The death of Ivan Ilitch

Just finished reading this novel from Tolstoi. The preface from the edition i read was from Antonio Lobo Antunes. In the preface Lobo Antunes says that this book was been by some controversy about the main purpose of the novel, namely, if it's about life or death. I thought that would be interesting. I started reading. The book is seams to be about a guy that get some disease and dyes in a lot of pain. I don't think this book is about life or death, i even can't imagine any difference between life and death in this level of analyses.

I had one nephew that was born last year. He was born with a very serious kidney condition that implied several surgeries just after he was born and even some doctors lost hope on him. Know he just has one kidney, but apart from that he's fine.

I also have a daughter that was excited to have a cousin (the first) and i had to explain her that the boy had to stay in hospital, that she could not see him and also prepare her for the possibility of death (also her first). I did that with the help of stars and thermodynamics. You know, entropy, the conservation of energy/mass and a song from Moby. Basically, what i told my daughter is that everybody comes from a star and will become a star at the end. I was feeling very smart with that.

My point is, if my five year daughter can understand that life is just a very tiny anomaly in the entropy laws, that we are made of stars and will be a part of star again, why there is a difference between living and dying ? I don't think there is. Why being alive (and i like to be alive) is more important than to be a star ?

I do think that "The death of Ivan Ilitch" is about freedom. He was a person that always had the life others, and also him, thought where the correct one. Almost at the end he realised that he was only happy when he was a children, all his pains started and where proportional to his responsibilities. He was getting more responsibilities as he walked the path society determined for him. He had one last chance to escape before going to Saint-Petersburg, he lost that when finished the new house, that's when he falls.

After, there is only one way for him to be free, he must lose all. He loses his body, his family and his work. At the end he also frees his small boy and finds a friend. I guess i can talk like this because i know, really know, that life and death are the faces of the same coin. You can't just look at a coin from one side, you must look at both, and we stay "dead" much more time than alive. I also think that this makes a lot more sense in the Tolstoi tradition.

Going back to my daughter, i explained her the stars and that we become stars again in the end. Well, one day we where reading the "Little Prince" and suddenly, she asks after, i noticed, a lot of careful thinking, if we become stars or we go to heaven. That was hard to answer. That's a much better question than the differences between
living and dying. And, for that, there is only faith to help, faith in
science or in religion.