I cannot quite identify what draws me to Russian literature of the late 1800s, but it speaks to me. I’ve read many of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s books and several Leo Tolstoy’s. I came across this little gem while perusing a list recommended literature.
It is in many ways a classic Russian work. Our protagonist is a judge who worked his way up by first going to the provinces and by a bit of luck too. He is a talented judge and unusual for these type of tales, an honest judge. He married as it seemed the thing to do, and that it was expected of people in his profession and social situation. His marriage is not a happy one, but does produce several children. As in many Russian novels, there are money difficulties. It does not seem to matter what he makes, the family’s wants expand to the income and a little more. As his marriage deteriorates and other difficulties crowd in, he buries himself in his work. All of this is not an uncommon tale.
What I admire about Tolstoy is his ability to zero on the absurdities of human life.
“He went. Everything took place as he had expected and as it always does. There was the usual waiting and the important air assumed by the doctor, with which he was so familiar (resembling that which he himself assumed in court), and the sounding and listening, and the questions which called for answers that were foregone conclusions and were evidently unnecessary, and the look of importance which implied that “if only you put yourself in our hands we will arrange everything — we know indubitably how it has to be done, always in the same way for everybody alike.” It was all just as it was in the law courts. The doctor put on just the same air towards him as he himself put on towards an accused person.”
The judge’s life begins to unravel when an illness comes upon him that no one can diagnose accurately or treat. It is at this point that the book becomes amazingly intense. Tolstoy delves into how Ivan Ilyitch is handling dying. He explores how people around the judge are responding to his impending death. For the most of the people it is a series of self-interest speculations or worries.
“Ivan Ilyich had been a colleague of the gentlemen present and was liked by them all. He had been ill for some weeks with an illness said to be incurable. His post had been kept open for him, but there had been conjectures that in case of his death Alexeev might receive his appointment, and that either Vinnikov or Shtabel would succeed Alexeev. So on receiving the news of Ivan Ilych’s death the first thought of each of the gentlemen in that private room was of the changes and promotions it might occasion among themselves or their acquaintances.”
Tolstoy more or less takes the reader through the Kübler-Ross model of the five stages of grief. This was long before anyone had articulated or listed them. This is just another example of Tolstoy’s observational genius. Ilyitch and his wife first deny there is anything serious.
“Ivan Ilyich saw that he was dying, and he was in continual despair.
In the depth of his heart he knew he was dying, but not only was he not accustomed to the thought, he simply did not and could not grasp it.
The syllogism he had learnt from Kiesewetter’s Logic: “Caius is a man, men are mortal, therefore Caius is mortal,” had always seemed to him correct as applied to Caius, but certainly not as applied tohimself. That Caius — man in the abstract — was mortal, was perfectly correct, but he was not Caius, not an abstract man, but a creature quite, quite separate from all others.”
Then Ilyitch becomes angry at the situation. After all had he not done everything right, according to accepted social norms? Why then was this happening to him?
Then there are the long periods of depression mixed in with the anger. All the while the pain grows and he wastes away even more.
“What tormented Ivan Ilyich most was the deception, the lie, which for some reason they all accepted, that he was not dying but was simply ill, and the only need keep quiet and undergo a treatment and then something very good would result. He however knew that do what they would nothing would come of it, only still more agonizing suffering and death. This deception tortured him — their not wishing to admit what they all knew and what he knew, but wanting to lie to him concerning his terrible condition, and wishing and forcing him to participate in that lie”
It is only after he reached the stage of acceptance and forgiveness is he able to let his body go and die.
‘And suddenly it grew clear to him that what had been oppressing him and would not leave him was all dropping away at once from two sides, from ten sides, and from all sides. He was sorry for them, he must act so as not to hurt them: release them and free himself from these sufferings. “How good and how simple!” he thought. “And the pain?” he asked himself. “What has become of it? Where are you, pain?”’
What is interesting to me is that Tolstoy was not a religious man, in a time and place that was thick with religiosity. As Ivan dies, he sees the white light and goes toward it. For some reason I have always thought of this white light as a modern conception of the dying moment.
What I liked about this book is that Tolstoy described the emotional struggles of a dying person so well. It sounds like a morbid subject and it is. But to me, the real morbidity comes from the people not dying. In the end Ivan comes to peace with himself and death. The survivors do not.
This book is in the public domain and can be downloaded for free.
Audio book from LibriVox.org : The Death of Ivan Ilyitch