Gravedigger by Dave Matthews.

and no, i am not depressed it's just a good song with good lyrics. 'cuz i want to feel the rain

70 pages into Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov.

the reason i began to read it in the first place is because my pastor kept bugging me about not reading "famous Russian classics" and that i am not reading anything in Russian, just English...

my initial reaction to Dostoevsky was that of dislike. i had to read Crime and Punishment in school, but all i really know about that book is that it was extremely boring (at least the way my teacher described it - and i wasn't encouraged at all to read it myself), full of deep page-long phrases that could rival Paul's in the New Testament, and that the book was about a guy who killed some old lady.

(not sure what was it about teachers of literature in school, but i don't think i ever read anything that i was told to read back then. the only literature classes that i enjoyed (and read everything assigned) were the ones in university, with the teacher whom i first hated and then befriended... he was the one who could talk about the book in such a way that made me want to read it too.)

so when i finally decided that i need to read Brothers Karamazov i felt reluctant because my reasons for reading weren't the ones i usually have. i didn't want to read this book to enjoy it. i wanted to read it just to be able to say that i've read it and that i don't like it.

i was surprised when 40 pages into it i realized that not everything is so bad about it.

things i like so far:

there are a lot of spiritual discussions about different questions, as well as those that have bothered me personally. i expect there would be many more.

i like some of the quotes from it already. for example, "The more I love humanity in general, the less I love man in particular"...

things i don't like so far:

i hate the way Dostoevsky describes people. he makes all the characters in the book feel... dirty or like they all have their own hidden agenda and there's nothing good about them. i guess in English his descriptions would not convey the same disdain because technically they aren't bad - they are just... not serious. i am not sure how to describe it. but i do not like the fact that there are no likable characters.

he likes long words and even longer sentences. they are good, but it's so easy to get lost in the description and not get the meaning of the sentence. which renders the whole idea quite useless if you think about it.

but, so far it has been good and i will continue reading. therefore, more updates to come.