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During the school year, it is nearly impossible to find time to read books of my choosing; at the most, I am able to read two novels (usually an Austen or a BrontĂ«) in a semester. So, when I finally reach a long break, I hungrily leap at the opportunity to read as much as possible, breaking my (as it seems during the school year) interminable book fast. Emerging into summer break, I voraciously devour the intriguing books that have long been piled on my shelves, crossing off titles that have been on my TBR for far too long. If you’ve read any of my other articles, you know I love to share my reads and thoughts on them, so, without further ado, let’s dive right into discussing several of the classic novels I conquered this past summer.
Re-reads
Crime and Punishment by fyodor dostoevsky
I normally don’t re-read books. In fact, Crime and Punishment is the first book I’ve re-read of my own volition. There are, actually, many books that I want to re-read, as it is through re-reading classics that you increasingly uncover their unending levels of meaning and notice small, at first unassuming, details that carry great significance. Crime and Punishment was a very interesting re-read, as I was able to look upon the first Dostoevsky novel I read through a completely different, more informed lens. After having learned more about Dostoevsky’s life, works, and philosophical and religious beliefs, I was able to understand the work in ways I had never imagined while first reading it. Overall, it was a very illuminating experience that made me appreciate Dostoevsky’s work even more (which I had thought impossible).
New
War and Peace by leo tolstoy
I finally conquered the Goliath, the mammoth tome that I have stared face-to-face with multiple times but struggled to begin. As I mentioned in “My Tips for Reading Russian Literature,” this novel’s (if you can call it that) length always produced a tremendous amount of fear in me. The longest books I had previously read were Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov and Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, and the mere thought of transcending the 1000 page barrier terrified me. But I am so glad I was able to overcome my baseless fears because Tolstoy’s work is breathtaking. There is a reason many hail this piece as the greatest book ever written. Tolstoy seamlessly blends history (many of the characters in the work are real people from the Napoleonic wars) and fiction, highlighting a few of the numberless wills that comprise and, in combination with others, move the masses, thereby demonstrating how history should be written. The author tackles eternal themes such as human agency, love, and the transcription of historical events. I know this book is long — believe me, it took me a long time to finally gather the courage to tackle it — but it is an incredibly rewarding experience that I could not recommend more.
Suggested literary criticisms:
- Joe Barnhart’s “Tolstoy on Free Will“
- John Henry Raleigh’s “Tolstoy and the Ways of History“
The Double By fyodor dostoevsky
Dostoevsky released his short, psychologically intensive novel, The Double, only two weeks after publishing his first novel, Poor Folk, a work which earned the author great fame and adoration; the two novels, however, despite the brief time between their releases, are strikingly different. While Poor Folk delivers a realistic portrayal of ordinary people and their interactions, The Double provides a mind-bending tale that focuses on ideas of consciousness and psychopathology. As Richard Pevear, acclaimed translator, writes in the introduction to his and Larissa Volokhonsky’s translation of The Double and The Gambler, the public reception of these works was similarly disparate. The same critics that adored Dostoevsky’s primary novel disparaged his second one, accusing it of poorly imitating, or even plainly plagiarizing, Gogol’s works, specifically Diary of a Madman and The Nose. Many failed to initially understand the uniqueness and inventiveness of the author’s approach, which lies in his concentration on the central character’s, Goliadkin’s, consciousness and the narrator’s interaction with Goliadkin’s consciousness (xi-xiv). The Double would, however, over time, become an exceedingly influential work, inspiring many writers, including Franz Kafka. Dostoevsky’s second novel provides an incredible taste of the strategies he would continue to develop throughout his literary career, an intriguing psychoanalytical approach, and an absurd satire of materialist ideas on consciousness.
Suggested literary criticisms:
- Lawrence Kohlberg’s “Psychological Analysis and Literary Form: A Study of the Doubles in Dostoevsky“
- Gary Saul Morson’s “Me and My Double: Selfhood, Consciousness, and Empathy in The Double“
The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Idiot is a work of genius. It is an utterly fascinating novel that follows a perfectly pure and innocent man, showcasing the impact his kind-hearted naïveté has on the broken, lost characters of the novel and the impact they, in turn, have on him.
In this novel, as Tatiana Goerner suggests in her literary criticism, “The Theme of Art and Aesthetics in Dostoevsky’s The Idiot,” Dostoevsky expounds his philosophical ideas on art and aesthetics, arguing that morality and aesthetics, while meant to achieve distinctive goals, work in tandem. Throughout the work, the author uses the characters’ aesthetic identities and predispositions to illuminate their moral characters, mirroring their levels of goodness and perspicacity in their diverging responses to art and their abilities, as Adelaida expresses at the novel’s beginning, to “look,” or “see.”
The Idiot also has a great focus on the apocalypse, as Robert Hollander expounds in his “The Apocalyptic Framework of Dostoevsky’s The Idiot.” Similarly to many of Dostoevsky’s other works, several of the characters allude to religious figures, particularly Myshkin, who Dostoevsky created as a Christ-like figure, and his malevolent double, Rogozhin, who embodies the ugly and evil. The entire novel plays out, although not in one explicit conflict, the battle between good and evil, which is manifested in Myshkin and Rogozhin’s struggle over Nastasya Filippovna, who each attempt to respectively lift/lower her to their ideals. Additionally, the author overtly alludes to and incorporates symbols from the Book of Revelation to support his theme and to further pronounce his belief in the connection between modernization (embodied in the railway system) and the end times.
This work is also exceedingly intriguing for its narrative technique: Dostoevsky relates the story’s events as a third person selectively omniscient narrator who gains the information told in the work through rumor, a device that actively appears within the work. Firstly, this separates this work from his others by providing less of an in-depth psychological expose, focusing almost solely on interactions between characters. Secondly, it forces the reader to question the veracity of the narrator’s account, which is solely based on information gained through others which, as is seen in various instances throughout the novel, often proves untrue.
Suggested literary criticisms:
- Tatiana Goerner’s “The Theme of Art and Aesthetics in Dostoevsky’s The Idiot“
- Robert Hollander’s “The Apocalyptic Framework of Dostoevsky’s The Idiot“
- Janet G. Tucker’s “Dostoevsky’s Idiot: Defining Myshkin“
THE Gambler BY FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY
Dostoevsky’s The Gambler provides an in-depth look at the psychology of gambling, spotlighting the thrill of risk-taking and the emotional roller coaster of winning and losing at the tables. Dostoevsky is a master at capturing turbulent, erratic, burning emotions; The Gambler, especially, highlights the author’s talent for creating passionate, irrational, life-like characters with whom the audience is able to commiserate. In this brief work, you are also able to feel the author’s own perilous battle with addiction (Dostoevsky struggled with gambling for approximately ten years) and glean a glimpse of the enslaving excitement of the game of chance.
The Gambler is also a sort of international novel: it takes place in a fictitious spa town in Germany (in contrast to the bulk of Dostoevsky’s other works, which are set in Russia), and contains characters from across Europe. The characters in the work are themselves emblematic of the nations they hail from, embodying the nature of different peoples across the European continent. The author focuses, in particular, on his idea of what composes the Russian national character, specifically his belief in the irrationality and passionate nature of Russians, which he, in turn, links to gambling.
Suggested literary criticisms:
- Jeff Love’s “Narrative Hesitation in The Gambler“
- Robert Louis Jackson’s “Polina and Lady Luck in Dostoevsky’s The Gambler“