Read a Good Book Lately? : The Death of Ivan Ilyich - Leo Tolstoy by Zackary Goncz

I wanted to see what all the fuss is about with this Tolstoy fella. I also didn't want to commit to 1500 pages to find out, if I can be totally transparent. This is more of a novella honestly. But Tolstoy packs a lifetime, literally, into those few pages. The title tells you the end but it is no less terrifying a march toward that conclusion. Every character is so well defined. You completely understand them, and not because they're particularly up front about anything with one another. Everything is cold, life is cold, death is cold, relationships are cold, friends are cold, family is cold. A life grinding away and doing what he's told only to just come down with something and to, with just as much dedication as he had to living the way he was supposed to live, simply died the way he was supposed to have died. Just a regular life rendered terrifying by viewing it, always, from the perspective of death. From a screenwriting perspective, it's interesting to think about adapting. Would be a tough one but an interesting exercise .