osprey_archer: (food)
I finished Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment! I feel accomplished but not necessarily enlightened: on the whole I’ve had better luck with the French authors than the Russians, partly because I tend to find the French authors’ moral points thought-provoking even if I don’t necessarily agree, whereas with the Russian authors I’m often left feeling - “Is that the moral point you wanted to make? Am I understanding you correctly? Well, I guess that’s a point of view. If I understood you. Which I don’t think I did.”

Actually, this is only true of nineteenth-century Russian literature. I find twentieth-century Russian authors much more accessible.

I also spent a lot of time mentally arguing with the introduction, which argues strenuously that Raskolnikov is not a madman, which - okay, if he’s defining madness strictly as delusionality, I guess he has a point. Raskolnikov doesn’t think he is Napoleon, he just thinks/hopes/wishes he might be like Napoleon.

But. He’s spent the last month lying on his bed in his filthy apartment, neither eating nor sleeping, obsessing over whether or not to kill an old lady because if he can do it without remorse he will prove that he is a great man, like Napoleon, who lost entire armies in the service of his destiny without batting an eyelash. His other hobbies include avoiding everyone he knows because the idea of interacting with anyone fills him with dread.

Even the other characters, who have no access to his internal monologue and don’t know that he’s killed someone in an attempt to work out his theory, are worried that he’s going insane. If Raskolnikov isn’t insane then I’m not sure if there are any literary characters who count. I think the idea that Raskolnikov is totally sane grows from the belief that he can’t be both insane and a commentary on the human condition, and, you know, I think probably he can.

But at the same time I think this is all a side note to whatever Dostoevsky is trying to get it, which is - Christian forgiveness? Redemption through suffering? Raskolnikov’s name, as the endnotes helpfully informed me, is related to the work raskol, which is the word for the splitting of the Russian Orthodox church following a set of reforms in the 1600s. The Old Believers, who refused to accept the reforms, were called raskolniks. So there’s an ongoing conversation here which is just going straight over my head. Clearly I need to read more.
osprey_archer: (Default)
What I’ve Just Finished Reading

While I was in Canada, I pounced through a few of Lilian Jackson Braun’s The Cat Who… mysteries, which I have gazed at thoughtfully for years but put off reading because I had dire premonitions about cutesy talking cats.

There are no talking cats, cutesy or otherwise. There’s just Qwilleran, a reporter (who later in the series inherits a vast fortune and becomes a man of leisure who lives in a converted barn in an apple orchard) who solves mysteries with the help of his Siamese cat, Koko. Or at least he thinks Koko is helping. He also thinks that his mustache bristles when something suspicious happens, so he might just be an eccentric.

I read two of Braun’s novels and enjoyed them both, but to my surprise, my favorite was her book of short stories, The Cat Who Had 14 Tales. All the stories are cat-themed, but many of them aren’t mysteries: there’s a ghost story, an SF story about cat-like aliens, three stories told in the form of interviews at an old folks’ home, and an epistolary story. It really showcases Braun’s ability to create different voices and capture different time periods and it’s a lot of fun.

I also read a couple of Billabongs, a couple of Netgalley books (those will get their own posts), and Mary Stewart’s Thornyhold, which I enjoyed so much that I instantly lent it to my mother. In the years after World War II, our heroine Gilly (pronounced Jilly) inherits a beautiful house and garden from her godmother. “I looked out of the taxi window as the houses dwindled back and the road began to wind between high, banked hedges full of ivy and holly glistening with recent rain, and the red berries of honeysuckle twining through pillowfight drifts of traveller’s joy.” (37)

There’s a bit of supernatural coloring here, but mostly the story is about Gilly settling in the house and the neighborhood and making it her own and - it’s just a very calming read.

What I’m Reading Now

I’m taking another crack at Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. I’m about a three-quarters of the way through it and there is something compulsively readable about Raskolnikov’s circular self-torturing “Have they realized yet that I murdered the old lady???” thoughts, but at the same time, man this could have used an editor.

Also reading Brian Switek’s My Beloved Brontosaurus, which is a little bit about the newest finds in dinosaur science but also about our emotional attachment to dinosaurs: why so many children go through a dinosaur phase, why we’re expected to grow out of our dinosaur phases, and why we cling to the name Brontosaurus even though by the rules of scientific nomenclature it ought to be Apatosaurus.

I would have preferred a bit more about dinosaurs and a bit less about how we feel about dinosaurs: the preference for Brontosaurus, for instance, strikes me as pretty self-explanatory. It’s more fun to say and it just sounds bigger. Of course people prefer it.

What I Plan to Read Next

I got a bunch of Mary Stewarts for my birthday, which I ought to space out a bit, because they are apt to run together if you read too many at once. But one more should be okay… I’m awfully tempted by her first book, Madam, Will You Talk?
osprey_archer: (books)
What I’ve Just Finished Reading

William Heyliger’s Don Strong of the Wolf Patrol, which is a book about Boy Scouts from 1916 and totally charming as long as you have a taste for epic earnestness, which it must be said that I do.

In fact I liked it so much that I went on to read another Heyliger book, Bartley, Freshman Pitcher, which is actually most about the sophomore pitcher Kennedy - who was about to move into the limelight as the college’s star pitcher, only to have his laurels stolen from him by that freshman brat Bartley. AGAIN. Bartley also tore away Kennedy’s chance to be star pitcher on the high school team.

When Kennedy discovers that Bartley’s father took out a mortgage at Kennedy’s father’s bank to pay for Bartley’s education, Kennedy tells Bartley that he owes it to him to step aside in the ballpark. This is impressively vile and I really doubted that Heyliger could bring Kennedy back from this, because honestly how could you, but actually he won me over for about 95% of Kennedy’s redemption arc. The very last bit seemed a bit rushed: they moved from enmity to “let’s be roommates next year!” just a little too quickly.

I have long thought that if I could just find the right Heyliger book it would be slashy as hell, but alas I think I will have to give this idea a rest. Here you’ve got a classic enemies-to-friends plot and arm massages (to keep the pitching arm in shape!) and they’re going to be sharing a room next year and it’s still not very slashy.

What I’m Reading Now

William Heyliger’s Captain of the Nine, which is the sequel to Bartley, Freshman Pitcher. I HAVE A HEYLIGER PROBLEM, OKAY. Now that Kennedy’s all reformed, the college nine has a new problem child: Mellen, the star second baseman who wanted to be elected captain but was THWARTED when the team elected that darn sophomore Bartley, even though Bartley is a pitcher and apparently it’s tough for the pitcher to be the team captain because he’s already got enough to deal with being, you know, the pitcher.

I suspect that Bartley will be a roaring success as captain after some initial hiccups, but it seems genuinely possible that it might be too much for him to handle (although Mellen certainly wouldn’t have been a better choice) and I’d quite enjoy it if the book explores that avenue.

I started Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment for my March challenge (“a book in translation”) but I’m having such trouble getting into it that I may read something else for the challenge. Possibly Alexandre Dumas’ The Black Tulip? No, the library doesn’t have The Black Tulip. Maybe Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations. Anyone have any suggestions?

What I Plan to Read Next

Google Books has the last two books in Elizabeth Stuart Phelps’ Gypsy Breynton quartet! FOR FREE. I HAVE BEEN LOOKING FOR THESE FOR YEARS.

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