Is this my favorite read of the year so far? Probably.

Although we're still only halfway through the year, my experience reading Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment would be hard to top. If there's a novel wherein I completely immersed myself in, it's this Russian classic novel. I love, love, love every bit of it.

Crime and Punishment was our book club's selection last month, so I was really looking forward to the discussion. I kinda had an inkling that not many people would like this, and I was indeed correct. We did have a very engaging discussion nonetheless.

Dostoevsky's novel is the kind of book that elicits a lot of feelings from the reader. Dostoevsky is a realist, so his treatment of poverty isn't romanticized at all. More than anything, I felt that poverty in Russia during the 1800s was a way of life. I wouldn't want to live in St. Petersburg during the 1800s. Fyodor describes it as very bleak, cramped, and poverty-stricken.

Rodion, the novel's main character, murders an unscrupulous woman and her sister early in the novel. He considers the crime to be a rational act, thinking that he did everybody else a favor by killing this pawnbroker who seems to take advantage of people. Crime and Punishment has a plethora of other characters, but I chose to just keep my eyes on Rodion. Everything revolves around him anyway.

The punishment mentioned in the title is meted only by the novel's end, the epilogue actually. So what, you may ask, does Rodion do throughout the novel? Dostoevsky chooses to take the character redemption route. We see Rodion get sick as soon as he committed the murder. We witness how irrational he can be when he justifies to himself the crime. We experience his dealings with the people in his surroundings (his family included). In the cramped world of Crime and Punishment, everyone seems to know everyone else.

Of course, redemption can come when one accepts that he or she did something wrong and is prepared to suffer the consequences for it. For Rodion, that path is never easy. But he meets Sonya, a prostitute, who becomes instrumental to Rodion's confessing to the crime. Reading this entire journey, from the murder to the confession, is one very satisfying experience.

I know that one shouldn't compare apples and oranges, but I can't help doing so with Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. I love Anna Karenina, which I also read recently. However, finishing Crime and Punishment is something I consider more rewarding. Now I want to read The Idiot or even reread The Brothers Karamazov!

I even took a few notes before coming to the discussion.
Yes, that's how much I love Crime and Punishment!

Read this book if:

1. You love them Russians.
2. You'll read anything translated by Pevear and Volokhonsky. (I know I would.)
3. See more reasons here.

Eeny meeny miny moe

I've a happy problem: I can't remember if I've ever read Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. I seldom reread, considering that there are still tons of unread books on my shelf.

I do remember reading The Brothers Karamazov on a whim back in high school. I recall that I surprisingly liked it. Back in high school, I went through a phase wherein I read most of an author's works if I enjoyed the 1st book of his that I read. This explains my extensive yellowing paperback collection of Stephen King, Agatha Christie, Jules Verne, and Clive Barker. Also, I must admit that I have Judith Krantz and Jackie Collins, too. Krantz and Collins are enjoyable on another level. Hihihihihi.

Anyway, I'll probably read/reread Crime and Punishment for the book club discussion sometime this year. The fact that I can't even remember reading it means that I just have to suck it up and just read the darn thing. I love me some Dostoevsky and it's been a while since I picked up one.

I did see a graphic novel of C&P at the bookstore and bought it on the spot. For a few minutes, I considered just reading this "lighter" version. When I say lighter, I mean just that: the graphic novel does weigh less.

Oh, there's one good thing about reading C&P now. Pevear and Volokhonsky, them husband and wife award-winning translators, did a new translation of this beloved work by Dostoevsky. I've read their translation of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina last year, and I must say that they did great work on it. (Yes, I actually compared a few versions just to check.)

Update:
I gave the graphic novel version to R. over the weekend. If I see it on my shelf, well, I just might choose the graphic novel instead of the full doorstop of a novel. Besides, if there's one person who understands graphic novels, it's R.

The train! The train!

