The Death of Ivan Ilyich (Russian Edition)

By: Leo Tolstoy

Narrated by: Galina Samojlova

Hailed as one of the world's supreme masterpieces on the subject of death and dying, The Death of Ivan Ilyich is the story of a worldly careerist, a high court judge who has never given the inevitability of his death so much as a passing thought. But one day death announces itself to him, and to his shocked surprise, he is brought face-to-face with his own mortality. How, Tolstoy asks, does an unreflective man confront his one and only moment of truth?

This short novel was the artistic culmination of a profound spiritual crisis in Tolstoy's life, a nine-year period following the publication of Anna Karenina during which he wrote not a word of fiction. A thoroughly absorbing and, at times, terrifying glimpse into the abyss of death, it is also a strong testament to the possibility of finding spiritual salvation.

Please Note: This audiobook is in Russian.

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Performance in Russian Could Be Better.

The story itself is a classic. My issue is the performance in Russian could be a lot better. First, it was rushed. Fast talkers might be ok with it, but not me. Second, the peculiar way that Galina Samojlova reads, her intonation, how she ends her sentences is not how a Russian classic should be read. It's how some Russians talk and it has a certain psychological effect that doesn't work for a reading of a classic. In other words, this performance didn't seem like a performance but like a random Russian woman reading the book out loud and rushing through it.

My first Tolstoy, want more!

Classic Russian. A take on.. Being a good person. With some good counterexamples as well