It seems to me that a surefire procrastination trigger is, "read War and Peace." Even if that was to be on my bucket-list, I would perhaps not get to reading Tolstoy's classic given its sheer length (~600,000 words, compared to ~100,000 for an average novel).
Instead I watched the movie with Henry Fonda. As did I with Anna Karenina with Vivien Leigh (the latter novel had ~350,000 words!)
Yet, I did want to read Tolstoy in his own words rather than a Hollywood depiction. Hence my quest for Tolstoy without the tonnage.
I finally found it in his novella, Death of Ivan Ilyich, which was one-fifth the length of a regular novel at ~20,000 words. And satisfyingly, ranked among his top five, if not top three works, alongside the above mentioned other two.
Plato called for an examined life in Apology in ~400 BC. And Tolstoy puts that to the test more than 2,000 years later in the character of Ivan Ilyich in the most strange of circumstances, to dramatic effect.
Tweeting the Plot
The Death of Ivan Ilyich is about a mid-level magistrate in 1880s Tsarist Russia and his life as an unknown citizen before being accidentally suffering a wound and dying from it.
Questions it raises
The novella is broken into two halves from a plot perspective. The first half describes Ivan's life as a rising middle class citizen in respectable society. The second half, post accidental wounding is about his being abandoned socially, physically, morally and spiritually by everyone around him save his affectionate son and his compassionate servant Gerasim.
So, in the second half of the book, Tolstoy raises several questions as Ivan contemplates his suddenly terrible circumstance:
Why do we do what we do in our lives?
Who values what we do?
When do we actually ask these above two questions?
Do the answers come?
If they do, where do they come from?
Do asking these questions and trying to answer them matter?
Nothing too heavy, as we can see!
Tolstoy speaks
Through Ivan, Tolstoy answers these questions. As an up and coming magistrate, Ivan did everything right. Never fell off the ladder once in studies, career, family or community. He was not even hiding deep passions and living a life of pretense. He was living the life as he and everyone thought should be lived. And was applauded and respected for it by everyone. There was no signal from inside or outside that anything was wrong.
In acute pain and all alone in his bedroom, his legs perched on Gerasim's shoulder for relief, Ivan wonders, ponders, ruminates and frustrates.
At the end of his rope, in acute pain, terminally ill, abandoned by everyone, alone in his bedroom is the level of shock that was needed for Ivan to ask himself the questions, why did I do what I do in my life?
Everyone around Ivan "valued" him when he was hale and hearty. Now that he was infirm, he was abandoned and thought of as a nuisance!
Ivan does get his answer, from within. I won't spoil the revelation that Ivan has. It does have a religious component to it, which as I can tell was one of Tolstoy's recurring subjects of inquiry. The method might have been religious, but the answer Ivan gets is certainly all too human - and valuable.
The last question in the above list, I don't think Tolstoy answers, or would have been satisfactory even if had attempted to answer. That is - does it matter, asking these questions?
On Style
Tolstoy's writing, contrary to whatever it is I was expecting, is elegantly simple. He writes with the deftest of strokes. His descriptions of setting, characters, emotions and dialogue are about as straightforward and clear as one can possibly make it. Nothing abstruse or head-scratching in the writing.
Everything that is abstruse and head-scratching comes with the questions and ideas he plants in our minds!
Yeah, Tolstoy is off my check-list ...
Instead I watched the movie with Henry Fonda. As did I with Anna Karenina with Vivien Leigh (the latter novel had ~350,000 words!)
Yet, I did want to read Tolstoy in his own words rather than a Hollywood depiction. Hence my quest for Tolstoy without the tonnage.
I finally found it in his novella, Death of Ivan Ilyich, which was one-fifth the length of a regular novel at ~20,000 words. And satisfyingly, ranked among his top five, if not top three works, alongside the above mentioned other two.
Plato called for an examined life in Apology in ~400 BC. And Tolstoy puts that to the test more than 2,000 years later in the character of Ivan Ilyich in the most strange of circumstances, to dramatic effect.
Tweeting the Plot
The Death of Ivan Ilyich is about a mid-level magistrate in 1880s Tsarist Russia and his life as an unknown citizen before being accidentally suffering a wound and dying from it.
Questions it raises
The novella is broken into two halves from a plot perspective. The first half describes Ivan's life as a rising middle class citizen in respectable society. The second half, post accidental wounding is about his being abandoned socially, physically, morally and spiritually by everyone around him save his affectionate son and his compassionate servant Gerasim.
So, in the second half of the book, Tolstoy raises several questions as Ivan contemplates his suddenly terrible circumstance:
Why do we do what we do in our lives?
Who values what we do?
When do we actually ask these above two questions?
Do the answers come?
If they do, where do they come from?
Do asking these questions and trying to answer them matter?
Nothing too heavy, as we can see!
Tolstoy speaks
Through Ivan, Tolstoy answers these questions. As an up and coming magistrate, Ivan did everything right. Never fell off the ladder once in studies, career, family or community. He was not even hiding deep passions and living a life of pretense. He was living the life as he and everyone thought should be lived. And was applauded and respected for it by everyone. There was no signal from inside or outside that anything was wrong.
In acute pain and all alone in his bedroom, his legs perched on Gerasim's shoulder for relief, Ivan wonders, ponders, ruminates and frustrates.
At the end of his rope, in acute pain, terminally ill, abandoned by everyone, alone in his bedroom is the level of shock that was needed for Ivan to ask himself the questions, why did I do what I do in my life?
Everyone around Ivan "valued" him when he was hale and hearty. Now that he was infirm, he was abandoned and thought of as a nuisance!
Ivan does get his answer, from within. I won't spoil the revelation that Ivan has. It does have a religious component to it, which as I can tell was one of Tolstoy's recurring subjects of inquiry. The method might have been religious, but the answer Ivan gets is certainly all too human - and valuable.
The last question in the above list, I don't think Tolstoy answers, or would have been satisfactory even if had attempted to answer. That is - does it matter, asking these questions?
On Style
Tolstoy's writing, contrary to whatever it is I was expecting, is elegantly simple. He writes with the deftest of strokes. His descriptions of setting, characters, emotions and dialogue are about as straightforward and clear as one can possibly make it. Nothing abstruse or head-scratching in the writing.
Everything that is abstruse and head-scratching comes with the questions and ideas he plants in our minds!
Yeah, Tolstoy is off my check-list ...
7 comments:
I have read almost all his writings. Further I was privileged to teach some of his short stories.
I’ve read both books. I like long and “difficult” books. (Hence, just finished Ulysses for 4th time.) The questions you name are the ones Tolstoy also asks and tries to answer in War and Peace. Obviously his style is less spare than in the novella. But still well-crafted. I didn’t think W & P, however, was great. Don’t remember why but I was mildly disappointed given it’s place in the pantheon of great books. As I think about it, I now remember what I didn’t like: the title’s misleading — book has almost nothing to do with war and peace! Particularly war. Less exciting and more cerebral than I was expecting. But I’m glad I read it. I’d give it a 7, was expecting a 9/10. So don’t bother given your aversion to (unnecessarily) long Russian novels!
(Liked your review.)
I too feel that I should read Tolstoy… but have also been intimidated by the task of taking on those two door stoppers.
Your solution sounds like the one I too can handle. Which is not the same as saying I will….
Do have a look at Peggy Noonan’s column in today’s WSJ, with a nice reference herself to Tolstoy!
You are inspiring me to write now
I did not read the book. Your comments make me feel that I should read it. It Appears to
Wow! You just revealed the merciful side of Tolstoy - The Novel Machine.
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