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The Death of Ivan Ilyich/Master and Man
This new edition combines Tolstoy’s most famous short tale, The Death of Ivan Ilyich , with a less well known but equally brilliant gem, Master and Man , both newly translated by Ann Pasternak Slater. Both stories confront death and the process of In Ivan Ilyich , a bureaucrat looks back over his life, which suddenly seems meaningless and wasteful, while in Master and Man, a landowner and servant must each confront the value of the other as they brave a devastating snowstorm. The quintessential Tolstoyan themes of mortality, spiritual redemption, and life’s meaning are nowhere more movingly and deftly explored than in these two tales.
This unique edition also includes a critical Introduction and extensive notes by Ann Pasternak Slater, a Fellow at St. Anne’s College, Oxford.
This unique edition also includes a critical Introduction and extensive notes by Ann Pasternak Slater, a Fellow at St. Anne’s College, Oxford.
160 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1866
65 people are currently reading
822 people want to read
About the author
Leo Tolstoy
7,845 books27.8k followersLev 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 104 reviews
May 21, 2017
Review can also be found at Snow White Hates Apples.
Rating: 3.5 stars
Although set in 19th century Russia, The Death of Ivan Ilyich is a short story that still resonates today. Of course, this is primarily due to the subjects it deals with—things humans continue to be curious about: the state of death and the act of dying. Or, more saliently, the effects of death and dying on the person who is dying and his/her surroundings.
Funerals are, I believe, for the living and not the dead. Every time I attend, read about or watch a funeral, I see conflict. Of course, there is sadness and mourning, but most of all, I see conflict. There are jabs about how the funeral should or should’ve been carried out, how a relative should act and shouldn’t act, what should be who’s and whatnot. It’s awful to even think that someone would pretend to be mourning for the deceased, but the truth is, people do that and the supposed friends of Ivan Ilyich, his wife and his daughter, are no better. His daughter mainly thinks of her own happiness, his wife thinks about getting more money, and his ‘friends’ think about better positions at work and higher salaries. During Ivan’s last moments, we see only his son, who’s rather absent in the short story, and a servant named Gerasim are the ones who really care and feel sorry about Ivan’s inevitable death. It’s the actions of all of these characters that has me believing that this tale may forever relevant because there will always be people like them.
Of course, this tale can be rather boring to some people because of the lack of action, the repetition of Ivan’s complaints, and how shallow Ivan is. Though this shallowness of Ivan may have been intentional of Tolstoy because as Vladimir Propp states in the Morphology of the Folktale , characters are ‘spheres of action’ meant to act as the mechanisms for distributing ‘functions’ around a story. So, Ivan may simply be just that. A mechanism to distribute things Tolstoy wants to mention/allude to in a story. As for the lack of action, well, I didn’t mind that. Perhaps Tolstoy simply wanted to show that a normal man living a mundane life can be ‘unjustifiably’ afflicted with an unknown death-causing disease. Thus, due of this, the man realizes that he has never truly lived life because he hasn’t truly been assured of such and now, as he’s dying, he’s desperate to feel alive but is unable to because the disease has imprisoned him. It gets him thinking about the meaning of life and whether there’s any point of to it because living things cannot escape death. It’s nihilistic and depressive, but certainly thought-provoking.
Furthermore, what I find extremely interesting about this translation of The Death of Ivan Ilyich is the notes Slater adds, particularly the ones on the errors made by Tolstoy himself in the original Russian version of this tale. It’s also rather helpful for those who are analyzing this text (or thinking of doing such) for academic purposes and all.
Master and Man , on the other hand, shares a similar nihilistic theme, though it is not as salient in this short story. Unlike Ivan who tries to earn his pleasures through hard work, Vassili has no qualms in stealing from the church (as in he takes the church funds in his care and aims to use them to buy a plot of land for himself). Nikolai, on the other hand, is to a small degree, Gerasim’s counterpart. Moreover, there’s a little A Christmas Carol feel to Master and Man , since Vassili is like Ebenezer Scrooge and Nikolai is like Bob Cratchit, and that both stories are set in a period of festivities. I also got a The Little Match Girl feel near the end when Vassili is close to death.
Compared to The Death of Ivan Ilyich, there is more action in Master and Man. Vassili and Nikolai are lost in a blizzard while trying to reach their destination so the short story is largely about this, whereas The Death of Ivan Ilyich is largely about a man lamenting his wasted life. Thus, those who have found The Death of Ivan Ilyich ‘boring’ may prefer Master and Man .
Personally, I prefer The Death of Ivan Ilyich over Master and Man . Both of these short stories have interesting footnotes from Slater, but I feel that the former has a larger quantity of thought-prompting moments. Nevertheless, they’re both rather quick reads and certainly worth reading.
Rating: 3.5 stars
Although set in 19th century Russia, The Death of Ivan Ilyich is a short story that still resonates today. Of course, this is primarily due to the subjects it deals with—things humans continue to be curious about: the state of death and the act of dying. Or, more saliently, the effects of death and dying on the person who is dying and his/her surroundings.
Funerals are, I believe, for the living and not the dead. Every time I attend, read about or watch a funeral, I see conflict. Of course, there is sadness and mourning, but most of all, I see conflict. There are jabs about how the funeral should or should’ve been carried out, how a relative should act and shouldn’t act, what should be who’s and whatnot. It’s awful to even think that someone would pretend to be mourning for the deceased, but the truth is, people do that and the supposed friends of Ivan Ilyich, his wife and his daughter, are no better. His daughter mainly thinks of her own happiness, his wife thinks about getting more money, and his ‘friends’ think about better positions at work and higher salaries. During Ivan’s last moments, we see only his son, who’s rather absent in the short story, and a servant named Gerasim are the ones who really care and feel sorry about Ivan’s inevitable death. It’s the actions of all of these characters that has me believing that this tale may forever relevant because there will always be people like them.
Of course, this tale can be rather boring to some people because of the lack of action, the repetition of Ivan’s complaints, and how shallow Ivan is. Though this shallowness of Ivan may have been intentional of Tolstoy because as Vladimir Propp states in the Morphology of the Folktale , characters are ‘spheres of action’ meant to act as the mechanisms for distributing ‘functions’ around a story. So, Ivan may simply be just that. A mechanism to distribute things Tolstoy wants to mention/allude to in a story. As for the lack of action, well, I didn’t mind that. Perhaps Tolstoy simply wanted to show that a normal man living a mundane life can be ‘unjustifiably’ afflicted with an unknown death-causing disease. Thus, due of this, the man realizes that he has never truly lived life because he hasn’t truly been assured of such and now, as he’s dying, he’s desperate to feel alive but is unable to because the disease has imprisoned him. It gets him thinking about the meaning of life and whether there’s any point of to it because living things cannot escape death. It’s nihilistic and depressive, but certainly thought-provoking.
Furthermore, what I find extremely interesting about this translation of The Death of Ivan Ilyich is the notes Slater adds, particularly the ones on the errors made by Tolstoy himself in the original Russian version of this tale. It’s also rather helpful for those who are analyzing this text (or thinking of doing such) for academic purposes and all.
Master and Man , on the other hand, shares a similar nihilistic theme, though it is not as salient in this short story. Unlike Ivan who tries to earn his pleasures through hard work, Vassili has no qualms in stealing from the church (as in he takes the church funds in his care and aims to use them to buy a plot of land for himself). Nikolai, on the other hand, is to a small degree, Gerasim’s counterpart. Moreover, there’s a little A Christmas Carol feel to Master and Man , since Vassili is like Ebenezer Scrooge and Nikolai is like Bob Cratchit, and that both stories are set in a period of festivities. I also got a The Little Match Girl feel near the end when Vassili is close to death.
