Saturday, October 1, 10:30 AM. Amy.

Well, I got my wish. I’ve got Claire’s cold and I’m huddled up under a comforter in the easy chair reading The Brothers Karamazov for the umpteenth time.

The people who owned this house before us had great taste in furniture. I love this chair. There’s no uncomfortable position, but my legs over the arm and my head with pillows on the other arm is the winner. I’ve got a little chill and a little headache and a lot of snot. If it gets no worse than this I’ll be content.

Oh my God Karamazov is a great book. Even in translation it is so vivid and stirring. I wish I could read Russian. I chose to study Latin in college, of all things, thinking it would make me more sophisticated and profound. But it’s a dead language. What use is that ever going to be?

Dostoyevsky’s characters are like the people you know: complex, contradictory, soft here, sharp there, charming, elusive, vexing. Dmitri drives you wild with his brilliance and loathsomeness. Grushenka, the femme fatale, sympathetic and horrid, broken and treacherous. Alyosha as the passive, translucent protagonist, always there yet never fully there, weak and yet stronger than the rest. You get the sense he could explode at any moment, but he doesn’t, not quite; he’s too sanctified, too pure. And then Ivan, poor Ivan. I have…shall I say it?…a secret crush on Ivan. He’s the one I’d run to be with if I were there. Until he goes mad, that is. Or maybe especially when he goes mad. I shouldn’t have written that. I’m a little giddy.

I love a good book. It’s almost like a friend. Not quite, but almost.

Back to it!