstory wrestled with this, because he includes the syllogism that failed to enlighten Ivan Ilych; "Caius is a man, men are mortal, therefore Caius is mortal..." which had "...seemed to him all his life correct only as regards Caius, but not at all as regards himself." Is that sufficient to enlighten readers?
I think those readers would benefit from further suggestions from Tolstoy indicating a direction toward a better life, one that is more deeply satisfying and fulfilling, if he could come up with any. Some reviewers suggest that the peasant Gerasim or Ivan Ilych's young son show that alternate life path - but their characters are insufficient! With ten pages of dispassionate description of Ivan Ilych's life from a mere acquaintance, nearly fifty pages of his interior monologue of moaning and regret, and barely one sentence uttered by Gerasim or the son, nobody could really think those two are the contrasting examples of an ethical, fulfilling life! And nobody will see either of them as a "mirror" because Gerasim and the son are too minimal, too shallow, and too superficial.
Perhaps Tolstoy wanted his story to act as a "window" aimed at readers who didn't/couldn't have the material success of Ivan Ilych anyway, hoping this object-lesson might lead them to want that vapid life even less. (...a motivation which I think fits in with Russian history, in general...) If so, I'm wondering how those readers take these facts of the story: Ivan Ilych didn't have to suffer so, he had the means to go to the doctor straight away; he was inordinately preoccupied with the appearance of his career and his drawing-room, abnormally so - and yet, from the description of his career, he was reasonable and good at it, so he deserved to be satisfied with his choices; and none of it was really his fault - the doctors failed to follow through with him, his wife was unsupportive & judgmental.
I understand that in 1886 doctors used opium and morphine. Could this also be a treatise against the side effects of those painkillers?
If this is the best writer humanity can produce on the topic of death, no wonder we all seem to have a hard time grasping it. However, I realize I'm being hypercritical, so I will leave with my favorite quote, from the end of Chapter X:
"One light spot was there at the back, at the beginning of life, and then it kept getting blacker and blacker, and going faster and faster 'In inverse ratio to the square of the distance from death,' thought Ivan Ilych. And the image of a stone falling downwards with increasing velocity sank into his soul. Life, a series of increasing sufferings, falls more and more swiftly to the end, the most fearful sufferings. 'I am falling.' He shuddered, shifted himself, would have resisted, but he knew beforehand that he could not resist; and again, with eyes weary with gazing at it, but unable not to gaze at what was before him, he stared at the back of the sofa and waited, waited expecting that the fearful fall and shock and dissolution. 'Resistance is impossible,' he said to himself..."
I kinda think that if Ivan Ilych could daydream about his coming death in contemporary terms of the physics of gravitational pull and how it relates to the speed of a stone falling into darkness, and patiently wait, staring at the sofa, for the shock of the fall, then his life was probably as meaningful as anyone else's - because he probably brought that consciousness to the rest of his interactions. And if that is not who Ivan Ilych really is, then I wonder if maybe Tolstoy got his own self confused with Ivan Ilych's self right there?
Never thought I’d read Tolstoy, but this definitely makes me want to read some of his other work! I really
enjoyed this story and the life lessons it contained. It is concise and eloquently written and makes you think about what is really important in life. Highly recommend!
enjoyed this story and the life lessons it contained. It is concise and eloquently written and makes you think about what is really important in life. Highly recommend!
No rating for now. I enjoyed listening to this, and I know it's good, but I think I'll need to reread it several times over to properly appreciate it. I would have liked to see some more of the characters who appeared in chapter one and promptly disappeared from the rest of the story, and I personally was hoping for some more overt discussion of Christianity, but I'm not sure those are really complaints. Like I said, I'll need to reread it.
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
“Talvez eu não tenha vivido como se deve - acudia-lhe de súbito à mente. - Mas como não, se eu fiz tudo como é preciso?”
