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in_between_pages 's review for:
The Death of Ivan Ilych
by Leo Tolstoy
My first Tolstoy.
A book about death, which suits my tastes perfectly (Disclaimer: I have a morbid obsession with the concept of death).
Having witnessed first-hand a dear family member struggle with death exactly one year ago, I couldn't have read this book at a better time. It is bewildering how we only recognize the inevitability of death and the mortality of our fickle selves when we finally face it, or when someone dear passes away. Only then would we realize how close death is lurking, and how life was nothing but a constant struggle with death.
Tolstoy accurately describes what it is like to face death slowly but surely moving towards you. How you cling to life with every speck of hope you can muster out of your feeble self but then when death unveils itself to you, you embrace it and wait for it. But death still mocks you. How your loved ones continue believing there is hope; that you can be saved from its clutches. But only you know the truth. You urge death on to get its job done; to rid yourself of the humility of being weak; of seeing your loved ones' pity and how much of a liability you have become to them now.
I was particularly drawn to the transformation of Ivan Ilych's character from a man obsessed with life (and its minute details) to the entire opposite. It is that critical point of time in one's life that I continuously ponder on. As perplexing and mysterious the ways of death are, I think to be human is not only to recognize one's mortality, but to contemplate it and to embrace it.
5/5
A book about death, which suits my tastes perfectly (Disclaimer: I have a morbid obsession with the concept of death).
Having witnessed first-hand a dear family member struggle with death exactly one year ago, I couldn't have read this book at a better time. It is bewildering how we only recognize the inevitability of death and the mortality of our fickle selves when we finally face it, or when someone dear passes away. Only then would we realize how close death is lurking, and how life was nothing but a constant struggle with death.
Tolstoy accurately describes what it is like to face death slowly but surely moving towards you. How you cling to life with every speck of hope you can muster out of your feeble self but then when death unveils itself to you, you embrace it and wait for it. But death still mocks you. How your loved ones continue believing there is hope; that you can be saved from its clutches. But only you know the truth. You urge death on to get its job done; to rid yourself of the humility of being weak; of seeing your loved ones' pity and how much of a liability you have become to them now.
I was particularly drawn to the transformation of Ivan Ilych's character from a man obsessed with life (and its minute details) to the entire opposite. It is that critical point of time in one's life that I continuously ponder on. As perplexing and mysterious the ways of death are, I think to be human is not only to recognize one's mortality, but to contemplate it and to embrace it.
5/5