Ivan the Sad

The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy

This book was an incredible story of a man grappling with his own death - up close and personally. Ivan is your average middle income husband with two children working for the Ministry of Justice. He slips one day while hanging drapes in his new home and comes down with a mysterious illness that slowly and painfully kills him. I know what you're thinking - depressing! Well, it was depressing, but it was also an interesting look at death. The book itself is really short (106 pages) and I can't help, but think that it's a lure to try to get the common people to delve into Tolstoy's longer books, Anna Karenina or War and Peace (each over 800 pages). The Death of Ivan Ilyich deals mostly with the often messy and secular aspects of death. Ivan spends many hours contemplating "What is it all for?", "Why is this happening to me?" and pondering what he has done to deserve such an end, as if death can be avoided if we only live more 'correctly.' Reading this short story made me feel very lucky to be alive and not in Ivan's serious pain. It also made scrutinize the family and friends with which I have surrounded myself. I don't believe that anyone I love would treat me as poorly as Ivan's family treated him. He had a run-of-the-mill marriage and while I believe his wife and children did love him they keep the lie alive and refuse to discuss his death. Ivan winds up mostly alone, with only his servant, Grissom to take care of him and his young son to pity him and feel his loss. With all of his anguish, at the end of the story Ivan does see a light and one has to wonder - what is this light he sees and what does this say of Tolstoy's own vision of death?