After more than a week of reading, I finally finished Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina on this fine Friday night. (Thank goodness for holidays and long weekends, no?) Yes, it's everything that I thought this novel would be.

There are a few points that surprised me though. Much as the main character of the novel is the eponymous heroine, Anna Karenina is also the story of lots of other characters. It is this myriad of voices and streams of consciousness that lets the reader feel fully satisfied by the novel's end.

There's Levin, the unbeliever and spurned lover at the beginning of the novel, who manages to get the girl and come to grips with his faith and belief in the goodness of people. There's Kitty, a noble-born girl, who eventually accepts Levin's love despite her initial rejection of him and becomes a good companion to him as his wife. Of course, this doorstop wouldn't be complete without the rest of their families, countless members of the Russian upperclass, peasants, house help, and artists, among other personas.

Another thing that I found surprising was how the Russian upperclass appear to be "inbred," as they all seem to be related with one another. It's a vicious society, one full of gossip, malice, and an endless parade of balls and dinners. It is this close-knit nature of these people that caused Anna and Vronsky to be shunned when they embark on their relationship.

In whatever angle you look at it, Anna Karenina is still about the scandalous affair of Anna and Vronsky. And it's one of those love stories that seem to be doomed from the start. Anna is married to a man who refuses to grant her a divorce. Vronsky, a man with huge potential in the Russian government, throws everything away just for the chance to love Anna. Two passionate and beautiful creatures amid the unforgiving elite, wherein they used to belong.

Tolstoy did love his parallel story lines. In the novel, running along the love affair is the story of Levin. If Anna were the novel's heart, one can think of Levin as the novel's mind, the thinking character whom Tolstoy uses to communicate his ideas about politics, commerce, and faith. If this novel were titled Levin, it could still work, I believe.

Despite the subplots in Anna Karenina, there's a certain structure to Tolstoy's narrative, with the stories of the main characters complementing one another. When Anna officially leaves her husband to escape with Vronsky to Italy, it is when Levin and Kitty become engaged. Anna's apparent apathy to her love child coincides with Kitty's pregnancy. Vronsky's deterioration goes hand in hand with Levin's enlightenment.

One does feel a sense of accomplishment after reading the last page of this doorstop. It takes stamina to go through Tolstoy's numerous name-switching instances (or maybe this is a common feature in classic Russian novels), his depictions of agricultural life in the country, and the drastic shifts in perspective, to name a few. It's quite a reading experience, if I may tell you, dear readers. And it's one experience that I highly recommend that you go through as well.

Read this book if:

1. You've never been satisfied with any of the "Anna Karenina" movies. (Believe me, these movies barely scratch the surface of the novel.)
2. You love Russian doorstops.
3. You've always been curious about this "greatest love affair ever written."

Another doorstop in my bag

No lengthy introductions for the Penguin Classics Red!
Woot woot!

Here I am thinking that my one doorstop for the year would be The Count of Monte Cristo. But Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina has been in my TBR pile for so long that I simply decided one day to just get it over with.

There was a time, when I was in my 20s I believe, that I wouldn't think twice about reading doorstops. Ah, those glorious yesteryears when I read Victor Hugo's Les Misérables (unabridged), James Joyce's Ulysses (with annotations), David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest (the footnotes alone can make a novel), and Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy (not really very American but very, very tragic), to name a few.

Now I'm around 300 pages in the novel and, so far, I'm liking it. Perhaps it's due to the wonderful translation of Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, which makes the text very accessible indeed. Or maybe I am on a natural high from reading all the name switching that's happening (e.g., Levin is Konstantin is Kostya; Kitty is Katerina is Katya). It could also be that I'm just a masochist.

So how long will Anna Karenina stay in my bag, lugging it with me everywhere I go? I don't really know. I've been reading 80 pages or so every night and, frankly, I might lose some steam. Hmmmm... Steam. Now I'm thinking of trains. Anna Karenina did love the train, didn't she?