Now enmeshed in Book 8 of The Brothers Karamazov, with the focus on Mitya. There's still a way to go in the novel, which makes me very happy indeed as I don't really want it to end. Will FD sustain this level of brilliance? I'll be surprised if he doesn't as everything so far has had the air of effortless spontaneity, as if the book is simply an improvisation of sheer genius, which can't possibly go wrong as it doesn't quite know where it's going.
I've previously rated, for more than a few years, Anna Karenina and Madam Bovary as the two greatest novels of the 19C in any language but I suspect I'll soon be changing my mind.
Every episode of The Brothers K seems to achieve a kind of perfection, but I'd rate the Gold Mines chapter, in which Mitya tries to borrow 3000 roubles from Madame Khokhlakov the funniest pages of any prose I've ever read. Better than Dickens at his considerable best. And I'm not even sure that Dostoevsky intends to be funny.
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