The Idiot – Fyodor Dostoevsky

One of the “big” books that I wanted to read during my wife and daughter’s prolonged stay in Brazil. I succeeded, but at times it was honestly quite hard.

The Idiot started off as possibly my favourite Dostoevsky novel, mostly because Lev is such a wonderful character (or maybe I’m biased and he’s actually just a 19^th century Russian version of Forrest Gump?), but after Part I the book just goes on and on a bit too much, and I actually often struggled to keep track of who the characters were (Aglaya and Nastasia in particular merged into one at multiple points).

It’s undeniably my fault to a very large extent – I should have put a more serious effort in reading the book instead of going through most of it during lulls at work (shh…) – but, for want of a better term, after 200 pages I just started to find the book a bit boring. And after dismissing a Dostoevsky novel with a banal word like “boring”, I have officially lost every credibility as a reader/blogger/pseudo-intellectual/human being…

Seta – Alessandro Baricco

A book that my wife received from one of my relatives some ten years or so – probably given to her because back then her Italian wasn’t yet absolutely faultless like it is now and/or because she had liked Novecento.

And I actually kind of liked it, which came to me as a rather big surprise. Not so much because I don’t normally like Baricco, but mostly because I’m often not too fond of the people who cite him as one of their favourite authors (unless they are 16 or less, in that case all, or at least some, is forgotten). Yes, I am an awful snob. I honestly have to admit that spending an hour reading this story (defining it a novella would be too much) was quite enjoyable. Yet, I don’t have that much to say – yes, the book was nice enough, but has the literary weight of its silkworms.