In the following excerpt, Wasiolek offers an overview of Tolstoy's "The Death of Ivan Ilych," paying particular attention to how Ivan's refusal to accept death affected his life. "The Death of Ivan Ilych" was Tolstoy's first published work after his conversion. It was written after almost a decade of immersion in theological reflection and writing, and indifference to the writing of fiction. More schematic and deliberate than the early tales, it is more pruned of descriptive and analytic detail. The density of circumstances is largely absent, and it reads like a distillation rather than a representation of life. Disdaining the verisimilitude that such density often confers upon an artistic work, Tolstoy makes his appeal by way of formulaic selection of essential detail. This gives the tale the air of a chronicle or parable. Such a manner could easily lead to abstract moralizing; yet, though the moralizing is...