The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories (Oxford World's Classics) by Tolstoy Leo (2015-03-01) Paperback

by Leo Tolstoy

Excellent Book

Genres: Classics, Fiction

Paperback

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

[Brandon Kriplean · Rating 2 out of 5]

My first taste of Tolstoy, and it was definitely bittersweet. I was so excited to read the Death of Ivan Ilyich, but it ended up being a huge disappointment. In fact, 6 of the 7 Tolstoy stories contained in this collection merit one star. The Forged Coupon was a pleasant outlier. I’d give it 5 stars, and I hope that Tolstoy’s longer works are as moving. I’d recommend that everyone take a day and read through The Forged Coupon. The rest can be passed over.

[Chris Fredericks · Rating 2 out of 5]

Getting through this collection was a real slog. Most of these stories are very dry and rambling. Tolstoy introduces too many characters and spends time describing them such that you initially think that they will have importance to the narrative, but many don’t so it’s a waste of time. You find yourself struggling to remember who’s who, which is compounded by the fact that he alternately refers to characters by their first and middle names, their last name, and/or a nickname. He frequently brings back a character from earlier in the story much later and rather abruptly; you struggle to remember who they are and what they did earlier. That said, there were some memorable and enjoyable moments. Nonetheless I highly doubt I’ll be reading more Tolstoy.

[Mazen Gaafer · Rating 4 out of 5]

He looked for his old accustomed terror of death, and did not find it. 'Where is it? What death?' There was no terror, because death was not either.

"In the place of death there was light"🍂🤍

[Race Correll · Rating 3 out of 5]

In general, I really like Tolstoy. Some of these stories are better than others. His longer and more personal writings are reflective and touching in a way that he isn't really able to grasp in the short story format. There is some wisdom in these that makes them worthwhile for true Tolstoyheads.