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    La muerte de Ivan Ilich
    La muerte de Ivan Ilich
    La muerte de Ivan Ilich
    Ebook75 pages1 hour

    La muerte de Ivan Ilich

    By León Tolstói

    4.5/5

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    Leon Tolstoi es considerado uno de los escritores más importantes de la segunda mitad del siglo XX y uno de los novelistas excepcionales de todos los tiempos. Entre su extensa producción literaria, una de sus novelas breves más sobresalientes es precisamente: La muerte de Iván Ilich, en la que, sin duda alcanza la perfección . Su magnifica narrativa, donde la acción fluye como un torrente, permite asistir a las zonas oscuras de la decadencia del ser humano. Decadencia que ocurre primero en lo corporal y después en lo espiritual, su lenguaje preciso y certero nos muestra como el dolor recorre y abarca lenta, contundentemente, el cuerpo de su protagonista, hasta su placentera muerte.

    LanguageEspañol
    PublisherLD Books - Lectorum
    Release dateJan 5, 2014
    Author

    León Tolstói

    <p><b>Lev Nikoláievich Tolstoi</b> nació en 1828, en Yásnaia Poliana, en la región de Tula, de una familia aristócrata. En 1844 empezó Derecho y Lenguas Orientales en la universidad de Kazán, pero dejó los estudios y llevó una vida algo disipada en Moscú y San Petersburgo.</p><p> En 1851 se enroló con su hermano mayor en un regimiento de artillería en el Cáucaso. En 1852 publicó <i>Infancia</i>, el primero de los textos autobiográficos que, seguido de <i>Adolescencia</i> (1854) y <i>Juventud</i> (1857), le hicieron famoso, así como sus recuerdos de la guerra de Crimea, de corte realista y antibelicista, <i>Relatos de Sevastópol</i> (1855-1856). La fama, sin embargo, le disgustó y, después de un viaje por Europa en 1857, decidió instalarse en Yásnaia Poliana, donde fundó una escuela para hijos de campesinos. El éxito de su monumental novela <i>Guerra y paz</i> (1865-1869) y de <i>Anna Karénina</i> (1873-1878; ALBA CLÁSICA MAIOR, núm. XLVII, y ALBA MINUS, núm. 31), dos hitos de la literatura universal, no alivió una profunda crisis espiritual, de la que dio cuenta en <i>Mi confesión</i> (1878-1882), donde prácticamente abjuró del arte literario y propugnó un modo de vida basado en el Evangelio, la castidad, el trabajo manual y la renuncia a la violencia. A partir de entonces el grueso de su obra lo compondrían fábulas y cuentos de orientación popular, tratados morales y ensayos como <i>Qué es el arte</i> (1898) y algunas obras de teatro como <i>El poder de las tinieblas</i> (1886) y <i>El cadáver viviente</i> (1900); su única novela de esa época fue <i>Resurrección</i> (1899), escrita para recaudar fondos para la secta pacifista de los dujobori (guerreros del alma).</p><p> Una extensa colección de sus <i>Relatos</i> ha sido publicada en esta misma colección (ALBA CLÁSICA MAIOR, núm. XXXIII). En 1901 fue excomulgado por la Iglesia Ortodoxa. Murió en 1910, rumbo a un monasterio, en la estación de tren de Astápovo.</p>

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    Reviews for La muerte de Ivan Ilich

