(This is the fourth installment in my Literature for the
Modern Mind series. To learn more about the series, see here.)
This past year I had the opportunity to teach Leo Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich for the first
time. In re-reading the novella, I was struck by how well Ivan’s character, who
orients his life around the avoidance of discomfort and the pursuit of the
approval of his peers, resembles the kind of self-understanding that our modern
culture—especially social media—works to create in us.