Compared to The Death of Ivan Ilyich, there is more action in Master and Man. Vassili and Nikolai are lost in a blizzard while trying to reach their destination so the short story is largely about this, whereas The Death of Ivan Ilyich is largely about a man lamenting his wasted life. Thus, those who have found The Death of Ivan Ilyich ‘boring’ may prefer Master and Man .
Personally, I prefer The Death of Ivan Ilyich over Master and Man . Both of these short stories have interesting footnotes from Slater, but I feel that the former has a larger quantity of thought-prompting moments. Nevertheless, they’re both rather quick reads and certainly worth reading.
August 28, 2019
Both stories in this rule. Master and Man slaps hard as hell. Highly recommend. Short and quick. Pad your numbers.
November 4, 2018
Two points in our lives can only be known and experienced anecdotally: our birth and our death. “The Death of Ivan Ilych” and “Master and Man” are Leo Tolstoy‘s late masterpieces. Written well after “War & Peace” and “Anna Karenina,” both stories directly confront the long, uneventful process of dying, some two decades before Tolstoy‘s own death at the railway station of Astapova. Yet both stories also draw on experiences described in his earlier work and resolve some of the questions overwhelming him during his crisis of faith in the 1880s.
“The Death of Ivan Ilych”
“The Death of Ivan Ilych” is a short novel but not a modest one. As the spiritual crisis of Levin, Leo Tolstoy’s self-portrait, had been left unresolved in “Anna Karenina,” here he describes the agony of ambivalence that led to that resolution, albeit through the story of a less complicated man, a man less liable to crises of self-understanding than Levin
Ivan Ilych is an ambitious bureaucrat jostling his way up the ladder of advantages in a corrupt Russia still harnessed by the czar’s bureaucratic apparatus. He slides gracefully into the roles offered to him, adjusting the attitudes and ethics of his youth to fit with the exigencies of his career, and accepting gladly the circus of perks and soul leisures offered by fashionable society and its luxuries. He particularly enjoys playing cards, a pastime evidently despised by Tolstoy as much as by the German philosopher Schopenhauer, who thought it the most degraded and senseless behavior imaginable.
Following what seems like an unremarkable injury, Ivan becomes gradually more incapacitated until finally he is unable to rise from the couch in his drawing room. Tolstoy describes with ferocious zeal the intensity of Ivan‘s physical suffering, which so exhausts him that eventually he gives up speaking and simply screams without remission, horrifying his attendant family. Love is not raised in the story’s last pages. It is his wife and son’s pity that rouses Ivan Ilych reciprocal compassion. His last word, and attempt to say “prosti” (“forgive me“) is a stumbled apology and not a pardon. Ironically, no one understands what he says. In the end, death proves not to be the destination of Ivan’s tormented and ignorant spiritual journey. Instead, it is simply the wasted province of all that he leaves behind by relinquishing his life, all the possessions and affectations, and even the human intimacies that he permitted himself in order to pass off his life as a reality worth settling for.
“Master and Man”
The toughness and simple dignity of the Russian peasant is the central theme of this story in which a wealthy, effete landowner is cast alongside his sturdy servant to face a harrowing winter snowstorm. Their master tries unsuccessfully to use the servant for his survival, as he has used his body for his own comfort for many years. The master dies in the blizzard but the servant, using his peasant wisdom and strength, survives to have a long and productive life.
The wealthy and youthful Vasili Andreevich is the master who is driven by greed to set out in a blizzard to make a bid on a piece of property. Nikita is the man, a “peasant of about 50 from a neighboring village“ who works as a freelance laborer. On the day that Andreevich decides to leave, Nikita is the only labor around who is sober so Andreevich hires him to accompany him in his sled from the small village where he lives to Goryackin. Nikita, although “a habitual drunkard,“ is not keen to make the journey, he outfits the sled with his favorite horse, Mukhorty.
Andreevich prizes Nikita for his dedication to work and his “kindly and pleasant temper.“ About twice a year, however, Nikita goes on a destructive bender that lasts until he has lost everything. Andreevich especially likes Nikita for “his honesty, his kindness to animals, and especially his cheapness.“ Nikita’s accommodating personality is the compensatory part of his character, that feeds on his guilt about drinking. We’ve all been there.
Wearing two fur-lined coats, Andreevich jumps into the coach, takes the reins and gives the horse a swat with the whip. At first, they follow some tracks in the snow left by the previous sled, but quickly realize they have veered off the road. They take a turn that they hope will put them on another road marked with stakes, but once again are surrounded by snow drifts and become disoriented. The two men can find no road to either side of the sled. At last, Andreevich stops the sled to allow the sweating, heaving horse to rest. When they resume their journey, they follow the sound of girls singing and approach the village of Grishkino. They pause for vodka and a bite of food, and the generous farm family offer them a place to spend the night. Refusing, they leave and promptly get lost in the snowy woods again.
It is dark when they decide to stop for the night. Nikita finds a comfortable spot near the front of the sled to huddle against the snowstorm. Andreevich prances about, sleepless, bemoaning his fate. Finally, he lies on top of the sleeping Nikita and puts his two coats above himself. This scene serves as a dramatic reminder to the reader of the commonsense wisdom of the peasant, contrasted with the clueless dithering of the wealthy. When villagers find them the next day, Andreevich is frozen, Nikita is alive, but suffering frostbite. After surgery for removal of dead tissue and recuperation, Nikita lives for another 20 years. The narrator asks rhetorically whether Nikita was pleased with his life or would have preferred to die in the snow.
Before Tolstoy died, he told his daughter, “The more a man loves, the more real he becomes.” This seems to be the overwhelming message of both stories. Tolstoy understood this concept most completely after his spiritual conversion and could not rest until he tried his best to convey it to others through his writing, whether in parables, folktales, drama, pamphlets, or fiction. Like the look of warning on the dead face of Ivan Ilych which Peter Ivanovich looks down upon, Tolstoy’s stories communicate a warning of the same message to his readers. Thus, “The Death of Ivan Ilych” and “Master and Man” read repeatedly throughout one’s life as one always needs to be reminded, or rather warned, to live and love before death comes.
Yes, it’s a great life with authors like Leo Tolstoy and readers like you in it. Rock on, mis amigos and mis amigas!
“The Death of Ivan Ilych”
“The Death of Ivan Ilych” is a short novel but not a modest one. As the spiritual crisis of Levin, Leo Tolstoy’s self-portrait, had been left unresolved in “Anna Karenina,” here he describes the agony of ambivalence that led to that resolution, albeit through the story of a less complicated man, a man less liable to crises of self-understanding than Levin
Ivan Ilych is an ambitious bureaucrat jostling his way up the ladder of advantages in a corrupt Russia still harnessed by the czar’s bureaucratic apparatus. He slides gracefully into the roles offered to him, adjusting the attitudes and ethics of his youth to fit with the exigencies of his career, and accepting gladly the circus of perks and soul leisures offered by fashionable society and its luxuries. He particularly enjoys playing cards, a pastime evidently despised by Tolstoy as much as by the German philosopher Schopenhauer, who thought it the most degraded and senseless behavior imaginable.