    4.5/5

    52 ratings48 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Nice. Very nice short story. A lot of self-reflection, which is right up my street, as it were.
    • 5/5
      This is my first venture into the land of Tolstoy. As with Camus, I was intimidated by the name 'Tolstoy' and, as with Camus, this should never have been so. The Death of Ivan Ilych is a rather poignant, striking novella written following a time where it is said Tolstoy went through a religious conversion. The book provokes thoughts around mortality and provides us with a harsh lesson in 'live life well'.Despite the book title, the story focusses upon the life which Ivan Ilych felt he had lived and the process of dying he goes through rather than the death itself. It is striking, emotive and, at times, frighteningly remorseful. It's that 3am in the morning kind of stuff. If you're the kind of person who lies in bed agonising over your mortality, that funny twitch in your arm, pain in your chest or asking yourself "Why is John's car far superior to mine?" "Is the cat ill running around like that or just being a cat?" then the themes running through this wonderful novella will certainly chime.Ivan Ilych is a well-respected judge who receives an unspecified diagnosis but deduces that he is terminally ill. As his condition deteriorates, we witness Ivan Ilych struggling to come to terms with his condition and the fact that he is dying. He begins to look back on his life with some sadness and regret."Lately in that loneliness in which he found himself....in these late days of horrific loneliness Ivan Ilych lived only by his memories of the past. One after another he imagined scenes from his life. He would always begin with the most recent and proceed to the earliest, to his childhood, and settle there." p.92Such memories proved painful to bear. On looking back through his life, Ivan Ilych realises that as he grew older, more removed from the innocence of childhood, as the worries of life, his career and family took hold, the more superficial and shallow his life had become."...the further back he looked, the more life there had been in him; both the more sweetness to life, and the more of life itself....There had been one point of light far back at the start of everything, and ever since everything had gotten blacker and blacker, and moved quicker and quicker." p.93Ivan Ilych starts to look on his friends, colleagues and wife with the same feelings of bitterness, regret and hate which he has for life and himself. The only moments of tenderness and understanding he finds are in Gerasim, the butler's assistant, who is able to emphasise and understand his needs as Ivan Ilych views others around him as looking inwards to their own needs."His marriage...so accidental, and such a disappointment, with his wife's bad breath, and her sensuality, and their hypocrisy. His moribound professional life, the obession with money...The further on in years the more deadening it became. In perfectly measured steps I went downhill imagining I was on my way up.... In public opinion I was on my way up, and the whole time my life was slipping away from under me....and now it's all over, and it's time to die."p.88The inevitability of death pervades the book and feeds into this readers mortality. As Ivan Ilych struggles to come to terms with his life, dying and death so the reader is also carried along and forced to ask questions of his/her own mortality and life. The fact that Ivan Ilych is terminally ill is, for want of a better word, irrelevant. Death is inevitable - we are all dying, we will all face death and this is the only thing we can be sure about in life. The important lesson we should learn is how to spend our time wisely as we move towards this inevitability.I'm so glad that this is my first experience of reading Tolstoy. It's a quick, compelling read with so much feeling and emotion packed into the 104 pages of this edition. It is without doubt a fantastic masterclass in writing where we are witness to emotions being laid bare for all to see.
    • 4/5
      Disclaimer: This book should not be read the day you find out that your grandfather has passed and you were sent home from work because you were sobbing too hard to be intelligible.

      Even if you've already finished half of it and there's not much left.

      Even if the first chapter, with work acquaintance friends discussing the death, then one showing up to the house to pay his respects, only to feel disaffected and take off for a card game, is actually pretty darkly funny.

      Even if what you've read since then has been a pretty matter-of-fact discussion of Ivan's career and life so far, and hasn't really been sad at all.

      Because when the turn comes, with the mysterious illness and the search for a diagnosis and the slow decline at home and the alienation from all those who are well and do not understand, who want to go on with their concerns of life and the living...

      Well, it's best to put the book down and come back to it in a few days. Go cuddle with the kids on the couch.

      Called a masterpiece on death and dying.

