1. Leo Tolstoy (1828 – 1910)

2. Tolstoy - bio Born on Yasnaya Polyana His mother and father died while he was young

3. Tolstoy – bio 1862 – Married Sofya Andreyevna 12 kids; 5 died 1870s – Tolstoy’s crisis of faith

4. Tolstoy - bio Existential crisis: a state of panic or feeling of intense psychological discomfort about questions of existence. (Wikipedia) From “Notes of a Madman”: “… The reddish flame, the candle, the candlestick, all told me the same story: there is nothing in life, nothing exists but death, and death should not be!”

5. The Death of Ivan Ilych Published 1886 Nabokov: “this is really the story not of Ivan’s Death but the story of Ivan’s life.”

6. The Death of Ivan Ilych Style – deceptively “simple” Nabokov – calls Tolstoy a “groping purist”— – “In describing a meditation, emotion, or tangible object, Tolstoy follows the contours of the thought, the emotion, or the object until he is perfectly satisfied with his re-creation, his rendering.”

7. The Death of Ivan Ilych Three main points: 1)Ivan’s life lacks focus a)“Tolstoy was a lifelong deathwatcher” (Roland Blythe) b)Vs. Ivan: “…successful and self-assured people are usually at a complete loss when faced with the reality of physical collapse” (A. L. Vischer) c)Great imaginative leap

8. The Death of Ivan Ilych 2) The banality of death a) Its ordinariness, with smells, inconveniences b) No one has time for death

9. The Death of Ivan Ilych 3) Aloneness of death a) evoking what it’s like to die for Ivan b) Ivan’s scream becomes both protest and prophecy Edvard Munch – The Scream (1893)