I've never read Dostoevsky (1821-1888) before so this should be an experience. The Idiot was written in 1868, fours years after his first wife died, but only one year after he married a twenty year-old stenography. He was broke because of compulsive gambling (loved young women and gambling, sounds life my kind of guy) so he started churning out books and they all turned out to be masterpieces. His biography itself is pretty interesting. He was raised in a nasty part of Moscow among the poor. He was fascinated by them and loved talking to mentally unstable patients at his father's hospital. After leaving the army he was exiled to Siberia by Tsar Nicholas for being in an underground group. He spent about ten years there before returning to civilization. The audiobook for The Idiot is just over twenty one hours, so I should have this done in two weeks or thereabouts.
2 comments:
I'm liking this idea so far even though I probably won't read many of these books.
BBL
I thought The Idiot was the hardest of Dostoyevsky's books to read. Crime and Punishment is awesome and The Brothers Karamazov is in my top 5 of all time. You should check out The Gambler where Fyodor writes about compulsively playing Baccarat and Roulette in Switzerland. It's pretty short, too.
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