      I concur.
    • 4/5
      An excellent, soulful book in the vein of The Trial, and Crime and Punishment. Vladimir Nabokov sums my views of this Novella quite well.In his lectures on Russian Literature Russian born Novelist and critic Vladimir Nabokov argues that, for Tolstoy, a sinful life is (such as Ivan's was), moral death. Therefore death, the return of the soul to God is, for Tolstoy, moral life . To quote Nabokov: "The Tolstoyan formula is: Ivan lived a bad life and since the bad life is nothing but the death of the soul, then Ivan lived a living death; and since beyond death is God's living light, then Ivan died into a new life- Life with a capital L."(Nabokov, Vladimir Vladimirovich: Lectures On Russain Literature pg.237: Harcourt Edition)
    • 4/5
      Think over whether you live the life that you want to live or simply do the "correct" things unquestionably.
    • 5/5
      Oh non-Gothic, gothic horror. Oh sweaty relief. (ew)

      I wish I'd been a writing sort in high school--the books I read then were arguably more interesting than the ones I read now, brief Michael Crichton preoccupation excepted.
    • 3/5
      I liked the concept, but quickly grew bored.
    • 3/5
      I read this for my World Lit II class. Actually, I read it twice. I read two different translations, because I wasn't satisfied with the one that was in my text book. I found another, and I liked it a lot better. Translation does make a difference.Poor Ivan Ilyich. I wasn't too crazy about this, but I understand its importance in literature. So many writers that came later have been influenced by this little novel! It's amazing how Tolstoy was able to capture all these emotions of human suffering and dying. I gave it three stars because it wasn't really all that life-changing or inspirational to me personally, but I'm glad to have read it. Twice, even!
    • 5/5
      a good story of a dying man. good introduction
    • 5/5
      Two spoilers: Ivan dies, and this book is great.
    • 3/5
      I spotted this on a friend's shelf, borrowed it, and read it in an afternoon. I found it to be an interesting - and arrestingly short - contemplation of the end of life and life's worth/value. The introduction was extremely helpful in understanding the context of Tolstoy's complete antithesis regard for life in comparison with his character. I'm not exactly sure why this stands out for historians as a unique book of its kind, as the introduction reveals and reminds that other such literature exists, perhaps better. A good first experience with the author nonetheless.
    • 5/5
      This was one of my favorite stories of all time in 1999. I read it over and over again, thinking it contained and could reveal all the wisdom in the world.
    • 5/5
      Absolute Masterpiece

      Beyond my ability to use superlatives how incredible this short book is on delving into the relative importance of life, marriage, family, career, and death.
    • 3/5
      Until the nature of his injury makes itself known Ivan Ilych ambles through life, succeeding in both his career and personal life (at least he keeps up the facade of success in those realms). Yet Ivan Ilych never exhibits any passion, nor does he examine the path he has taken and where it might lead.

      When a foolish accident brings home his own mortality, however, Ivan Ilych is forced to consider all the things he had taken for granted before. His unhappy marriage, his career that he sometimes enjoyed but largely performed for the sake of a salary and social advancement, and his life in general where he never stood for or against anything, all provide grist for Ivan's tormented mind. The nature of life and the inevitability of death spur in Ivan thoughts about dying for the first time. Tolstoy gives us a dying man who is bitter that everyone else is continuing their lives as if "the world was going on as usual." Of course, to everyone except the dying man, it is. He gives us a man who always thought of himself as death's exception. Everyone has probably done something similar, at least at times, because that thought is so much easier to grasp compared to the idea that we are mortal and will be dead someday, our consciousness ending like a candle being snuffed. He gives us a man railing against the cruelty of God while simultaneously railing against God's absence. Finally Tolstoy lets Ivan Ilych begin to examine his own life, and as he does so he realizes that his moments of purest happiness were during childhood, and since then his life has been one big death-spiral, before giving Ivan a moment of forgiveness and what I interpret as divine absolution.

