Book Group Woes

OK, I made a mistake. Make that two mistakes. I picked a difficult first book and a terrible, filthy second book.

To those that have been reading Demons, I'm sorry. This book is too long. I'm mired on page 600-something, and I'm still not sure what, if anything, is going on. Demons is no Crime and Punishment, which remains a personal favorite.

To those that have purchased Absurdistan, I'm double sorry. If you started reading it, I'm even more sorry. It should be renamed "Obscene"istan. Don't get me wrong, this was a clever book, but I couldn't tolerate the unnecessary sexual remarks and bathroom humor. After 30 pages, I filed it where it belongs--directly in the trash. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I never would have selected this book had I known how crass it would be.

So, after two resounding failures, let me invite you to join me over the next few months as we read several great books. Here's the list:

July: Brigham Young: American Moses by Leonard Arrington
August: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling
September: The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion and A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis
October: Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow
November: The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan

Book Group: Demons by Fyodor Dostoevsky

With all my talk about books, I thought it would be nice if we all read the same book at the same time, followed by an online discussion. With that in mind, I invite you to join me as I read the following books over the next several months, at the rate of one book every one to two months (depending on the size of the book), and according to the loose schedule indicated below:

1. Demons by Fyodor Dostoevsky (April-May)
2. Absurdistan: A Novel by Gary Shteyngart (June)
3. Brigham Young: American Moses by Leonard Arrington (July)
4. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling (August)
5. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion; and A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis (September)
6. Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow (October)
6. The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan (November)
7. READER'S CHOICE (December)

For those that decide to join me in reading the above-listed books, please recommend a favorite book, or something on your reading list, for the month of December. It would be fun to read something that I didn't pick.

Now, rather than burden you with administrative details or with a pathetic plea to read along and participate in what is sure to be a delightful discussion of each book, let me introduce our first book--Demons by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

Demons by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Inspired by the true story of a political murder that horrified Russians in 1869, Fyodor Dostoevsky conceived of Demons as a "novel-pamphlet" in which he would say everything about the plague of materialist ideology that he saw infecting his native land. What emerged was a prophetic and ferociously funny masterpiece of ideology and murder in pre-revolutionary Russia.

From the forward
Demons is a novel of ideas run amok.

"Here, in what many consider the darkest of his novels, Dostoevsky inscribes the fundamental freedom of Judeo-Christian revelation--the freedom to turn from evil, the freedom to repent."

"The demons, then, are ideas, that legion of isms that came to Russia from the West; idealism, rationalism, empiricism, materialism, utilitarianism, positivism, socialism, anarchism, nihilism, and, underlying them all, atheism."

"The world reflected in the novel is already in a state of parody. . . . The issues, the passions, the oppositions, the polemics, the conspiracies are serious, all too serious. It may be said that this world is in a very serious state of parody (demons always want to be taken seriously)."

Translation
Several individuals have translated this book into English. Some call it "The Possessed"; others call it "Devils"; and still others call it "Demons." After reading various translations of Dostoevsky's other novels, I recommend reading the new translation by Richard Pevear and larissa Volokhonsky. Here are links to buy a copy from Amazon.com: paperback / hardcover.

Reading schedule
Demons is a large book, consisting of three parts. I will be reading each part according to the following schedule:

Part I - April 20
Part II - May 11
Part III - June 1

I will initiate discussion for each part on or after the date listed above.

Dostoevsky
Here are two links with more information on Dostoevsky, the man and his writing:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fyodor_Dostoevsky

http://www.eckerd.edu/academics/qfm/qfm%20files/Foltz%20-%20Dostoevsky%20Study%20Guide.pdf

Happy reading!!