Following what seems like an unremarkable injury, Ivan becomes gradually more incapacitated until finally he is unable to rise from the couch in his drawing room. Tolstoy describes with ferocious zeal the intensity of Ivan‘s physical suffering, which so exhausts him that eventually he gives up speaking and simply screams without remission, horrifying his attendant family. Love is not raised in the story’s last pages. It is his wife and son’s pity that rouses Ivan Ilych reciprocal compassion. His last word, and attempt to say “prosti” (“forgive me“) is a stumbled apology and not a pardon. Ironically, no one understands what he says. In the end, death proves not to be the destination of Ivan’s tormented and ignorant spiritual journey. Instead, it is simply the wasted province of all that he leaves behind by relinquishing his life, all the possessions and affectations, and even the human intimacies that he permitted himself in order to pass off his life as a reality worth settling for.
“Master and Man”
The toughness and simple dignity of the Russian peasant is the central theme of this story in which a wealthy, effete landowner is cast alongside his sturdy servant to face a harrowing winter snowstorm. Their master tries unsuccessfully to use the servant for his survival, as he has used his body for his own comfort for many years. The master dies in the blizzard but the servant, using his peasant wisdom and strength, survives to have a long and productive life.
The wealthy and youthful Vasili Andreevich is the master who is driven by greed to set out in a blizzard to make a bid on a piece of property. Nikita is the man, a “peasant of about 50 from a neighboring village“ who works as a freelance laborer. On the day that Andreevich decides to leave, Nikita is the only labor around who is sober so Andreevich hires him to accompany him in his sled from the small village where he lives to Goryackin. Nikita, although “a habitual drunkard,“ is not keen to make the journey, he outfits the sled with his favorite horse, Mukhorty.
Andreevich prizes Nikita for his dedication to work and his “kindly and pleasant temper.“ About twice a year, however, Nikita goes on a destructive bender that lasts until he has lost everything. Andreevich especially likes Nikita for “his honesty, his kindness to animals, and especially his cheapness.“ Nikita’s accommodating personality is the compensatory part of his character, that feeds on his guilt about drinking. We’ve all been there.
Wearing two fur-lined coats, Andreevich jumps into the coach, takes the reins and gives the horse a swat with the whip. At first, they follow some tracks in the snow left by the previous sled, but quickly realize they have veered off the road. They take a turn that they hope will put them on another road marked with stakes, but once again are surrounded by snow drifts and become disoriented. The two men can find no road to either side of the sled. At last, Andreevich stops the sled to allow the sweating, heaving horse to rest. When they resume their journey, they follow the sound of girls singing and approach the village of Grishkino. They pause for vodka and a bite of food, and the generous farm family offer them a place to spend the night. Refusing, they leave and promptly get lost in the snowy woods again.
It is dark when they decide to stop for the night. Nikita finds a comfortable spot near the front of the sled to huddle against the snowstorm. Andreevich prances about, sleepless, bemoaning his fate. Finally, he lies on top of the sleeping Nikita and puts his two coats above himself. This scene serves as a dramatic reminder to the reader of the commonsense wisdom of the peasant, contrasted with the clueless dithering of the wealthy. When villagers find them the next day, Andreevich is frozen, Nikita is alive, but suffering frostbite. After surgery for removal of dead tissue and recuperation, Nikita lives for another 20 years. The narrator asks rhetorically whether Nikita was pleased with his life or would have preferred to die in the snow.
Before Tolstoy died, he told his daughter, “The more a man loves, the more real he becomes.” This seems to be the overwhelming message of both stories. Tolstoy understood this concept most completely after his spiritual conversion and could not rest until he tried his best to convey it to others through his writing, whether in parables, folktales, drama, pamphlets, or fiction. Like the look of warning on the dead face of Ivan Ilych which Peter Ivanovich looks down upon, Tolstoy’s stories communicate a warning of the same message to his readers. Thus, “The Death of Ivan Ilych” and “Master and Man” read repeatedly throughout one’s life as one always needs to be reminded, or rather warned, to live and love before death comes.
Yes, it’s a great life with authors like Leo Tolstoy and readers like you in it. Rock on, mis amigos and mis amigas!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 2, 2024
https://delsharm.blog.ir/1402/11/13/m...
خستهای و کنار قفسهٔ کتابهای خانه نشستهای. این روزها، وسط خواندن کتابهای دیگر، چشمت به کتابی نازک در قفسهٔ کتاب میخورد: از آن کتابهایی که فلهای از دستهدوفروشی محل خریدهای.
داستان اول را که دو بار خواندهام و دربارهاش نوشتهام. پس با وجود وسوسهای فراوان برای خواندن بار سوم، از آن میگذرم و نمیخوانم. میرسیم به داستان دوم که کلاً ۵۹ صفحه با قلم تقریباً ریز انگلیسی است. جالب آن که مترجم این نسخه از کتاب خواهرزادهٔ بوریس پاسترناک نویسندهٔ معروف روس است. مقدمهٔ کتاب که سیری بسیار مختصر به احوالات درونی تولستوی دارد بسیار جالب است. خاصه آن که اشاره میکند تولستوی با پیرنگهای شبیه همین داستانها در جوانیاش قصهنویسی کرده است اما مرگ را بسیار دور میدیده اما در حین نوشتن رمان آناکارنینا دچار بحرانهای روحی و اعتقادی عمیق میشود و در نتیجه این دو داستان را در اواخر عمرش مینویسد که مرگ سرنوشت محتوم شخصیتهای اصلی داستان است. هنوز هم میگویم که «مرگ ایوان ایلیچ» جزو برترینهای ادبیات داستانی است حداقل از بین آنهایی که خودم خواندهام.
رمان دوم قصهٔ ارباب باتبختری است به اسم وازیلین که به همراه نوکرش نیکیتا که مردی سادهدل است در روزی برفی به سمت شهر دیگری میروند که در آنجا ارباب میخواهد زمین بخرد تا سود بسیار زیادی از خرید آن زمین نصیبش بشود. واگویههای ارباب بیشتر درونی است که نسبت به همهٔ دستاوردهای زندگیاش مغرور است. در مقابل نیکیتا که دورهای از عمرش دائمالخمر بوده و به همین خاطر همسرش از او جدا شده و هر چه داشته و نداشته را از او ستانده است، مردی بسیار خوشقلب است که حتی با حیوانات هم مهربان است و جوری با اسبش صحبت میکند که پنداری رفیق فهمیمی را مخاطب قرار داده است. حالا شب میشود و به خاطر طمع ارباب که اصرار دارد حتماً به راه ادامه دهند، راه را گم میکن��د و در بوران گیر میکنند (نکتهٔ حاشیهای: یک لحظه در معنای بوران شک کردم و در واژهنامه سراغش را گرفتم: ظاهراً واژه اصالتی روس/تاتار دارد. Буран حداقل طبق تلفظ واژهگوی ترجمهگر گوگل همان بوران است و ��ه معنای باد قوی شمالشرقی در روسیه و آسیای مرکزی). خب حالا ارباب هنوز به فکر املاک و اموال و پولش است و دست به کارهای خودخواهانه میزند ولی نیکیتا آرام است و مرگ را امری زیباتر از زندگی مییابد. در آخر قصه که مرگ نزدیک هر دو است، ارباب به پوچی تمام تلاشهای دنیاییاش فکر میکند (مضمونی شبیه به همین در مرگ ایوان ایلیچ هم وجود دارد) ولی نیکیتا دغدغهاش بخشیده شدن نسبت به بدیها و گناههایش دارد. آخر قصه را هم نمیگویم که برای خودش پایانی جالب و بهیادماندنی است.
