Vous voulez voir cette page en fran�ais ? Cliquez ici.

Quantity:

More Buying Choices

13 used & new from CDN$ 1.37

Have one to sell? Sell yours here

Search inside another edition of this book

Red Classics Death Of Ivan Ilyich (Paperback)

by Leo Tolstoy (Author), Anthony Briggs (Translator) "We were in mourning for my mother, who had died in the autumn, and I spent all that winter alone in the country with Katya..." (more)

4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (42 customer reviews)

Price:	CDN$ 9.99 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over CDN$ 39. Details
	o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o

In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.ca. Gift-wrap available.

Only 1 left in stock--order soon (more on the way).

Ordering for Christmas? To ensure delivery by December 24 to Toronto, Ottawa, or Montreal, choose Express at checkout. Read more about holiday shipping.

11 new from CDN$ 1.37 2 used from CDN$ 16.17

Frequently Bought Together

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Family Happiness and Other Stories

by Leo Tolstoy

CDN$ 4.75

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

by Eric Bogosian

4.5 out of 5 stars (78) CDN$ 6.19

Penguin Classics Divine Comedy #1 Inferno

by Mark Musa

4.8 out of 5 stars (21) CDN$ 11.70

First Love and Other Stories

by Ivan Turgenev

4.5 out of 5 stars (4) CDN$ 16.06

Doctor Zhivago

by Boris Pasternak

4.1 out of 5 stars (44) CDN$ 16.98

› Explore similar items

Product Details

Paperback: 112 pages
Publisher: Penguin Classic; New edition edition (Feb 28 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0141023600
ISBN-13: 978-0141023601
Product Dimensions: 17.2 x 11 x 1.4 cm
Shipping Weight: 100 g

Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (42 customer reviews)

Amazon.ca Sales Rank: #361,894 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
Popular in this category:
#67 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Authors, A-Z > ( T ) > Tolstoy, Leo

Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

Product Description

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. In the lovely, low tones of a fine storyteller, Oliver Fox Davies guides us through the stages of Tolstoy's mini masterpiece. Davies's skill with inflection, even within words, heightens the social satire of the early section and shifts with Ilyich's slide into ever increasing pain and irritability. With the terror and anguish of approaching death, his voice grows convincingly hoarse. Until his illness, Ivan Ilyich had never reflected on his life. But he slowly comes to see his life as a terrible, huge deception which had hidden life and death. As he lays dying, his lifelong friends think of the promotions that may come their way, and his wife began to wish he would die, but she didn't want him to die because then his salary would cease. He has always avoided human connection, but through the tender ministrations of a peasant he comes to recognize the mesh of falsity in which he's lived. Written more than a century ago, Tolstoy's work still retains the power of a contemporary novel. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

From AudioFile

Tolstoy's novella offers a penetrating examination of the Christian faith and the nature of life and death. Listeners will also be sure to delight in Tolstoy's sharp and sometimes satirical eye for the very modern-sounding details of the life of a nineteenth-century Russian bureaucrat. With masterful ease, a warm tone, and conversational pacing, British actor Oliver Davies captures Ivan Ilyich's preoccupation with interior decorating and debt and his avoidance of family weddings and home remedies. Then the shadow of death wipes away all trivialities and pretense. This work's prose and performance are so vivid, so human, and so listenable that there's no doubt why Tolstoy stands as one of the giants of world literature. B.P. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

See all Product Description

Inside This Book (Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.

First Sentence
We were in mourning for my mother, who had died in the autumn, and I spent all that winter alone in the country with Katya and Sonya. Read the first page

Explore More
Concordance

Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover

Tag this product

(What's this?)

Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items.

What do customers ultimately buy after viewing this item?

	79% buy the item featured on this page: Red Classics Death Of Ivan Ilyich 4.6 out of 5 stars (42) CDN$ 9.99
	7% buy Anna Karenina (Oprah's Book Club) 4.3 out of 5 stars (58) CDN$ 13.51
	5% buy Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future 4.4 out of 5 stars (48) CDN$ 4.75
	4% buy Great Short Works Of Leo Tolstoy 5.0 out of 5 stars (7) CDN$ 14.59

Explore similar items

Customer Reviews

42 Reviews

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

Average Customer Review

4.6 out of 5 stars (42 customer reviews)

Share your thoughts with other customers:

Create your own review

Most helpful customer reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Death is over ... there is no more death", May 30 2008

By	Linda Bulger (Avon, Maine) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Signet Classics Death Of Ivan Ilych And Other Stories (Paperback)

Tolstoy's short novel starts with the aftermath of Ivan Ilych's death. His colleagues gather to execute the polite formalities before moving on with relief to their regular whist game. "Well isn't that something--he's dead, but I'm not."

