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A review by win_monroe
The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories by Leo Tolstoy
5.0
The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Tolstoy 9/10
Described by the back of the book as "an intense and moving examination of death and the possibilities of redemption." It is certainly those things, though I found the redemption part a little less compelling, while the ruminations of the possibilities of redemption struck me as deeply moving. My favorite parts of the story, however, were passages where Tolstoy seems to capture these complex social interactions or thoughts or exchanges that on the one hand seem so particular and intricate and yet on the other perfectly renders them suggesting their universal commonality - the bureaucratic way authorities obfuscate human questions, the justifications we make for our irritability, the subtle methods by which we change and conform to our social circles, to name just a few. And then, of course, there is the poetry. Sentences that even if translated strike one with beauty and power.
Hadji Murat by Tolstoy 9/10
In some ways its strange that this story is written by the same author as The Death of Ivan Ilyich. It lacks the dark philosophical inclination of the latter. But similarly, it is an examination of what makes a worthy life and simultaneously a deconstruction of the pomp and circumstance of russian society. The defining difference though is that Hadji Murat is more an adventure story. If not for the challenging Chechen terminology, it might be something read to an adolescent, like a self-aware western that both romanticizes a simple and violent life in the mountains as valiant and pure, while also undermining that glorification by examining its violence, motivations, and effectiveness with an uncompromising realism.
Described by the back of the book as "an intense and moving examination of death and the possibilities of redemption." It is certainly those things, though I found the redemption part a little less compelling, while the ruminations of the possibilities of redemption struck me as deeply moving. My favorite parts of the story, however, were passages where Tolstoy seems to capture these complex social interactions or thoughts or exchanges that on the one hand seem so particular and intricate and yet on the other perfectly renders them suggesting their universal commonality - the bureaucratic way authorities obfuscate human questions, the justifications we make for our irritability, the subtle methods by which we change and conform to our social circles, to name just a few. And then, of course, there is the poetry. Sentences that even if translated strike one with beauty and power.
Hadji Murat by Tolstoy 9/10
In some ways its strange that this story is written by the same author as The Death of Ivan Ilyich. It lacks the dark philosophical inclination of the latter. But similarly, it is an examination of what makes a worthy life and simultaneously a deconstruction of the pomp and circumstance of russian society. The defining difference though is that Hadji Murat is more an adventure story. If not for the challenging Chechen terminology, it might be something read to an adolescent, like a self-aware western that both romanticizes a simple and violent life in the mountains as valiant and pure, while also undermining that glorification by examining its violence, motivations, and effectiveness with an uncompromising realism.