The Death of Ivan Ilyich

A review of The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy 

Kiran Fane

After finishing this review and asking myself what I have wrought, I felt the need to add a disclaimer. Though it is true that I am terribly unfun at parties, I would like to clarify it is not for the reasons this writing would lead you to believe.

The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy is one of the most deeply impactful works of literature I have personally experienced. I will herein struggle mightily in the effort to convey the why of so effusive a praise. Every time I have read this story it has been, in a strange way, utterly surreal, despite the sheer mundanity of its subject and prose. I would caution any prospective readers to only apply themselves to the absorption of this story whilst in a strong mental state. Any who too readily accept the fatalistic statements that abound within the text runs the risk of sinking into a mental quagmire. I do feel that any mention of Tolstoy’s work, no matter its quality, should be taken as an opportunity to touch on the contentious relationship between himself and his wife. In the case of The Death of Ivan Ilyich such a conversation feels especially apropos. In either case I encourage the reader to explore the fascinating history of Sophia Tolstoy.

Tolstoy’s prose is almost aggressive in its brutal insistence on minimalism. I understand that other writers such as Carver or Hemingway also favored this style but it seems to me that Tolstoy’s efforts bend entirely beneath the lash of literary austerity. I would expect my personal tastes to render such a style utterly unpalatable to me, but there is something beneath the “report” style prose that refuses to be discounted. The depth of meaning and emotion that one can glean from even Tolstoy’s most prescriptive sentences is frankly astounding. Take, for example, the following line from a scene in which Ivan Ilyich is playing cards while suffering from his illness. “And worst of all, he can see how upset Mihail Mikhaylovich is, and he doesn’t care. And it is awful to think why he doesn’t care.” This is the language one uses to describe an unfortunate rain disturbing their picnic, but here it encapsulates all the anguish of Ivan’s slow wasting demise.

The atmosphere of Ivan Ilyich is expressed, like everything else in the work, quite succinctly. The setting of 19th century Russia is brought to the reader through the same bland, gray statements of which Tolstoy is so fond. And yet, like much of the writing, this style serves excellently to convey the stodgy and repressed atmosphere which is so integral to Ivan Ilyich’s life. 

The work explores the life and death of Ivan Ilyich through his own eyes and the characters we meet are thus colored by his views. And so it is that Ivan’s family and friends are presented as being aloof and careless creatures while Ivan himself is portrayed as a sympathetic and upright man, though this particular view is challenged as the narrative progresses. The only character presented in a kindly light is Gerasim, the rustic peasant who provides Ivan with the pity and understanding he so desperately craves. I would also like to state that I personally believe, after a cursory study of Tolstoy’s life, that the character of Ivan is, at times, explicitly a stand-in for the failings of the author himself.

The plot of Ivan Ilyich is, paradoxically, quite simplistic, verging on boring, and can be summarized thusly: Ivan Ilyich lives a very proper and correct life and then dies unpleasantly of an illness. You will, I hope, forgive me this one spoiler in The Death of Ivan Ilyich, but Ivan, in fact, does not survive his illness. Beneath the placid surface of this mundane synopsis is a tumultuous sea of long-suffered uncertainty and desperate seeking for answers. The story is, at its core, a tale of one man coming to terms with his own mortality. But even this fails to fully capture the depth of meaning expressed in the scant pages of the story, and, at the risk of rendering my review fruitless, I can only encourage you the reader to discover this work for yourself.

I will, in the spirit of Ivan Ilyich, endeavor to accept the ending of my work here with grace. Reading The Death of Ivan Ilyich is a brief act, akin to stepping from a cliff’s edge. As easy as breathing, one can step over the edge and enter a world of terrible, if short-lived, free-fall. I can not help but encourage any reader with the heart for it to take that step. Again I repeat my earlier warning that this is not a tale to be undertaken lightly. One must be in a proper frame of mind, or, at the least, prepared for an indeterminable evening of unmoored existential dread. 

Lastly I would caution any who read this work against believing with certainty any epiphany that their first reading may evince. The Death of Ivan Ilyich, if not handled with care, can easily lead one down a path of misplaced, and oft misrepresented, “stoicism”. I do not capitalize this school of philosophy for I am not here referring to the ancient teaching of Zeno but rather to the modern interpretation of “stoicism” that imagines it has found the peaks of enlightenment in an abandonment of emotion. Lest I wander too far afield from the topic at hand, I will highlight here a section from the book that shows Ivan Ilyich is nothing if not a study in the folly of rigid thought. Near the end of his life, Ivan is lamenting how he wished only for pity and tenderness but, when a friend interrupts these thoughts, he returns instead to his habitual and “proper” ways. “It was this, living a lie, all around him and within him, that did most to poison the last days of the life of Ivan Ilyich.”

Go, read, be free, and perhaps shed a few tears for The Death of Ivan Ilyich.