The Idiot and Of Mice and Men

Spoiler Alert: I've finished both of these, and I may spoiler the plots.

I finished The Idiot today. Six hundred and fifteen pages from Friday to Monday; not one of my fastest reads, but a solid pace. I'm going to put some distance between this one and my attempt on Crime and Punishment, but I actually enjoyed it much more than I expected. It qualifies for the success list, since it's one that I wouldn't have read without the list pushing me towards it, and I likely wouldn't have gotten as much out of it without having read Anna Karenina, Dead Souls, War and Peace, etc. to give it some context.

That being said, a little Russian goes a long way for me, I'm not going to lie. While I definitely prefer it to War and Peace (which I HATE), there were subplots that I could easily do without. The overall plot didn't do much for me, but there were some passages that made up for that. My thoughts are half-baked on this, but I think reading the text through the lens of the recurring discussions of the death penalty could make for an interesting paper if I had to write one. Fortunately, I don't. I also sort of shipped Adelaida and Prince Sch. Till the end, anyway.

I'm not sold on Dostoyevsky's portrayal of women's psychology, but the letters that Anastassya Filippovna sent Aglaya and the scene where Aglaya confronts Anastassya Filippovna were the most compelling passages for me (the ones that made up for anything having to do with Burdovsky).

After finishing The Idiot, I read Of Mice and Men; it's a nice, short read. I've never read The Grapes of Wrath, and I'm still a little apprehensive about it, but I found Of Mice and Men strangely compelling. This is a good counterexample, I think, to the belief that being spoiled about the ending ruins a work for someone. In this case, I think it was quite clear what the novel(ia) was building towards, and for me at least, part of its power came from knowing and seeing George's agony, while knowing that the conclusion was inevitable.

I'm now reading The Cider House Rules. I've never seen the movie, though from seeing clips/its trailer, I can't help but picture Michael Caine as Larch. That being said, I'm glad that Tobey McGuire isn't invading my perceptions; I'm not really a fan.