New Acquisitions

Finally went to Barnes and Noble for the first time this year. Usually Barnes N Nobles specializes in not having anything that I am looking for. You try and find Sigrid Undset’s Kristin Lavransdatter at Barnes N Noble; it’ll be between the forty copies of The Hobbit and 245 James Patterson books! Just kidding, it won’t be there at all. For that matter, they have no G.K. Chesterton either.

That last should be a crime.

First up is Flannery O’Connor’s THE VIOLENT BEAR IT AWAY.

I have read some of her short stories and I find her to be a treat. Usually dark, usually shocking, always interesting. Her short story Revelation is one of my favorites.

Next is THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV

I read this sometime in the 90’s as a hard drinking Randian atheist. So hard drinking, I lived in three states in the 90’s and cannot tell you which one I read it in. I have a few images of the book that stayed in my mind but that is all. I want to experience this book as a completely different person (as different as I would have thought I would ever be at least).

I also read Crime and Punishment and that I remember much more of. Of course Crime and Punishment is a much more straight forward work than Karamazov. But I also remember where and when I read the former.

There are several books that I will wish to reread now that I probably didn’t appreciate as much when I first read them. First, I read a number of them as duty, as in, “if I want to be a writer, I should read these people.” Such a duty I no longer feel under the presence of, and it is unrealistic anyway the older you get. Just to get the English masters would take forever let alone the poets, and then the non-English speaking world which includes such tales as the Iliad, The Divine Comedy, etc, etc. To say nothing of the Bible which can consume a life of study and reflection in itself. Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, Quo Vadis, C.S. Lewis’ Cosmic Trilogy. These were all books of a religious nature or theme and when I first read them I approached even the subject of religion with a sneer of contempt.

A sneer, yes, however, even with that I never denied the quality of those books – how can one?. Dostoyevsky is simply one of the best writers to have lived – full stop. I hope to appreciate him even more this time.