I have something to say, which, for lovers of literature, might be borderline blasphemous. I read Tolstoy, and…and…

He’s okay.

Just okay. He didn’t rock my world. He didn’t change my life. His prose is good, but not magnificent; his characters are relatable, but not unforgettable; his stories are interesting, but not quite compelling. I didn’t come away from these stories convinced, as so many are, that Tolstoy is the greatest writer who ever lived. In fact, of the four great Russian writers I recall having read—Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Turgenev, and Lermontov—I would put Tolstoy in third place, in front of Turgenev, with Lermontov marginally better than him and Dostoyevsky leagues ahead of anyone else.

Granted, I am a Dostoyevsky fanboy, and I haven’t read Tolstoy’s two great novels: Anna Karenina and War and Peace. Maybe if I read either of those works, my tune would change dramatically, and I’d be embarrassed for having written this review. Maybe I’m just a Philistine. But I’m a Philistine who calls them like he sees them.

There’s an interesting variety to the stories in my edition. There are war stories, like “The Prisoner of the Caucasus” and “Hadji Murat”; there are meditations on death—the final frontier of the soul’s journey—and our struggle to find peace and redemption in the face of it, in “The Diary of a Madman” and “The Death of Ivan Ilyich”; there’s an extensive diatribe against…erm…sex(?) masquerading as a novella in “The Kreutzer Sonata”; and there’s a little common-man hagiography called “Alyosha the Pot”, which, despite being only a few pages long, I found to be the most evocative work in the collection.

I’m sorry, Tolstoyists. Coke is better than Pepsi, Tupac is better than Biggie, and Dostoyevsky is better than Tolstoy.

Westside!

What a wonderful collection of stories. All of them were excellent with the theme of death. The Death of Ivan Ilyich is thought provoking about how we view death. The device to use of short chapters as his death draws near and his reflections of his life works well. The judge who is dying is a person who lives the moment and is unreflective. Then he reflects on his life and questions whether it had any value. Some of us will all be in his position one day.

My favourite story was the Forged Coupon and the ripple effect it had on the characters. The Raid and Woodfelling stories of the randomness of death in war was well done. Tolstoy truly was an exquisite writer.

ضمن كتاب مصرع إيفان إيليتش وقصص أخرى (دار الجمل، ترجمة سامر كرّوم). مختارات تضيء على الجانب المؤمن في كتابة تولستوي، الذي يضخّم العلاقة الجدلية بين الإنسان وفحوى وجوده، مشخصناً بصورة ذكية وجهة نظره، عبر جعل أبطال قصصه كائنات متأزمة وإنجيلية في آن، تخضع للقدر مستسلمة للفناء، جاهزة للمثول أمام البارئ.

في حكاية إيليتش هناك بيئة أدبية شيّدها تولستوي لتحريك الأسئلة الفلسفية والمتقاسمة في كل الأجيال حول الموت. تجارب كالألم والموت لا تعاش ولا تُجس إلا فردياً رغم أنها تؤلف المصير الجماعي للبشر. لكن من خلال القصة يظهر جلياً أن الناس لا يريدون أن يروا الموت، لا يريدون أن يكونوا جزءاً من تجربة رجل يحتضر كـ إيليتش. كأن لا وقت لديهم لذلك. يسابقون الحياة، ويجاهرون بذلك حول امرئ يسابق الموت وحيداً.

لعل مفتاح عبقرية الروائي الروسي الفذ ليو تولستوي أنه كان مزيجاً مدهشاً بين المفكر والفنان، لديه ما يقول من تأملات وأفكار، ولديه أسئلة تشغله وتؤرقه، ولكنه يعرف كيف يطرح ذلك بفن، ويدرك أن أفضل ما يفعله لخدمة فكرته، أن يُخلص أضعافاً مضاعفة للفن الذي يكتبه.

من همین ترجمه را در کیهان هفته شماره ۳۹ یکشنبه ۲۹ مرداد ۱۳۴۱ خواندم.

As Rod Serling so aptly put it, "Imagine, if you will . . ." coming to Leo Tolstoy's short story, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, never having seen Akira Kurosawa's Ikiru, or the most recent adaptation, Living by Kazuo Ishiguro.

