Guy de Maupassant, the French writer, read Death of Ivan Ilych shortly before he died, and remarked, apparently with no irony:
“I realize that everything I have done now was to no purpose, and that my ten volumes are worthless.”
Do you think he liked it?
(A tip of the hat to Tony Briggs, who sent me his forthcoming Introduction to The Death of Ivan Ilych and other Stories. Briggs is a well-regarded translator of Tolstoy, and an excellent researcher. I hold his Landmarks essay on Eugene Onegin to be among the smartest things about that book to have ever written.)
Sunday, March 2, 2008
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