Tag Archives: fiction

The Idiot (1868) In his novel, The Idiot, Fyodor Dostoevsky is interested in getting closer to reality, the ground beneath our feet.  But how do we get there?  The novel’s hero, Myshkin, says,  “I know about an actual murder over a watch, it’s in all the newspapers now.  If a writer had invented it, theContinue reading

Crime and Punishment (1866) Crime and Punishment is one of the most powerful reading experiences I’ve ever had. It hits me in a deeper way than most novels do. Why? I can’t answer that fully, but I think a factor that may be contributing to this soul-level experience has to do with the novel’s senseContinue reading

The Notebooks for Crime and Punishment (1866) Whenever I read an amazing finished work like Crime and Punishment, I often imagine that the book, in all it’s brilliance, just plopped into Dostoevsky’s head, ready made.  I was reassured to find in his working notebooks that this was not the case.  He took many of theContinue reading

The Gambler (1866) Whenever I read, I hunger for goodness.  If I start to suspect that the book doesn’t have any, I lose interest. But here’s the thing—goodness is difficult to write about.  Why?  It might be in the nature of how I taste goodness.  Take the goodness of pizza.  My experience of this goodnessContinue reading

Notes from Underground (1864) Part 2 When I first ingest the words of Notes from Underground’s narrator, the Underground Man, I think, “Wow, this guy is really eccentric.”  Then I keep reading, and I think, “Dostoevsky seems to be deliberately trying to make a personality that is as contradictory as possible—how can such a disjointedContinue reading

Notes from Underground (1864) Part 1 The Underground Man claims that his reason for writing down episodes from his life twenty years earlier is because “I am particularly oppressed by a certain memory from the distant past.  It came back to my mind vividly a few days ago, and since then, has remained with meContinue reading