“My idea is-to become Rothschild. I invite the reader to calmness and seriousness”-

Fyodor Dostoevsky The Adolescent translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky.

At the outset of this blog, I had high expectations of myself. I think my expectations have tempered down, at least for a little. I severely overestimated how long it would take to read the books I laid out for March. I’m still working on The Adolescent! I think this is a good lesson for me in setting goals for my intellectual hobbies. I did not recognize how exhausted my brain felt after Mid- Term season. It was a struggle to manage my time right before Spring Break, but now I am back. I feel rejuvenated because I have been fasting since Spring Break, and that requires a commitment to waking up early in the morning and going to bed early. This has been good for me since I have made more time in the morning to do schoolwork, and my workload in the afternoon has decreased to a point where I can take time to invest in my intellectual hobbies and blog. I’ve known for a while that writing is particularly soothing, but after finishing up everything it is even more so. So this month, I’ve tempered my expectations and here’s what I’ll be reading:

The Adolescent

This book vacillates between being a chore and entertaining. I think this dichotomy stems from the fact that this book strikes a chord with me. This chord is particularly cringeworthy because the narrator is no older than I am. Arkady is an ambitious and big-headed 19-year-old. It sucks to admit that, at times, I see Arkady as a reflection of myself. The naivety and apathy of youth are portrayed so meticulously, it is grotesque how well Dostoevsky writes Arkady. While I don’t see myself accumulating unbearable amounts of gambling debt, I do see why Arkady acts the way he does. His lack of a true role model causes him to stick to whoever possesses even a single admirable quality, even if their bad qualities outweigh them. In search of a role model, Arkady surrounds himself with a vicious and spiteful crowd, a toxic environment to try and escape from. Arkady’s position is too real. That’s why the book is a chore because it gets hard to read an almost relatable story. To me, this story is far more relatable than The Idiot, The Brothers Karamazov, Crime and Punishment, White Nights, or The Dream of a Ridiculous Man. The realness is sometimes unbearable, no matter how beautiful it is. I look forward to finally finishing this book.

Demons

Fyodor Dostoevsky has me in a chokehold. Demons is the last of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Big 6 literary canon. It is traditionally a Big 5 canon, but there is disagreement over whether The Adolescent and Notes from Underground is that 5th book. So, I decided to read them all. This read is a milestone because it’s the final step to prepare for my Fyodor Dostoevsky project this summer (details soon). Nonetheless, I have been procrastinating this read out of fear. Demons is heralded as his most politically diverse, and like every Dostoevsky novel it is dense. It follows the story of a politically active man named Stavrogin and is one of Dostoevsky’s tragic novels. I am anxious to read it, to say the least.

The list ends here. I have a few library books that I think I may be able to get through, but we will see. I have learned that