Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky [1866]

Well, okay, where to start.
So, I've read three and a half (lol) Dostoevsky novels, and this one is about the second best. It's not a very fun book, though it is really good. Crime and Punishment is about a young man named Rodion Romanovitch Raskolikov who murders the old pawnbroker woman brutally with an axe. The real kicker here, is that the old lady's younger sister walks in at the wrong time, and ends up being murdered too. Raskolnikov's reasons for killing the pawnbroker are vague, and various reasons why are alluded to many times. It could be for money, it could be for the benefit of the poor people that she's swindling, or it could just be that Raskolnikov desperately wants to be one of those 'great men', who are above the law and morality. So it's interesting to puzzle that out in your head as you read the novel.
Something I really like in Dostoevsky's writing is his ability to make you feel exactly what the character is feeling at any given moment. In this particular novel, he really nails this neurotic, paranoid mindset. Especially in the aftermath of the two murders.
The characters are pretty well written in this book. Not all of them are as multi-layered and complicated as the ones in The Brothers Karamazov, but the main characters are very interesting. My favorite characters were Razumihin and Dounia. Razumihin is Raskolnikov's friend, though Raskolnikov ends up pushing him away and being horrid to him most of the novel. Razumihin is very much Raskolnikov's opposite. Razumihin thinks of others, and he's also very friendly and warm. Despite his slacker persona, he's very intelligent. Dounia is Raskolnikov's sister, and she's a really cool female character. She's hot headed and proud like her brother, but she's a much kinder person than him. I like Dounia because she's very blunt, and she doesn't take junk from anyone. She also is revealed at the end to have been packing a gun the whole time. O.O
As for Raskolnikov himself, he's a titanic a-hole and the novel knows it. We're not expected to like him, at least not in the beginning, but he's interesting enough to keep you hooked. Without giving too much away, I didn't hate him too much by the end of the book. ;)

The Verdict: A-
Pretty good stuff! There are lots of very good quotations in this book that make you stop and ponder, and I really like that in my books. This one isn't really that much of a doorstopper, at around 400 pages. So if you were looking to start Dostoevsky, this one is probably the best to start with.

Content Advisory: Towards the end of the book there's a character with a very creepy attraction to teenage girls. Also, there's a somewhat graphically written murder scene. This book is worth reading, but only for mature readers.

The Grand Inquisi-bore

95% of The Brothers Karamazov is near-flawless, brilliantly nightmarish reading. The 5% that isn't is the chapter The Grand Inquisitor. I get some parts of it, but when I first read it I didn't understand at all. I plan on reading it again, maybe I'll appreciate it then, but until now, have the product of my frustration!
I think that I just didn't like it because Ivan said it was a Poem, and that chapter was... not a poem.

Chibi Illustrations: Broskis Karamazov Edition

I couldn't help myself, so I drew more Brothers Karamazov chibis. :D
Because if there's a better way to show that I really liked a book, I'd like to hear it!
And by the by, SPOILERS!

 

So there's this bit in the book where Alyosha is at Katerina's house and her romantic rival, Grushenka is there! The two ladies get along well at first, but they eventually start to argue. I know the illustration makes it look like they're fighting over Alyosha, but he's supposed to look like he's caught in the middle of their crazy argument.

 

 

I'm uh, proud of this one. It's hard for me to draw chibis in more complicated poses because their heads are so big, you have to maneuver them right so their heads aren't in the way! But I pulled it off in a way I consider satisfactory, so yay! Ahem, this is an illustration of the scene in the book where Alyosha tries to help out a little boy who was being bullied, but the little boy seems to have some kind of grudge against poor, well-meaning Alyosha. So he bites him. On the finger. Kind of weird, but not the strangest thing to happen in the book. Not by a long shot! XD

 

This one is pretty nondescript. I just wanted to draw Dmitri. :P

 

Remember what I said earlier about really weird stuff? Yeah, Ivan's Satan hallucinations were a little odd. But dang, it was a good chapter. A... good, long chapter. Kind of creepy though, I remember sitting in the garage just glued to the recliner and soaking in every word.

 

 

 Scenery is not my forte. It's all brown! But the faces, I feel vaguely proud of. :D Especially Ivan, just lookit that mouth! He looks like he's singing the title song from the musical Oklahoma!.

