Hello everyone,
Let's face it. I'm obsessed with Dostoyevsky and this time around I read House of the Dead. This is a MUST read for anyone who wants to learn about human psychology, behaviours and traits when you put people together under forced labour and forced cohabitation.
This book was an eye opener. In lots of places, I couldn't help but be horrified such as the years of being chained to the wall, the pecking order, the constant insults, arguments, flogging and the bitter cold, the lice and most of all the meaningless existence just waiting out a sentence. No thank you.
The recount of the Siberian bath house - a hell on earth - where they piled prisoners inside was stifling to read. I nearly fainted just thinking about it.
Yet there were also moments where you could see Dostoyevsky appreciating his fellow man. I say in this video, he went through his own Victor Frankl moment in this prison - a personal transformation that we see in his writing of all his characters in his books afterwards.
While reading this book, I couldn't shake off the feeling that it was like reading Catch-22 (I have a book review on this channel on this Joseph Heller book). The themes of meaningless drudgery labour plus forced cohabitation, the bickering and insults of men living with each other, rang very similar to Catch 22. Maybe Heller was a Dostoyevsky fan too??
What did you think of this book?
Is it one that you'd like to read? (I'd say yes, put it on your reading list).
#reading #books #bookreviews #literature #booktube #lifelessons #lifelessonsthroughbooks #activatelearning #helenblunden #dostoyevsky
30 сен 2024
