The Death of Ivan Ilych and other stories

by Leo Tolstoy

The death of Ivan Ilych --
The Kreutzer sonata --
Master and man.

Genres: Classics, Fiction

Paperback

Published January 1, 1960

About the author

Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (Russian: Лев Николаевич Толстой; most appropriately used Liev Tolstoy; commonly Leo Tolstoy in Anglophone countries) was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays. His two most famous works, the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and a pinnacle of realist fiction. Many consider Tolstoy to have been one of the world's greatest novelists. Tolstoy is equally known for his complicated and paradoxical persona and for his extreme moralistic and ascetic views, which he adopted after a moral crisis and spiritual awakening in the 1870s, after which he also became noted as a moral thinker and social reformer.

His literal interpretation of the ethical teachings of Jesus, centering on the Sermon on the Mount, caused him in later life to become a fervent Christian anarchist and anarcho-pacifist. His ideas on nonviolent resistance, expressed in such works as The Kingdom of God Is Within You, were to have a profound impact on such pivotal twentieth-century figures as Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Reviews

[Ehmbee Way · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection from Tolstoy contains seven "short" stories--though at least two of them are more like novellas. I really wanted to give this book a five star review because I found five of the seven stories to be absolutely brilliant. The Raid and The Woodfelling, however, while still good, were not on the same level as the rest of Tolstoy's stories. Having said all of that, I would highly recommend this book to anyone who loves classic Russian literature or to anyone who loves literature in general.

[Bethany Schultz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading this as a nurse and also as a person who has attended the deathbed of several grandparents, this was a very meaningful read. Oh Ivan! You came to realize that the “correctness” of your life was not all there was to real life. And I’m so glad you did. Your suffering, anguish, and despair made me cry, and your relief from those things made me weep for joy.

I quite possibly read this too soon after the passing of my grandfather, because this touched maybe too many emotions than I expected.

[Robin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Russian literature is not for the faint of heart. I usually allow two to three years of recovery time between reading any Russian novel, short story collection, play, or poem, because apparently the Russian classics have cornered the literary market for the theme of despair. But I have been especially avoiding reading "The Death if Ivan Ilych" for quite some time, because of its legacy of being...particularly despairing. Still, after having read a series of light books, I felt suitably buoyed up in spirit for this particularly Russian trip into failure, misery, and death. Well, I've finished it. I think I will wait my customary two to three years before reading another piece of Russian literature. In fact, I think I may want to watch some happy cat or dog or penguin videos online after I finish writing this. But I'm glad I read it.

My edition of "The Death of Ivan Ilych and other stories" contained the title novella, as well as "The Kreutzer Sonata" and "Master and Man". I'll briefly review those three.

"Ivan Ilych": Ivan Ilych Golovin, a prosperous judge and well-liked man in his social circle, has died after a prolonged illness. We see his funeral, his widow, and his friends who find the thought of death--specifically their deaths--uncomfortable. But then Tolstoy begins narrating Ivan Ilych's life which, "had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible." Tolstoy snarks his way through the early sections of the novella, such as when he tells us that Ivan occasionally read novels that everyone else was reading or that he took great joy in having dinner parties in dining rooms that look like everyone else's dining room. But, despite some marital squabbles, Ivan Ilych is proud of his position, work, and place in society. But when Ivan Ilych begins suffering from an unknown ailment, he begins to look deeply at his life and realizes that he is, in fact, not happy. "Ivan Ilych" forces us to ask deep, meaningful questions of both his society and ourselves--what is "happiness"? What makes a life worth living? How do we understand suffering and death? Is this novella sometimes heavy-handed? Perhaps a bit. But Ivan Ilych's struggles are none the less real and moving. It is little wonder that it is often a required text for those studying to be hospice or end-of-life caregivers.

"The Kreutzer Sonata": Oh boy. I had...a lot of feelings about this one. Where to start? After partaking in a conversation about marriage with strangers on a train, the nameless narrator ends up in conversation with an infamous man who murdered his wife but was acquitted of the crime. What follows is a tale of a troubled marriage and its slow, painful descent into consuming jealousy and obsession. On the one hand, this is a pretty masterful example of perspective and narration. The husband, Pozdnyshev, is passionate in telling the story of his courtship, marriage, and ultimate destruction of his wife, and I found myself pitying him. But his perspective is so self-focused, it should make us wonder. How much of what he reported happened between he and his wife was real or imagined? Was his wife having an affair at all, or was it just the product of an unhealthy mind? The play between the earnestness of the narration and the accuracy of the events made it an interesting read. On the other hand, Tolstoy, who went through a spiritual crisis in his later life, used "Sonata" to push his controversial ideas about marriage and sex. While not graphic per se, the intensity and force of Tolstoy's disgust for his culture's sexual morals (or lack thereof) led to "Sonata" being censored or banned for many years in several countries. In his advocacy for complete abstinence, (yes, even for married folks) I suspect Freudian thinkers would have a jolly time reading this book. But what is even more odd is that Tolstoy would use a somewhat unhinged, murderous husband to argue these ideas. Even when I find myself partially agreeing with the narrator, a page later I found myself backing away from the insanity. It's an odd if terrifically interesting read.

"Master and Man" - Well, they all couldn't be winners. Weakest of the lot, "Master and Man" tells the story of money-obsessed Vasili Andreevich and his servant, struggling reformed alcoholic Nikita. Worried that he will lose an investment opportunity, Vasili Andreevich leaves a family party on a snowy night that turns into a terrible storm, taking long-suffering Nikita with him. As the two men struggle to survive, both will demonstrate what it means to really live. It follows a lot of similar ideas as "Ivan Ilych" but not nearly as well. Also, the beginning of the story, during their multiple attempts to trek through the snow, goes on interminably. A poor story from a man who has written far, far better ones.

[Andre King · Rating 3 out of 5]

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