Crime and Punishment

I did it!  I finished a really really long Russian novel without major glitches!!

Some background:  I have tried (and failed) to finish The Brothers Karamazov at least four different times. One time, I was really making progress... and then my grad school classes resumed.  Try focusing on Brothers K while your mind is trying to juggle 10 different theological texts at once... yeah, didn't happen.  The only other Russian novel that I remember reading is Demons (also by Dostoevsky) in my senior seminar with Dr. Roger Lundin (Wheaton College).  It was a great class, but I still had a hard time connecting with that particular novel.  I had assumed that enjoyment of the great Russian classics would simply not come naturally to me.

Crime and Punishment changed all of that.  I loved it!  I genuinely loved it and loved the experience of reading it.  I'd like to read some critical essays on the novel so that I can delve deeper into some of the major themes of the novel -- I don't think this is a novel that you read once and say, "Ok, I've mastered that one."

I found myself mesmerized by the characters in the book, particularly the protagonist, Raskolnikov, and the magistrate, Porfiry Petrovitch. (Side note -- one advantage of my undergraduate foray into Dostoevsky is that I was prepared for each character to have a zillion names and nicknames that would be difficult to remember...).  I also found it brilliant the way D. crafted the relationship between Sonya, a young girl who is forced into prostitution to support her family, and Raskolnikov.  And to make Sonya the most "Christian" of the characters -- also brilliant.  The ending of the novel was perfect -- if you haven't read it, I'm not going to spoil it for you here.  Just read it.  (But don't read it first -- allow the book to build as D. intended!)

On a separate note, I read this entire book on my iPhone, using the Kindle app.  I actually found it easier to read the book this way -- I'm not sure why.  Perhaps the fact that the text was broken up into shorter pages because of the small size of the iPhone screen helped encourage me that I was making progress -- helped make it seem to go faster.  Perhaps it was the fact that I could read the book in bed while my husband falls asleep without needing a light on...

So my next project is David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, another author whose works I sometimes struggle to finish.  I am also reading this one on my iPhone, since I found I could download a free copy! So far I'm loving this book too -- I'm on a roll!