Book Hype

"We sometimes encounter people, even perfect strangers, who begin to interest us at first sight, somehow suddenly, all at once, before a word has been spoken" (Dostoevsky).

Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoevsky, is un livre that I read recently. Now, I have a problem with translated books. After all, the words that you read are not truly those of the authors, so you never get the full sense of their talents and writing style. It upsets me when I think about that. My brother would simply suggest, "Why don't you just learn all the languages then?" but bro, seriously? I would have to learn at least four languages to read half of the books that I would like to. And plus, I want to read them now, not in two or more years. I am not that patient. And plus, I am in the middle of learning French already, so adding German, Russian, Norwegian, &c. all at once will be difficult, particularly since I cannot reserve all my time to studying them. I am not a language maniac, unlike a certain someone, ahem! So for this moment, I am accepting Mr. Translations.

It is hard for me to describe my impression of this novel in words. If I do try, this note might become convoluted so it is probably a good idea not to pour my heart out on this page and unscramble the pieces into an intelligible protestation of my love. I will comment, though, that as the book progresses, I gradually became fonder and fonder of the characters, and that a few times my heart ached from the impact of a paragraph or a mere sentence. Admittedly, the ending surprised me because I was expecting an intense psychological demise, but I loved how Dostoevsky concluded it. Because I have a positive assessment of this book, I started reading The Idiot. Please no Spark Notes for this book, if you happen to want to read it!

Other awesome authors:
Don Quixote's Miguel de Cervantes
The Trial's Franz Kafka
Pride and Prejudice's Jane Austen
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea's Jules Verne
The Hunchback of Notre Dame's Victor Hugo
The Stranger's Albert Camus
1984's George Orwell
The Picture of Dorian Gray's Oscar Wilde
Brave New World's Aldous Huxley
The Catcher in the Rye's J.D. Salinger
Fahrenheit 451's Ray Bradbury
The Book Thief's Markus Zusak
Oliver Twist's Charles Dickens
The Prince's Niccolo Machiavelli
Cards on the Table's Agatha Christie
War and Peace's Leo Tolstoy

Everyone should read! Read! Read! Read!