Dear reader,
My current read is The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Crime and Punishment was my first read and I instantly fell in love with his writing. It was my gateway to Russian literature as well. It was definitely not an easy read but a heart-wrenching one. It took me almost a whole year to finish reading it. But it was a wholesome experience.
The reason why I love Dostoyevsky is simple: somewhere in the minds of his characters and their turmoils, I found myself. His emotionally chaotic characters shall dwell in my mind forever. I wouldn’t call him my favorite writer. Some writers can easily become our favorites but very few attain the status of being even more profound than condensing them into a single word as “favorite”.
Here are a few of my favorite quotes from the text:
A writer whose works make me feel so in awe of the world, its people, their emotions, thoughts and with life itself would be none other than Dostoevsky. I feel embarrassed to say that I have just read one work of his, i.e. Crime and Punishment. You might think that it's still too early to feel so strong about a writer. But the truth is this: many writers become our favorites because we love their stories. Yet there are very few writers who manage to stir every nerve in us by the extent of their stories, characters and plot that we are no longer in control of what we feel except for knowing that it's a strange fear of being exposed, mixed with some mad respect for the author.
And Dostoevsky belongs to the latter.
Do you feel so strongly about any writer or artist in particular?
Some quick life updates:
Almost finished a year as a teacher in my school. (Yes I got a job in the very school I had studied, a million thanks to my principal and teacher for believing in me) And I can successfully say that the students love me, enjoy my broken sense of humor, and try to speak better English with very few grammatical errors.
I have been learning Italian via the Duolingo app. It's been three months! I have been learning every day and keeping the streaks protected. Now, this is much better than Snapchat streaks, right?
I successfully completed my first year masters. Now on to the second year. Lots of planning to be done, notes to be written. But I love learning.
My bookstagram account just boomed up all of a sudden. A Dostoyevsky appreciation post just blew up with 9.5 k likes and ongoing! (Yes it's not about the likes, but since it’s Dostoyevsky, so yes!)
Last but not the least, I will be receiving book mails this week. To say I am excited will be an understatement!
Until next week,
halin