First, be sincere. Second, be kind. Third, may we never forget one another.After closing The Brothers Karamazov, these words feel less like advice and more like a quiet vow. In a world torn between faith and doubt, reason and passion, they are the simplest truths the novel leaves in our hands. To live honestly, to treat others with mercy, and to remember each other—this, perhaps, is Dostoevsky’s final answer to the chaos of being human.
In Dostoevsky’s masterpiece Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov, a former law student living in extreme poverty, murders a pawnbroker and her sister. He commits the crime not out of hatred or simple greed, but to test a radical theory: whether certain people possess the right to kill others. After enduring severe psychological torment, he ultimately confesses, accepts legal punishment, and begins a path toward moral rebirth under the influence of Sonya. After finishing the novel, however, a troubling question arose in my mind:What if Raskolnikov had escaped both legal punishment and the judgment of his own conscience?What kind of person would he have become had his theory not collapsed from within? This question does not require speculation outside the text. In...
No matter how hard I try to stay balanced and self-aware, I still get anxious sometimes. When those moods hit, my go-to remedy is diving into the heavyweight stuff—Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, those massive books. I just finished rereading Anna Karenina. The masters always leave you with so much to feel, yet somehow words fail you. So here I am again, just rambling through whatever thoughts come to mind. There’s too much to say anyway. I read Anna Karenina once when I was little, skimmed it really. By the time Anna and Vronsky finally got together, I lost patience with the rest. I felt cheated—not even a kiss scene! But even then, I knew Tolstoy was something special, because that famous ball scene...
No other work affects me quite like Don Quixote. Every time I revisit it, I inevitably lose my composure. Cervantes died on April 23, 1616—coincidentally, the same day as Shakespeare—which is why we now have World Book Day. The first part of Don Quixote was published in 1605, the second part a decade later in 1615. Despite being over 400 years old, it’s widely recognized as the first modern novel. In this book, Cervantes created the “eternal Don Quixote,” a literary figure that transcends time. While Don Quixote himself is eternal, his companion Sancho Panza feels perpetually alive and relatable. As you read, this practical farmer often feels like someone you know—a relative, perhaps, or even yourself. What kind of...
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