December 25, 2019
by Marlo Safi
After years of literary success and popular acclaim, Leo Tolstoy became dissatisfied with the complacency of the intelligentsia in what it had accepted as life’s meaning (or lack thereof)—in a word, he was suicidal. He had become convinced that no answer to his existential questions could be found in the “chemical compositions of the stars” [...]
October 29, 2018
by Amy Fahey
Despite years of reading, rereading, and teaching great works, I continue to marvel at the inevitable timeliness of timeless literature. And so, as I prepare to teach "The Death of Ivan Ilych" once again, on the cusp of the month the Church has dedicated to All Holy Souls, I am struck by how Leo Tolstoy’s novella [...]
January 18, 2016
by Sean Haylock
Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina doesn’t end with the suicide of Anna. Its final section concludes the story of its other primary character, Constantin Levin. Levin’s situation is very different from Anna’s. He is married to the woman he loves, who has recently given birth to their first child, a healthy son. They live on a farm [...]
November 27, 2015
by Richard Becker
To make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from. ~ T. S. Eliot We’ve come to the close of our annual month-long reminder of the obvious: We’re all going to die. It’s a truism that we learned as kids in Sunday school and CCD—the first of the four [...]
October 28, 2013
by Sean Fitzpatrick
A man lies on his deathbed—screaming; screaming for three days without cessation. Even behind closed doors, the sound horrifies all who hear even its muffled suggestion. The death of Ivan Ilych was no peaceful affair. It was a fight literally to the death; and it is a struggle we all must undergo, for we all [...]
