"I want to begin and finish something new, either the 'death of a judge' or 'the diary of a madman, '" wrote Count Leo Tolstoy in his diary entry of 27 April 1884. What emerged two years later was The Death of Ivan Ilich, a short novel in which Tolstoy depicts the thoughts of an ordinary man who, on discovering he is gravely ill, begins for the first time to contemplate the meaning of life and death - questions similar to those pondered by Tolstoy...