Finished!
At 1230am I finally, finally finished reading Demons by Dostoevsky. I wanted to scream and run around the house but had to content myself with gloating to my reading buddy via text. In the final three chapters of the novel people are dropping like flies, but before they expire they make long speeches that make me want to kill them.
It was a great idea starting the Russian program with a notoriously difficult Dostoevsky doorstopper; from hereon everything is easy. I can read closely again. Obviously I couldn’t sleep after my achievement (It took me a whole month to read) so I picked up the February issue of Monocle. Not only was it a breeze but I noticed all the typos (‘Ended’ is spelled ‘eneded’, etc. Excuse me, a magazine that costs Php1,275 in Manila can afford proofreaders).
The next book on the program is The Brothers Karamazov, also in the P/V translation. But before that I’m reading The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis, a writer and translator discussed in hushed tones by her admiring colleagues.
Many of her stories are just one page long! I nearly burst into tears.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
March 4th, 2010 at 22:37
Yehey congratulations! I so want to join your quest but fortunately for me I’ve already read The Brothers Karamazov, and I have no plans of reading it again as it took me a few months to finish that one…oops, sorry, didn’t mean to discourage you. I’m sure you’re going to like this one, long speeches and all.
March 4th, 2010 at 23:40
Congrats! You have to celebrate. Inggit ako! Now I want to read it, too.
March 5th, 2010 at 03:02
I guessed right, Karamazov is next. Got the P/V version last month, will be on board for this one.
March 5th, 2010 at 13:22
Correction: mine’s the McAndrew version. Decent translation, got good reviews. I read a few pages and I liked it.
March 6th, 2010 at 14:02
Oooh, while your at it with the Russian theme, you may want to check out Helen Mirren and Christopher Plummer in their latest movie The Last Station. The story is about Leo Tolstoi’s wife the Countess Sofya and that obsessive devotion to her husband. It looks like a winner.
http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/sony_pictures/thelaststation/
March 8th, 2010 at 10:55
Just picked up my copy of P/V’s translation of The Brother’s Karamazov. It’s scary how I’m starting to get used to Dostoevsky’s narrative style. Finished Demons in a week but it took me several days after that to process all of it.
August 2nd, 2010 at 15:47
hi. sorry for asking just now. so how was the lydia davis book? do you recommend it, esp. given the 1400 price tag? thanks.