I am reading “War and Peace” at the moment and listening to “The Brothers Karamazov” on audiobook.
And it is hard to believe that a country like Russia can produce such men as Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy and then give us the sneering, psychopath Putin some 200 years later.
The sensitivity of Dostoevsky’s writing, his ability to get into the psyche of the individual, his deeply considered treatment of God, religion, state, serfdom, the condition of man in “The Brothers Karamazov” makes the activity of Putin in Ukraine, and elsewhere, all the more reprehensible.
Anyway, this is the first time I have read or listened to “The Brothers Karamazov” and I have heard and read a lot about it. I am thoroughly enjoying it and will give a more considered view when I have completed it.
I am reading “War and Peace” for a second time and this time around I am reading at a more leisurely pace and am enjoying it tremendously, too. I have written before about reading classic books a second time and perhaps enjoying the book even more at a second or third reading.
I am firmly convinced when you read a book for the first time you are inclined to rush headlong into it to find out what happens and to get to the end.
Reading again means you take it easier and enjoy the journey.