      Tolstoy in this book tells what I imagine is a universal tale of a person trying to reconcile themselves with his or her own mortality. We probably have all had the thoughts that go through Ivan's head in our own head at some point in our lives- if anything Ivan Ilych thinks about hasn't occurred to you in at least a general sense before then you probably don't spend much time thinking- but Tolstoy presents these thoughts well. That being said, his writing did not spur any realization about life or death that I didn't have before I began the book. Maybe I contemplate my own mortality more than most people do? I think that, despite the lack of new insight, the book could have been great if the scenes of Iva Ilych's terror and suffering were portrayed with great prose that made the scenes depicted viscerally striking. I didn't find the prose to be particularly impressive, unfortunately, though that may be the fault of the Maude translation. I also thought the ending was a bit of a cop-out, at least if you interpret the ending as his soul receiving forgiveness, as it undercuts the fear of death and the ensuing nothingness that was such an integral part of the story up until that point. I hope Tolstoy really believed in such forgiveness, and didn't include it so as to give a more uplifting ending, because the story would have been better off without it.

      If you've never really thought about death, it's worth reading a book that contemplates such a thing. There are plenty to choose from: Death Comes for the Archbishop, Gilead, The Tartar Steppe, or Hamlet just to name a few (death is hardly a rare theme). Still, The Death of Ivan Ilych stands out as perhaps the work most focused on death. Choose it if that sounds appealing to you.
    • 5/5
      In this short novella Tolstoy ingeniously unmasks the raw emotions and the puzzled lamentations of one Ivan Ilyich, a typical personage of his time, as he lies dying while suffering physical and mental agony (the latter being as excruciating as the former), trying to grasp the seeming "unfairness" of his position and finally arriving at some startling realizations about his life. The surrounding characters come under harsh light as they hover around the dying man and reveal their most unattractive human traits, and Ivan Ilyich is finally able to see through the veil of human hypocrisy. Not an upbeat story in the least. But one with a pretty clever insight into human nature. It also does point to the unrelenting frailty of life.
    • 4/5
      A brilliant short work. He captured the psychology of a dying man and those around him with a great deal of thoroughness. The end of Illych had him questioning so many of the silly societal mores which he had self-imposed, but in the end, his resignation to the peaceful pull of death put the angst behind him. Wonderfully written.
    • 4/5
      Una reflexión sobre la vida y sobre la muerte. Cómo la vemos, cómo la experimentamos distintas personas: el que va a morir, los que rodean a quien se irá, los médicos, los cuidadores compasivos y los que no, las situaciones cotidianas y el enfrentamiento con los propios juicios, dolores, sufrimientos. En el libro hay un planteamiento interesante no explícito pero si evidente: cómo podemos ser más compasivos ante las emociones de alguien que está muriendo? Nos invita a consolar más que a juzgar, no negar y no pasar indiferentes.
    • 5/5
      Muy buen libro en general. Me gustó bastante la verdad.
    • 5/5
      Una descripción transparente de un proceso de muerte en soledad y aislamiento.
    • 5/5
      Espectacular libro , todo te atrapa , tiene suspenso y la narrativa es excelente
    • 5/5
      Aún y si leímos a tolstoi cuando eramos jóvenes volvamos a leerlo
    • 3/5
      Dit verhaal biedt variaties op twee dingen: eerst, hoe Ivan v??r zijn ziekte is, namelijk statusgericht en ego?stisch, en vervolgens hoe hij tijdens zijn ziekte is, namelijk helemaal gemangeld door pijn en wanhoop. De nog gezonde Ivan wil prettig en licht leven, geen aanstoot geven en soepel meedraaien in de sociale wereld. Als zijn huwelijk slecht uitpakt, want zijn vrouw is erg jaloers, sluit hij zich voor haar af en richt zich op zijn werk. Daar geniet hij stiekem, terwijl hij zich welwillend en vriendelijk voordoet, van de macht die hij uitoefent. Echte vrienden heeft hij niet. Als hij stijgt op de sociale ladder, dan stoot hij minder hooggeplaatste kennissen af en zoekt het, ook in zijn vrije tijd, hogerop. Het is jammer dat deze fase van Ivans leven aan het slot min of meer wordt bestempeld als immoreel. Iwan zelf gaat, als hij bijna overlijdt, spijt krijgen van zijn oppervlakkige en zelfzuchtige leven. De manier waarop de onpersoonlijke verteller dit weergeeft suggereert instemming. Waarschijnlijk is deze normatieve invalshoek ook Tolstoj?s eigen visie. Maar de manier waarop hij het uitdrukt is terughoudend, zodat de niet in moraal ge?nteresseerde lezer het ook zuiver beschrijvend kan opvatten. En die beschrijvingen tintelen van geloofwaardigheid en laten een prachtige mix zien van sociaal inzicht en emotionele zeggingskracht.De zieke Iwan trekt zich terug in zijn eigen ellende, hij wordt de ultieme navelstaarder. Steeds lezen we welke wending zijn grote geestelijke lijden nu weer neemt