جالب است که وقتی با تولستوی و داستایوسکی طرفیم، حتی آثار کمتر شناختهشدهشان از بسیاری از آثار پرطمطراق ادبی جذابتر و عمیقتر هستند. پنداری سهگانهٔ تولستوی، داستایوسکی و چخوف که هر کدام از جنبهای سرآمد بودند، دیگر در ادبیات تکرار نخواهد شد، همانطور که سهگانه حافظ، سعدی و مولوی هیچ وقت در ادبیات ایران تکرار نشدند.
پینوشت: ظاهراً بوران ریشهٔ ترکی دارد و به معنای چرخاننده است.
خستهای و کنار قفسهٔ کتابهای خانه نشستهای. این روزها، وسط خواندن کتابهای دیگر، چشمت به کتابی نازک در قفسهٔ کتاب میخورد: از آن کتابهایی که فلهای از دستهدوفروشی محل خریدهای.
داستان اول را که دو بار خواندهام و دربارهاش نوشتهام. پس با وجود وسوسهای فراوان برای خواندن بار سوم، از آن میگذرم و نمیخوانم. میرسیم به داستان دوم که کلاً ۵۹ صفحه با قلم تقریباً ریز انگلیسی است. جالب آن که مترجم این نسخه از کتاب خواهرزادهٔ بوریس پاسترناک نویسندهٔ معروف روس است. مقدمهٔ کتاب که سیری بسیار مختصر به احوالات درونی تولستوی دارد بسیار جالب است. خاصه آن که اشاره میکند تولستوی با پیرنگهای شبیه همین داستانها در جوانیاش قصهنویسی کرده است اما مرگ را بسیار دور میدیده اما در حین نوشتن رمان آناکارنینا دچار بحرانهای روحی و اعتقادی عمیق میشود و در نتیجه این دو داستان را در اواخر عمرش مینویسد که مرگ سرنوشت محتوم شخصیتهای اصلی داستان است. هنوز هم میگویم که «مرگ ایوان ایلیچ» جزو برترینهای ادبیات داستانی است حداقل از بین آنهایی که خودم خواندهام.
رمان دوم قصهٔ ارباب باتبختری است به اسم وازیلین که به همراه نوکرش نیکیتا که مردی سادهدل است در روزی برفی به سمت شهر دیگری میروند که در آنجا ارباب میخواهد زمین بخرد تا سود بسیار زیادی از خرید آن زمین نصیبش بشود. واگویههای ارباب بیشتر درونی است که نسبت به همهٔ دستاوردهای زندگیاش مغرور است. در مقابل نیکیتا که دورهای از عمرش دائمالخمر بوده و به همین خاطر همسرش از او جدا شده و هر چه داشته و نداشته را از او ستانده است، مردی بسیار خوشقلب است که حتی با حیوانات هم مهربان است و جوری با اسبش صحبت میکند که پنداری رفیق فهمیمی را مخاطب قرار داده است. حالا شب میشود و به خاطر طمع ارباب که اصرار دارد حتماً به راه ادامه دهند، راه را گم میکن��د و در بوران گیر میکنند (نکتهٔ حاشیهای: یک لحظه در معنای بوران شک کردم و در واژهنامه سراغش را گرفتم: ظاهراً واژه اصالتی روس/تاتار دارد. Буран حداقل طبق تلفظ واژهگوی ترجمهگر گوگل همان بوران است و ��ه معنای باد قوی شمالشرقی در روسیه و آسیای مرکزی). خب حالا ارباب هنوز به فکر املاک و اموال و پولش است و دست به کارهای خودخواهانه میزند ولی نیکیتا آرام است و مرگ را امری زیباتر از زندگی مییابد. در آخر قصه که مرگ نزدیک هر دو است، ارباب به پوچی تمام تلاشهای دنیاییاش فکر میکند (مضمونی شبیه به همین در مرگ ایوان ایلیچ هم وجود دارد) ولی نیکیتا دغدغهاش بخشیده شدن نسبت به بدیها و گناههایش دارد. آخر قصه را هم نمیگویم که برای خودش پایانی جالب و بهیادماندنی است.
جالب است که وقتی با تولستوی و داستایوسکی طرفیم، حتی آثار کمتر شناختهشدهشان از بسیاری از آثار پرطمطراق ادبی جذابتر و عمیقتر هستند. پنداری سهگانهٔ تولستوی، داستایوسکی و چخوف که هر کدام از جنبهای سرآمد بودند، دیگر در ادبیات تکرار نخواهد شد، همانطور که سهگانه حافظ، سعدی و مولوی هیچ وقت در ادبیات ایران تکرار نشدند.
پینوشت: ظاهراً بوران ریشهٔ ترکی دارد و به معنای چرخاننده است.
February 26, 2023
After watching Living (with Bill Nighy) this morning, i found out Ishiguro wrote the screenplay, and based it on Kurosawa's Ikiru - -which itself was inspired by The Death of Ivan Ilyich, which i read such a long time ago i had almost no memory of it. This ed. was translated by Ann Slater Pasternak - gr granddaughter of Boris P, who knew Tolstoy.
November 28, 2021
Two different , and contrasting, takes on the the way one faces the end of life. They made me see the idea of redemption/salvation outside of its usual religious context. These men were not appealing to a higher judge to determine their worth. They were judging it themselves.
Ilyich missed a very important opportunity for his redemption when his son comes to him in his last day. The son wants to comfort him, but Ilyich angrily sends him away. Ilyich does not see that this son is a living example of some good that he has given to the world even though he was desperately searching for such a good effect of his life. This caused me to reflect back on Ilyich's law career in which he helped many people by treating them and their troubles with respect, which was in contradiction of the culture at the time. He never pondered how this may have had a profound effect on someone, if even only one client of his.
Brehkunov on the other hand is overcome by redemption without even particularly trying find it. In the simple act of trying to save another man's life a wave of clarity overcomes him. Although he looks back and sees a life that is probably mostly shallow and fairly meaningless, when he finds in himself this spirit of self-sacrifice and even love for a "lower" human being he sees that all is redeemed.
I'm not a religious person so I have never really related to these ideas of redemption or final rites, but Tolstoy has shown them in a light that has no relation to any theology but comes from within. It is the call of each of our souls. Of course as readers we can contemplate our current living lives and see if we would like to adjust them to change the circumstances of what will be our deathbed thoughts.
These two stories are great companion pieces.
Ilyich missed a very important opportunity for his redemption when his son comes to him in his last day. The son wants to comfort him, but Ilyich angrily sends him away. Ilyich does not see that this son is a living example of some good that he has given to the world even though he was desperately searching for such a good effect of his life. This caused me to reflect back on Ilyich's law career in which he helped many people by treating them and their troubles with respect, which was in contradiction of the culture at the time. He never pondered how this may have had a profound effect on someone, if even only one client of his.
Brehkunov on the other hand is overcome by redemption without even particularly trying find it. In the simple act of trying to save another man's life a wave of clarity overcomes him. Although he looks back and sees a life that is probably mostly shallow and fairly meaningless, when he finds in himself this spirit of self-sacrifice and even love for a "lower" human being he sees that all is redeemed.
I'm not a religious person so I have never really related to these ideas of redemption or final rites, but Tolstoy has shown them in a light that has no relation to any theology but comes from within. It is the call of each of our souls. Of course as readers we can contemplate our current living lives and see if we would like to adjust them to change the circumstances of what will be our deathbed thoughts.
