The Death of Ivan Ilych

This was the first Tolstoi book I‘ve ever read and I don‘t regret it! It‘s different from anything else I‘ve read and it contains some beautiful life lessons. It was relatively easy to read because it’s quite short, I had some difficulties on the first 10-15 pages tho. I would definitely recommend reading this one.

Bedrückend, eindrucksvoll. Anfangs erscheint die Geschichte des Sterbens eines Richters noch banal, schließlich kennt wohl jeder das Gefühl von Fehlern, die sich nicht wieder gutmachen lassen. Zum Ende hin allerdings werden eine Verzweiflung und ein Schmerz deutlich, die hoffentlich die wenigsten von uns je nach empfinden können.

This fine novella by Tolstoy starts off by setting the scene of Ivan Ilych´s funeral. Narrated by his former school friend, there is a sarcastic undertone when referring to the behavior of attending individuals, whether family or friends or business partners, who pursue their own agenda instead of mourning the death of Ilych. The following chapters are dedicated to Ivan Ilych´s dramatic inner world and his thoughts as they change during the course of his terminal illness. He reflects, whether he truly lived his life while he climbed up the social ladder and endured a cumbersome marriage. Ilych´s battle with his illness is heart-ripping and makes him resent people around him who burst with health. Quintessentially, Tolstoy´s short story deals with fear of death and powerlessness when facing a terminal illness that medicine cannot heal. Mankind becomes a burden to his family and is no longer respected. Tolstoy induces us into the inner world and deep reflections in the face of death where logic and rationale can no longer give consolation. Very compelling, extremely moving read that will stick to my mind for a lifetime. At the same time, this novella of around 100 pages gets you acquainted with Tolstoy´s writing style before you dive into any of his other masterpieces such as "War and Peace" that are longer than 1000 pages. #groupreading #YouOnlyLiveONCE IG: nilguen_reads

It is a widespread stereotype that Russian classics are mostly long, tedious, boring, a burden to get through, but one only needs to read a short book like The Death of Ivan Ilych in order to be proven wrong. A philosophical, in its beautiful writing almost lyrical account of a dying man's life, Tolstoy will make you think about your own mortality, about happiness, sorrow and most likely your own life as well. “They had supper and went away, and Ivan Ilych was left alone with the consciousness that his life was poisoned and was poisoning the lives of others, and that this poison did not weaken but penetrated more and more deeply into his whole being. With this consciousness, and with physical pain besides the terror, he must go to bed, often to lie awake the greater part of the night. Next morning he had to get up again, dress, go to the law courts, speak, and write; or if he did not go out, spend at home those twenty-four hours a day each of which was a torture. And he had to live thus all alone on the brink of an abyss, with no one who understood or pitied him.” During the course of the story, Tolstoy introduces us to the life of the unhappy Ivan Ilych, who might have expected too much from his life and had to discover the disappointing truth after his marriage failed to induce happiness and death tore its way through his soul way too early. Tolstoy uses his protagonist to help us realize how we all have to die one day, and there will surely be readers who, just like Ivan Ilych, always thought of death as something foreign they wouldn't have to worry about until a long time later. The author's prose is highly readable and might just as well have originated from someone who wrote the book five or ten years ago; besides, Tolstoy knows how to captivate his reader, thus The Death of Ivan Ilych can only be called a book which can't be recommended highly enough for readers interested in Russian literature or, on a more general note, classics. “There remained only those rare periods of amorousness, which still came to them at times but did not last long. These were islets at which they anchored for a while and then again set out upon that ocean of veiled hostility which showed itself in their aloofness from one another.” Tolstoy defines the marriage between Ivan Ilych and Praskovya Fedorovna as an engagement of mutual aversion, founded in their hopes to find concealment and secureness which were shattered only months after their wedding. The sadness behind the realizations of those two characters that their marriage has never been destined to bring happiness into their lives will cloud their sorrowful lives, until the slow, but torturous demise of Ivan Ilych turns into the ultimate factor driving them apart from each other. If you are intimidated by the length of classics like [b:Anna Karenina|15823480|Anna Karenina|Leo Tolstoy|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1352422904s/15823480.jpg|2507928], [b:War and Peace|656|War and Peace|Leo Tolstoy|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1413215930s/656.jpg|4912783], [b:Crime and Punishment|7144|Crime and Punishment|Fyodor Dostoyevsky|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1382846449s/7144.jpg|3393917] and the like, then I can almost assure you that reading some shorter novellas like The Death of Ivan Ilych or Dostoyevksy's [b:White Nights|1772910|White Nights|Fyodor Dostoyevsky|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1450699039s/1772910.jpg|4111509] will help you with finding a way into Russian literature, coming to terms with the rather uncommon names and growing an interest in the huge Russian classics which will surpass the simple feeling of pressure to read them just because others said those are books everyone has to read. And they probably are. But it's always easier to anticipate rather than dread them, so novellas like these will be extremely helpful.