Tinha este livro na prateleira há anos. Finalmente, li - meu primeiro contato com a literatura russa, e não me arrependo nem um pouco dessa decisão. A ideia de levar uma vida pela qual valha à pena morrer é antiga, um clichê. Ainda assim, sinto que é algo que precisa ser repetido incessantemente, porque dentro do capitalismo tardio não nos sobra tempo para se pensar nisso.
“A morte de Ivan Ilitch”, então, demonstra em 76 páginas, de forma abismal, a agonia de uma morte sem sentido - expressada nas dezenas de “por quês?” proferidos por Ivan. Depois de fazer o que deveria ser feito, depois de viver em busca e em prol de prestígio e estabilidade social, Ilitch se encontra moribundo e é obrigado a encarar o fato de que, apesar de sua posição na carreira e na sociedade, não havia nada na sua vida que lhe valesse a morte. No seu fim, os amigos escolhidos à dedo na alta sociedade e sua família, também advinda de um “bom casamento”, pouco se importaram com sua situação.
Postumamente, só se importaram com o que ele deixou de valor para seus próprios interesses. É obrigado a encarar que fez todas as escolhas erradas, apesar de escolher o certo. E é isso que o corrói. Ele luta contra a morte porque se recusa a reconhecer que sua vida não teve impacto - sua morte, menos ainda.
Sua relação com Guerássim me marejou os olhos em muitos momentos - a única pessoa que se importou minimamente com ele na morte foi um “serviçal”, um dos “pé rapados” que ele tanto recusou.
Foi uma leitura rápida, mas que me tocou profundamente. Nos deixa com um sabor ruim na boca. Será que estou vivendo, verdadeiramente vivendo? Será que quando me tocar a morte, eu verei a luz mais rápido ou lutarei contra a confirmação da desimportância da minha existência? Será que quando eu deixar de Ser, significará tanto para alguém quanto significou para mim?
Tinha este livro na prateleira há anos. Finalmente, li - meu primeiro contato com a literatura russa, e não me arrependo nem um pouco dessa decisão. A ideia de levar uma vida pela qual valha à pena morrer é antiga, um clichê. Ainda assim, sinto que é algo que precisa ser repetido incessantemente, porque dentro do capitalismo tardio não nos sobra tempo para se pensar nisso.
“A morte de Ivan Ilitch”, então, demonstra em 76 páginas, de forma abismal, a agonia de uma morte sem sentido - expressada nas dezenas de “por quês?” proferidos por Ivan. Depois de fazer o que deveria ser feito, depois de viver em busca e em prol de prestígio e estabilidade social, Ilitch se encontra moribundo e é obrigado a encarar o fato de que, apesar de sua posição na carreira e na sociedade, não havia nada na sua vida que lhe valesse a morte. No seu fim, os amigos escolhidos à dedo na alta sociedade e sua família, também advinda de um “bom casamento”, pouco se importaram com sua situação.
Postumamente, só se importaram com o que ele deixou de valor para seus próprios interesses. É obrigado a encarar que fez todas as escolhas erradas, apesar de escolher o certo. E é isso que o corrói. Ele luta contra a morte porque se recusa a reconhecer que sua vida não teve impacto - sua morte, menos ainda.
Sua relação com Guerássim me marejou os olhos em muitos momentos - a única pessoa que se importou minimamente com ele na morte foi um “serviçal”, um dos “pé rapados” que ele tanto recusou.
Foi uma leitura rápida, mas que me tocou profundamente. Nos deixa com um sabor ruim na boca. Será que estou vivendo, verdadeiramente vivendo? Será que quando me tocar a morte, eu verei a luz mais rápido ou lutarei contra a confirmação da desimportância da minha existência? Será que quando eu deixar de Ser, significará tanto para alguém quanto significou para mim?
dark
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I was not a fan. I know Tolstoy has been deemed a great writer but this novella didn’t hit for me. I hated all of the characters. Ivan ilyvinch was such a miserable character it ended up being his demise as well.
dark
emotional
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes