Today (I wrote this text on the 27th of August, 2024), I will provide my insights regarding Dostoevsky’s output.
I remember that while reading Dostoevsky in 2013, I often had the pleasure of finding my own reflections in his work, which I had previously subconsciously rejected and downplayed. Also, in Dostoevsky’s output, I found the merriment and sorrows of my soul, which I was able to despise. In Dostoevsky’s output, I rediscovered the world of feelings I had disregarded, which the world of Dostoevsky’s novels helped me rediscover and appreciate. Thanks to them, I really began to value my life and reaffirmed my conviction that every human being, whatever they may be and whatever they may do, deserves my respect.
Did Marcel Proust’s work in the form of the book “In Search of Lost Time” also give me a similar experience?
Not to the same intense degree as Dostoevsky’s works. The truth is that I’ve been reading Proust’s masterpiece for more than a year (I started reading in the middle of August 2023). I do not know if I manage to finish reading it by the end of 2024. Still, I do not have such a significant wow effect as in 2013 when I read almost all of Dostoyevsky’s novels. Do I sometimes miss reading Dostoevsky? Yes, I do. Perhaps I will read some of his novels once again in the future. Still, the war in Ukraine and the Russian full-scale aggressive invasion since February 2022 made me think whether I want to re-read his works.
Undoubtedly, knowing Dostoevsky’s approach to various themes (including political ones: I read his “Writer’s Diaries,” epistolography, and five books about him), I know he would applaud Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine. That is why I have a love-and-hate relationship with Dostoyevsky’s output. The emotional impact of his writing, the way it stirred conflicting feelings within me, is a testament to its power. Still, I think I will read some of his novels again in the future.
