Posts

Showing posts with the label reading

Dostoevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov"

Image
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky My rating: 5 of 5 stars I was halfway thru reading this book when I met a retired Russian chemist (who was suffering from lung cancer) in one of my gigs, and we discussed about our common interests in reading books. I was surprised to hear from her about Dostoevsky's books being not among her top choices for her reading fare (I saw books everywhere in her house, mostly non English ones), just like others in her personal network. She said, Dostoevsky writes in the ultimate dramatic way (almost histrionic, I thought to myself, and to which I agree to some extent), which is not completely Russian in character (and adds that Pushkin should be read by non Russian readers to get an idea of the best in Russian literature). But she added that Dostoevsky's reads better in the English translations of his books (as remarked by her daughter who's a bilingual, English & Russian writer). The conversation got me more interested in finis