Anyone familiar with Dr. Peterson's lectures knows of his admiration for Dostoevsky's novel, Crime and Punishment. In his view - and mine - Crime and Punishment is one of the greatest novels ever written.
When Dr. Peterson mentioned the novel in this series, I decided to reread the novel. I've read the novel quite a few times - the last time being in 2012. It was high time to jump into it again.
Naturally, I expected that there would be portions of the novel that I had forgotten over the years. After all, nine years is quite a long time. I was shocked, however to come upon sections which seemed absolutely new to me.
Coming upon the character Svidrigaïlov in parts five and six, it was as if his part in the story had magically appeared in the novel since I last read it. Svidrigaïlov plays an extremely important role in the last chapters, and I cannot understand how I could have forgotten his role entirely.
On his web page, Dr. Peterson gives an extensive list of books that he believes are the truly "Great" books. Over the years, I've read about 16 books that have made their way on to his list, but like Crime and Punishment, it's been several year since I've read many of them. One that I have not read is The Red and the Black by Stendhal (Marie-Henri Beyle), which has also been described as a " psychological novel ". I suspect that The Red and the Black will be next on my list.
No comments:
Post a Comment