I racconti inediti sono qualcosa di stupendo.

The story of Ivan Ilyich was like wine — it goes down smoothly, but leaves a biting, succulent and lasting impression. The book is a deep and moving scrutiny of loss and absolution, in which the writer explores the dichotomy between the artificial and the authentic life. This book is probably the best account of the physiological and psychological panic, a man feels when so close to his own death.

“Ivan Ilych's life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible.”

Ivan Ilyich is the story of a respected, gregarious and a healthy middle aged court justice who suddenly sickens and dies. He leaves behind a wife (a woman Ivan disliked), two grown up children, and a few startled friends/acquaintances whose reaction to his death range from better-him-than-me to how-will-this-affect-my-career-prospects. The novella examines the reactions of the wife, children and friends at Ivan’s funeral, but the bulk of the story summarizes Ivan’s life and his battle with death.

'I'll probably get Shtabel's or Vinnikov's job now,' thought Fyodor Vasilyevich." also "'I'll have to request a transfer from Kaluga for my brother-in-law now,' thought Pyotr Ivanovich.’the wife will be delighted. And now she won't be able to say I've never done anything for my relatives.'"

At the beginning of the book, Ivan’s death is announced,the effects of which are clearly seen amongst the colleagues. Who are Fyodor Vasilyevich and Pyotr Ivanovich? Well, they are you and I. Individuals who react to death in selfish, materialistic, and fearful ways.

Can it be that I have not lived as one ought?" suddenly came into his head. "But how not so, when I've done everything as it should be done?”

In the eyes of the world, Ivan Ilyich was the epitome of success but in his own eyes he was a failure. Ilyich realizes that his entire hunt to befit himself into the shades of the society left him with absolutely no knowledge for coming to terms with death. Ultimately, the values of society left Ilyich with nothing of any true worth, with no idea of what his life should be. The modern society compels us to gloss over the reality of death. Society’s illusory and ludicrous norms force us to become strangers from life and death as well.

“The very fact of the death of someone close to them aroused in all who heard about it, as always, a feeling of delight that he had died and they hadn't.”

The brilliance of the book reflects when it brings light upon the dehumanizing aspects of our society. The doctor’s indifference towards the dying Ivan is nothing different than the insensitivity with which Ilyich treated the many that passed through his court during his career as a judge. Here, Tolstoy reminds us about the inability to recognize that other people’s lives are as significant as our own, is society’s greatest ill.

“And suddenly, it became clear to me that all this should not exist. Not only that it should not exist, but that it does not exist, and if this does not exist, then there is no death or fear, and the former rending in me is no more, and I am no longer afraid of anything. Here the light shown fully upon me, and I became what I am.”
At the very end Ilyich glimpses the joy of an authentic life and warns the reader of the dangers of living an unawakened life. Ivan’s last breath hopes that we can experience more than just a brief minute of this joy. Therefore, live fully!

Life is itself a memento mori and death is the proof reminding us that only by accepting our death can we hope to live an authentic life. According to Tolstoy, we must go against the grain and contemplate what the value of our lives can be when they will eventually end in death, if we are to find any meaning in a society that has taken so much of it away from us.

These stories conjure Tolstoy's both demons and beatitudes as shadow characters in his own grappled existence; his struggle large and small, low and high. They are men in mostly manly situations in life's conflicting roles and expectation. Men who control and lose it and find it again through absolution and giving over. Men who kill and are killed but live directly. Life is ever weighed according to ultimate meaning. Tolstoy can't laugh at life even when it confounds him and plays him a fool and his characters know it. There's just no levity here but there's life howbeit tortured and death releases its teacher to each his/her reader. Hallelujah.

Chronology
Introduction & Notes, by Anthony Briggs
Further Reading

--The Raid
--The Woodfelling
--Three Deaths
--Polikushka
--The Death of Ivan Ilyich
--After the Ball
--The Forged Coupon

Notes

This is a collection of four novellas by Leo Tolstoy of which the most famous is 'The Death of Ivan Ilyich'. Three have tragic endings and all read like cautionary tales. The main focus in all four is marriage, sexuality and relationships - and the damaging effects of infatuation, fornication, adultery, superficiality and unrealistic expectations. Much of the content is apparently based loosely around the author's own life experiences. Most fascinating is the way that Tolstoy opens a window into his characters' thought processes explaining in extraordinary detail the flawed thinking behind their actions and their personal reflections as their lives gradually unravel. Not easy reading but well worth the effort.