These two stories are great companion pieces.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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November 2, 2023Only a writer of Tolstoy’s caliber could write such profound short stories full of truth and wisdom about human nature. These two are stories about death and reading them together was fascinating. My reading of The Death of Ivan Ilyich was enriched by KSP’s exploration of the story in On Reading Well, in which she examines the virtue of love and its impact (or lack thereof) in the protagonist’s life. As much a clarifying gut check as anything else, that story will be a good one to return to in the future.
February 23, 2020
RIP to Ivan Ilyich, but I'm different.
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August 7, 2020An excellent pairing of contrasting stories by Tolstoy...one about dying badly...one about dying well.
November 7, 2022
In Ivan Ilyich, Tolstoy is exploring the meaning of life through the reality of death — how one means nothing without the other — and while he is genuinely perplexed and philosophic about what the act of dying is, the truth of living a good life is not going to be found in the straight and narrow path of the bourgeois existence full of material possessions and happiness by way of ignoring unhappiness. It is a more purely contemplative story than it reads. And with sentences measured to the exact number of words needed and with a poetry of necessity, it is a strong read. I’ve read Master And Man but in another book, but I can say that that story rocks, too. Oh Boy! It’s Tolstoy! Oy! Oy! Read him — Doy!
December 9, 2024
Hell yeah! Write it like you see it Tolstoy. I was expecting the uneasy experience of delving into the depths of death and these two stories came through as big time winners. Themes of ethics, morality, forgiveness, subjagation, materialism, the meaning of life, and reckoning all come to 'life' when characters are faced with death. What a great subject matter and Tolstoy describes the struggle with adeptness and mastery through his flawed characters.
May 24, 2021
I loved this book! There are actually two stories in this book- both were excellent.
Honest, realistic discussions about death are important and hard to come by in our culture. This was an excellent, thought-provoking, and raw look at death and dying. This little book is going in my top ten favorites. It’s maybe the most important book I’ve read behind the Bible.
Honest, realistic discussions about death are important and hard to come by in our culture. This was an excellent, thought-provoking, and raw look at death and dying. This little book is going in my top ten favorites. It’s maybe the most important book I’ve read behind the Bible.
May 28, 2025
In Tolstoy's classic style, both stories address the idea of having lived well and what it means to die well, grounded in biblical principles, but also slightly philosophical.
I found both stories to be so different from each other while still addressing the same issue and reaching the same conclusion of sorts.
I found both stories to be so different from each other while still addressing the same issue and reaching the same conclusion of sorts.
August 10, 2020
HOW does he do it?
Fuuuuu!@#$%&*
Tolstoy makes me contemplate my life and I love him for it.
How simply he does it...how complex it is.
My godz.
Get busy living.
Also, be better.
Fuuuuu!@#$%&*
Tolstoy makes me contemplate my life and I love him for it.
How simply he does it...how complex it is.
My godz.
Get busy living.
Also, be better.
January 7, 2022
Currently and forever obsessed with Tolstoy.
January 21, 2020
Two stories in one book, each explores the slow process of painful dying but in a different way. Fascinating and compelling read. My first Tolstoy book. Definitely not the last.
February 6, 2025
I cannot get enough of Tolstoy!!!
February 9, 2024
the death of ivan ilyich (3 stars)
+ master and man (4 stars)
= 3.5 stars, rounded up
+ master and man (4 stars)
= 3.5 stars, rounded up
October 14, 2021
Deux leçons pour la vie. Écrit avec la maitrise linguistique de Tolstoi pour tous les mortels. Ceux qui le liront comprendront.
November 15, 2021
Came for Ivan Ilyich, stayed for Master & Man. I can see why II is a classic worth reading, whereas my attention span was decidedly low while meandering through M&M via audiobook. Enjoy the former! :)
June 4, 2011
In general, I don't care for Depressing, Fatalistic Russian Literature, but this I liked. The story begins with the news of Ivan Ilyich's death and then it goes back in time telling about his life and his slow torturous death. I explores how we live to expectations of society only to realize we haven't lived well. It's a story very well told. I am not sure how well it would play for the middle school set, but it is a great introduction to Depressing, Fatalistic Russian Literature without having to muck through a zillion pages of Anna Karenina.
June 6, 2013
I'll be reading this book as part of Leland Ryken's "Commending the Classics" series on The Gospel Coalition's website (first installment found here: http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/t...).
November 11, 2023
Preferred Master and Man to the Death of Ivan Ilyich.
The first story, non surprisingly, is mostly describing how the main character lived until he died, which I'm sure people will have found multiple different meanings, metaphors, and analogies but, for me, it really didn't do much. Surely these people will analyze every sentence and idea in the book as if they knew exactly what is the rest of the iceberg the author intended to establish while just writing its surface, but for me it was just a book about a guy and how he then liked his live, then he didn't, then he got sick, then he died. Ok, and? Didn't really care for any characters, didn't really care for the description of how an imaginary character lived based on what it's author decided it did until they died, so... Not something I'd say I'd read again.
The second story's title is, again, pretty much on the nose. And also deals with death and the normal lives of people. This time being an episode of the life between two people, a master and their worker, while going through a snowstorm to go somewhere. Again, I'm sure people will find all kinds of different meanings in this story but for me it just felt like an arbitrarily imagined world, with arbitrarily imagined characters who do arbitrarily decided things because the author decided so. It was a little bit more interesting than the first just because it wasn't literally just a biography of the life of an imagined character, but other than that, again, it really didn't do much for me either.
This is a book I'm glad I've read (Khadji Murat is still one of my favourite books of all time so I'm definitely glad to know more of Tolstoy) but something that was neither a particularly enjoyable read nor something I'd read again.
The first story, non surprisingly, is mostly describing how the main character lived until he died, which I'm sure people will have found multiple different meanings, metaphors, and analogies but, for me, it really didn't do much. Surely these people will analyze every sentence and idea in the book as if they knew exactly what is the rest of the iceberg the author intended to establish while just writing its surface, but for me it was just a book about a guy and how he then liked his live, then he didn't, then he got sick, then he died. Ok, and? Didn't really care for any characters, didn't really care for the description of how an imaginary character lived based on what it's author decided it did until they died, so... Not something I'd say I'd read again.
The second story's title is, again, pretty much on the nose. And also deals with death and the normal lives of people. This time being an episode of the life between two people, a master and their worker, while going through a snowstorm to go somewhere. Again, I'm sure people will find all kinds of different meanings in this story but for me it just felt like an arbitrarily imagined world, with arbitrarily imagined characters who do arbitrarily decided things because the author decided so. It was a little bit more interesting than the first just because it wasn't literally just a biography of the life of an imagined character, but other than that, again, it really didn't do much for me either.
This is a book I'm glad I've read (Khadji Murat is still one of my favourite books of all time so I'm definitely glad to know more of Tolstoy) but something that was neither a particularly enjoyable read nor something I'd read again.
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January 16, 2022Although these are supposed to be critiques of the "normal" viewpoint of the contemporary Russian middle-class man of his day, the protagonist of Ivan Ilyich and the Master of the second story were neither one of my usual approach to life. I am not very materialistic nor concerned too much with how other people will perceive me, although there is much too much of that in my psyche, I will readily admit. I don't pursue the materialistic goals of these two protagonists actively, but the stories serve as a reminder that it is too easy to get swept up in the norms of society.
