The death of Ivan Ilych Review

The death of Ivan Ilych by Tolstoy Leo Nikolayevich 

                                    …He tried to add, “Forgive me” but said “Forego”

What is death? Can a dying person know death before death? The death of Ivan Ilych is biography of a Judge who realizes that his life of propriety and appropriateness was not what he wanted, and not what he could rectify. He had suppressed his instincts all throughout his life for public approval, and in the end the people were indifferent to his pain only hoping to get his job.

The language of book is easy to follow and lucid. The words used are accurate and efficacious in depicting the wont of a dying person to live his life once more. The metaphor of sack bag is mind wringing and novel. It appears as if the author had actually gone through the experience that he has penned down. This story is neither of a great conquest, nor of a romantic death but a death so commonplace that its realism in the story urges you to think what might become of yourself. The moral of the story is to know happiness by your instincts and not by public propriety alone. Tolstoy’s omniscient narrative is obtrusively neutral and simple…simple enough to make you realize that death is not a phenomena which occurs to “mortals” but it is the end of all phenomena for “yourself” as an individual.

I recommend this book to all those who have a taste for biographies and don’t mind stories without thrills.