en welk aspectje dan weer de overhand krijgt. Heel mooi vond ik de interactie met Gerasim, het eenvoudige knechtje dat Ivan nog een tijdlang, als enige, weet te kalmeren. Ook mooi, hoe Ivans ellende een climax bereikt wanneer hij een enorme schreeuw uitstoot die drie dagen aanhoudt en bij iedereen door merg en been gaat. Naar het einde toe wordt het verhaal claustrofobisch, omdat het exclusief Ivans belevingswereld volgt. In die belevingswereld spelen waarnemingen en interacties nauwelijks meer een rol. Ivan vormt zich geen beeld meer van de wereld om hem heen. De jeugdherinneringen die door zijn hoofd gaan kwamen wat mij betreft niet echt tot leven. Het geheel kreeg daardoor iets reductionistisch in mijn ogen, alsof er maar een klein deel van de menselijke ervaring werd weergegeven. Daarom heeft dit verhaal me minder geraakt en ge?nthousiasmeerd dan de twee grote romans.
    • 4/5
      ?Ivan Ilych's life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible.? The book opens at the end of the story when a group of judges are informed that Ivan Ilyich has died. These men rather than mourn his passing instead begin to think of the promotions and transfers that the death will mean. That evening, one of the number travels to Ivan's house to attend his funeral. But whilst there becomes bothered by an expression of disapproval and warning on Ivan's face. The story then shifts more than thirty years into the past and picks up with a description of Ivan's life. As a teenager he attends a Law School where he takes on the habits and mannerisms of his contemporaries who are generally of those with high social standing. Ivan becomes a magistrate and marries Praskovya. Everything seems to be going smoothly until Praskovya becomes pregnant. Suddenly Praskovya's behaviour changes and they begin to argue a lot but rather than face it Ivan buries himself in his work and distances himself from his family. Time passes and Ivan moves up in the ranks and is eventually awarded a higher paying position in St Petersburg where he moves his family to. Whilst decorating the home he bangs his side against the window frame. The injury does not seem serious, but sometime late Ivan begins to experience some discomfort in his left side and an unusual taste in his mouth. The discomfort gradually increases and Ivan decides to see several doctors . However, the doctors all disagree on the nature of the illness and Ivan's physical condition degenerates rapidly. One night while lying alone in the dark, he is visited by his first thoughts of mortality, and they terrify him. He realizes that his illness is not a question of health or disease, but of life or death. Ivan knows that he is dying, but he is unable to grasp the full implications of his mortality. As his health fails Ivan starts examine his life and begins to question whether or nor it was a good one. This only a short novella and in many respects quite black in its outlook but is a very harsh look at how people choose to live their lives and whether or not our ambitions and ideals were real or merely artificial. Whether our official and personal lives can and should truly be kept separate.
    • 5/5
      It is the epitome of a true classic. It is timeless. It is as immediately relevant now as it was when it was published 130 years ago.
      Here is the unexamined Life, with its strivings, hypocrisies, bargains, illusions upon illusions, and its screens stopping thoughts of Death.
      Then Life is introduced to Death. The screens are relentlessly stripped away, revealing?nothing? ?There is no explanation! Agony, death? .What for??
      This is why I read.
    • 3/5
      The story begins with three friends and colleagues of a man named Ivan Ilych learning of his death. No one seems deeply affected by this, but one of them, Peter Ivanovich, goes to the wake at Ivan's house that night out of a sense of obligation. From there Tolstoy allows us to view Ilych?s life and his subsequent death, a wasted and meaningless life. In addition we become witness to the hypocrisy and the pointlessness of the lives of those around him?except for his young butler?who has an understanding of life and death that Ilych does not. What is particular tragic about this novella is the loneliness and isolation and the feeling that the life that Ilych has lived was meaningless?worse than death. This book allows us to explore how we live our lives, what is important in that life?and what is a ?good life.? 3 out of 5 stars.
    • 4/5
      Normally a book that looks this closely at death would, I'm afraid, terrify me. I have enough anxiety already, I don't need to think about the "dragging pain" in Ivan Ilyich's side, which -- being a doctor's daughter -- I could diagnose fairly easily as some kind of cancer, quite probably cancer of the gallbladder. That "dragging pain" is the giveaway to me, because it was in all the descriptions of the sort of pain cancer of the gallbladder causes. I know all about that because of the anxious period before I was diagnosed with gallstones. Anyway, it occurs to me that because Tolstoy never uses a specific word, never tells you specifically what is wrong with Ivan -- in fact, Ivan himself never knows -- it can be whatever you fear. For me, cancer is the obvious one.

