Mini Book Review #3: Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich.
The third book in this short-but-sweet summary series is a novel by a great Russian author, Leo Tolstoy.
“Ivan Ilyich’s life had been most simple and most ordinary, and therefore most terrible,” Tolstoy writes as he introduces his protagonist. Ivan Ilyich spends his life in correctness and propriety according to the standards of his upper-class peers. But when he lays dying of a mysterious disease, he finds that his mental horror is worse than his physical pain. “Maybe I did not live as I ought to have done,” he wonders. But then he promptly dismisses this as a reason for his fear of death. “But how could that be, when I did everything properly?” His sins were done “with white gloves on,” and were only of the approved type for wealthy officials, so they must not be truly sinful. Yet he suffers and cannot allow himself to let go of life. His “very justification of his life held him fast and prevented his moving forward, and caused him the most torment of all.” Finally, “at the end of the third day” of his worst agonies, his only son’s compassion causes Ivan to at last humble himself and ask for forgiveness. And then, “in place of death there was light.”
This is a short and brilliant novel. If you’ve always wanted to try reading a book by one of the great Russian authors, The Death of Ivan Ilyich is the perfect place to dip your toes in the water.
A favorite quote about bureaucracy:
“His father…had made the sort of career which brings men to positions from which…they cannot be dismissed, though they are obviously unfit to hold any responsible position, and for whom therefore posts are specially created, which though fictitious carry salaries…that are not fictitious…”
