Nicole’s Reviews > The Brothers Karamazov > Status Update

The further I progress into this book the more I enjoy it. In the beginning I was reading at a snails pace but now it's really flowing and honestly, this is just beautifully written. It's so brash and stripped of all formality at its core. I feel like Dostoevsky describes everyone's souls so eloquently without shame or hesitation. I continue to reread sections I find beautiful purely out of satisfaction of the prose.

"Dearest Alyosha, how did you manage to escape from them? You ran away, gathering up the hem of your cassock? Ha, ha, ha!"

A genuine belly laugh. The drama is so good. This whole hand kiss thing is absurdly hilarious

I very much enjoyed the juxtaposition of the first scene in the Elders quarters vs the Elder and Alexi taking a break to meet with the townspeople waiting by the gates of the monestary. I felt like I was Alyosha in this chapter and it was cool to watch the Elder do his thing. Also, Fyodor is so embarrassing. He kind of reminds me of Frank Gallagher from Shameless.

It took me a couple hours to read 40ish pages, frequently rereading many long sentences to fully grasp and understand. I also learned about 10 new words. I was originally intimidated by the prospect of learning and remembering many Russian names but so far it's not too bad. I heard the first 150 pages can be a slog but I'm enjoying this. I've even detected a slight dark humor that made me smile a few times.