I’m almost done.
The final third of it is entirely made up of a criminal trial. It reads like a true crime novel. It’s a total page-turner. When I have to take a break from reading, I can’t wait to get back to it.
His comments on tabloid journalism, and the spectacle of high-profile criminal cases, and the propensity of females to fall in love with murderers (I bet there are some chicks out there right now swooning over Scott Peterson) – It’s all so familiar, it feels like he is critiquing Court TV, etc. Like one of the witnesses starts weeping about how some Russian magazine called “Gossip” printed untrue things about her … and one of the other witnesses makes the observation that while, yes, as a moral society, people do abhor crime and punish it – blah blah – but on a deeper level, people LOVE crime. They LOVE disorder, and they LOVE to watch the spectacle.
Poor Ivan. Poor Ivan. I knew there was a reason I liked him the best. Because, in a way, (with his night-time visitor – anyone remember?) he is the most tormented.
I read the chapter about Ivan’s night-time visitor 3 times. Terrifying.
After all these years refusing to read it, I am convinced. I am off to the book store.
Dude, you’re gonna flip.
There are a couple of deadly-long snooze-fest chapters (Father Zossima’s Life Story) or whatever … but trudge through that, and you’ll be fine. It was drudgery, but now I’m in the pay-off section.
Dostoevsky’s observations about criminals, the criminal psychology, guilt, redemption are beyond compare.
“The Dude abides.”
What a coincidence, I had read Brothers K in college, then again about 10 years ago, and I recently ran across a new translation by Larissa Volokhonsky and Richard Pevear, who are re-doing all of classic Russian lit. I got my cc of BroK today from Barnes/Noble, will dive into it soon. They are supposed to be far better translators than previous ones.