This is the first fiction I have read in a long time. I was a bit surprised to not get dragged down by excessive description of horses, sleighs, muddy boots, and all the minutiae of Russian life in the late 19th century. I did have a wee bit of an issue with the looong drawn out Russian names and what appears to be a habit of using two names for the characters. Since these are both short stories, there was not a cast of thousands to keep track of thankfully, but I've heard that Russian authors have a tendency to write that way.
I'm not sure about this foray into fiction. I've started another one, this from the mid-1990's United States popular press. I've heard great things about this book. Looks like it's going to be some sort of romance. I've enjoyed a few of those in the far distant past, but I have my doubts. I've started another more to my liking to parallel the reading of this fictional piece and I'll just have to see how fiction reading works out.
This is the first fiction I have read in a long time. I was a bit surprised to not get dragged down by excessive description of horses, sleighs, muddy boots, and all the minutiae of Russian life in the late 19th century. I did have a wee bit of an issue with the looong drawn out Russian names and what appears to be a habit of using two names for the characters. Since these are both short stories, there was not a cast of thousands to keep track of thankfully, but I've heard that Russian authors have a tendency to write that way.
I'm not sure about this foray into fiction. I've started another one, this from the mid-1990's United States popular press. I've heard great things about this book. Looks like it's going to be some sort of romance. I've enjoyed a few of those in the far distant past, but I have my doubts. I've started another more to my liking to parallel the reading of this fictional piece and I'll just have to see how fiction reading works out.
July 6, 2025
Tolstoy does something remarkable in these two novellas: he strips away the distractions of society, ambition, and routine to stare death and life straight in the face. Both stories are simple, almost austere in structure, but emotionally potent and morally complex.
Ivan Ilyich is perhaps one of the most honest portrayals of dying I’ve ever read. There’s no romanticism here, just fear, denial, bitterness, and finally, a hard-won glimpse of grace. Tolstoy captures the terror of dying not just physically but existentially; Ivan’s anguish isn’t just about death. It’s about the dawning horror that he never truly lived.
Master and Man is solid, with a strong message about self-sacrifice and spiritual awakening, but it didn’t resonate with me quite as much. The symbolism felt a bit heavier and the narrative less intimate.
Ivan Ilyich is perhaps one of the most honest portrayals of dying I’ve ever read. There’s no romanticism here, just fear, denial, bitterness, and finally, a hard-won glimpse of grace. Tolstoy captures the terror of dying not just physically but existentially; Ivan’s anguish isn’t just about death. It’s about the dawning horror that he never truly lived.
Master and Man is solid, with a strong message about self-sacrifice and spiritual awakening, but it didn’t resonate with me quite as much. The symbolism felt a bit heavier and the narrative less intimate.
April 26, 2019
If you’re looking for a couple of gripping short stories that deal with death, I can’t recommend Tolstoy enough.
•
The Death of Ivan Ilyich has been on my radar for a while. And when I saw it at my local thrift store, I snatched it up (of course). But reading it turned out to be much more painful than I realized.
•
Ivan slowly succumbs to an unknown illness, enduring all the horrors that 19th century Russian medicine could offer. We see society’s inability to face death through his eyes, as his family and friends refuse to admit his true condition. And even Ivan himself turns away from it, til the end.
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Master and Man also deals with the folly of the pursuit of riches in the face of death, as the master drives his horse and servant into a snow blizzard. He refuses to acknowledge the futility of his journey, until the only choice left to him is whether to save his servant.
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Both stories were brief but powerfully written. It left me amazed at Tolstoy’s skill and insight into human nature, just as much as after I finished Anna Karenina.
•
Short stories are a genre I haven’t dove into much. What are some you enjoyed?
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Also, this was my pick for April’s challenge for #theunreadshelfproject2019 - read the book I last acquired! It feels great to knock it off the list!
•
The Death of Ivan Ilyich has been on my radar for a while. And when I saw it at my local thrift store, I snatched it up (of course). But reading it turned out to be much more painful than I realized.
•
Ivan slowly succumbs to an unknown illness, enduring all the horrors that 19th century Russian medicine could offer. We see society’s inability to face death through his eyes, as his family and friends refuse to admit his true condition. And even Ivan himself turns away from it, til the end.
•
Master and Man also deals with the folly of the pursuit of riches in the face of death, as the master drives his horse and servant into a snow blizzard. He refuses to acknowledge the futility of his journey, until the only choice left to him is whether to save his servant.
•
Both stories were brief but powerfully written. It left me amazed at Tolstoy’s skill and insight into human nature, just as much as after I finished Anna Karenina.
•
Short stories are a genre I haven’t dove into much. What are some you enjoyed?
•
Also, this was my pick for April’s challenge for #theunreadshelfproject2019 - read the book I last acquired! It feels great to knock it off the list!
February 15, 2022
Deux magnifiques nouvelles de Tolstoï mettant en scène chacune un personnage principal. Ce sont deux hommes empêtrés dans leur vie qu’ils ne mènent que pour eux-mêmes. Cependant, une ultime opportunité de changer qui ils sont se présente. Ils redirigent alors sublimement leurs actes vers les autres et le bien.
Extrait de Maître et serviteur, la nouvelle que j’ai le plus aimé : “ Et il se rappelle que Nikita est couché sous lui, qu’il a chaud et qu’il vit ; et il lui semble que lui, Vassili Andréitch, c’est Nikita, et que Nikita, c’est lui, et que sa vie à lui n’est pas en lui mais en Nikita. ”
Extrait de Maître et serviteur, la nouvelle que j’ai le plus aimé : “ Et il se rappelle que Nikita est couché sous lui, qu’il a chaud et qu’il vit ; et il lui semble que lui, Vassili Andréitch, c’est Nikita, et que Nikita, c’est lui, et que sa vie à lui n’est pas en lui mais en Nikita. ”
February 21, 2021
Reading the tale, Master and Man, seems appropriate in the midst of winter. Tolstoy wrote this tale about a decade after The Death of Ivan Ilych and Winter cold is so important in the story that it becomes yet another character by the end of this sophisticated parable. Snow and biting winds gust from its pages. Its climactic event, the transferal of heat from one body to another, has a resonance that cannot be denied, but my question would be: can it be believed?
The story begins just following the attendance of a merchant, Vasily Andreich Brekhunov, at the winter festival of St. Nicholas. Brekhunov immediately turns his attention to an opportunity to become richer. On a dark afternoon, despite the threat of a storm, he sets out to secure the purchase of a wood at a bargain price. He takes his "kind, pleasant" servant Nikita with him, a man Brekhunov values but insensitively exploits. He pays him half what he should, and then "mostly not in money but in high-priced goods from [his] shop."
The main arc of the story is the passage from life to death, one of Tolstoy's frequent concerns (as was dramatized in Ivan Ilych). There are plenty of symbols in the narrative and the tension almost immediately begins as Brekhunov and Nikita leave the village of Kresti ("The Crosses"). The narrator describes the breaking of limits in this passage:
"As soon as they passed the last [building], they noticed at once that the wind was much stronger than they had thought. The road could hardly be seen...The fields were all in a whirl, and the limit where sky and earth met could not be seen."
Nikita drowses and they become lost, riding across bleak fields "with clumps of wormwood and straw sticking up from under the snow." They come to the village of Grishkino, receive directions and set off again. The snowstorm has intensified. Again Nikita drowses, again they get lost in "the slanting net of wind-driven snow". Night is falling. They travel in a circle.
They come again to Grishkino.
This time they seek shelter at a wealthy household of the Taras family in the village. The contrast created between the cold loneliness of the wilderness and the cozy warmth of human habitation is striking. Nikita, icicles melting from his beard, drinks "glass after glass" of tea and feels "warmer and warmer, pleasanter and pleasanter". They could safely stay with the Taras family but Brekhunov again insists they must resume their journey.
