The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Family Happiness, The Kreutzer Sonata & Master and Man

by Leo Tolstoy, Aylmer Maude (Translator), James Duff Duff (Translator)

Murder, greed, lust, vanity, love-four of Tolstoy's most famous and essential stories in one volume.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Short Stories, Russian Literature, Literature, Russia

Mass Market Paperback

Published February 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

[Sydnee O'Donnell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Along with being entertained and only slightly put off by the shameless moralizing, I also learned important lessons from these stories.

Family Happiness: There are many different kinds of love, so sometimes, marrying the 36-year-old friend of your father when you’re 17 can weirdly work out.

Death of Ivan Ilych: It’s important to live well according to objective moral standards, not just according to the questionable values of your contemporaries. Also, doctors (and lawyers) in nineteenth century Russia really sucked.

Kreutzer Sonata: There are crazy people on the train everywhere, not just in Chicago.

Master and Man: It’s always important to cuddle with the homies.

[Lo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I won’t lie, I started reading this because Gemma reads it in Severance. No wonder she does. Tolstoy in this collection of novellas discusses primarily labor, family, and love. Specifically, the alienation that humans feel in these relationship. The separations we create to fulfill all these roles that we have in life. Something Gemma is forced to do and all the severed do routinely to sanctify separate roles.

In “the Keutzer Sonata” you hear the ramblings of an anti-intellectual, misogynistic incel and wow, how nothing has changed. We are back at that moment once again. But that’s what happens when we view humans (and primarily women) as objects, you minimize us to sexual beings without thought, feelings, and reasoning.

What ties this collection altogether is the way Tolstoy’s pessimism towards humanity and love slowly develops in these stories and throughout his own life. Yet, in the final story, Master and Man, you see a glimmer of that hope in humanity again. Tolstoy exclaims that life is worth living, especially for the sacrifice of others.

This collection shows Tolstoy’s change from a heartfelt poet to a possessed fanatic. You can see the deeper self-deprecation that developed in his life in throughout these stories. Like many a great artist, he is overly critical of himself, he was a perfectionist and left so much unfinished in his mind. He resented the life he lived because he felt his art did not speak to anyone, but in the end, “the only certain happiness in life is to live for others.”

[Susan Grace Oldroyd · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tolstoy! Perceptive, haunting, and resonating stories that made me want to live life more satisfactory—that is, live for others.

[Jack Oatley · Rating 3 out of 5]

As performative reading goes, whipping out Tolstoy on public transport in former USSR territory is right up there. This entry level tasting of Leo’s work was however a mixed bag, 2 great tales (Death of Ivan Ilych & the Kreuzner Sonata) 2 forgettable ones too (Family Happiness & Man and Master), which I’d probably take before starting.

His style and far reaching themes are clear from the off: live for others; be and do good rather than aim for contemporary notions of success (prestige, money and power); damning views on marriage, sexual relations and complicated views on women. Kreutzer Sonata stood out as most memorable as a monologue from a man who’d just killed his wife alternates from Andrew Tate esque pretty misogynistic thoughts to more interesting issues of trust, jealousy and men’s damning sexual desires.

Generally, Tolstoy was far more accessible than I’d have initially thought but I doubt you’ll be seeing War and Peace reviewed on here anytime soon… If, and I very much doubt so, Tolstoy was the first to propose living for others is ideal then I think this would be more profound otherwise it’s a bit obvious.

[Niloufar Mazinani · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is about the inevitable reality of death that would happen to most of us. The more we have invested in the material life the more intense is going to be in the end, in a sense that we truly think of our lives retrospectively at the end when in fact there’s no time to live anymore.
Another great book would be "a dreary story" by Chekhov which is about loss of meaning in life because the character had invested so much time in work and succeeding in life.

[Cédric · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't think these would be so heavy but they were. Not fun, but enriching, lol.

[Debopriya Sarma · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Ivan Ilyich is dead” is how it started. It felt like I was Ivan, and all the anguish he was going through I felt it.

I learned a lot from this book.

[Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

First of all, this shouldn’t have taken me nearly a year to finish. It’s fairly dense compared to my usual casual reading, but not difficult to read. Each of the 4 short stories is entertaining and profound in its own way, but The Death of Ivan Ilych is the highlight. It really is a masterpiece. I read it sometime last year and it kind of fundamentally changed the way I think about living and dying. You know those stories you read and you can divide your life into /before that book/ and /after that book/? That’s The Death of Ivan Ilych for me. I hate how pretentious it is, but it’s true.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed these stories very much. Tolstoy writes well and poignantly. He talks about the depths of man’s existences and questions it all. A lot of the time all the life questioning is when someone is at the end of his rope. It was a gripe I had, shouldn’t people be questioning their life ways more often than at the end. Would the questioning be as intense and as fulfilling if it weren’t at the end, but just in the middle?

[kass marina · Rating 3 out of 5]

“the death of ivan ilych” is great but the other three stories were pretty bad — plots are often derailed by what are essentially tolstoy’s frantic, sad, end-of-life religious sermons. also “the kreutzer sonata” is an actively horrific, hateful anti-woman celibacy rant that lowered my opinion of tolstoy as a person (although i still think anna karenina, written before his mental health collapsed, is a beautiful portrayal of complex female characters for its time).

[Charity · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read Family Happiness which I Really liked and The Death of Ivan Ilyich which I liked but not as well. Tolstoy- is a great author. I thought they were interesting, and great for discussions at book club.

[marcia · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short novel by Tolstoy unbelievable.
A look into the worth of life as death nears for Ivan.
His family ,colleagues, his profession as a judge. How his wife moved around when his jobs changed,
how irascible his mood became as illness progressed.
a more readable novel as it was less wordy.

[James Shipma · Rating 3 out of 5]

family happiness - 3.5/5
death of ivan ilych - good but still only 2/5
kreutzer sonata - 0/5
master and man - 1/5
lowkey a bit of a sludge, i might be done with early 20th century russian philosophers for a bit

[Indrany]

Started, stopped, haven't finished...

[Toby · Rating 4 out of 5]

interesting

[Janet]

DNF

[Bookmanizer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Every thing is useless in life except death.

[Elisha Lawrence · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, first Tolstoy book and I was amazed. Challenging and encouraging- great book for thinking about death and eternity. Thoroughly enjoyed it and want to read more.

[Jerry · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Death of Ivan Illich is one of the best books I have ever read. Truly unforgettable.