Bobok by Fyodor Dostoevsky Summary

The narrator, Ivan Ivanovitch, is a writer who has failed in literature and instead makes a living by doing translations from French, writing advertising copy, and publishing tracts on how to succeed with women. Lately, Ivan's work has become increasingly erratic and confusing. Ivan is a confirmed consumer of alcohol and has sat for a painting by a so-called realist painter. One day Ivan goes for a rather aimless walk and ends up attending the funeral of a distant relative—he notes the smell of death and the throngs of people in the churchyard who are there attending multiple funerals, and then goes to a restaurant and eats. He then acts as a pallbearer and after the internment sits on a tombstone philosophizing as the cemetery grounds empty of people. He slowly falls into a funk...