The Death of Ivan Ilyich
My brothers and I recently started a book club, and I chose The Death of Ivan Ilyich as our first book. I figured it was a good primer for the club since it’s a short, 80-ish page book. Well, it turned out not to be very captivating, and I was the only one who finished it. I figured I should see it through since I was the one who picked it. I’m glad I finished it, because it fundamentally changed the way I think about sickness and death from two perspectives: the perspective of the dying one, and the perspective of those close to the dying one.
Synopsis
The book opens with the news of Ivan Ilyich’s death. His colleagues hear the news, and think only in terms of how the event affects their standing in the professional world. Who will take Ivan Ilyich’s position, and who will take that person’s position, and so on.
The narrative then jumps to Ivan Ilyich’s childhood and takes us through the major milestones of his life: his schooling, his marriage, his children, and his professional advancements. He receives a job offer that requires him to relocate, and he purchases a gorgeous home in the new city. He obsesses over the house for some time, furnishing and decorating, and redoing some of the rooms.
While sprucing up the drawing room in preparation for his wife and daughter to see the house for the first time, he falls off a stepladder and bumps his side. The fall is a minor one, but he feels a distinct twinge of pain in his side. The pain bothers him for a minute or two but he brushes it off.
Over the next few weeks the pain in his side flairs up every now and then, and he starts to notice a strange metallic taste in his mouth. He finally visits a doctor who provides a diagnosis but won’t give him a straight answer on whether his condition is “bad.” It’s particularly frustrating that the doctor doesn’t seem to care much about Ivan as a person, but more about the details and science behind the diagnosis.
Ivan starts taking medicine. For a while he’s able to convince himself that he’s getting better. But the pain gets worse. Things continue to go downhill and suddenly Ivan finds himself grappling with the reality that he might actually be dying.
And the worst part of it is that no one seems to notice or care. His wife publicly blames him for his decline, complaining that he never takes his medicine and stays up too late. (He stayed out with friends playing cards and forgot to take his medicine, once.) His adult daughter clearly considers his illness as nothing more than an inconvenience, the way it encroaches upon her social life. His doctor is so caught up (excited, even?) about the details of the illness that he makes Ivan feel like some sort of test subject.
The only person that provides Ivan any kind of relief is a young peasant man named Gerasim, the assistant to Ivan’s butler. Something about his youthful, unassuming presence draws Ivan to him, and Ivan invents chores that require Gerasim to spend more and more time in the room with Ivan. Gerasim is the only person in Ivan’s life who doesn’t make him feel like a burden. He sits and talks with him, with no agenda other than to sit and talk. He lets Ivan rest his legs on his shoulders, which provides immense relief from the constant pain. Most important, he pities Ivan, which is what Ivan wants more than anything.
As Ivan’s pain gets more intense and more constant, his biggest frustration is the question of why. Why does death have to be so painful? What is the purpose of all this suffering? What did he do to deserve this? Did he live his life incorrectly? Did he get it all wrong?
His frustration is replaced by pure agony as his pain is so bad that he can no longer think straight. It feels as if he’s being pushed through a burlap sack that envelopes him as he goes deeper and deeper, down towards death. He fights against the sack, trying to climb back up, but it’s no use as he keeps getting pushed farther and farther down. He eventually decides to stop resisting and let go, and at that very moment he realizes that the bottom of the sack is actually a warm, bright light. He allows himself to fall into that light, and his panic turns into peace and contentment.
Notes
There were several ideas from this book that I want to remember.
Dying is lonely
The first is that dying is lonely. As humans, we’re aware of our mortality but we don’t want to confront it. We have a natural aversion to death. And that often affects the way we interact with those who are dying. We don’t want to think about death, so we don’t want to think about them. For the dying person this makes for an incredibly lonely experience. It can feel as if no one really cares what they’re going through.
Love is attention
If dying is lonely, then we should spend time with the dying. This is a truly selfless act, because there’s clearly no extrinsic reward. The dying person can’t return the favor—they’ll be gone soon. And it’s not as if by caring for the dying you’re ensuring people will do the same for you when it’s your turn. There’s no guarantee of that. So in my mind, spending time with the dying is one of the purest displays of empathy and love.
People want to talk about what’s important to them
I’ve always assumed that if someone is seriously ill, or is dealing with a really hard challenge in life, that they don’t want to talk about it. And that may be true for some people. But while reading this book it occurred to me that if everyone assumes a person doesn’t want to talk about something it may seem like no one cares about what the person’s going through.
Ivan Ilyich was in constant pain; it was all he could think about. And no one, except maybe Gerasim, seemed to care about what he was experiencing. His doctor was all business, focusing only on the science of the illness. His wife complained that he didn’t take his meds correctly. His daughter made him feel like an obstacle to her enjoyment of life.
No one ever asked, “What is it feeling like today? What was your night like? What have you been thinking about?” And for weeks, these were the most important topics in Ivan Ilyich’s life.
I’m going to try to remember that people want to talk about what’s important to them, even if it’s a depressing topic.
The gold old days are right now
There’s a moment in the book when Ivan has an internal dialog and imagines he’s being asked, “What do you want?” His answer: “Life like it used to be. Happy and good.” All he wanted was for life to be like it used to be. That’s a powerful thing to remember. There will come a time when you’ll give anything just to be taken back to where you are right now.
Our best tool to help us realize what we have in this moment, and not when it’s too late, is gratitude. Our minds are geared towards seeking reward, so we’re always striving for more. More things, more money, more entertainment, more happiness. Gratitude helps us overcome this default setting and see with clear eyes what we already have. Gratitude is like a super power that tells us, “You’re in the good old days right now.”
I hope you’ve liked this summary of The Death of Ivan Ilyich. Thanks for reading!