In short, the pairing encourages us to see The Death of Ivan Ilyich as a fictional exploration of the theoretical problems of religion, morality, and mortality explored autobiographically in Confession.
There are successful precedents for the fictional exploration of Tolstoy's life.
"The Schooldays of Jesus" continues J.M. Coetzee's fictional exploration of a boy's encounters with a disturbing new world.
There are moments in Thomas and Mary, Tim Parks's fictional exploration of a 30-year marriage, that will make anyone in a long‑term relationship wince.
In "My Hollywood," a compassionate fictional exploration of this complicated global relationship, Simpson assesses the human cost that the child-care bargain exacts on the amah, on her employer and on the children of both.
The fictional exploration of the possibility that robots might one day surpass their human designers evidently retains a powerful grip as in this season's hit TV series Westworld.
In general, the reception to The High Mountains of Portugal has been much more positive than that given to Beatrice & Virgil, Martel's long-awaited follow-up to Life of Pi, a fictional exploration of the Holocaust (also featuring animals).
"East of Suez" (1922), "The Painted Veil" (1925) and "The Casuarina Tree" (1926) were the results, along with the classic short story "Rain" (1921) and "The Moon and Sixpence" (1919), Maugham's fascinating fictional exploration of the career of Paul Gauguin and, by wider implication, of the necessary ruthlessness of all artists.
Comparisons to Lolita, one of the most remarkably crafted pieces of prose in the last century, only set Undone up to look like a dim follow-up, both stylistically and as a fictional exploration of corrupted morals.
As well as these fictional explorations he produced a final, non-fiction work, The Great Galilean, outlining the religious views he developed during a lifetime's uneasy relationship to Anglicanism and Catholicism.
