Goal: Achieved
One of my favorite books is Natsume Soseki's And Then... It is the story of a depressed and anxiety-ridden young man in Meiji Japan who drives himself to ruin. I read this book several years ago and upon finishing it was profoundly uncomfortable. But in a weird way, that was part of why I loved it so much. Even though it was negative, I had a strong emotional reaction to end of Daisuke's tale.
I bring this book up because I just finished Dostoevsky's The Idiot (thus achieving my Read Two Books in 2011 goal), and I felt similarly unsettled at the end. And while Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov (I cried so much when I finished that one I made my family uncomfortable) have joined And Then... in the ranks of All Time Favorites, I can't say the same for The Idiot. Which is odd, because the latter is the book that really attracted me to Dostoevsky in the first place.
I bring this book up because I just finished Dostoevsky's The Idiot (thus achieving my Read Two Books in 2011 goal), and I felt similarly unsettled at the end. And while Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov (I cried so much when I finished that one I made my family uncomfortable) have joined And Then... in the ranks of All Time Favorites, I can't say the same for The Idiot. Which is odd, because the latter is the book that really attracted me to Dostoevsky in the first place.