Game Changing Books

Discover the Terrifying Precision of Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Illych and Avoid Living a Life Without Impact

I first read The Death of Ivan Illych as an undergrad, and later assigned it to students. Recently craving fiction, I tugged the paperback from it’s snug seat on the shelf and devoured it in a single sitting.

The central theme — on living a life without meaning — struck me with much greater depth this time around. In contrast to those first readings, I am now an adult, a husband, and a father times three. I am gainfully employed, and filled with a desire to accomplish more than time will ever allow. At some point in the last half decade, I began coming to terms with my own inevitable mortality. It settled on me as two clear truths: there will be limits to what I can accomplish in this life, and my health is outside my control.

Throughout his powerful novella, Tolstoy exacts the mundane of dying with terrifying precision, begging an existential examination of Ivan and reader alike. The call is as much to arms as it is to lament — yes, grieve time you may have wasted, then quickly repent of living a life without impact.

In this call, Tolstoy cuts with small, precise knives. Ivan’s life does not matter. His wealth, social airs, and comfort leave Ivan…