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The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories
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Product Description
Review
"A fitting monument to Tolstoy's battles with what it is that makes us human" --Observer
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Book Description
A stunning new translation of Tolstoy's late fiction, from the award-winning team of Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
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First Sentence
We were in mourning for my mother, who had died in the autumn, and I spent all that winter alone in the country with Katya and Sonya. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
We were in mourning for my mother, who had died in the autumn, and I spent all that winter alone in the country with Katya and Sonya. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A very good collection of short stories, worthy as an introduction to Tolstoy for those who aren't ready to tackle War and Peace or Anna Karenina. They have much to say about the human condition, the nature of love and desire, marriage, family relationships and death, and as such have relevance for readers in many countries and cultures.
Family Happiness is probably the least good of the quartet, lacking the passion and drama of the other three stories. It is a study of the changing nature of love in the marriage between a young girl and an older man (though he is only in his late 30s!).
The Death of Ivan Ilyich is one I have just read separately, so I did not re-read it in this collection. For the sake of completeness here though: this concerns the thoughts and feelings of a man towards his family and those around him as he gets progressively more ill and is then dying from a wasting disease that sounds like cancer. The opening chapters are quite light-hearted with some ruefully amusing reflections on marriage and attitudes towards ones career, but then the mood becomes much darker and he ends being cynical about his family, seeing them as wishing his death to come sooner so they can be free of the burden of caring for him.
The Kreutzer Sonata is a very powerful story about the breakdown of a marriage, with some very advanced for the time (1889) views on how marriages evolve and how couples can grow to take each other for granted and eventually become actively hostile without wanting to grow apart. Tolstoy's postscript, published following the banning of the story in Russia and elsewhere, and concerning the moral superiority of celibacy, somewhat detracts from the dramatic impact of the ending, though.
The Devil is a powerful tale about how a nobleman's passion for the object of a former fling with a peasant wife destroys his seemingly happy marriage through obsession. There are two endings, the published one where he kills himself and the alternative one where he kills the object of his obsession.
An excellent collection, some of the best Russian literature of its type.
Family Happiness is probably the least good of the quartet, lacking the passion and drama of the other three stories. It is a study of the changing nature of love in the marriage between a young girl and an older man (though he is only in his late 30s!).
The Death of Ivan Ilyich is one I have just read separately, so I did not re-read it in this collection. For the sake of completeness here though: this concerns the thoughts and feelings of a man towards his family and those around him as he gets progressively more ill and is then dying from a wasting disease that sounds like cancer. The opening chapters are quite light-hearted with some ruefully amusing reflections on marriage and attitudes towards ones career, but then the mood becomes much darker and he ends being cynical about his family, seeing them as wishing his death to come sooner so they can be free of the burden of caring for him.
The Kreutzer Sonata is a very powerful story about the breakdown of a marriage, with some very advanced for the time (1889) views on how marriages evolve and how couples can grow to take each other for granted and eventually become actively hostile without wanting to grow apart. Tolstoy's postscript, published following the banning of the story in Russia and elsewhere, and concerning the moral superiority of celibacy, somewhat detracts from the dramatic impact of the ending, though.
The Devil is a powerful tale about how a nobleman's passion for the object of a former fling with a peasant wife destroys his seemingly happy marriage through obsession. There are two endings, the published one where he kills himself and the alternative one where he kills the object of his obsession.
An excellent collection, some of the best Russian literature of its type.
8 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I studied Tolstloy's short story The Death of Ivan Illyich for an Access course in Education in 2006, before going on to study History at university. I found it to be an amazing short story too study and analysis. It has the equal realism in it that his much longer novels War and Peace and others had in them. The story questions our mortality and our place in the scheme of things through the dying of Ivan Illyich. Philosophical questions that were too dominate the latter part of Leo Tolstloy's life until his death in 1910.
I strongly recommend people read this because they will get lot out of it. I
I strongly recommend people read this because they will get lot out of it. I
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I tried a few years ago to read War and Peace but never got beyond the first hundred pages. There was enough there though to interest me trying Tolstoy again another day and I saw this collection of short stories an an opportunity to try this great writer once more. I thoroughly enjoyed these stories; each was slow to start but built up increasing momentum. "The death of Ivan Ilych" is in my opinion the best of the bunch; I have never read anything that deals so insightfully with the loneliness of dying as this story does, it is simply wonderful.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
mediocre
This is a very mediocre book indeed. The Death of Ivan Ilyich is about a civil servant who get's ill and dies. Read more
Published 2 months ago by wendy jones
great collection of stories, beautiful hard cover
Some of these stories I had read before in other books or in school during literature class, however I bought the book as well for the beautiful hard cover, and upon arrival it... Read more
Published 15 months ago by Ina B.
Catastrophic
These stories give an excellent view of Tolstoy's vision on the real nature of man, his place in our world, on sex, marriage and women, on man's ultimate destiny and on... Read more
Published on 5 Nov 2006 by Luc REYNAERT
Far better than War & Peace and Anna Karenina
Most people think of War&Peace and Anna Karenina, when they think of Tolstoy. This is a shame. The three stories in this book summarise Tolstoy's philosophy on human life and... Read more
Published on 14 Aug 2000 by hotgus@hotmail.com
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