This year, I made one big literary goal: to get through all of Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov. I read the book in the space of a couple of weeks in high school. But frankly, besides the basic plotline and a few key scenes, I couldn't remember much about the book. More importantly, I've grown up a lot as a reader and a person since then. With a huge appreciation for 19th-century Russian novelists under my belt, I figured it was time to revisit Dostoevsky's "big one." Well, I started a couple weeks ago, and I'm making my way through it verrrrry slowly. It doesn't help that I'm continuing to read other things that float across my line of vision, but I figure a book like Brothers isn't going to make very good before-bed reading.
So now, I am about 180 pages in, with about another 600 to go. So far, I am already understanding it a million times better now than I did as a gawky teenager. Part of this is surely due to the award-winning and critically-praised translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky that I'm using this time . The translation is clear, clean, and supposedly true to Dostoevksy's actual style and voice.
Anyway, I just wanted to mention this to you all so you might understand why my reading in the next month or so will be so erratic. I am currently finishing a new "trashy read" (and HOLY CRAP, is it the mother of awesomeness in romance - details coming soon!) and some poetry books. And I have the feeling Neil Gaiman might distract me soon, as his books are calling to me from my "bought-but-not-yet-read" shelf. But I promise that sometime in the next couple months, I will finish The Brothers Karamazov, and I will definitely be blogging about it.
The movie adaptation was on TCM a few months back. I was going to watch it, but didn't have time. I would like to read it though :) But maybe after school and wedding plans aren't in my way.
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