The Death Of Ivan Ilyich

A true masterpiece of literature is this short story by Leo Tolstoy. Ivan Ilyich is a man who all his life believed he lived correctly and every step of it measured to his well thought out and exacting measures. From childhood, to law school, to his socially climbing career Ivan Ilyich seemingly had it all.

In contrast to this tale of mortality stands Kurosawa's masterpiece of cinema Ikiru which I've blogged about before. While loosely based upon The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Ikiru's protagonist Kanji Watanabe learns that he is dying of an inoperable tumor and decides how he is going to spend his remaining time.

The tragedy of Ivan Ilyich is that he doesn't realize his life has been dwindling away for decades until he succumbs to his illness which everyone around him has been lying to him about, even the doctor as I said. Ivan Ilyich dies at age forty five after weeks of suffering spent reflecting on how he had lived his life so correctly so why should he suffer so. Watanabe on the other hand embraces his fate and attempts to learn to life after being a lifelong servant of the state in a mindless bureaucracy.

While Watanabe attempts to find what it means to live in night clubbing, love, and other indulgences Ivan Ilyich merely enjoyed bridge, his supposed friends who only cared about moving up in position of the court system in which employed Ivan Ilyich. They dreaded going to his funeral and his wife only wanted to know from them how she could get more monthly money from the government upon his death.

Ivan Ilyich only inconvenienced his family while dying, Watanabe took up a crusade and perished knowing he made a difference to some as it came to light by those discussing him at his funeral. They only realized the magnitude of what he had accomplished when the beneficiaries of his one man crusade showed up to weep for him.

Ivan Ilyich is deep but accessible to any with a love of literature. It'll move you and perhaps you'll examine your own life in return. Ikiru is a benchmark of cinema and really speaks to anyone willing to invest the time