      And okay, yes, this book did terrify me a bit, but I think in the way that it would terrify anybody. Imagining lying at the point of death and questioning if your life was of any use, if you did anything that really made you happy, if you did anything that really made you satisfied...

      This is nothing like Tolstoy's other books. There's a narrow focus on a single character, and -- in this translation at least -- the words are simple and directly to the point. Tolstoy's gift for a slightly satirical tone is in evidence. Ivan is not a particularly good man, but he's very much an everyman -- you will see yourself in Ivan, unless you really do have an ego so big you can't even be brought to imagine facing your own death.
    • 4/5
      This is the story of the life and - as the title indicates - the death of an ordinary man. Ivan Ilych is not a particularly likeable character, nor are his wife and children, nor the colleagues who also appear in the narrative. And yet, the story of Ivan's death is powerful and moving, simply but exquisitely told. Ivan's anger, his fear, his resentment are all unflinchingly described.

      I've spent the past few months acutely aware of mortality. A close friend died suddenly a few months ago. Two other women I know well have inoperable cancer. My mother is frail and elderly and every time I see her I know I may never see her alive again. That sense of being surrounded by death in life is something that all of us face as we age.

      Talking about dying and death is not something we do much of in our society, even though it is something which occurs every moment of every day. Reading this book, as short as it is, brings the reader face to face with that perience. No matter how ordinary a person, no matter how ordinary their life, each death is unique - an extraordinary experience for the person concerned.

      This is not easy reading, but it is something to read and remember.
    • 4/5
      Word I wasn't expecting to read in this bleak masterpiece: pasties. (Hugh Alpin translator, UK's Hesperus Press)
    • 4/5
      This is why Tolstoy is one of the greats. Because his work reads on multiple levels, and because his characters are never caricatures just there to hold a spear or prop up some scenery.

      On one level this is the story of the life and death of a not particularly likeable functionary. On another its an indictment of a particular society in a particular time, in which isolation from and indifference to others are the price of privilege and comfort and how a man loses himself in that devil's bargain. On another its a story of how we all tend to lose sight of the important things in life in the process of living it. On another it is the story of how even a not particularly likeable functionary is still a human being, with the fears and feelings and loves and losses that we all share as part of our common humanity.

      So much going on in such a small space.
    • 4/5
      I wish I'd gotten one of the many collections of Tolstoy's novellas rather than just The Death... I would recommend you do so yourself if you're interested in this great Russian writer.

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    La muerte de Ivan Ilich - León Tolstói

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