وعظي ديني.
لكن لتولستوي اسلوب جاذب يمنعك من نسيان التفاصيل على كثرتها

xxx

Well this book was certainly an enjoyable read. What a writer!
*Disclaimer: I'm not gonna get into different translators as I don't think I can add much to the subject. I read the P&V translation.

I'll get the bad outta the way first. The only thing I found marginally unpleasant was Tolstoy's Christianness. But that in itself is an interesting part of Tolstoy's biography that comes out in many of his works, so I give it a pass. Plus my Catholic friend was like, "If you were born a Catholic like me, you would understand Tolstoy." And he's right! But since I wasn't and I'm an unrepentant atheist, I say things like "Oof my lust! Oof my sin!" when I read some of these stories.

Everything else was pretty grand. Obviously I need to say something about Tolstoy's reputation. Don't judge me too harshly for this, as I don't quite know the answer myself, but in conversing with the people I have ready-at-hand at my disposal, the most common issue comes to be the length of Tolstoy's writing and the tediousness or opaqueness that that length transcribes in its readers. Thankfully you and I, for we are friends are we not?, kunak, if you prefer, can sidestep this issue entirely. But for a great many people, readers even, out there, the very syllable of TOL summons hoards of recondite and esoteric tomes of innumerable length and inexhaustible Russian nicknames. And while I must admit that since I am not Russian, nor am I from the mid 19th century, it is not immediately obvious to me in all respects that this would present no issue.

Nevertheless, in reading this book of these short stories, I'm happy to report that I had no such serious problems or fears and that while one Pyotr Nicholaevich may have passed me by, I was able to retrieve him without much ado. In fact, what's more, I'd be most willing to describe Tolstoy's prose as quite lucid and straightforward. While it does linger on the occasional scene, setting, gesture, or what have you, I found it not overly ornate but rather to the point if not exactly properly concise.

So let's get to some more very praiseworthy generalities. Tolstoy's prose is great and that enough makes this book worth a read. Tolstoy's characterization of Russianness seems wholly coherent and gives the reader an engaging framework to place his various characters. In this same vein, his social and cultural commentaries flow naturally from the very vividness and realness evoked by his characters, plots, and so on. This is a good combination of features. Many of these short stories were composed intentionally as "moral fables" that in subtle ways espouse Tolstoy's thoughts on religion and Christianity. This, too, fits well.

Okay, some specifics. This translation had a brief introduction by Pevear which nicely added autobiographical insights into some of the stories. The most famous of the stories is probably The Death of Ivan Ilyich which is a powerfully mundane meditation on mortality (and perhaps a cynical look at marriage?). The stories I liked the least were ones a little too consumed by a man's obsession with lustfulness. Even though The Kreutzer Sonata and The Devil best fit this, I still think they are worthy stories in a way. Father Sergius is the one of this category that I think attempts to break out of the mold.

I liked seeing Tolstoy's personal idea of Christianity come out in Diary of a Madman and in parts of The Forged Coupon. The Forged Coupon may have been my favorite of the book. The short ones-The Prisoner of the Caucasus, Master and Man, After the Ball, and Alyosha the Pot-are punchy and thoughtful.

And then there's Hadji Murat. Long ago, when I first got this book, I was in college and taking Russian and my Russian prof was like "You like Homer, right? You're a classicist or something, yeah? Read Hadji Murat! Write a paper on how Tolstoy is epic! Submit it to a journal! They'll throw it away but it'll be a good lesson for you or something! *dings bell* NEXT STUDENT!" This impressed a great truth upon me that I proudly ignored until an even less amiable version of the same thing happened in grad school; though without the dinging bell. At any rate, Hadji Murat does have a little epic in it! But just a little. It could use some more honestly but it's alright. Having read all of these short stories Tolstoy is a little too modern for what I imagine is true epic, a little too enraptured by the singularly blinding passions that exist within the human heart. Ah but Anders, you say, how can you say that the Iliad is not enraptured by Achilles' blinding passions, his indefatigable rage?? Well that's a fair point. The difference lies somewhere between symbolic potency of Achilles and the individualist sympathy of Hadji Murat. Leaving aside epic, Hadji Murat is right next to The Forged Coupon as my favorite of the book. And it was particularly interesting to learn of the primary sources Tolstoy used to write it. A tale of brave men.

All in all a very enjoyable read for many reasons. I hope to get to War and Peace and Anna Karenina some day.

Using this novel as my introduction to Leo Tolstoy's work. I'll be updating my review as I read through each short story. Out of all the short stories, I really enjoyed The Death of Ivan Ilych and The Forged Coupon.

