The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy
We learned Tolstoy’s mother was a princess, and Leo was a
count. He joined the Army as a “junker” –
junior officer that is somewhat of a gopher.
Jack pointed out that the 12 chapters are subdivided into three groups
of four: the first four are his journey through
Life; the next four are his diagnosis and struggle with the concept of Death;
the last four is his dying and finally, accepting death. “Ivan
Ilych's life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most
terrible.” Yogi Berra said, “If you don’t
go to other people’s funerals, they won’t come to yours.” With that in mind, several readers came to
pay their first respects:
Bob
Simon: I give this book
an A-,
my usual grade for a well-written book.
This is the first Russian novel I have read, and I enjoyed it. The first 40 years provided insight into the
Russian legal profession.
Dick
Arms: When I started this
book was a B – short, depressing – but very well written. It moved up to an A. It was interesting to me that this short book
engendered so much discussion. We are
all concerned with our own death. I have
not ever read any Tolstoy before. A
Kenny
G: Although I
thought it was well-written, at my age it was depressing. B+
Charlie: I give it an A; I think of it more and more. This is an emotional issue; it eats away at
you like a pain in your side. This business
about Death is depressing and the book is A.
Bob
Woods: A- Profound, philosophical; could have been a
lot shorter.
Jack
F: I agree with
everyone else. The theme interest is a function
of our age. Challenging, worthwhile, A
Mike: I appreciate the insight of the
discussion. I found some repetition in
the last few chapters, when Ivan was dying, which was highly distracting. I found it amazing that Tolstoy (even
translated) could describe and discuss the banality of life, e.g., choosing the
decorations for the apartment, and make it interesting, even compelling. A-
Tom
G: A- as a novella, I agree with the comments that
the book was insightful with respect to the people surrounding Ivan. I didn’t think about the translator, it didn’t
bother me. Some beautiful language,
e.g., re Ivan’s sad marriage: “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
awhile and then set out upon that ocean of veiled hostility which showed itself
in their aloofness from one another.”
Dick
J: I did not look
forward to reading this after War &
Peace. One night after dinner I
started into it, and I found I really got into it. I didn’t understand the image of the black
sack and the light until our discussion.
A-
Ron
Bousek: I have a joke
and a poem. The joke: a priest, a lawyer, and an engineer are
sentenced to death by guillotine. The
priest says “I want to die looking up to heaven.” … The engineer looks up, and says, “Hey, I
think I see your problem!” The book we
read has the tone of this poem: “Unknown
Citizen” by W. H. Auden.
I liked this book.
It reads relevantly even though it was written so many years ago – dealing
with bureaucrats happened to me. Good
read: A
Keith: I enjoyed it also. Not only its brevity but also a subject we
don’t often discuss. Like a girl in a
mini-skirt, there may not be much material there, but there is plenty to talk
about, viz.: the foibles of death – its inevitability.
Nabokov: The
Tolstoyan formula is: Ivan lived a bad life and since the bad life is nothing
but the death of the soul, then Ivan lived a living death; and since beyond
death is God's living light, then Ivan died into a new life – Life with a
capital L." A-
