Short and Sweet

It has been a long time, relatively speaking. I blazed through my first ten days of blogging, posting basically every day (or posting twice in one day in order to make up for skipping). But now I am bogged down by my Russian literature course, and am kicking my way, page by page, through Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. I love Russian literature, but it takes me so much longer to read. Besides, it pays to be particularly attentive with it.

I recently learned that until the 17th century, only a very small percentage of the Russian nobility were able to sign their names. Coming from that, by the early 19th century they were already producing, from scratch, a national body of literature I consider to be the best in the world (as far as I've read, anyway). Turgenev's Spring Torrents and Tolstoy's Anna Karenina easily rank among my favorite novels of all time. Dostoevsky, however, has not yet made the cut. This is partially because, having started three of his novels, I have finished none. But perhaps that alone says something.

Still, this is one time when I am certain to finish a novel of his once and for all, so I'll finally know how I feel about him. I'm afraid he might be a little too conservative for me, to be honest. Still, I haven't entirely given up on him. It would be hard to, when I have a friend who champions him so ferociously and with such loyalty. In fact, this friend so wished to represent him well that she read aloud to me 100 pages of The Idiot. I would get a candy bar and a soda and just lounge away as she labored over a faithful recreation of the novel. But then the summer came, and I didn't have the impetus to continue on my own. How can you go from lazy spectator to willful participant in mid-novel?

So I have been working my way through Crime and Punishment these past few days, and that has reduced blogging to a thought in the back of my mind. Today, however, I took two hours to transfer my blog from tumblr.com to blogger.com. I chose to do this primarily because I was able to integrate my blog with all the nifty Google services and tools. And, I bought my domain name. I am now the proud owner, for one year, of spencermileskimball.com. An excellent investment, I hope.

Finally, two thoughts on movies I saw while evading responsibilities.

Jaws: Not quite as scary as I expected. In general, not what I expected. Thus, rather refreshing. More drama than horror, and far more of it takes place on land than I would ever have guessed.

There Will Be Blood: An excellent film, with amazing acting by Daniel Day-Lewis. The soundtrack is deeply ominous, and quite tense. Also, not what I expected. A good time for things I didn't expect, it seems. Note: significantly better than Jaws.

So, perhaps this isn't as short as I initially intended, but that seems to happen often to me. I'll be back shortly with my thoughts on Dostoevsky. 'Til then.

Sincerely,
Spencer Miles Kimball