Ivan Ilych is a self-satisfied high court judge who injured himself in a fall, and later fell ill with a vaguely diagnosed disturbance of his organs. At first the pain is an offensive intruder to his smug routine but it becomes worse and eventually it's clear that he is dying. Clear, that is, to him, though his family and colleagues infuriate him by living the lie that he will recover if he just follows the doctor's advice.

Tolstoy makes it plain to the reader in the early part of the story that Ivan Ilych's life is hollow and calculating. His marriage was undertaken casually and for convenience, not love. He takes pride in the trappings and petty powers of his position as a prosecutor and a judge. When he falls ill and consults a physician, he takes umbrage at the impersonal formalities and the patronizing air of the doctor--a mirror image of his own demeanor in his court.

Tolstoy himself was plagued by the idea of death, its inevitability and unfairness, and he wrote all his rage against death into this short piece. Critics believe that he also wrote his conversion to Christianity into it as well. Ivan Ilych denies the importance of his pain as long as he can, then pours out his anger at the unfairness of it all, becoming "difficult" at home and work. One moment he believes the medicines and positive thinking will put things right, the next he's overwhelmed with despair that life could all come down to this.

Near the end Ivan Ilych realizes that his life may not have been a good one, a real one, and he thinks back to his childhood when things WERE real. His wife, son and daughter are no more real--only the kitchen boy who cheerfully tends to his physical needs is honest about life and death. In his last hour of life Ivan Ilych feels his son's kiss on his hand and breaks free of the pain and despair to an understanding of the transformative power of love and acceptance. His dying was the death, and at the end of his dying there was only light.

The Death of Ivan Ilych is a powerful work, a template for much of our modern literature on dying. It's also as much about life as about death, if we can read the road map that way.

Linda Bulger, 2008

Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

5.0 out of 5 stars A Masterpiece, Jan 8 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Signet Classics Death Of Ivan Ilych And Other Stories (Paperback)

I bought this book to test the waters before I tackled something big like his War and Peace, and to gain appreciation for such a well respected author before a teacher or professor had the opportunity to shove it down my throat. I am very glad I did!

Tolstoy has a gift for words that draws the readers in and allows him to project his character's emotions onto them. He has the capacity to be romantic without being mushy or dark without being overbearing. At the end, he left me with a sincere impression, profound respect and still-lingering admiration.

This book belongs on everyone's bookshelves.

Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

5.0 out of 5 stars Only 10 of us??, Oct 31 2003

By	Vincent R. Corvaia "yourpalvince" (Maine, United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Signet Classics Death Of Ivan Ilych And Other Stories (Paperback)

I am so sorry only 9 other people have reviewed this book for Amazon. If it were up to me, I'd place a copy in every hotel and motel room in America, right next to Gideon. I realize that some books just hit us the right way at certain times in our lives, and I once had a hard time trying to persuade 18- and 19-year-olds to appreciate this one. But when I was around 30, I read the title novella, and it changed my life by changing my outlook on life and enabling me to make some decisions I'd never have taken seriously if I hadn't read it.

But I don't want to scare you off. Tolstoy is perfectly accessible, the title character's dilemma is heartrending (the title gives you a clue), the characters universal, and the effect upon closing the cover after the last page indelible. If one person reads it after reading these 10 reviews, I'll be happy.

Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review

› See all 42 customer reviews...

Most recent customer reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Read it for "Ivan Ilyich" alone
This volume contains three novellas by Tolstoy, of which "The Cossacks" was most famous in his own time. Read more

Published on Sep 20 2003

5.0 out of 5 stars Born knowing only life
We are born knowing only life but it takes courage to realize this and rise above the mundane, to make the ordinary extraordinary, fully exploring and experiencing life for the... Read more

Published on Mar 16 2003 by Damian P. Gadal

5.0 out of 5 stars In Passing
Tolstoy's novella makes rewarding and unsettling reading. Surely, I can think of no novel that treats dying as boldly. Death is a fact. Read more

Published on Sep 20 2002 by Alvaro Lewis

5.0 out of 5 stars Exceptional and quick read
This is an exceptional book. On one front, you have an opportunity to explore Tolstoy's mind without devouring one of his more notable (and lengthy) novels (War and Peace, Anna... Read more

Published on Jul 17 2002 by CALTON