Tolstoy painted a portrait of class struggles that played a huge role in Russian society. A culture where one only felt worthwhile if they were able to climb the corporate ladder, and success was having a high position that would bring with it a large salary. Nothing else mattered. Our hero, Ivan Ilyich is one of the Russians on this ladder. He develops stomach cancer and while dying realizes that he has never actually lived.

This is the idea Kurosawa seized upon and masterfully created a profound portrait of a man who learns too late, but still learns and finds redemption.
Much like an international translator of literature, Kazuo Ishiguro transposed the Japanese film into a very British one and beautifully done. He chose not to alter Kurosawa's magnificent story  but merely to place it in a different culture. Similar to international translators, translating stories into English, it must be the same story, just told with another language. Ishiguro accomplishes this wonderfully with Kurosawa's film.

The theme of living a full life worked well across the three cultures and we have Tolstoy to thank for the impetus. He realized this is a universal story in addition to being a Russian one as well. Should we not all pay attention to art, music, literature but most of all to our relationships? Our connections with others is the core of our being human. Ivan was never able to cultivate a relationship even with his own son.
However, as Ivan was dying he became close to his servant, Gerasim who just by being present, relieved his pain.

Tolstoy's lesson for us, which Kurosawa and Ishiguro expanded on, is to pay close attention to how we live our lives, to learn to live BEFORE we die.

If you don't want to challenge yourself by reading Tolstoy's big books, for example Anna Karenina or War and Peace, but still want to experience his writing style, these short stories are the way to go! I was so surprised at how Tolstoy is able to fit so much character development and so many important messages in such a small number or pages. These stories really impact you in a lot of ways. This collection consists of four stories: Family happiness, The death of Ivan Ilyich, The Kreutzer sonata and The Devil. I must say it is hard to choose my favorite one, each story is so unique and important, and it really makes you think about life and the choices we make, about love and the relationships between the male and female sex. I believe we can all learn something from these stories, as they are still quite fitting today in our modern society (even though they were written in the 19th century).

“The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories” collects three novellas and four shorts, by Leo Tolstoy, each a rumination on death. Here is a brief summary of each.

“The Raid” and “The Woodfelling” both take place in Chechnya, that borderland which has long been the subject of feuds and violence. Both stories feature a narrator who’s a member of a small company being sent on a war-time mission. The men carry out orders, and in down time joke around, drink, and goof off like anyone would, always with that knowledge that they, or the person they’re speaking with, could be dead at any moment.

“Three Deaths” chronicles a brief, ill-fated journey, a wealthy woman in her carriage, on her way to Italy, her husband certain she is too ill to travel. They make a stop, and their driver trades boots with another driver who is on the verge of death. Throughout, the deaths are contrasted with the life around them, particularly in descriptions of nature. The final sentence sums it all up:

“On high, the succulent leaves whispered in peace and joy, and the boughs of the living trees slowly stirred themselves, looking down in majesty on the dead tree that lay flat on the ground.”

In “Polikushka,” the titular character, a serf of low-standing, is proposed as a potential recruit for the army. Each village is required to submit three males, and it looks like Polikey’s number may be called. But the mistress of the town thinks he’s a bit too much of an embarassement, and would rather send someone else, like, say old Dutlov’s nephew. Old Dutlove could buy his nephew’s way out of service, but doesn’t want to part with the money.

When Polikey is called to see the mistress, his wife suspects the worst, but the mistress surprises them both by sending Polikey on an errand to collect money from a farmer. The town’s mistress is, it seems, offering Polikey an opportunity to prove his trustworthiness, after a long period in which this was in grave doubt. Polikey successfully obtains the money, but loses it on his return trip. Here the story takes a dark turn, becoming even darker when Dutlove reveals that he has in fact “found” the money, which now is considered cursed and won’t be touched by anyone, including the mistress who sent for it.

This is quite an effective story that gives a rundown of the major players in this town, and squeezes out quite a bit of sympathy for the poor, wayward Polikey (who, admittedly, desire to get out of military service when it is, most agree, his turn), and a measure of scorn for men like Dutlov, with the power if not desire to affect change.

“The Death of Ivan Ilyich” announces its subject’s death right up front, and then for the length of a novella examines Ivan’s fear of death, the false face he puts on in the presence of loved ones, and Ivan’s unfortunate final conclusion that he has indeed wasted his time on Earth.

As with others in this collection, there are certain lines that demand to be re-read. Take for instance the brilliance of the opening line of chapter two: “The past history of Ivan Ilyich’s life had been straightforward, ordinary and dreadful in the extreme.” Damn right. What a statement.

