July 16, 2011

Rohit Reviews: The Idiot

One need not know me well to know that I am rather fond of Russian literature. The frequency with which I reference it, both on this wretched site and in a real life that is far more wretched still, is exceeded perhaps only by the seemingly unending obscure allusions to The X-Files (like this, for instance). That I would choose to pick up The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky back in summer of 2008 so soon after finishing Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov in 2007 (review here), therefore, should come as no surprise. Nor should it shock anyone that, like most things in my life, The Idiot too would fall victim to law school's vice-like grip on my time, becoming yet another law school casualty. Although I had been more than 150 pages in when I left New York that summer, I was forced to start all over when I picked up the book again this spring, finally determined to finish it. Today I accomplished that task, bringing to a close another half-completed remnant of my law school years.