The Kingdom of God is Within You
It's hard trying to keep your head up always, not only when you're struggling economically, but also when you're reading gloomy literature about Russia lately, such as Coetzee's The Master of Petersburg and Tolstoy's Anna Karenina (translated by the unmatched duo Pevear and Volokhonsky). When my fiancée reads this, no doubt, she'll be shaking her head at the computer screen and wondering, "Didn't I tell him Russian literature gets him depressed. So why does he read it?" The reason: I've never before read the book and I have quite taken to Tolstoy as a writer ever since I took that 19th century Russian lit course. And now that university is over, until I move out, I'm keeping myself busy at home with reading (when I'm not performing other perfunctory household functions like cooking, cleaning or laundry).
Oddly enough, and perhaps there is some danger here, this balance of high-brow reading and menial household work is becoming an agreeable routine.
Oddly enough, and perhaps there is some danger here, this balance of high-brow reading and menial household work is becoming an agreeable routine.
posted by Davyth | 3:03 PM
4 Comments:
I love the Russians, but I thought Anna Karenina was the worst Russian novel I ever read. War and Peace is much better, but Tolstoy's mastery is best seen in his short stories.
Tolstoy was the better writer, but Dostoevsky was the better author. Brothers Karamazov and the Idiot are simply unforgettable. I don't know how I read all those books in a matter of months: they're so huge!
Hint: despite appearances to the contrary, Dostoevsky is not depressing. Thumbs up.
Sorry, I should clarify. There is a harsh, woebegone reality to Dostoevsky's novels--his novels are teeming with vile, eviscerating characters: terrorists, child-rapists, hypocrites, philistines, termagants, the worst of this world together in one novel. It is precisely because of the stark, arduous spiritual quest, which Dostoevsky takes his readers alongside himself on, that I say Dostoevsky is "depressing."
I love him. He's one of my favourite authors precisely because his fictional worlds are demon-infested, both viscerally and psychologically, which makes him one of the most agonising (yet most truthful) authors about the world around us.
One word: harrowing.
LOL, you didn't see him (Davyth) when he was taking the course in Russian lit.
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