FO told me she read The Death of Ivan Ilyich in college, and that the moral of the story is "don't hang drapes".

I said that the beginning of that story reminded me of the beginning of Fight Club. She didn't see how I got that, so I'll explain:

It's a pretty strong resemblence. Near the beginning of his adulthood, Ivan Ilyich is obsessed with furnishing his apartment; buying the right things, and arrainging them just so. "Jack" of Fight Club is obsessed with the same thing. For both of them, this is a manifestation of a desire to conform, and also a masking of a spiritual hollowness inside of them.

When I first was watching it, I thought at least the beginning of Fight Club was original, and addressed pertinent issues of modern life (consumerism, detachment from other people, meaninglessness of some jobs and of life in general), but a lot of that stuff was covered in Death of Ivan Ilyich about a hundred years before. I guess it's another sign that there's nothing new under the sun.



Anyway, I finished reading it. The story was told pretty flatly, without much poetry in the language, but I can't be sure if that's a result of the translation. I'd guess it isn't. I doubt Tolstoy's heart was really in the beginning of the story. He just had to tell the story of Ivan's early life for contrast with how he was when he was dying.

And in any case, I don't think Tolstoy has any more answers about life than any of us. Yes, some people might just live their lifes for the sake of propriety, but even if you don't, and actively ponder what is the meaning of life, it's a question that just leads a person around in circles. I don't really think there is any meaning. A person that questions things might not necessarily be better off than a person that doesn't (regardless of what Socrates said).



I'm also a few chapters into rereading Huckleberry Finn, and I'm enjoying it a lot. I think I've been enjoying reading more lately than playing games, so I might even just take a little break from all games for a bit.


"Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood."
-Orwell