Take a photo of a barcode or cover
whiskeybucket 's review for:
The Death of Ivan Ilyich
by Leo Tolstoy
The Death of Ivan Ilyich marked one of the final books I read in 2022.
What a way to end out the year.
Tolstoy writes with masterful brevity. In just over fifty pages, I get a sour taste of what death feels like. I am enthralled by this concise and relevant and beautiful work.
Ivan Ilyich is dying. Actually, he's already dead. Tolstoy opens the novella with Ivan's funeral. His self-absorbed wife is wondering if she is entitled to more money and his ambitious coworkers anticipate the new promotional opening with rapture. It seems as though Ivan will not be missed.
But we soon learn that there's more to Ilyich than money. The novella describes Ivan's life: his not entirely loveless yet clearly strategic marriage with the respectable Praskovya Fyodorovna, his stable career as an official in St. Petersburg, and his delightful home where he resides with his wife and children. On what seems like all accounts, Ivan is content with his life. Yet when he learns that he is plagued by a terminal illness, he realizes that he has yet to truly live.
Read the full review at https://thenovellocal.blogspot.com/2022/12/the-death-of-ivan-ilyich.html
What a way to end out the year.
Tolstoy writes with masterful brevity. In just over fifty pages, I get a sour taste of what death feels like. I am enthralled by this concise and relevant and beautiful work.
Ivan Ilyich is dying. Actually, he's already dead. Tolstoy opens the novella with Ivan's funeral. His self-absorbed wife is wondering if she is entitled to more money and his ambitious coworkers anticipate the new promotional opening with rapture. It seems as though Ivan will not be missed.
But we soon learn that there's more to Ilyich than money. The novella describes Ivan's life: his not entirely loveless yet clearly strategic marriage with the respectable Praskovya Fyodorovna, his stable career as an official in St. Petersburg, and his delightful home where he resides with his wife and children. On what seems like all accounts, Ivan is content with his life. Yet when he learns that he is plagued by a terminal illness, he realizes that he has yet to truly live.
Read the full review at https://thenovellocal.blogspot.com/2022/12/the-death-of-ivan-ilyich.html