3.5/5

n  The Raidn ✰✰✰½
The story takes place in the Caucasus region and begins with a conversation between the narrator and a military captain about bravery.

n  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘it seems to me that in every danger there is a choice, and the choice that springs from a sense of duty, for example, is courage, while a choice made under the influence of base feelings is cowardice.n

The narrator originally seems intrigued by the idea of participating in battle and questions why people willingly fight. We follow this narrator and meet a couple of key characters. One in particular peaked my interest. He is described as a charismatic man who in reality has a noble heart. He nurses one of his enemies to health after shooting him.

n  And how that man suffered, just to appear in his own eyes the way he wanted to appear, for his fellow officers and the soldiers could never see him the way he wanted to be seen.n

Overall, I'm incredibly impressed by this short story and believe it was a strong start. I might have to get used to the lack of riveting plot I'm used to with fantasy novels and instead focus on the hidden meaning of the narrative.

n  The Woodfellingn ✰✰✰
Through the perspective of a cadet, we meet a cast of characters once again fighting a battle in Caucasus. We learn that some are fighting in battle just to get recognition because returning to Russia without it would be unspeakable. The situation in Russia is regarded as fantastic by one person, but it is contrasted in the following chapter as a soldier's family has not responded to his letters and he assumes they're too poor to reply or want him to come home. The ending is a bit sad and overall I think the story captures the range of people you would meet in battle.

n  His last moments had been as bright and calm as his whole life. He had lived too honestly, too simply, for his unquestioning faith in the heavenly life to come to falter at the moment of truth.n

n  Three Deathsn ✰✰½
Finally encountered the first female characters in this collection of short stories. As expected this story is about three deaths, though the last one is not as obvious as the first two. Incredibly short and quick read that I enjoyed.

n  Polikushkan ✰✰✰✰
So far the best short story I have read, however, it was considerably longer than the others. The main character, Polikey, is a man that has been a thief most of his life due to the influence of the man that raised him. Now poor, married, and a father of three children, Polikey is a drunk and continues to steal. After being caught by the mistress and begging for forgiveness, she gives Polikey an opportunity to show he has changed by tasking him with picking up a huge sum of money from a nearby village. Polikey does not know that the mistress has determined that his spot in the army will be taken by the nephew of another poor serf Datlov. An unfortunate circumstance occurs, forever changing the life of Polikey and Datlov. The ending chapter was a bit confusing, however, this short story was still a great read.

n  The Death of Ivan Ilychn ✰✰✰✰✰

n  The past history of Ivan Illyich's life had been straightforward, ordinary and dreadful in the extreme.n

Phenomenal from start to finish. This short story begins when Ivan's colleagues learn of his death. All are selfishly thinking of who will take his job, but are reminded that they must pay respects at his funeral. We meet Ivan's family at this funeral, but are taken back to the beginning of Ivan's life in the third chapter. Following along from his birth up to his death we learn that not all the riches in his life bring the happiness he so desperately desired. Once again, this was an outstanding short story; it is no surprise that this is his one of his most well-known works.

n  After the Balln ✰✰
Ivan discusses the events that occurred the night of a ball. He begins the tale as a love story, how enamored he was with the colonel’s daughter. Riding on a high back in his home, he decides to return her glove and heads to her place. Here he sees a frightening scene that changes his feelings and demonstrates the unsettling feeling of whether actions can truly be justified.

n  The Forged Couponn ✰✰✰✰½
Absolutely loved this one from start to finish. A 15 year old boy forges a coupon to pay back a debt he has with his friends. Initially we follow along with this forged coupon, and eventually we start seeing the drastic outcomes and how people's lives change from this simple illegal act. Although a lot more religious than the previous short stories, this one had my attention from the start.

I tend to prefer to enter into art relatively blind. Of course, It takes a certain amount of interest for me to engage with a writer, artist, or work, but after peaking my curiosity I prefer to enter unaware. I had no idea what these four short stories would be like and this was my first engagement with Tolstoy himself; I found my self surprised.

I’ll be curious to see how it carries over into his more famous larger works, but at least in these short stories he is quite the moralist. After reading the stories I was not at all surprised to find out that he was a Calvinist because all of his stories had very religious overtones with blatant almost fairy tail-esk morals that directly related to a Christian world view. People act immorally, learn a lesson and suffer the consequences with a clean conscious.

In terms of story telling he got much better as the stories went on, the first tale, a love story from the perspective of the wife was quite droll and tedious but as the stories progressed and I both became more acquainted with his style and he grew as a writer (the first and last stories were written some 36 years apart) I found myself increasingly sucked into these simple but endearing tales. I’m excited to jump into his two longer works and am quite intrigued to see how his moralistic style manifests in the epic form.

