Dostoevsky and Tolstoy are the two giants of Russian literature. Pushkin lingers in the background like the old master now observing his students take flight, and Nabokov remains the prodigal son that never returned.
One of the aims of this blog is to assist in the re-education of its subscribers—namely, in the initiation of a new class of ‘those who could be called well read.’ The case for why one should learn how to read differently was made in this post, and need not be repeated here. A different, and brief, argument must be made however for why we have started with Dostoevsky on our list of 52 authors (note: unlike most lists of this kind, we have excluded authors from more than one book to be included—otherwise, on a list of 52, we could easily have it be populated of 10-15 authors. This seems counterproductive to our goal of ‘literacy’—you should have read widely as well as in depth. But enough on this point).
By picking Dostoevsky, I am not claiming he is better than Tolstoy, Proust, or any other author on this list. I am not even claiming that Crime and Punishment is his best work (although it is his best entry point, for many reasons—in C&P there is the seed of all his other books). No, I have picked Crime and Punishment simply because it illustrates the primary concern of my own writing project in a fantastically dramatic fashion, and on this mark alone it underscores what follows well. Beyond that, however, is a rather on-brand sentimental reason. You see, Crime and Punishment was my first truly classic book. It was the book that launched me into a new mindset at the ripe age of 19. Instead of a steady digest of pulp/genre fiction, of encyclopedias, of non-fiction, it showed me something greater. I have remained captured by the imaginative power of classic literature ever since. It is my hope that after this reading you can say the same.
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