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Title: The Death of Ivan Ilyich by LEO TOLSTOY ISBN: 0-553-21035-1 Publisher: Bantam Classics Pub. Date: 01 March, 1981 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $5.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.55 (29 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: I wish I could read Russian...
Comment: ...so I could read this story in the original. This novella is an absolute masterpiece. It made me think about things my jaded self had long since given up on, like God, purpose of life, death, fear. Tolstoy has an absolute deadpan sense of humor, which was so subtle it took me a while to catch on (for example, Ivan's fatal injury occurs while he is hanging expensive drapery out to impress his friends--what a beautifully ironic, even funny way to point out the meaninglessness of his life?).
If you're like me, and don't have the time to slog through "War and Peace" but are interested in Tolstoy, try this book. It's outstanding.
Rating: 5
Summary: In Passing
Comment: Tolstoy's novella makes rewarding and unsettling reading. Surely, I can think of no novel that treats dying as boldly. Death is a fact. In this story Ivan Ilyich's life and death are plainly represented in a fashion that remarkably resembles the times I have been aware of other, near people dying. What the novel puts on display in so satisfying and disconcerting a fashion is the remarkable inability or reluctance of most people (I ashamedly include myself in this group) to take part in the life of a person who is inevitably and rather immediately dying. Only one character in the novel has the goodness, humility and patience to care for a dying man, the rest scurry about and take care of their anticipated needs in the face of losing a loved one.
I find that I read this book again every year and that it remains such a fine portrait of a bureaucrat whose family life does not entirely satisfy him and whose pursuit of a more meaningful life fails to cease even in sickness, when he understands that his mortality is soon to be demonstrated. There are few works of this nature that I can set in the company of this short novel. Despite many readings, I feel I still don't entirely understand it, but later in life I imagine I will do better. This book is so excellent and the edition here lends itself to portable and pleasant reading.
Rating: 4
Summary: Read it for "Ivan Ilyich" alone
Comment: This volume contains three novellas by Tolstoy, of which "The Cossacks" was most famous in his own time. Yet, I thought that "The Cossacks" was the weakest of the three.
"Happy Ever After" is the story of a young woman, Marya Alexandrovna, who marries a man (Sergei Mihailovich) twice her age. It's essentially a tale about the dangers of such a union - Sergei Mihailovich is approaching comfortable middle age and wants a settled life, whereas his wife wants to live her life to the full, and to explore the urban social scene missing from her life in the country. Told with sensitivity, it's an antidote to all those nineteenth century novels in which marriage is seen as a happy ending.
I thought "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" was superb. A deeply moving examination of trials and tribulations of someone who knows he's approaching death. You can't help but think over how you yourself might cope in such a situation. Would your friends and relatives act in the same way as Ivan Ilyich's? I can hardly remember reading such a skilled yet short piece of writing.
"The Cossacks" however, I thought was exactly the opposite - a flabby, romantic tale in which the rich young man, Olenin, escapes life in the big city to do military service in the Caucasus. There, the Cossacks live between the Russians and the Chechans - at best putting up with the former, but constantly at war with the latter. "The Cossacks" is in part a travelogue, and in sections is interesting because of that. But I found the almost idyllic descriptions of the simple rural, back-to-basics lifestyle too far overdone. Despite being relatively short, it dragged badly.
G Rodgers
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Title: The Trial of God by ELIE WIESEL ISBN: 0805210539 Publisher: Schocken Pub. Date: 14 November, 1995 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Good and Evil Interpreting a Human Condition by Edward Farley ISBN: 0800624475 Publisher: Augsburg Fortress Publishers Pub. Date: 01 January, 1991 List Price(USD): $27.00 |
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Title: Crime and Punishment (Crime & Punishment) by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Constance Garnett ISBN: 0553211757 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 01 June, 1984 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Family Therapy : An Overview (with InfoTrac) by Herbert Goldenberg, Irene Goldenberg ISBN: 0534556698 Publisher: Wadsworth Publishing Pub. Date: 16 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $80.95 |
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Title: A Lasting Promise : A Christian Guide to Fighting for Your Marriage by Scott M. Stanley, Daniel Trathen, Savanna McCain, Milt Bryan ISBN: 0787939838 Publisher: Jossey-Bass Pub. Date: 15 April, 1998 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
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