(It turns out I'll make this final post multi-parted.  Just too much to say...) By my estimation, Dostoevsky’s published works run somewhere between 7500 and 8000 pages.  That means I’ve read more words written by him (at least published words) than by any other human being.  I might have come close with George Eliot when … Continue reading Dostoevsky Project Wrap-Up #3: Final Thoughts (part A) – The Experience of All This Reading →

Here's just a little snapshot of my reading.   Best Opening Line: Notes from Underground - “I AM A SICK MAN… I am a wicked man.  An unattractive man.  I think my liver hurts.”  D. seems not to have thought to much about the effect of opening lines (unlike, say, Tolstoy, Dickens, or Jane Austen).  Still, … Continue reading The Dostoevsky Project Wrap-Up #2: Superlatives →

I know this is spread out over more than two years, and you might not have read everything I wrote, or might not want to.  But just in case you do - below are links to everything I've written about Dostoevsky over this time, in chronological order.  It's 43 entries I think.  I have to … Continue reading The Dostoevsky Project Wrap-Up #1: Everything I Wrote →

At the start of Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom (to be written about later in this same space) the children listen to Benjamin Britten's "A Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra" and the voiceover narrator describes the different instruments as they enter the piece.  At the end of the movie, the same voiceover describes all the … Continue reading The Brothers Karamazov – Book XII (“A Judicial Error”) and Epilogue →

I'm still without my computer so I'll keep it brief again.  If this novel were a Shakespeare play (and George Steiner's Tolstoy or Dostoevsky argues that Shakespearean drama is a good analogue to most of D's works) , Book 10 starts after where the intermission would have fallen: it's Act 4.  Fyodor has been murdered, Dmitri … Continue reading Books 10-11 – Boys and Brother Ivan Karamazov →

I won't say too much because I'm currently computer-less and iPad typing is frustrating. This part of the book was great in terms of plot action... Dmitri goes on a manic and dreamlike search for 3000 rubles, comes quite close to, but does *not* murder his father (honestly, I missed that detail the first time … Continue reading The Brothers Karamazov – Books 8-9 -Mitya and The Preliminary Investigation →

Something that’s amazed me about this book so far is its ability to maintain a really unique form of emotional intensity, even though (a) it’s hundreds of pages long, (b) it’s translated from 19th century Russian, and (c) its characters themselves are often discussing very abstract philosophical-religious issues.  I mean when I read a George … Continue reading The Brothers Karamazov – Book VII – Alyosha →

Seen from a certain angle, book VI and (its testament to faith) is the ideological counterweight to Book V’s atheism.  There is a problem here though, which is two-fold.  First, the views expressed in Book VI are very closely connected with Dostoevsky’s own views; second, to be blunt, Book VI is a little bit boring.  … Continue reading The Brothers Karamazov – Book VI – The Russian Monk →

This is really long.  I thought  a lot about it.  I hope you will read 🙂 Book V is the ideological heart of TBK.  In a series of chapters set at a local inn, Ivan and Alexei discourse about belief in God and moral responsibility.  The centerpiece of this is the “Grand Inquisitor” chapter, a … Continue reading The Brothers Karamazov – Book V – Pro and Contra →