thamera 's review for:

The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy

5.0

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Often I have a belief that a book has to be life-changing for it to be great, and although this novella was not life-changing it was definitely great. We follow Ivan Ilyich, a man who encounters death. We see Ivan's feelings towards death and how that changes throughout the rest of his life. Reading this right after Stoner by John Williams was interesting because they were quite similar. We follow both men through their course of life up until their last breaths. Tolstoy writes so we can understand trivial parts of our life and makes sense of them. That's why he's such a great writer. He puts the feelings many have into words we ourselves don't know how to express. This was a much more enjoyable read than I expected and I can't wait to read it again.