Episode 90: “The Death of Ivan Ilyich” Part 1

On this week’s episode of The Literary Life Podcast, Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins and Thomas Banks delve into part one of a two-part discussion of Leo Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich. Our hosts kick things off talking about their background with Russian literature, and Thomas gives some biographical information on Tolstoy. They also talk about the concept of the “holy fool.” Some ideas discussed in this episode include the characters’ responses to death, the mask of respectability, and the problem of discontent.

Cindy is hosting a new summer discipleship course for moms this year, so head over to morningtimeformoms.com for more info and to sign up! Thomas and Angelina also have some great summer classes coming up, and you can check those out at houseofhumaneletters.com.

Commonplace Quotes:

Arrogance is a weed that ever grows in a dunghill.

Owen Feltham

To enhance the wonder, see How arch his notices, how nice his sense Of the ridiculous; . . . . he can read The inside of the earth, and spell the stars; He knows the policies of foreign lands; Can string you names of districts, cities, towns, The whole world over, tight as beads of dew Upon a gossamer thread; he sifts, he weighs; All things are put to question; he must live Knowing that he grows wiser every day, Or else not live at all, and seeing too Each little drop of wisdom as it falls Into the dimpling cistern of his heart: For this unnatural growth the trainer blame, Pity the tree… Meanwhile old grandame earth is grieved to find The playthings, which her love designed for him, Unthought of: in their woodland beds the flowers Weep, and the river sides are all forlorn. Oh! give us once again the wishing-cap Of Fortunatus, and the invisible coat Of Jack the Giant-killer, Robin Hood, And Sabra in the forest with St George! The child, whose love is here, at least, doth reap One precious gain, that he forgets himself.

William Wordsworth, from “Prelude”

[Fairy stories] never seek to criticize or moralize, to protest or plead or persuade; and if they have an emotional impact on the reader, as the greatest of them to, that is not intrinsic to the stories. They would indeed only weaken that impact in direct proportion as soon as they set out to achieve it. They move by not seeking to move; almost, it seems, by seeking not to move. The fairy-story that succeeds is in fact not a work of fiction at all; . . . It is a transcription of a view of life into terms of highly simplified symbols; and when it succeeds in its literary purpose, it leaves us with a deep indefinable feeling of truth.

C. M. Woodhouse, on Animal Farm, The Times Literary Supplement, 1954 Growing Old

by Matthew Arnold

What is it to grow old? Is it to lose the glory of the form, The luster of the eye? Is it for beauty to forego her wreath? —Yes, but not this alone.

Is it to feel our strength— Not our bloom only, but our strength—decay? Is it to feel each limb Grow stiffer, every function less exact, Each nerve more loosely strung?

Yes, this, and more; but not Ah, ’tis not what in youth we dreamed ’twould be! ’Tis not to have our life Mellowed and softened as with sunset glow, A golden day’s decline.

’Tis not to see the world As from a height, with rapt prophetic eyes, And heart profoundly stirred; And weep, and feel the fullness of the past, The years that are no more.

It is to spend long days And not once feel that we were ever young; It is to add, immured In the hot prison of the present, month To month with weary pain.

It is to suffer this, And feel but half, and feebly, what we feel. Deep in our hidden heart Festers the dull remembrance of a change, But no emotion—none.

It is—last stage of all— When we are frozen up within, and quite The phantom of ourselves, To hear the world applaud the hollow ghost Which blamed the living man.

Book List:

The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy

Resolves: Divine, Political, and Moral by Owen Feltham

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Anton Chekhov

Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev

Papa Panov’s Special Day by Mig Holder

The Giagantic Turnip by Aleksei Tolstoy

Koshka’s Tales: Stories from Russia by James Mayhew

The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

Jane Austen at Home by Lucy Worsley

How Much Land Does a Man Need and Other Stories by Leo Tolstoy

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