The Death of Ivan Ilyich

About this book

Ivan Ilyich Golovin has lived exactly as society expects, career, marriage, decorum, until a minor accident reveals a fatal illness. As pain intrudes on his ordered life, he discovers that those around him cannot face what is happening; politeness becomes its own cruelty. Tolstoy traces fear, denial, anger, and the search for meaning with clinical clarity and deep compassion. The novella is short but not small: a portrait of ordinary vanity confronted by the one fact no status can outrun. Readers who want serious literature that fits a modern schedule will find here one of the great examinations of how we live, and how we might live differently.