They get lost a third time, in darkness this time, and the horse Mukhorty is too tired to carry on. Nikita prepares for a night outdoors, with Brekhunov in the sleigh and himself in a straw-lined hollow. Brekhunov smokes and thinks about "the sole aim, meaning, joy, and pride of his life – of how much money he had made and might still make". But these thoughts fade into the "whistling of the wind, the fluttering and snapping of the kerchief in the shafts, and the lashing of the falling snow against the bast of the sleigh."
Over the next few pages Tolstoy tracks Brekhunov's shift from discomfort and irritation to panic. He decides to take Mukhorty and abandon Nikita – "'it's all the same if he dies. What kind of life has he got!'" – who is losing his toes to frostbite, and realizes he is probably going to die. "This thought did not seem especially unpleasant to him, because his whole life was not a continuous feast, but, on the contrary, a ceaseless servitude, which was beginning to weary him."
On a floundering Mukhorty, Brekhunov travels in smaller circles across a hostile, almost alien landscape, coming twice to a clump of wormwood – "growing on a boundary … desperately tossing about under the pressure of the wind" – that appears to mark the grim border of existence. He "sees he is perishing in the middle of this dreadful snowy waste" and realizes the horse has brought him back to the sleigh (and to the one man whom the horse loves). Then, amazingly, he scrapes the snow from Nikita and lies on top of him. In the morning Nikita is alive and Brekhunov is dead, frozen as if crucified, "his open mouth...packed with snow."
There is something strange about Brekhunov's sudden and unlikely transformation from exploiter to saviour, which Tolstoy outlines but does not precisely describe. Brekhunov's thought that "'Nikita's alive, which means I'm alive, too,'" does not comport with the unmistakably Christian symbolism of the story. There are many instances of the number three in the story, but the most insistently repeated symbol is that of the circle. This is a traditional symbol of the unity of life and death, the Chain of Being. In spite of this the moment of transformation seems at best coincidental and more likely forced. Does it represent a new form of interconnection for Brekhunov that did not exist previously, or is it a form of redemption or absolution for a life of greed and insensitivity?
"Master and Man" is a complicated tale. Do we really know these two characters who are identified primarily by a couple of essential characteristics? To paraphrase a popular song: "Is that all there is, my friend?" Nikita is kind and pleasant, but he's also a drunk who chopped up his wife's most treasured clothes. Brekhunov is odious but he sees himself as a "benefactor" (although this may merely be relative to his forebears who owned Russian "souls"). In the end these two along with the horse Mukhorty are trapped in a hostile world in a bitter and blinding snowstorm. The story only becomes a classic with the stroke of Tolstoy's pen whose clarity and simplicity of style is peerless.
The story begins just following the attendance of a merchant, Vasily Andreich Brekhunov, at the winter festival of St. Nicholas. Brekhunov immediately turns his attention to an opportunity to become richer. On a dark afternoon, despite the threat of a storm, he sets out to secure the purchase of a wood at a bargain price. He takes his "kind, pleasant" servant Nikita with him, a man Brekhunov values but insensitively exploits. He pays him half what he should, and then "mostly not in money but in high-priced goods from [his] shop."
The main arc of the story is the passage from life to death, one of Tolstoy's frequent concerns (as was dramatized in Ivan Ilych). There are plenty of symbols in the narrative and the tension almost immediately begins as Brekhunov and Nikita leave the village of Kresti ("The Crosses"). The narrator describes the breaking of limits in this passage:
"As soon as they passed the last [building], they noticed at once that the wind was much stronger than they had thought. The road could hardly be seen...The fields were all in a whirl, and the limit where sky and earth met could not be seen."
Nikita drowses and they become lost, riding across bleak fields "with clumps of wormwood and straw sticking up from under the snow." They come to the village of Grishkino, receive directions and set off again. The snowstorm has intensified. Again Nikita drowses, again they get lost in "the slanting net of wind-driven snow". Night is falling. They travel in a circle.
They come again to Grishkino.
This time they seek shelter at a wealthy household of the Taras family in the village. The contrast created between the cold loneliness of the wilderness and the cozy warmth of human habitation is striking. Nikita, icicles melting from his beard, drinks "glass after glass" of tea and feels "warmer and warmer, pleasanter and pleasanter". They could safely stay with the Taras family but Brekhunov again insists they must resume their journey.
They get lost a third time, in darkness this time, and the horse Mukhorty is too tired to carry on. Nikita prepares for a night outdoors, with Brekhunov in the sleigh and himself in a straw-lined hollow. Brekhunov smokes and thinks about "the sole aim, meaning, joy, and pride of his life – of how much money he had made and might still make". But these thoughts fade into the "whistling of the wind, the fluttering and snapping of the kerchief in the shafts, and the lashing of the falling snow against the bast of the sleigh."
Over the next few pages Tolstoy tracks Brekhunov's shift from discomfort and irritation to panic. He decides to take Mukhorty and abandon Nikita – "'it's all the same if he dies. What kind of life has he got!'" – who is losing his toes to frostbite, and realizes he is probably going to die. "This thought did not seem especially unpleasant to him, because his whole life was not a continuous feast, but, on the contrary, a ceaseless servitude, which was beginning to weary him."
On a floundering Mukhorty, Brekhunov travels in smaller circles across a hostile, almost alien landscape, coming twice to a clump of wormwood – "growing on a boundary … desperately tossing about under the pressure of the wind" – that appears to mark the grim border of existence. He "sees he is perishing in the middle of this dreadful snowy waste" and realizes the horse has brought him back to the sleigh (and to the one man whom the horse loves). Then, amazingly, he scrapes the snow from Nikita and lies on top of him. In the morning Nikita is alive and Brekhunov is dead, frozen as if crucified, "his open mouth...packed with snow."
There is something strange about Brekhunov's sudden and unlikely transformation from exploiter to saviour, which Tolstoy outlines but does not precisely describe. Brekhunov's thought that "'Nikita's alive, which means I'm alive, too,'" does not comport with the unmistakably Christian symbolism of the story. There are many instances of the number three in the story, but the most insistently repeated symbol is that of the circle. This is a traditional symbol of the unity of life and death, the Chain of Being. In spite of this the moment of transformation seems at best coincidental and more likely forced. Does it represent a new form of interconnection for Brekhunov that did not exist previously, or is it a form of redemption or absolution for a life of greed and insensitivity?
"Master and Man" is a complicated tale. Do we really know these two characters who are identified primarily by a couple of essential characteristics? To paraphrase a popular song: "Is that all there is, my friend?" Nikita is kind and pleasant, but he's also a drunk who chopped up his wife's most treasured clothes. Brekhunov is odious but he sees himself as a "benefactor" (although this may merely be relative to his forebears who owned Russian "souls"). In the end these two along with the horse Mukhorty are trapped in a hostile world in a bitter and blinding snowstorm. The story only becomes a classic with the stroke of Tolstoy's pen whose clarity and simplicity of style is peerless.
