this might honestly be the greatest book ever written.a real masterpiece.
>>24756627It’s too short to be the greatest book ever. Maybe the greatest short story ever
i havent read this one. i like most of Tolstoy's works but havent had the chance to read this one. ill check it out.
>>24756649pseud opinion
>>24756649
>>24756627Agree
>>24756627I know a lot of anons shan't like it, but I think it was masterful writing by Tolstoy regarding how Ivan turns to some bogus religious awakening in his last hours in a desperate attempt to cheat the human condition.
>>24756627Mogged by the film inspired by it.
>>24758028Not even close.
>>24756649>>24756653what is y'all's niggers opinion on the Kreuzer Sonata?
>>24758117Never read anything else like it, a very unique and radical story with interesting insights into male-female relations
>>24758028it's not a bad movie. but i guess a very moralistic interpretation of a much more subtle thesis
>>24758117Tolstoy was anti-natalist before it was a thing. He doesn't get enough credit for this.
>>24758201>much more subtle thesisthat being?
>>24758406how tough it is being a gay man in 19th century russia
>>24758205He just took it all from Schopenhauer who really he believed in more than Christ
>>24759131>SchopenhauerDid he fantasize about killing his wife?
>>24759181unironically, yes he did
>>24760065basado
>>24756653It's might be his best work
>ACK–>I bumped into my newel and ruptured my kidney!>now I'm dying and I realize I wasted my life pursuing material gains instead of spiritual ones!>NOOOOO YOU CAN'T EULOGIZE ME FOR MY MATERIAL GAINS!!!
>>24756627No that would be Anna Karenina
>>24762482Not only is Tolstoy completely correct about Ivan Ilyich's life being a waste but as the century continues and we live through a massive collapse in population through the decline of things like marriage, community, national identity, etc the majority of people are going to have the kind of regret that Ivan did at some point.
>>24762958It's really stupid how good Anna K is like it's not even fair to be honest. There is so much genius dripping from every chapter
>>24762971>massive collapse in population through the decline of things like marriagehe never read the Kreutzer Sonata
>>24763006>so much genius dripping from every chapterThank you. You must have picked up the copy I returned to the library.
>>24762958Well, if you really think about it, Anna Karenina has essentially the same message as Ivan Ilyich. The whole conflict in the book only happens because the characters are too cowardly to communicate with each other and confront the situation they're involved in. Instead they go along with their daily life routines and pretend as if everything won't come crashing down. Eventually when they realize how miserable the affair has made their families become it's too late and there is only death at the end. They spent all that time completely denying their mortality until the very end -- there is a reason why in her final moment Anna quickly regrets her decision to lay on the train track. It's only Levin who confronts the worth of life and his mortality and that's why he gets the happy ending.
>>24763006Yeah I agree. Every character is completely different from one another in personality and tone and issues with themselves yet they’re all equally relatable as well. Vronsky’s selfishness and inability to communicate feelings resonates with me as does Anna’s respite passion.>>24763416It isn’t discussed much but Karenin himself is also given a positive role in the story. He seethes with hatred at his wife but learns that hating her will do nothing when she simply doesn’t love him. As far as his situation is concerned he is given as good a role as possible.
>>24763442Every adaptation of the book makes Vronsky too old except the Joe Wright one where his character is totally butchered so that he can become goonfuel for women
>>24763454Maksem Matveyev in the Mosfilm tv show is my favorite.
>>24763416Good poast
>>24756653dew it
>>24756741
>>24756665>>24756741>>24765263100 pages of excellent writing < 200 pages of the same quality. Longer is ALWAYS better unless it sacrifices the quality. >"But what if the story has already been sufficiently told?!!?!1! What if the story starts to drag?!?!!!" Well then the quality was sacrified which isn't an argument against my point.
>>24756627It made me change the way I think and that's really the most powerful thing a book can do. It made me even more aware of my own mortality I lost a brother, friend and father in law all in the space of a couple years so I was already thinking more about death than I ever did before. But this book made me change from a fear of death to an acceptance of mortality and a reminder to try and be the best I can while I'm here I thoroughly enjoyed it
>>24762482It's generally believed Ivan has cancer, most assume pancreatic cancer
>>24756627I wasnt very impressed, for me its Family Happiness and What Men Live By
>>24765380>be the best I canWas that the moral of this story?
>>24765838did he say that it was
>>24765838Never said it was, just that after reading it I wanted to be a better person. I wanted to make sure my legacy was good, and not just career chasing or whatever
>>24765842just asking. jeesh
>>24756649> The greatest short story everFuck off, faggotThat title belongs to Kafka's "In the penal colony"
>>24767415It's actually Rustico and Alibech from Boccaccio
>>24756741i prefer short stories, too. i think it's because the internet has fried my brain and i can barely read or pay attention to anything anymore.
can anyone remember a short story, i'm fairly certain was chekov, or some other russian.. i think it involved a guy worried his wife would cheat, or who thought she was cheating, maybe he was trying to buy a gun from a pawnbroker or something... shit's driving me nuts. i'm going to have to read all chekov's short stories to quell my autism.
>>24756741Even Tolstoy’s long books are very “simple” in prose though that’s his great strength
>>24756627“Living is dying. Try to die well.”
>>24768274Such a shame his own death was utterly farcical but that's to be expected given his lifelong struggle with his own retardation
>>24763174>In August 1909, Sofiya Tolstoy reveals a visit from a 30-year-old Romanian, “who had castrated himself at the age of 18 after reading The Kreutzer Sonata. He then took to working on the land – just 19 acres – and was terribly disillusioned today to see that Tolstoy writes one thing but lives in luxury.” Katz notes that Tolstoy’s comment on the visitor was that he was “an exceedingly interesting man.”
>>24767415I read it an had literally 0 positive/negative opinions of it. Most mid book ever. Why do u like it so much???
>>24768274>>24768282Ivan Ilyich was Tolstoy saying he knew how the end would be for him and why go through all that? It's better to have it over with in an instant
>>24768339Tolstoy didn't expect to die the way he did. He always wanted to be executed by the Tsar for his activism and die a martyr, but when that wasn't likely he decided to die alone as a wandering hermit after leaving his family. Yet instead he died on the way at a railway station just after leaving.
>>24768274>>24768282>>24768714He died as an old man who made it to his 80s in a century where average longevity of that sort wasn't to be expected.All things considered, I think Tolstoy won in life, and I find it truly terrifying that we don't know what our own lives hold.At the exact moment of this text, I don't know if you'll live long. I don't know if I will. I don't know if any of us will, even now, in the 21st century.Oh, to have been Tolstoy...
>>24768727He still lived a resoundingly successful and long life, it was just a shame that his death wasn’t a victory over his lifelong struggle with solipsism, instead it was his final loss to it. It was absurd of him to leave his family like that and plan out his final days not knowing that God ultimately writes the script. You would think he would’ve known better
>>24756649>Maybe the greatest short story everThat has to compete with just about literally anything Isaac Asimov has written, and also "Bartleby, the Scrivener". Also Harlan Ellison's "I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream", and maybe several dozen others.
>>24768920Shouldn’t be a hard contest then
>>24756627To me it is only the most tolerable of Tolstoy's works.
>>24756741Context matters.
>>24768925You're right, Harlan Ellison wins handily over this, and is left to compete against anything Isaac Asimov wrote, which could be difficult to resolve.
>>24768920>>24768946Nobody cares about those gay faggotsOrwell wins due to "A Hanging"