“After the Ball” is a stunning tale of a man meeting a woman’s father in one situation—a pleasant evening ball—and then encountering him in quite another—the “hiding” of an army deserter.

The last story, “The Forged Coupon,” is the longest, and to my mind most tedious of the collection. It’s a morality tale that begins when a young boy forges a bank note that he passes off as legitimate. This has consequences that ring out through the entire village. Some of the characters blend together, and I had to frequently page back to remind myself who was who. Never the less, still a decent story, particularly in the opening sections. There is, quite naturally, lots of death.

من فقط از توصیفات زیاد رمان ها و داستانهای روسی کلافه میشم! وگرنه بقیش عالیه :))

Questo racconto è stato scritto nel marzo 1886, quando Tolstoj aveva quasi sessant’anni e aveva fermamente deciso che scrivere capolavori narrativi è un peccato. Aveva fermamente stabilito che, se avesse ancora scritto qualcosa dopo i grandi peccati della prima maturità — Guerra e pace e Anna Karenina — si sarebbe limitato a semplici racconti per il popolo, per i contadini, per gli scolaretti, pie favole didattiche, fiabe moralistiche e cose del genere. Ogni tanto nella Morte di Ivan Il’ič, c’è un poco convinto tentativo di seguire questa tendenza e troveremo esempi di pseudo-favola in vari momenti del racconto. Ma nell’insieme è l’artista che prende il sopravvento. Il racconto segna uno dei punti più artistici, più perfetti e più raffinati dell’opera tolstojana.

[Vladimir Nabokov / Lezioni di Letteratura Russa]

This is a clear case of It's not you, it's me! I simply wasn't ready for this. When I couldn't participate in the War and Peace-readalong due to my busy schedule, I decided to compensate by reading a short story collection by Tolstoy instead. I thought it would be quick and fun. I couldn't have been more wrong. It turns out that Tolstoy is much more philosophical and political than I expected, and since I have no knowledge whatsover on Russian history and culture, it was extremely hard for me to follow along.

On a very subjective note, I have to say that I found the stories (except for The Forged Coupon) extremely boring and drawn-out. The characters weren't memorable and I didn't connect to any of them. I really had to force myself to keep on turning the pages.

But on a more objective note, after having done more research on each short story and the author himself (turns out Tolstoy almost got murdered by a bear once... like whuaat?), I understand their core message a lot better, and thus appreciate the collection as a whole a lot more.

Tolstoy in his later years was famously a man with a mission. From the 1880s he sought more directly to understand the turmoil of contemporary Russia which escalated after the assassination of Alexander II in 1881 and in his lifetime culminated in the Revolution of 1905. No solutions, Tolstoy felt, could be found either for the problems individuals or society faced without due consideration of issues about property and ownership, the meaning of spiritual enlightement, the formulation of ethical ideals, and identifying sources of goodness and evil. Tolstoy's later works of fiction, such as the stories collected here, reflect sustained soul-searching about the value of literature.

The concern of how people live only intensified as his own spiritual crises in the late 1860s and 1870s brought a life-changing sense of his own mortality. Having lived as a young man for himself, and then been the family man on his country estate, Tolstoy had begun to lvie for others and for God. He convinced himself that social activism and the promotion of what he called 'a good life' were his true vocation.

The first short story in this collection, The Two Old Men, deals with the ethics of character. In Tolstoy's fiction man and woman are social animals, subject to the pressures of class, the village, the family unit, and peer group. Through his virtually daily interaction with peasants at his school, on the estate, and in his restless rambling about the countryside, Tolstoy collected dozens of anectodes and tales that in his view distilled the moral essence of the Russian peasantry.

The Two Old Men emanates from that world, situating the timelessness of Christian pilgrimage within the modern world of steamships and itineraries. At the centre of the story are two peasant heroes, one rich and one poor, whose pilgrimage provides the horizontal structure for the episodes they experience. One of them, in his exemplary selflessness, acquires the reputation of a saint, while the other finely balances material and spiritual concerns. Both are treated affectionately by Tolstoy and reflect his ideal of Christian humanism.

The second story, How Much Land Does a Man Need?, deals with capitalism and the evils of property. Tolstoy repeatedly denounced money as an evil when coveted for itself. Tolstoy's concern regarding the dangers of property-ownership stem from his belief that once you own property you are obliged to defend it, and once the need arises for defence violence must follow.

