Kyle’s Reviews > The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories > Status Update

The remaining stories minus the eponymous have little to do with death; instead they dwell on the pointlessness of life. Polikey’s life being so accidental that his suicide and family’s ruin just a matter of time before tragedy. Similar desperate situations appear in “After the Ball” and “Forged Coupon” nearly to the point of predating those acclaimed 1990s movies like Crash or Magnolia.

The remaining stories minus the eponymous have little to do with death; instead they dwell on the pointlessness of life. Polikey’s life being so accidental that his suicide and family’s ruin just a matter of time before tragedy. Similar desperate situations appear in “After the Ball” and “Forged Coupon” nearly to the point of predating those acclaimed 1990s movies like Crash or Magnolia.

The first two of three stories would be the groundwork a young Count Leo did to get his War and Peace ready for literary history. Both of these Chechnya-set stories are full of soldier chatter that it barely registers when one of them dies, just one less voice speaking up. “Three Deaths” focuses on chatter about medicine and legacies for two different types of people and finds peace with the fallen tree.

Having read the titular story before reading the translator’s introduction as well as the other stories related to death ended up being a preferred way of understanding this masterful study of a mild-mannered magistrate whose striving for refinement literally cost him a regretful span. A poignant portrait of the extreme lengths one goes through to find an answer to the unanswerable question: what makes a good life?