1985 First Edition Hardcover; Photo Credit to Wikipedia
Book XX: Ender’s Game
It’s rare for a book that is well set up and manages to actually surprise me. Being familiar with the inner workings of fair-play with the audience and general rules of narrative fiction sometimes makes it so you see where things are going before they manifest. One of the marks of great conventional writing is to obey all the rules and still come out on top of clever readers. Orson Scott Card managed to do exactly that with Ender’s Game. Happily, I was ignorant to much of the concepts within the book and so I was altogether unspoiled.
I was surprised Ender’s Game was so militaristic and violent. In my first draft of scheduling, this was to be in Children’s Literature back in January. That seems misplaced. So I am glad I decided to append it to Sci-Fi Month. Ender’s Game had me hooked on the space academy settings and political machinations and maneuverings of the students inside. Ender himself was a sympathetic and easy to root for protagonist and I thoroughly enjoyed the read from top to bottom. It’s an easy recommendation, which I find myself saying a lot but when one dedicates a year to reading classics of literature, it’s no surprise most of them end up being quite good.
First Edition Cover 1867; Photo Credit to Wikipedia Commons
Having read much of Dostoevsky’s revered works, I was prepared to encounter great literary insights from a philosophical and psychological perspective. No author I know of knows better the human condition. What I was not prepared for, was Roskolnikov’s brutality in the commission of the titular crime.
I am humble enough to know I can contribute little to the analysis of such a great and revered work and my declaration of it as a masterpiece will not be news to anyone, so instead I will engage in the lowest form of media I can imagine: a hot take. There is nothing Crime and Punishment accomplishes which is not better exemplified in The Brothers Karamazov. While technically unfinished, somehow The Brothers Karamazov feels like a more complete package. Crime and Punishment deserves its lofty position in the classical canon, indeed its only real competition as far as I can see is work from the same author. To say it’s not as good as The Brothers Karamazov is not saying much.
Wrapping up Dostoevsky Month, I’d like to take a moment to do something unusual for me: I wish to rank the Dostoevsky works I have read.
The Brothers Karamazov
Demons
Crime and Punishment
Notes from the Underground
A Christmas Tree and a Wedding
The House of the Dead
The Gambler
Dostoevsky Month is the second month this year dedicated to a single author. It’s been a genuine treat and pleasure to spend time with who has become my favorite author of all time, a genuine genius. I look forward to next month which has more variety in authors but less in theming as we head into Sci-Fi Month with Ender’s Game, Dune Messiah, and finishing off with Nineteen Eighty-Four.
2008 Dodo Press Edition; Photo Credit to Good Reads
Book XVIII:
A Christmas Tree and a Wedding is a short story but with Crime and Punishment around the corner, I wanted a brief text in the middle. Little did I know that while the title of this story is delightful, the story itself is cynical and painful. As the narrator regales us with a tale of Julian Mastakovich at a Christmas Party, a predatory and opportunistic sense of this young man continues throughout. Perhaps the less said the better. Know that I recommend this for a read. It’s a sad commentary on the social state of Russia at that time. While its Revolution was an unbelievably brutal and horrible, stuff like this and The House of the Living Dead go a long way to explaining why a murderous undercurrent was brewing in Russia.
Up Next: Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoevsky; 1848)
First Stand-Alone Edition 1862 (Photo Credit: Wikipedia)
Dostoevsky month is here! Having read Demons and The Brothers Karamazov last year, Fyodor Dostoevsky has quickly ascended to the rank of my favorite author. I wanted to take time this year to explore his work further and see if that maintains. To that end, I have chosen The House of the Dead, which my friend James is also reading, and wanted to get one of the Five Great Novels of Dostoevsky in there so selected Crime and Punishment. Both are rather long, heady reading so I wanted to place something short between them which could act as a palette cleanser and reset so A Christmas Tree and a Wedding was chosen for this purpose. I hope you enjoy Dostoevsky as much as I because that’s all we’ve got this month.
Book XVII: The House of the Dead
First, a slight note about publication: as with most of Dostoevsky’s work, The House of the Dead (known also by other titles in English depending on the translation; Notes from the House of the Dead; Notes from a Dead House; etc.), was published in a Russian Journal in pieces over time. Publication began in 1860 but concluded in 1862, which is also the first year all parts were combined and published in a stand-alone account. Also similar to much of Dostoevsky’s work, it is semi-autobiographical, meaning much of what is presented here bears a very, very strong resemblance to real events which occurred in the author’s life. Dostoevsky spent four years in a Siberian forced-labor camp and The House of the Dead follows Alexander Petrovich as he experiences an incredibly similar thing.
One thing that should have come to expect from Dostoevsky that nonetheless never fails to surprise me is that while much of the material in The House of the Dead is quite heavy and dark, dealing with foundational questions tugging at humanity, it’s also quite funny. The man knew how to reel us back in from the discussions of corruption, cruelty, and mundane wickedness which occurred in the prison by simply pointing out absurdities with wit and wry humor. That’s not to say the book has a comedic tone, but merely that it’s not a torturous slog. Almost there are times when the convict prison seems pleasant, and then something happens to shake our moral conscience again.
Since it’s framed as a memoir, there’s not an overarching plot pulling us forward but a series of noteworthy events which help to explore life under such harsh conditions and they often reveal something about the Siberian Prison Camps, the psychology of prisoners, or just something about the human condition S a whole. Dostoevsky works to dispel notions of pure evil from the criminals in some places and in others remind us that many who are here are here because their desires can move them to murder with almost no brake from their conscience, often over trivial things. As such, The House of the Dead, lacks the romanticization of crime or criminals but nor does it glorify the clearly broken institution that is the Siberian Forced Labor Camp system and yet Dostoevsky is not incapable of taking a stance, nor is he hesitant to call out the balls and strikes (to borrow a popular political phrase of late). This is no mealy-mouthed morality tale hailing a singular unvarnished champion in the archetype of the unjustly condemned, nor is it a bloodthirsty, judgmental tome of condemnation. The House of the Dead is, if I could describe it so clumsily in a single sentence, a sober examination of life for the convicted exile doomed to share a life with political prisoners and seasoned murderers alike, how unjust it can be, and how corrosive the human soul can be- not only within the prison but to those outside on the way in. As with everything I have read from the man, I cannot recommend it enough.
Up Next: A Christmas Tree and a Wedding (Foyodor Dostoevsky; 1848)
Last year I discovered the hype around Fyodor Dostoevsky is not overstated and he became my favorite author of all time. As such, I’d like to dedicate a month this year to spending time with his works. I’ve chosen the most famous of his five great novels Crime and Punishment to conclude the month. Preceding that I’ll be reading The House of the Dead with James Hamrick and the short story A Christmas Tree and a Wedding as a palate cleanse inbetween. Please join me in Dostoevsky Month, you won’t regret it.
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A Year of Classics 2024: Book XVIII: A Christmas Tree and a Wedding
Book XVIII:
A Christmas Tree and a Wedding is a short story but with Crime and Punishment around the corner, I wanted a brief text in the middle. Little did I know that while the title of this story is delightful, the story itself is cynical and painful. As the narrator regales us with a tale of Julian Mastakovich at a Christmas Party, a predatory and opportunistic sense of this young man continues throughout. Perhaps the less said the better. Know that I recommend this for a read. It’s a sad commentary on the social state of Russia at that time. While its Revolution was an unbelievably brutal and horrible, stuff like this and The House of the Living Dead go a long way to explaining why a murderous undercurrent was brewing in Russia.
Up Next: Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoevsky; 1848)
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