The Death of Ivan Ilych in Never too Late to Read Classics

Dec 31, 2018 Ileana rated it really liked it · review of another edition

«Se daba cuenta de que nadie le compadecía porque nadie quería comprender siquiera su situación. Tan sólo Guerasim comprendía esta situación y le compadecía. Y por eso Iván Ilich únicamente se encontraba a gusto en compañía de Guerasim.»
La muerte de Iván Ilich [p. 61]

«El viejo diablo se fue de casa en casa. Llegó así a la de Iván y pidió algo de comer a la muda, que estaba haciendo la comida para su hermano. A fuerza de que los gandules la engañaran, pues se presentaban a la hora de comer y, sin ...more

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Dec 06, 2023 ForestGardenGal rated it really liked it

Shelves: favorites, location-russia-and-ussr, type-short-stories-essays, genre-philosophical-fiction, classics-published-50-years-ago

Socrates said that "the unexamined life is not worth living".

Epictetus said that "all humans seek the happy life, but many confuse the means- for example, wealth and status- with that life itself".

Seneca said that "it is not the man who has too little who is poor, but the one who hankers after more".

Seneca also reminds us that "death you'll think of as the worst of all bad things, when in fact there's nothing bad about it at all except the thing which comes before it - the fear of it.

Tolstoy's I Socrates said that "the unexamined life is not worth living".

Epictetus said that "all humans seek the happy life, but many confuse the means- for example, wealth and status- with that life itself".

Seneca said that "it is not the man who has too little who is poor, but the one who hankers after more".

Seneca also reminds us that "death you'll think of as the worst of all bad things, when in fact there's nothing bad about it at all except the thing which comes before it - the fear of it.

Tolstoy's Ivan Ilyich is a man who lives contrary to all of this philosophical wisdom. He lives his life concerned only with external things. His career, his reputation, his family as possessions, his money, his house, his position in society. He objectifies absolutely everything. Things have meaning only inasmuch as they benefit him. If he were a modern man, he would be said to live for his subscribers, likes, mentions, friends, career and portfolio. He acknowledges the horrible things he has done, but dismisses any feeling of wrongdoing because they are all things that are approved by his friends and society. They come to feel normalized, acceptable, and eventually even proper.

He is injured and suddenly becomes consciously aware of his mortality, and becomes obsessed with his fear of death, and in doing so commits a sort of spiritual suicide- he shifts his focus away from even the mundane externals that previously sustained his existence, but instead of focusing anew on things that really matter, he focuses solely on the decay of his body.

I think that Tolstoy was suffering from deep grief and depression following the deaths of his brother, his firstborn son, and his wife, and he was working through the existential questions of the meaning of life, what makes life worth living, and when it is better to die than to go on living in distress.

This book pairs well with other philosophical fiction centering around existential crises such as:
No Exit by Jean Paul Sartre
The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus
as well as The Trial and Death of Socrates (The Apology) by Plato

PG for themes of ennui, the meaninglessness of life, death and suicide. No sex, language, or violence. ...more

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