Today I gave a presentation on The Death of Ivan Ilych and the poems of Hopkins. I will be posting the audio and video soon. What we see from Tolstoy, through Ivan, is this: if we cannot understand then there is no meaning, and if there is no meaning then there is nothing–nihilism. It is this connection that moves Ivan from a hardened heart and refusal to repent into asking forgiveness. Before this, he refuses to consider that perhaps he has lived the wrong way. When he makes the connection that if we cannot understand we cannot have meaning and this entails nihilism he is forced to reconsider. It is one of the best short stories dealing both with the problem of evil and our need for meaning and the consequences of rejecting the possibility of knowledge.