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Tolstoy: "The professional striver lifestyle of shallow social pleasures divorced from God isn't nearly as fulfilling as it is made to feel and when you lay dying you will regret it"
150 years later: "..."
150 years later: "..."
This is "The Death of Ivan Ilyich," btw, which I bought after seeing a page posted here a couple weeks ago. Packs an amazing amount into a novella, as much as something like Metamorphosis
Tolstoy takes particular aim at doctors and lawyers, the original "professionals," i.e. those who proclaimed a professional oath to protect their clients/patients, and then spend the entire story lying to them
The original strivers, the original "fake and gay"
The original strivers, the original "fake and gay"
Ilych is a judge who marries because it looks good to his social peers, and when his wife starts behaving badly, immediately retreats to his judicial career, treating her just as he does his peers
He briefly restores his marriage when he bumps his salary from 3.5K rubles to 5K
He briefly restores his marriage when he bumps his salary from 3.5K rubles to 5K
He then injures himself—spoiler alerts, in "The Death of Ivan Ilych"!—furnishing a perfect striver household, which he takes great personal pride in, and expects his wife and children to be awed by, but which is identical to all others of his class
