5/5
I don’t know what to say.
Already I feel like a thimble trying to catch an ocean of meaning. And I know most of it has been lost already. All that remains is this slightly sickening and profound feeling that I won’t read something like that for a long time.
I’m scared to think of what Dostoevsky was like as a person in order to write that. I knew he was sent to the gulags etc but oh my god.
I don’t actually think 5/5 makes any sense for a book like this. It’s like giving a rating of 5/5 to life itself. The book was long, sickening, smart, human, and has done something to me that I haven’t yet digested or processed.
What just happened?
All I can say is that I’m glad my memory is so weak and short so I will not be required to carry the weight and ideas of that novel in my head any more. I don’t think a book has done anything like that to me. The build up from part six until the end – I don’t think my insides have churned and clenched so tightly before, from any source of media.
Jesus Christ.
It feels like I’m now wearing a heavy cloak, constantly feeling the weight and presence of what I just read.
I feel like I am a cockroach and someone’s boot hangs above me.