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A review by vanitha
The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy
5.0
Death – what a subject! It’s been on my mind lately, and even the recent books I’ve picked up seem to revolve around it. A profound yet unsettling topic, but one we can't avoid. Here, Tolstoy tackles with remarkable insight ,the uncomfortable reality of mortality, the elusive nature of happiness, and the emptiness of societal norms. As always, Tolstoy is masterful—brutally honest yet graceful in confronting these truths. He makes us genuinely feel for Ivan Ilych, empathizing deeply with his mental and physical suffering.
“Can it be that I have not lived as one ought?" suddenly came into his head. "But how not so, when I've done everything as it should be done?”
“False. Everything by which you have lived and live now is all a deception, a lie, concealing both life and death from you.”
“It can't be that life is so senseless and horrible. But if it really has been so horrible and senseless, why must I die and die in agony? There is something wrong!”
“It occurred to him that he had not spent his life as he should have done. It occurred to him that his scarcely perceptible attempts to struggle against what was considered good by the most highly placed people, those scarcely noticeable impulses which he had immediately suppressed, might have been the real thing, and all the rest false. And his professional duties and the whole arrangement of his life and of his family, and all his social and official interests, might all have been false.”
“Can it be that I have not lived as one ought?" suddenly came into his head. "But how not so, when I've done everything as it should be done?”
“False. Everything by which you have lived and live now is all a deception, a lie, concealing both life and death from you.”
“It can't be that life is so senseless and horrible. But if it really has been so horrible and senseless, why must I die and die in agony? There is something wrong!”
“It occurred to him that he had not spent his life as he should have done. It occurred to him that his scarcely perceptible attempts to struggle against what was considered good by the most highly placed people, those scarcely noticeable impulses which he had immediately suppressed, might have been the real thing, and all the rest false. And his professional duties and the whole arrangement of his life and of his family, and all his social and official interests, might all have been false.”