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The Artist's Name Is Dostoevsky
“You see this manuscript?… I haven’t been able to tear myself away from it for almost two days now. It’s a novel by a beginner, a new talent… his novel reveals such secrets of life and characters in Russia as no one before him even dreamed of. Just think of it - it’s the first attempt at a social novel we’ve had. … The matter in it is simple: it concerns some good-hearted simpletons who assume that to love the whole world is an extraordinary pleasure and duty for every one. They cannot comprehend a thing when the wheel of life with all its rules and regulations runs over them and fractures their limbs and bones without a word. That’s all there is - but what drama, what types? I forgot to tell you, the artist’s name is Dostoevsky.”
-- Vissarion Grigoryevich Belinsky
On my day as Juror #0, not only did I get an unabridged lunch hour, I got a two-hour lunch break; I felt like a banker or a lawyer or some kind of suit. It would seem that in the ten years since I last carried out this civic duty, they have gone to some trouble to make the day more cushy for we put-upon citizens.
I took advantage of this unexpected opportunity and walked the extra few blocks to the library, feeling additionally grateful that my jury day did not fall in the scorching summer. I was hoping that I might be able to get in a free read before the climate heats up and there can be no thought about taking a library trip. I need to save some money for that Hamlet book.
And talk about hitting the jackpot! Sitting fat on the shelf was Joseph Frank’s monumental biography “Dostoevsky.” This is the one-volume abridgement that I had read about some months ago. I had been familiar with Frank’s five-volume spectacular, and my affection for Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment,” “Demons,” “The Brothers Karamazov,” as well as “Notes from the Underground” is such that I felt some urge to give it a go, but I was always intimidated at the idea of spending so much time on a biography, and so I held off. Accordingly, I understand the pressure to come out with the single volume to entice more readers to sink their teeth into this royal banquet of a Dostoevsky biography, itself a literary masterpiece. Indeed, judging by my first hundred pages, if I have a good number of years left in my reading life, I will have to come back and read the whole unabridged thing one of these days. Fantastic!
-- Vissarion Grigoryevich Belinsky
On my day as Juror #0, not only did I get an unabridged lunch hour, I got a two-hour lunch break; I felt like a banker or a lawyer or some kind of suit. It would seem that in the ten years since I last carried out this civic duty, they have gone to some trouble to make the day more cushy for we put-upon citizens.
I took advantage of this unexpected opportunity and walked the extra few blocks to the library, feeling additionally grateful that my jury day did not fall in the scorching summer. I was hoping that I might be able to get in a free read before the climate heats up and there can be no thought about taking a library trip. I need to save some money for that Hamlet book.
And talk about hitting the jackpot! Sitting fat on the shelf was Joseph Frank’s monumental biography “Dostoevsky.” This is the one-volume abridgement that I had read about some months ago. I had been familiar with Frank’s five-volume spectacular, and my affection for Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment,” “Demons,” “The Brothers Karamazov,” as well as “Notes from the Underground” is such that I felt some urge to give it a go, but I was always intimidated at the idea of spending so much time on a biography, and so I held off. Accordingly, I understand the pressure to come out with the single volume to entice more readers to sink their teeth into this royal banquet of a Dostoevsky biography, itself a literary masterpiece. Indeed, judging by my first hundred pages, if I have a good number of years left in my reading life, I will have to come back and read the whole unabridged thing one of these days. Fantastic!
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