August 11, 2025
The Death of Ivan Ilyich teaches us that repentence often does not happen without great suffering. Ivan begins to receive a kind of revelation, which is peculiar, and he speaks with his soul. This is an underrated form of religious experience. It takes a lot for him to admit that living by 'propriety' was wrong, in fact it was a way of lying. And he sees how he treated others, when he drops into a low status (invalid) and others start treating him the same as he did. What prevents him from admitting it is his justification of his life, and this makes him suffer more (whereas he would rather crawl into the black bag of death to end it). Pastorally I think this can be used to warn people not to call upon themselves this kind of suffering. The 'floating kidney' or 'blind stomach' that results from his falling on the window handle in his avaricious attempts to decorate is a symbol, a very realistic and powerful symbol. And the cruelty of others when you fall in life is palpable when seen in contrast to how they were in your former life.
Vassily is called by Christ and just begins to save Nikita with the same decisiveness he shook hands over a business deal, and later assures Nikita he'll be alright with the same 'boasting' he used in talking about his purchases and sales. His qualities as a businessman remain with him, while suddenly they are redirected from avarice to love. He was his whole life a rather crooked character, but industrious. Then he has a "fool - this night your soul will be required of you" moment about the wealth he had accrued. And he was horrified by the wormwood stalks which revealed to him that he was going in circles (a symbol for his life?), and he was terrified of being left alone in the snowdrift. He takes half a minute in silence before showing that he decided to save Nikita, which is a long time after Nikita told him he was dying and saing "forgive me, for Christ's sake." Then while he's lying on him he tries to talk but cries, feeling happy. It's hard to understand how it happens in such a man of action. Perhaps there is no other way than to appeal to the miraculous.
Both stories were moving to me. Master and Man didn't have characters as thick, but it was well written, especially with regards to the omens like the boy reciting his book "Storms hide the heavens in darkness!” and the wise man who doesn't want the house divided whose advice is ignored. However the Death of Ivan Ilyich was more so moving. I think this is because of how much time Tolstoy spends detailing the pain and descent of Ivan, the little clues before this largely related to his reasons for marriage that he was in the wrong direction, and the way Tolstoy accurately describes the disillusionment from the screening thoughts or habit of mind (screening from death) or the alternations between despair and hope, the working in his memory from innocence toward its progressive loss. And Ivan's second to last epiphany that “[if this is so and] I am leaving life in the knowledge that I have ruined everything that was given me, and it can’t be put right, then what?” just resounds a lot with me.
The upper class characters are depicted as basically con artists, who do little to nothing for people, working very hard nevertheless, to enrich themselves, and they are simultaneously conning themselves in the process. Meanwhile their subjects are depicted as saintly, enduring more hardship yet not complaining, more considerate of others below them, for example the animals for Nikita and Ivan when he is sick, for Gerasim. Gerasim is the only one that mentions honestly that Ivan is dying, when he explains why he helps him. Similarly Nikita has a more realistic take on the blizzard despite his resignation.
In Modern life the classes are more partitioned and have a more mediated view each other by propaganda. There are still slaves and "peasants," I believe, but they are less well treated at least in the sense that they are less likely to be honestly recognized as such or honestly helped. I am wondering what appearance a lower class person could make in the life of a Modern equivalent of an employer / master like Ivan or Vassili that isn't Kafkaesque. I don't think a life of a Modern Nikita could be saved, because he would not have the time in his proverbial blizzard to fill out the paperwork required.
The theological assumptions of Tolstoy behind these stories are that God is kind of like an anarchist like Tolstoy in that he has a lot of lessons for the upper class. We see their descent because they try to exalt themselves. We don't however see rags to riches stories, some which I think are true, and which I think could counterbalance Tolstoy's political bias. And we don't see any positive upper class characters.
The Church is characterized off and to the side. There is a funeral, confession and eucharist for Ivan, icons Nikita venerates. The church isn't mentioned at Ivan's ill fated wedding. Ivan's friend awkwardly behaves in a ritualistic manner at the funeral and this is clearly not portrayed as good on his part. Vassili is desribed as a corrupt element within his parish. But overall it is a very light touch and mildly positive. I think this may be a constraint when writing for the wider world. The main thing is the individual's repentence. But given that he even narrates that Vassili thinks there is no connection between the candles and prayers (in his parish) and his near death situation, it could also reflect a protestant tendency.
(Review from an orthodox perspective.)
Vassily is called by Christ and just begins to save Nikita with the same decisiveness he shook hands over a business deal, and later assures Nikita he'll be alright with the same 'boasting' he used in talking about his purchases and sales. His qualities as a businessman remain with him, while suddenly they are redirected from avarice to love. He was his whole life a rather crooked character, but industrious. Then he has a "fool - this night your soul will be required of you" moment about the wealth he had accrued. And he was horrified by the wormwood stalks which revealed to him that he was going in circles (a symbol for his life?), and he was terrified of being left alone in the snowdrift. He takes half a minute in silence before showing that he decided to save Nikita, which is a long time after Nikita told him he was dying and saing "forgive me, for Christ's sake." Then while he's lying on him he tries to talk but cries, feeling happy. It's hard to understand how it happens in such a man of action. Perhaps there is no other way than to appeal to the miraculous.
Both stories were moving to me. Master and Man didn't have characters as thick, but it was well written, especially with regards to the omens like the boy reciting his book "Storms hide the heavens in darkness!” and the wise man who doesn't want the house divided whose advice is ignored. However the Death of Ivan Ilyich was more so moving. I think this is because of how much time Tolstoy spends detailing the pain and descent of Ivan, the little clues before this largely related to his reasons for marriage that he was in the wrong direction, and the way Tolstoy accurately describes the disillusionment from the screening thoughts or habit of mind (screening from death) or the alternations between despair and hope, the working in his memory from innocence toward its progressive loss. And Ivan's second to last epiphany that “[if this is so and] I am leaving life in the knowledge that I have ruined everything that was given me, and it can’t be put right, then what?” just resounds a lot with me.
The upper class characters are depicted as basically con artists, who do little to nothing for people, working very hard nevertheless, to enrich themselves, and they are simultaneously conning themselves in the process. Meanwhile their subjects are depicted as saintly, enduring more hardship yet not complaining, more considerate of others below them, for example the animals for Nikita and Ivan when he is sick, for Gerasim. Gerasim is the only one that mentions honestly that Ivan is dying, when he explains why he helps him. Similarly Nikita has a more realistic take on the blizzard despite his resignation.
In Modern life the classes are more partitioned and have a more mediated view each other by propaganda. There are still slaves and "peasants," I believe, but they are less well treated at least in the sense that they are less likely to be honestly recognized as such or honestly helped. I am wondering what appearance a lower class person could make in the life of a Modern equivalent of an employer / master like Ivan or Vassili that isn't Kafkaesque. I don't think a life of a Modern Nikita could be saved, because he would not have the time in his proverbial blizzard to fill out the paperwork required.
The theological assumptions of Tolstoy behind these stories are that God is kind of like an anarchist like Tolstoy in that he has a lot of lessons for the upper class. We see their descent because they try to exalt themselves. We don't however see rags to riches stories, some which I think are true, and which I think could counterbalance Tolstoy's political bias. And we don't see any positive upper class characters.
The Church is characterized off and to the side. There is a funeral, confession and eucharist for Ivan, icons Nikita venerates. The church isn't mentioned at Ivan's ill fated wedding. Ivan's friend awkwardly behaves in a ritualistic manner at the funeral and this is clearly not portrayed as good on his part. Vassili is desribed as a corrupt element within his parish. But overall it is a very light touch and mildly positive. I think this may be a constraint when writing for the wider world. The main thing is the individual's repentence. But given that he even narrates that Vassili thinks there is no connection between the candles and prayers (in his parish) and his near death situation, it could also reflect a protestant tendency.
(Review from an orthodox perspective.)
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