“…man has great endurance.” #dostoevsky #houseofthedead

I was still feeling in the mood for something substantial after finishing “A Happy Death”, and the stacks of Instagram-inspired titles I’d put together included a number of books by Dostoevsky. He’s an old favourite of mine, and although I’ve read all of the major titles, there are one or two still unread. I contemplated “Despised and Humiliated” and “An Accidental Family”, two longer fictions which are less well-known, and even dug out a mass of short stories. However, I was reminded that I have owned a copy of his “The House of the Dead” for as long as I can remember, and was pretty sure I’d never actually read it. I have two copies on the TBR, and after a bit of consideration, I went for the older translation by David McDuff (a translator I trust) in Penguin Classics. It was a sobering read… The full title should actually be “Memoirs from the House of the Dead”, and the book occupies an important place in Dostoevsky’s life. In 1849, he was arrested as part of a conspiracy accused…