Russian Novels

I was up really late last night reading The Brothers Karamozov by Fyodor Dostoevsky. This novel has stolen a great deal of my sleep this last week. I'm now within 150 pages of the end so I can hardly bear to put it down.

The Brothers Karamozov is the fourth Russian novel that I've picked up (that I can recall). I've also read Crime and Punishment (also by Dostoevsky) and War and Peace and Anna Karenina, both by Leo Tolstoy. I've found that the story lines of these novels are small (excepting War and Peace) and sometimes very slow, but both Dostoevsky and Tolstoy are masters at creating the inner worlds of their characters. The men and women of these novels are so complex, so human, and often very surprising. I fall in love with them quickly, even some of the 'bad guys'. I don't want the novels to end. I get attached to their lives and I crave more story, much like someone who can't wait to watch the next episode of their favorite TV show.

A funny thing about the Dostoevsky novels is that it takes so stinkin' long to get to the main event of the story! The plot lines of Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamozov pivot on a murder and the resolution of guilt and punishment, but you have to read for a long time before you get to them (about 400 pages in The Brothers Karamozov!). It's always been worth the work for me. That's what's held my attention these last five nights: the characters have such depth of passion and motivation. It's not as simple as "he's guilty and she's not".

The Brothers Karamozov is more than a story. It's also a treatise on psychology, philosophy and religion. It's amazing. Does anyone write like this anymore?