Category: Book Review

So, in response to Kurosawa's adaptation of Dostoevsky's The Idiot, I decided to read the original novel (namely the translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky), and I came away with a few thoughts. In the book's introduction by Pevear, he describes the writing process Dostoevsky had for the book. Written outside of Russia, he… Continue reading Dostoevsky’s The Idiot – Some random thoughts

I can easily see why Tolstoy would rankle at the idea that his book was a novel. It has novelistic aspects that largely dominate, but it's also so much more. If I had to made a guesstimate, I'd say that it's just under two-thirds novel, just under one-third history, and the remainder is philosophical. There's… Continue reading War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

That's better. I previously reviewed a biography of Grant by William McFeely, and I found it wanting. Descriptions of events were well done, but McFeely frequently went into Freudian psychoanalysis that was completely unsupported by primary documentation. Maybe there was reason to believe what he kept going on about, but he never presented it, which… Continue reading Grant by Ron Chernow

Traveling through American history by way of presidential biographies continues with Ulysses S. Grant. I chose Grant by William McFeely. I also bought Chernow's biography, but that shall come later. As a strict chronicle of the events of Grant's life, the book feels perfectly serviceable. We get the future general and president from his youth… Continue reading Grant by William McFeely

Apparently, William Ainsworth was quite the popular author back in his day, and after having read Windsor Castle, I can see both why he was popular and also why he has completely fallen out of favor. The book is filled with hallmarks of a bygone style. There are luscious (and nearly endless) descriptions of clothes,… Continue reading Windsor Castle by William Ainsworth