Rediscovering Ivan I!

I know it's the end of the semester and yadda yadda, but for my paper I have been rereading through this story, and I was just struck anew by how much I absolutely love it. In the version I'm reading, there are only 59 pages, but in those 59 pages Tolstoy manages to pack an almost bewildering amount of blindingly brililant thought (alliteration!). I remember the first time I read this, when I finished my brain felt like it was on fire and I kind of had the shivers. It amazes me that I had that exact feeling again, and I took an entirely new and just as striking set of impressions and information from it the second time. This book is so infinitely quotable that I'm having to restrain myself from filling my paper with Ivan I. To be perfectly honest, I think I could have written fifteen pages about this story alone, and considering that that would be equal to a 1/4 of the work, I find that completley amazing.