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Yes, in the end they had convinced me.
Not that I really wanted to, in fact, I remained rather skeptical both about the sense of it (especially based on a priori considerations) and about the timing of the occasion (considering I had only learned about it two days prior). But come on! In the end, I was happy to see them again, and knowing full well that the greatest resistance consisted of those few extra grams of misanthropy that have always weighed me down, I decided to shed my ascetic habits and head to the evening. Yes, in the end they had convinced me.
The fearsome DINNER-WITH-HIGH-SCHOOL-CLASSMATES!!!
Against all odds, driving to the designated venue for the occasion, I felt rather bold and, to maintain this disposition as much as possible, I bolstered my good intentions by listening to "Halleluhwah" by Can.
The evening was going well. The girls had become real women, the boys had remained the same slackers and layabouts I remembered, and the conversation stayed on light-hearted topics.
There was only one thing a little off: those oblique smiles that an old classmate of mine would occasionally give us all. It wasn't immediately noticeable, but his measured and considered contributions to the discussions exuded an air of vague superiority and presumption: nice house, prestigious job, trendy vacations, perfect wife, even more perfect children.
I believe this sensation was shared by the rest of the group, in fact, at the umpteenth social medal flaunted with precise nonchalance, a chill fell over the group, and everyone's thoughts were sucked into an internal whirlpool that not even "Aumgn" (just to stay on the "Tago Mago" theme) could have caused.
After a couple of minutes (which felt like at least seventeen), I got up and went out to smoke a cigarette: that's when I thought of him, Ivan Ilyich, I mean.
Published in 1886, "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" is a long story (or short novel, take your pick) that is part of the second phase of Tolstoy's writings. His famous "spiritual crisis" had erupted only four years earlier with the publication of the "Confession", a controversial (and substantial) auto-da-fé in which Lev distanced himself from the clergy and the Russian Orthodox Church to embark on a highly personal journey of anarcho-mystical-evangelicalism that permeated all his works from then on.
At the height of his fame and influence, many embraced (consciously or not) the principles of this new messiah, so much so that even Gandhi admitted that in his youth, the writings of the "new" Tolstoy (with whom he maintained a frequent correspondence until the author's death) were decisive for his political and spiritual formation.
I have a secret to confide: this second phase never convinced me. Sure, Tolstoy's vigor and power remained intact. I don't deny that, for example, "The Kreutzer Sonata" (perhaps his most Dostoevskian work) or "Resurrection" (the third, and last, of his great novels) are works worthy of his genius, but what is missing is the sublime narrator, the tireless seeker of contradictions and the inevitable paroxysms that the human condition brings with it. As if his innate ability to show us life for what it is ("The Cossacks"), the historical ebbs and flows ("War and Peace"), or the stifling filth of high society ("Anna Karenina") bowed to the word of the Gospels, the only inexhaustible thaumaturgical source that would cleanse the miserable human race of sin and suffering.
In short, I subscribe to what Čajkovskij said: "Once, with the simple story of an everyday life episode, he could arouse the deepest impressions. Now he comments on texts and claims an exclusive monopoly on faith and ethics. The old Tolstoy, the narrator, was a God; the current one is nothing but a priest."
For me, the true masterpiece of Tolstoy-the-prophet is precisely "The Death of Ivan Ilyich". It is here that his mania for redeeming humanity is tempered (and balanced) by a more confined and balanced scope, focusing on the story of a dull and faded provincial prosecutor.
And the story is terrible.
Archetype of the entire dull arsenal of bourgeois values, Ivan Ilyich lived his life in a comfortable and pleasant golden cage (glad to be there and channeling all his energy to stay there): the morality? "He was determined to do what he considered his duty; and his duty was everything that high-ranking people considered such"; the work? "He never abused his power, indeed tried to mitigate its terms; but the awareness of this power and the possibility to mitigate it were precisely the main interest of his job"; the marriage? "By marrying, Ivan Ilyich did something that pleased himself and, at the same time, did what high society people considered right".
In the first part of the story, Tolstoy abundantly uses the words "pleasantly", "comfortably", "decorously", in all possible and imaginable declensions, crafting a narrative blend marked by fierce irony.
Not that the colleagues (and wife) of the good Ivan are different from him: subservient to authority, affected towards colleagues, slothful towards affections, and vicious towards pleasures. In short, a rotten microcosm of little men worthy of Maupassant or Ibsen.
Symbol of the vacuity of Ivan Ilyich’s life are the objects he has an almost erotic and monomaniac relationship with, and just this untamed passion for trinkets and ornaments will be the cause of his death: getting excited over a poorly hung curtain, Ivan falls from the ladder, hitting his side on a doorknob. A pain, at first slight, that over the course of months will grow out of all proportion, making Ivan realize that something new and terrible, something he hadn’t calculated and that is anything but "pleasant", has entered (to stay) definitively into his life: Death.
Tolstoy’s writing in the second part of the story (with the scythe of the Grim Reaper looming ever closer over Ivan’s head), becomes feverish, agitated. Clinical details, physical and moral miseries, indifference of family members and colleagues. Everything draws the reader into the black vortex with no return: the pages vibrate and secrete cold sweats, and from time to time, we're tempted to feel our own side to make sure everything's alright.
Ivan, little by little, comes to understand that the die is cast, and there’s only one number that can come up. Shocked, annihilated, and furious, only in his last days does he experience a personal revelation: his life had been a colossal lie (he saw it etched into every face that came to visit him), and the only genuinely happy moments were those of his childhood.
His only consolation in these last days are the loving care of Gerasim, a young and resolute peasant who, with his simplicity of soul coupled with deep intrinsic intelligence, is the only one not annoyed by Ivan’s sufferings, indeed trying to make himself completely available to the dying man without any ulterior motives.
It’s no coincidence that Gerasim, the only character with a shred of humanity, belongs to the poorest class: Tolstoy had great faith (as did Dostoevsky, and the early Turgenev) that the moral regeneration of Russia would necessarily pass through the spirituality and peasant life.
Crushed in body and soul, we find Ivan on the last page on his deathbed, repeating words to himself. The final line is the last nail locking the coffin: "
Now, I really hope my old classmate isn’t a modern-day Ivan Ilyich. I mean, maybe I exaggerated: it could simply have been a defensive mechanism born of shyness or he was settling scores (unknown to me) with his past.
Maybe he just needed a shake-up: at the end of the evening, I was strongly tempted to lend him "Tago Mago", but, to my shame, I was too eager to listen to "Bring Me Coffee or Tea" on the way back.
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