James Joyce wrote “when you’re dead, you’re dead.” Until modern times most people have believed otherwise. Ancient Egyptians believed in an endless life after death. In the Bible, Moses, King David, and others lie—or rest, or sleep, or lie down, depending on the translation of the Hebrew verb—with their fathers. Dante articulated for Christianity the…

In Mark Helprin’s novel “A Soldier of the Great War,” we meet Alessandro Giuliani, a young Italian studying philosophy and aesthetics. The Great War—World War I—upends his plans for a career as a professor contemplating art and beauty, and we follow him through battles, imprisonment and near execution by his own army, and capture by…