 

Ah, the ending. I like how at the end of the book, things aren't all resolved, and you don't really know if most of the characters are going to be okay, and yet it still manages to be satisfying in some way!

 

Okay, so the next drawing (kind of a bonus) is pretty weird, but I couldn't help myself. So there's this Russo-Finnish fairy tale movie called Jack Frost, and in it there's a guy called Ivan, who is proud and boastful. While wandering around in the forest, he gets accosted by a little mushroom man (the aptly named Father Mushroom), who challenges him to sort of a game of hide and seek. Ivan wins, and Father Mushroom gives him a magic bow that will never miss it's mark. However. Ivan doesn't say 'Thank you' to him, so Father Mushroom curses him to have a bear's head until he does one genuinely good deed. As Bear-Ivan wanders the countryside, he gets haunted by Father Mushroom who constantly taunts him by yelling "Ivanushka!". It's a pretty goofy movie, but I like it despite it's silliness because it's just so charming in it's stupidity.

So while reading The Brothers Karamazov I immediately thought of Ivan and Father Mushroom. Especially at the part where Ivan is losing his mind and hallucinates that there's a petty devil harassing him. So I drew this. :)

 

 

Thanks for taking a look at my drawings! And if you read that entire description of Jack Frost, then kudos to you for your high weirdness-tolerance! Posts might get sparse from here until say, May 3rd, because stuff just got real at orchestra. I know you're all probably a little tired of hearing me go on and on about orchestra, but it's a big part of my life and I can't help ranting about it at every opportunity. :D

I also got a solo. Which is big news. [SQUEE!!!]

I WON'T LET YOU DOWN, SIR!!!



 





[A rant on] The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Well.
Has this book got me frustrated or what? I'm not saying that it's good or bad, all I'm saying is that it has me really confused and a little irritated.
Confused, because I know that there is a point in there somewhere (Monica's going to take a magical journey to the land of Sparknotes!), but I can't seem to figure it out. That's what has me irritated.
For a good portion of the book, I couldn't really figure out for myself what was going on under the surface. And sometimes I couldn't even figure out what was going on in the plot. I guess I have a basic enough understanding of the plot to have a vague idea of what the point of the story was, but this book still makes me feel like I'm the idiot for not understanding all the weird symbolism and motifs and stuff. Argh.

And there was the rather sudden ending, well, I guess it wasn't really that sudden or ambiguous. The dealio is, that Prince (who is a really sweet, kind man) has spend the whole book torn between two women. The adventurous and feisty Aglaya, and the tortured, guilt-ridden Nastasia (who feels that way because she was somebody's mistress, I think. Wouldn't swear to it). Prince Muishkin truly loves Aglaya, but his love for Nastasia is more of elevated pity.
By the climax of the story, Aglaya dumps him because she realizes that his epilepsy will have him sickly forever, so after some time he and Nastasia grow closer and become engaged.  However, on their wedding day, Nastasia runs away with another man who loves her, Rogojin, because she feels like a rough, mean man like Rogojin is the only kind of man she deserves. In a few days, a worried Muishkin locates Rogojin and makes the horrifying discovery that Rogojin has murdered Nastasia.  This, along with the realization that every good thing he tries to do just leads to more trouble, drive Muishkin to madness, and at the end of the book he can't recognize any of his friends, or even speak. Rogojin is shipped off to Siberia, and Aglaya gets married to some loser who lied about his big fortune.
The end.
And you know what, I had some issues with the ending of The Man Who Laughs, but that was sort of made up for by the ending line.

When Ursus recovered consciousness, he no longer saw Gwynplaine, and he beheld Homo near the edge, howling into the gloom as he gazed out at the sea.

I know, I know, it makes no sense in context, but I don't want to give away spoilers for a book that the post isn't about. Now, I find the last scene of the Idiot just plain anti-climatic.

So spoke the good old lady, almost angrily, as she took leave of Evgenie Pavlovich.

Um, no offence or anything book, but if I were you, I would have ended on a scene relevant to the main characters and themes of the novel. Eugh.

I guess no letter grade for this one, because I don't feel clever today. :P I guess I'll read it again someday, because it did have it's very strong moments where I really liked it. I feel like the execution could have been better, though.