Posted by dan-bailey 16 hours ago
Ask HN: What are you reading?
When I was young, thought that Raskolnikov was an example of an intelligent, moral person who was struggling with higher concepts which led him to murder. And moreover back then, thought he was a overall a good protagnist who was just in an impossible situation.
Now, realized the novel is more about psychology and how people who are overall good and others who are overall bad make choices, and then they have to mentally deal with these decisions. Yeah, think Dostoevsky is saying Raskolnikov was actually very misguided in the reasoning behind his murders. Eventhough his intentions were in many respects actually good, they were egotistically and overly idealistic. Eventually, Raskonikov realized he had deluded himself and that he was hyperinflating his own merits and value as a person over other people. And also, at a more basically level, he struggled with his conscience on whether to avoid being caught, commit suicide or turn himself in. He himself didn't believe he was an immoral person, and when he realized he had deluded himself, he struggled in the end on what course of action to take.
One downside of the book is by today's standards, it is very long-winded and often take several pages to go through something that would take a single page by many writers today. But think this also makes it more realistic, because most people in actual life don't get to the point that quickly. Really fascinating.
It’s a shame that, as you said, but modern standards the book has a lot of rough edges. If it were half as long it would be 10x better.
If you got through C&P unscathed, I’d *highly* recommend The Gambler. It is absolutely a modern, tight, fast paced thriller. It is a deep, disturbing look into addiction and compulsive behavior.
I found it as thought provoking and insightful as C&P but, crucially, I also enjoyed reading the whole thing.
I'd be re-reading Tolkien's _Old English Exodus_, but proofreading the typos got to be too much.
It's a great resource!
[0]: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-emergency-with-geo...
It's an autobiographical history which recounts the lives of the author, her mother, and her grandmother throughout an extremely transformational century in Chinese history.
I went into this knowing little to no Chinese history, and it has opened my eyes to this fascinating country. I hope to visit China for the first time in 2027. Before I go, I'm doing a deep dive into Chinese history. Open to recommendations on what to read next!
<River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze> -> one of my fav all the time. a forigner teach in this small chinese city, and he write what he observes.
for more ancient chinese history:
<1587, A Year of No Significance: The Ming Dynasty in Decline> -> one of the most popular china's history book for these years. highly recommnded.
i read a lot but i doubt many of them has a non-chinese version. the above ones are the ones i can think of now.
also <The Search for Modern China> is highly recommmend, but i foget if i have read it or not.
oh also another book on how chinese characters are made, 《China: Empire of Living Symbols》。 writen by a Sweden author Cecilia Lindqvist. i love it very much
Fiction: just finished The Rain Heron by Robbie Arnott; about to read The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson (for the 2nd or 3rd time)
- From Third World to First
Last finished: Human Use of Human Beings