I had read The Death of Ivan Illyich & Other Stories quite some time ago, so pardon me for the lack of detailed descriptions and personal analysis which would give a review its guts.
When I was reading it, I had found it to be difficult, given that it was I believe my first exposure to Russian literature. I remember being in middle school [like, sixth grade] and I had tried to start Anna Karenina and I could not do it. I read Ivan Illyich during my college years and it took a great while to digest each story. Since then, I have had a few occasions of reading Dostoyevsky with the hope of trying Tolstoy again really soon.
If I could, I would predict possibly enjoying Tolstoy more; he has a different way of immersing you into his stories through the characters internal goings, whereas you have immersion through characters based off of the ensemble around them with Dostoyevsky. I remember when reading The Death of Ivan Illyich & Other Stories having a moment where I had to look at my own life and reflect on mortality, basically like I was having an existential crisis, ha-ha. Tolstoy is not afraid to give you everything, heaviness or not, that was a reflection of the world he was living in. There is an incredible amount of discussion and things to unpack from such a small amount of reading material.
I would love to try reading The Death of Ivan Illyich & Other Stories again so that I can see how my mind has grown from all the learning from reading I have done. I am noticing that I do not go into books with a lot of critical thinking when the occasion calls for it such as this; definitely a goal I need to set for myself. I would say give Ivan Illyich a go, especially if you are just starting to read Tolstoy. If you would like to do so, you can find it here.
7/10
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