On the coming of death

It's funny how many books used to be written simply about some fact, feeling or concept, and how it would affect someone, or people in general. Nobody does that anymore, I guess because all the great topics have already been taken, and quite wonderfully written about. I'm writing all this to talk about two books I just finished reading: The Death of Ivan Ilitch (Tolstoi) and The Last Day of a Man Condemned to Death (Victor Hugo). They both deal with the approach of unavoidable, inexorable death: in the former caused by a mysterious ailment, in the latter by human stupidity, arrogance and intolerance (well, more objectively by the death penalty). They are both wonderful novels written by two genius, arguably the best their respective countries ever had to offer. Both near contemporary, well at least they shared a century. Both are opinion-makers, they don't write merely for the beauty of writing: they want to pass along their ideas. But each pushed by very different reasons.
Tolstoi puts his own ghosts in his writing, by facing the fear of death and, worse yet, of life wasted. He harshly criticizes what was believed to be a "good" life by his fellow russians, a decent life indeed. The slow decay of respectable judge Ivan Ilitch into despair and almost-inhumanity caused by the certainty of death-to-come is a horrible and disturbing thing to read about. But most disturbing is his ultimate realization and evaluation of how he lived his life.
Victor Hugo is also harsh in his attack on death penalty. He describes the last days of a dead-man, for after the sentenced is pronounced he is indeed dead. He is a nameless convict. Hugo doesn't go for the easy solution of creating some sort of bond between the reader and the convict by describing him as particularly nice, or wrongly accused. No, he is guilty. Of what, we don't know, but certainly of something awful. The only shred of humanity in him is his daughter, the 3-year-old girl orphaned by each and every french person that allows such cruelty to go on. I don't remember seeing such a well-crafted, beautiful defence of something that ultimately shouldn't need defending, as this novel, together with the impressive 1832 preface (that, luckily enough, was reproduced in my edition of the book) Hugo wrote. And I recommend that everyone that ever stopped to think about the fairness and morality of the death penalty read it.

For free, at the Project Gutenberg (well, in the original french)
The edition I read, in portuguese: (Livraria Cultura).