The Brothers Karamazov – Book I

Point of joy #1 (actually, hysterical laughter while reading): “They thought I was gone, and here I am!” he shouted for all to hear (87). “He” is Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov. I’ll try to explain what’s so funny about this moment, as a way of summarizing what happens in the first two books of TBK. I’ll … Continue reading The Brothers Karamazov – Book I →

Metropolitan

Metropolitan (written and directed by a guy named Whit Stillman) is a streamable movie on Netflix. If it were well known I may not have been moved to write about it, but since it is not, and since it was such an enjoyable and fairly random discovery, I thought I would draw your attention to … Continue reading Metropolitan →

The Brothers Karamazov – The Beginning of the End of the Reading Project

After all the other novels, short stories and non-fiction pieces, I've finally gotten to the end of my Dostoevsky reading project (which started in June 2010 I believe). All that's left now is the longest and most critically acclaimed Dostoevsky novel of them all - The Brothers Karamazov.I'm not sure how many people read this … Continue reading The Brothers Karamazov – The Beginning of the End of the Reading Project →

The Information

Having been on vacation for the first week of four upcoming, I finally got to finish a book I started more than a year ago. I like to read popular science/history of science books now and then, especially if they're about computers or math too. The Information by James Gleick (also author of a book … Continue reading The Information →

A Writer’s Diary – 1880-1881

This entry is basically for completeness. Because of ailing health and an increasingly busy social schedule, D. stopped the Writer’s Diary until 1880, when he published a single issue. I’m a little confused about 1881, because it’s not even acknowledged in the otherwise thorough Frank biography, but then it’s there in the translation that I … Continue reading A Writer’s Diary – 1880-1881 →

A Writer’s Diary – 1876-1877

For Christmas, Brooke got me a record player. Since then I’ve probably bought 20-25 records at Reckless Records in Chicago, almost all classical. You can buy just about anything you want there for between $1 and $4. It’s really fun to listen to all that music on record, for reasons that are obviously as nostalgic … Continue reading A Writer’s Diary – 1876-1877 →

The Adolescent

This is Dostoevsky's penultimate novel. I had read in a couple of different places that this was the weakest of his major works, and it turns out (at least to me) they were right. In fact I have very little to say about it. Let's see. A brief summary: The first-person narrator, Dolgoruky, is the illegitimate son … Continue reading The Adolescent →

The Adolescent/A Raw Youth

I haven't finished this second-to-last Dosteovsky novel yet, so I just have a couple of random things to share from it: a look backward to Shakespeare, a look forward to F. Scott Fitzgerald, and some random thoughts on laughter. 1) A pattern of allusions to Othello - I have to think this out further, but the … Continue reading The Adolescent/A Raw Youth →

A Writer’s Diary – 1873

A wide range of themes were treated upon in 1873's "Diary." Like I've said before, this reads a lot like a blog, even this one. Sometimes it's a review of a play, sometimes a travelogue, sometimes random complaints. It would be hard to write about all of these as a unified whole, so I've picked … Continue reading A Writer’s Diary – 1873 →

Pushkin on Painting and Shoemaking

I'm midway through the first year (1873) of Dostoevsky's proto-blog A Writer's Diary. (2 volumes, Northwestern University Press, trans. Kenneth Lantz) Basically it's a whole bunch of short articles, which were published intermittently, and which deal in various subjects - some short stories, some replies to letters he's been sent, some rants directed at obscure … Continue reading Pushkin on Painting and Shoemaking →