Before I forget it: book love: F.M. by Boris Akunin

Jan 17, 2011 14:23



Although I have always loved Boris Akunin’s books set in 19th century (about Erast Fandorin and Pelageya) , I haven’t been too much in love with his modern day stories (Altyn Tolobas and Extracurricular Reading) about Erast Fandorin’s grandson, Nicholas. I liked both books just fine, but not terribly so. But this was before I have read an amazing homage to Dostoyevsky’s "Crime and punishment", "F.M." F.M. stands for the first two initials of Dostoyevsky’s name : Fedor Michailovich, but also is an abbreviation of many other things too, for example, Fata Morgana.

The story is as follows: Nicholas Fandorin (a private investigator in present-day Russia and a grandson of Erast Fandorin) is looking for a stolen manuscript of a lost novel by Dostoyevsky, which happens to be an alternative version of “Crime and Punishment”, told from the perspective of Porfiry Petrovich.

The book is pure love and hilarity:
1. Apparently it was conceived as a joke poking fun at Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code".
2. I always liked Porfiry Petrovich and it was nice to see him to be finally vindicated.
3. There are various other interesting characters involved, for example, Little Red Riding Hood, Inuyasha.
4. The book is seriously funny, in a dark way.
5. The book mentions Boris Grebenshikov’s song, Dostoyevsky:

image Click to view

boris akunin, f.m., books

Previous post Next post
Up