On reading Tolstoy for the first time

I've been reluctant for decades to read the great Russian master because I never felt I had the time to tackle War and Peace or Anna Karenina. I suspect others have felt the same way and thereby missed reading one of the truly great literary artists to have ever lived. Put it off no more. Pick up this 317-page splendid collection of some of Leo Tolstoy's best stories including the celebrated "The Death of Ivan Ilyich."

There are six other stories, the most significant of which is perhaps the sad "Polikushka" which is just about as long as "Ivan Ilyich" and to my mind a bit better in some respects. I also very much liked "The Raid" and "The Woodfelling" which are starkly realistic stories about soldiers engaged and not engaged in battle told wistfully without phony heroics or needless sensationalism. In fact, every story is not just excellent, but deeply engaging, cathartic and transcending as only great literature can be.

You don't have to read more than a few pages before you are struck with the sheer majesty of Tolstoy's gargantuan narrative style, his command of all aspects of storytelling from the kind of deep understanding of character that one finds in Shakespeare, to the kind of descriptive power about people and their environs that can only come from someone with a prodigious memory, a sharp eye and an unusual ability to concentrate. Somehow Tolstoy always knows what to leave in and what to leave out. He knows how to describe without slowing down the tale or making the reader aware of "purple passages." Everything flows like the great Don as naturally as breathing, but with a massive density of observation and experience, both intellectual and emotional, that frankly leaves this scribe in awe.

Tolstoy reminds me of Guy de Maupassant in his realistic depictions of peasant and bourgeois life, except that--hard to believe--he is even better! Furthermore, Tolstoy displays in a restrained and subtle manner a deep love for his characters. Again like Shakespeare he understands the psychology of the high and the low and is sympathetic to their struggles. Even though Ivan Ilyich was a self-important and pitiless magistrate who lived something close to an empty, unobserved life, which Tolstoy presents without rancor or pity, there is nonetheless a sense, especially toward the end, of compassion and empathy for a man who, although elevated in society, really didn't know any better than to blindly follow an animal bourgeois existence.

Although some of the stories are written in the first person Tolstoy stands back and is uninvolved, a seeing eye and a listening ear. Because of his great narrative power, Tolstoy even in the first person seems almost god-like in his point of view. He sees the landscapes and the trees and little children with their soft skin and plaintive cries, and he sees the blowhards and the hypocrites, the pathetic and the drunk, and the stupid, and treats them all the same. For the most part, at any rate. Sometimes his gaze favors some and disparages others. He is both objective and subjective, both a literary artist who values truth with a capital "T" and someone who cares deeply about these people he has invented/imagined/observed and remembered. He presents such an incredibly rich and vivid portrait of life in 19th century Russia that you feel you are there in the bitter cold beneath high blue skies, wearing the rags and the birch bark boots, smoking the cheap tobacco and throwing back the oily vodka, sleeping five to a bed listening to the cockroaches near the stove in the black of night, fearful of death and crossing yourself before icons, and all the while dreaming of something grand and laughing uneasily at the absurdity of life and shivering at the inevitability of death.

Yes, this collection, as Anthony Briggs, one of the translators, says in his fine introduction, is about death. Ivan Ilyich dies, but many others also die. Some in battle, some in bravado, some by accident and some by their own hand. Some foolishly, some painfully, some without a notion of why or what for, but all of them essentially alone. Tolstoy focuses intently on this dying and goes deep into the souls of those dying, how they cling to life and rationalize away what is to come and what they have done, lying to themselves; and how others take it as their due, without self-pity, without a word, just a hand to the chest and a stoppage of life, and then a report, some words exchanged, a bit of gossip about so-and-so who is now gone.

But as Carl Sandburg told us, the grass will still grow and cover all, and life will go on, and again the same delusions and appetites and vanities will be propagated and the same pain and suffering, the same petty quarrels and petty delights, snatches of beauty amidst the ugly squalor will be seen again, and, as at the ending of "The Raid," a sonorous voice will once again lift itself into the air in song, and the men will move quietly on to a new task, a new beginning, toward a final ending somewhere down the long and dusty road.

--Dennis Littrell, author of the sensational mystery novel, “Teddy and Teri”

first book i read from him. was expecting more from mr. tolstoy himself but that's not to say it was bad. nevertheless, the stories offered great observations on a lot of social issues of the time. my fav was hands down the death of ivan ilyich.