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The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories |  | Author: Leo Tolstoy
Creators: Richard Pevear, Larissa Volokhonsky
Publisher: Knopf
Category: Book
List Price: $28.95
Buy New: $16.69
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Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 9418
Format: Deckle Edge
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 528
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.7
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6.5 x 1.7
ISBN: 0307268810
Dewey Decimal Number: 891.733
EAN: 9780307268815
ASIN: 0307268810
Publication Date: November 17, 2009 (New: Last 30 Days)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
From Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, the best-selling, award-winning translators of War and Peace and Anna Karenina, comes a new, beautifully crafted, and eminently readable translation of Tolstoy’s most important short fiction.
Here are eleven incandescent stories from the mature author, some autobiographical, others moral parables, and all imaginative, transcendent, and evocatively drawn. They include The Prisoner of the Caucasus, inspired by Tolstoy’s experiences as a soldier in the Chechen War, and one of only two of his works that Tolstoy himself considered “good art”; Hadji Murat, the novella Harold Bloom called “the best story in the world,” featuring the real-life war hero Hadji Murat, a Chechen rebel who ravaged his Russian occupiers only to defect to the Russian side after a falling-out with his own commander; The Devil, a tale of sexual obsession based on Tolstoy’s relationship with a married peasant woman on his estate in the years before his marriage; and the celebrated The Death of Ivan Ilyich, an intense and moving examination of death and the possibilities of redemption.
Pevear and Volokhonsky’s translation captures the richness, immediacy, and multiplicity of Tolstoy’s language, and reveals the author as a passionate moral guide, an unflinching seeker of truth, and, ultimately, a creator of enduring and universal art.
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| Customer Reviews:
 A good primer for beginning to read Tolstoy November 21, 2008
John Martin (Beijing, China)
Leo Tolstoy is acknowledged as one of the greatest novelist in history, but his major works--Anna Karenina and War and Peace are very long and filled with Russian names and references that people not familiar with the country might find difficult to understand. Accordingly, it might be a good idea to get a taste of Tolstoy by reading some of his shorter works. The Death of Ivan Ilich and Other Stories affords just such an opportunity. These four short (40 to 70 pages) novellas feature some of the themes of Tolstoy's larger works, especially families and their disfunctionalities.
A young woman, Masha, who at the age of 18 and recently orphaned marries a family friend, 34-year-old Sergey Mihalovich, narrates the first story, entitled "Family Happiness". The couple lives in Sergey's country home for a while but young Masha yearns for the bright lights of the big city and Sergey, reluctantly brings her to Petersburg. There Masha takes up with high society and the relationship deteriorates, but in the end the couple return to the country and Masha learns the true meaning of family.
The second story is the best known of the group, "The Death of Ivan Ilyich." In this story Tolstoy tells of the life of a successful man who has a good career as a judge but whose family life suffers for it. Ilyich suffers an injury which turns into a debilitating disease and finally death. We see his declining health and, more to the point, witness his questioning of the meaning of his life.
The third story, "The Kreutzer Sonata," is told by a man who killed his wife in a jealous rage over her supposed infidelity (shades of Othello with the husband being his own Iago) and who relates the story to another man while traveling on a train. He was freed by the despite being clearly guilty (maybe he had the OJ jury!).
The final story deals with a young estate owner who, in his bachelor days, has sexual relations with a married peasant woman on his estate. He then gets married to a wonderful young woman but is still haunted by the other woman who appears periodically at his home. This story ends in tragedy, but with a twist, as Tolstoy provides two alternative endings.
Reading these stories will provide you with insights into Tolstoy's ideas and prepare you for reading his more substantial works.
A wonderful collection of classic stories August 30, 2008
J. Harrison (Fort Worth, TX)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
"The Death of Ivan Ilyich" is the best of the four stories in the volume by far. It is a thought-provoking tale of facing one's mortality. Tolstoy demonstrates incredible insightful in this story; it will cause you to reflect on your life in terms of the certainty of death. Of the other three stories, "Family Happiness" is the strongest. Tolstoy again presents a story that will make readers think--this time in terms of considering their own values concerning marriage, love, commitment and children. The other two stories, "The Kruetzer Sonata" and "The Devil" are well-written explorations of similar themes (lust, jealousy, infidelity, etc.). While still vintage Tolstoy, these stories are weaker than the other two and show his darker side. The book as a whole is a wonderful read and a great place to start reading Tolstoy.
 Catastrophic November 5, 2006
Luc REYNAERT (Beernem, Belgium)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
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 morals.
For Tolstoy, man as a species is barely more than an animal incapable of controlling his `animal passion'. More, `it is perhaps better that people should be pure animals, then they would not suffer from death and disease.'
In `The Devil', the main character commits suicide because he cannot control his sexual drive ('his swinish life'). In `The Kreutzer Sonata', the main character knows his wife `only as an animal and nothing can restrain an animal.'
To have sex is `necessary for physical health', but the solution lays in no way in marriage.
In `Family Happiness', the novelty of the first years of marriage (`the wild delight') turns into routine. Pure love for her man becomes `love for her children and the father of her children.'
But in `The Death of Ivan Ilyich', `conjugal love was in reality a very intricate and different business.' And, in `The Devil', marriage is not less than sin, `a deviation from the doctrine of Christ'.
`The Kreutzer Sonata' is not less than the killing of marriage as an institute.
For sex one needs a partner. Here, L. Tolstoy shows his serious misogyny. In `The Devil' it is crystal clear who the devil is and who constantly reminds the main character of his sexual drive. In `The Kreutzer Sonata': `that the women of our society have other interest in life than prostitutes, but I say no.'
The only solution then is chastity and celibacy, in other words the extinction of mankind. Tolstoy has absolutely no problem with this outcome, for in any case science tells us that mankind is doomed with the death of the sun!
Chastity and celibacy makes of man still more an island. In `The Death of Ivan Ilyich', the main character `cried at his awful loneliness, the cruelty of people, the cruelty and the absence of God.'
If celibacy is Tolstoy's ideal of humanity what should man do? `Family Happiness' gives us the answer: `in life there is only one certain happiness - living for others.'
As science has proven, pure altruism is a synonym for evolutionary death.
This extremely emotionally driven short stories reveal clearly Tolstoy's demons and his catastrophic vision on mankind.
Not to be missed.
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