Like other stories in this volume, this one pits individual determination against accident. The story considers the paradox that the more one strives after material security, the greater the risk that everything will be forfeited. The story is attuned to the psychological stress of ownership when an individual negotiates between an old idea of sufficency and a seductive image of wealth.

Harmony both for the individual and society could be achieved if and only if individuals achieved an inner state of control over their wants. Impulses to the good and bad might be temporarily held in check, but human nature put human beings at the mercy of combinations of personality and circumstance that could wreck nouble intentions.

The next two stories, The Forged Coupon and Master and Workman, deal with questions of justice and how causality and motivation can determine one's actions. In Tolstoy's later works, no heroes make any great claims for controlling events, and the focus of the narrator is on seeing events as they unfold, sometimes bewilderingly. One key question for Tolstoy is whether randomness leads anywhere, whether the destination might be accidental and still have moral significance.

The Forged Coupon takes up the problem of unintended consequences and illustrates the shift in emphasis from agency to accident, and to seeing the whole picture in terms of the butterfly effect, where distant rather than proximate causes contribute to a sequence. Part 1 is structured as a chain of seemingly unrelated events that all derive from a single mishap at the beginning. Or do they? The story could be driven by coincidence that is unfortunate but fatal.

In Master and Workman Tolstoy reveals the fluidity of identity as a set of impulses and responses that are fixed in the timelessness of the present as lived through. A landowner and servant set out on a short jounrey by sled. They lose their way briefly during a sudden snowstorm, and subsequently regain the right path only to be led fatally off course by recurring bad weather. (The blizzard has served Russian writers well to represent overwhelming force, whether elemental nature, fate, or an oppressive state.)

At one level, this is a tale of two individuals whose class relations, socio-economic status, and expectations determine their response to the storm and to their fate, controlled to some unknowable degree by luck. And yet at the same time, in its use of an elemental setting the story also has the universal quality of a fable whose precise lesson can be suggested but not entirely fixed.

In the last two stories, Alyosha Pot and The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Tolstoy processes his struggle to square the circle of life and death, of meaning and erasure. Does death necessarily make life senseless? Tolstoy, who often assumed extreme positions before arguing his way back to a more nuanced view, clearly found the conclusion that 'there is nothing worse than life' intuitively and intellectually unacceptable. The need to go out and meet and make life, rather than allow life to come to one passively, defined his philosophy.

In Alyosha Pot Tolstoy uses his art to capture the thoughts and feelings of the meekest of men, a hero who is only seemingly simple but incarnates an ideal of wise resignation and selfless love. Alyosha's emotional intelligence, however, is beyond the reach of his masters who, coarse and unsympathetic, refuse him the right to marry.

The Death of Ivan Ilyich is an unflinching depiction of social hypocrisy. Yet Tolstoy uses this tale also to raise the possibility that Ivan Ilyich's resignation to death also occasions a spiritual awakening. The light he sees instead of death is limitless and indefinable.


This collection is packed with a lot of brilliant ideas and so much food for thought that I will take my time to properly digest them. Whilst the stories were no particular joy to read and definitely too fastidious for me, I still had a lot of fun researching them and learning a bit more about Tolstoy himself.

[I'll write a proper review when I have the time.]

Tolstoy cracks me up. Sometimes his prose is so modern, so spot-on, so genius, so undoubtedly right, that I chuckle as I'm reading. I love when he writes things like, "Of course as soon as he left the room, they all began to talk about him. (This is paraphrased.)" Or even better, "Besides the reflections upon the changes and promotions in the service likely to ensue from this death, the very fact of the death of an intimate acquaintance excited in every one who heard of it, as such a fact always does, a feeling of relief that 'it is he that is dead, and not I.'" (The Death of Ivan Ilych).

I enjoyed this grouping of short stories for the variety of topic and as always, his sparkling insights into marriage, death, revenge and adultery. The last story in the series, Hadji Murad, was the only one that dragged on a bit, but I have tendency to tune out when reading about battle scenes. I don't even like watching battle scenes in movies (it's a great time to go get popcorn).

What else can I say? Most people would agree that he's a genius and it's hard to go wrong with his work. Anna Karenina is still my favorite, but I'm willing to go the distance next time (maybe next year) and try War and Peace.