Reading Order
The Death of Ivan Ilyich Reading Order
Leo Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1886) is a standalone novella — there is no series and no sequel. Ivan Ilyich, a successful Russian judge, is dying of a painful illness and realizes, during his final weeks, that he has never actually lived. The most concentrated expression of Tolstoy's late moral philosophy and one of the great short works of world literature.
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The Death of Ivan Ilyich
Complete The Death of Ivan Ilyich Book List
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The Death of Ivan Ilyich
Leo Tolstoy·1886·Standalone novella — Ivan Ilyich's illness and his gradual recognition; approximately 80 pages; one of Tolstoy's late works, written after his 'conversion' to his distinctive Christian moral philosophy; regularly cited as one of the greatest novellas ever written; Tolstoy deliberately made Ivan Ilyich completely ordinary — a successful man without distinctive virtues or vices — to make the argument more universal - Buy
Anna Karenina
OptionalLeo Tolstoy·1877·Tolstoy's great social novel — Anna Karenina, Vronsky, and Levin in Russian society; written nine years before The Death of Ivan Ilyich and showing the same themes (the gap between conventional social life and genuine living) in a vastly expanded canvas; where The Death of Ivan Ilyich is compressed and focused, Anna Karenina is expansive; the two together show the range of Tolstoy's moral imagination - Buy
Hadji Murat
OptionalLeo Tolstoy·1912·A Chechen warrior who defects from Shamil to the Russians and is destroyed by both sides — Tolstoy's final novella, written at the very end of his life and published posthumously; many consider it the finest novella he wrote; very different from The Death of Ivan Ilyich in subject (action and war rather than death and recognition) but the same concentrated moral clarity
The Death of Ivan Ilyich — Frequently Asked Questions
What is The Death of Ivan Ilyich about?
The Death of Ivan Ilyich is about a successful Russian judge who is dying of a painful illness and who comes, during his final weeks, to recognize that he has never actually lived. Ivan Ilyich has always done exactly what was expected of him — the right school, the right career, the right marriage, the right apartment — and he discovers that this correctness has been the exact form of his failure: he has lived for the approval of others rather than from his own inner life, and the recognition comes too late to do anything about it. The novel's final pages, in which Ivan Ilyich achieves a kind of release, are among the most moving in Tolstoy's work.
Is The Death of Ivan Ilyich a good introduction to Tolstoy?
The Death of Ivan Ilyich is an excellent introduction to Tolstoy's moral vision, and its brevity (about 80 pages) makes it an ideal first Tolstoy. The question is whether readers want to start with the moral Tolstoy (The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Hadji Murat, The Kreutzer Sonata) or the epic social novelist (War and Peace, Anna Karenina). Both are available from the same mind, but they are very different reading experiences: the late novellas are concentrated and explicit about their moral point, while the great novels are expansive and trust readers to draw their own conclusions. Most readers find Anna Karenina a better first Tolstoy because it gives more of his range.
Who is Gerasim in The Death of Ivan Ilyich?
Gerasim is the peasant servant who attends Ivan Ilyich during his illness, and he is the moral center of the novella. Unlike everyone else in Ivan Ilyich's life — his wife, his daughter, his colleagues — Gerasim is not embarrassed by Ivan Ilyich's dying. He holds Ivan Ilyich's legs in a position that eases his pain, not because he is paid to but because he is not afraid of the truth; Tolstoy describes him as 'clean, fresh, and uncorrupted' in a way that the civilized characters are not. Gerasim's simplicity is the contrast that shows Ivan Ilyich what he has missed: a direct, honest relationship with reality, without the falseness that civilization imposes.
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