The Death of Ivan Ilyich is the only work by Leo Tolstoy I have read in full. I only read the abridged version of War and Peace when I was younger, which, I guess, defeats the point. This is a novella, just above a hundred pages, and I thought it would be a good introduction to his work and might lead to reading his bigger novels.
Ivan Ilyich’s final proclamation that “Death was gone!” shows that he was dead long before death came to him while he was “living” a prescribed life. The painful realization of spending the finite time checking boxes only to realize you failed to live them strikes you as much as Ilyich on his deathbed.
I perhaps should not have read this while navigating a mild existential crisis fueled by AI obsolescence and uncertainty. Or perhaps having this realization before I stop being young can help me do more fulfilling things; maybe I am reading this at the right time.