Fyodor Dostoyevsky
1864
Around 130 pages
I told you in the previous post that I was reading In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust, which is why my posts have become somewhat sporadic. I don't like to be unfaithful to my books, but I decided to take a break from volume 5 of 7 in order to stop myself from overdosing on intellect. I suppose this shouldn't be too big of a concern since I watched a segment of Jerry Springer the other day. In any case, I managed to fit this relatively short novel in and will hopefully get back in the swing of things with this blog.
I found this novel a bit hard to understand, so I apologize if my summary isn't the usual inspiring piece of writing that you have become accustomed to. The narrator is a very sad, Oblomov-esque man who has become increasingly paranoid due to pain and inactivity. I guess the main event in this novel is when he decides to bump into a policeman...and nothing happens. The police officer doesn't even notice. Now, this sounds like a cause for complaint. Really, how boring can you get? Well, maybe I am getting soft in my old age, but that scene actually intrigued me. Honestly, the most significant event in this man's life wasn't even noticed by anyone? How heartbreaking is that?
Unfortunately, my criteria for this blog isn't just "does this Russian novel make me sad?". If that was the case, we would have a lot of raves on our hands. This book was a bit on the dull side still and just felt like a very rough first chapter of Crime and Punishment. I would just stay tuned for the real thing.
RATING: **---
Interesting Facts:
Friedrich Nietzsche reportedly said that Dostoyevsky was the only psychologist that he had anything to learn from.
UP NEXT: Uncle Silas by Sheridan Le Fanu
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