— Anonymous
Reading Leo Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich at a weird time like this, I would say, is like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich: no one thought they were going to be a good match until someone put them together, proclaimed about its delightful taste, and called it a day.
But I digress.
Everyone thought that, during its early days, COVID-19 would be nothing but ‘the regular seasonal flu.’ Authorities and common folk were cautious of its spread and yet, even when the first few cases have been found in the metro, higher-ups like the Baruch President were quick to dismiss the threat as low-level; telling everyone that everything will be handled effectively. Days soon passed and things started to go awry. Positive cases, even to this day, were piling up relatively as fast as the increase in the number of deaths. Consequently, everyone was told to stay at and work from home as the city went on lockdown.
Now, with hundreds of deaths being reported almost daily, it’s easy to be complacent while sitting comfortably in our own homes and safely throw the phrase, “At least it wasn’t me,” or “Well, [they’re] dead but I’m alive,” around without putting too much weight on neither the words used or the value of human lives (741). Additionally, it’s easy to put on a mask and falsely sympathize with people for their loss of a loved one to the virus the same way Ivan Ilyich’s friends did at his funeral: putting on a façade of empathy for a while then being immediately off to having fun and playing bridges (746). I, for one, felt the same thing of being relieved inside the walls of my own home while others were inevitably suffering elsewhere, but only for a short while.
In my case, my mom, who works as a nurse at a nearby healthcare facility, got the virus and tested positive. Because of this, Tolstoy’s masterpiece felt very relatable in the sense of his protagonist’s, Ivan Ilyich, sufferings and terrible feelings at the later stages of his disease. Needless to say, it was a very scary feeling between not knowing what else to do as I can’t really come close to her and give a hug, and thinking she might be in the same state of mind Ilyich was before his death, “divided between two contrary and alternating moods” (774). Fortunately, she has nearly fully recovered.
Reading a literary text as heavy as this in a time, such as today, when reading isn’t really the common thing to do is, in my opinion, both weird and compelling at the same time as it made me rethink the value of life.
