Autumn Reading, 2023

[@frankmorlock1403]

Glad you are back and hope you enjoyed your Autumn in Maryland. Any friend of Turgenev is a friend of mine. You have read more of him than I did. I started to like him when I read his play A month in the Country. Then I read Fathers and Sons, and finally Virgin Soil. I also read a collection of his letters (but only a few were really of interest.) I think Turgenev is the greatest artist of Russia's Big Three: Turgenev, Tolstoi and Dostoevsky. Turgenev understands the psychology of ordinary people, and his judgment of people is very accurate not influenced by strange conceptions like Tolstoi or twisted personalities and ideology like Dostoevsky. Consequently, he has greater artistic control than the other two who may arguably have greater insight into human nature. Turgenev knows where he's going and has a steady hand, and usually gets there with ease. This is the mark of a great talent.

[@keckiebooks]

Great to see you back...

[@reaganwiles_art]

I was thinking about you this week. Glad to see you and I love your video here and your choices in your observations about the books you been reading and about yourself. Thank you

[@grahamhudson9995]

Glad to see you again Matthew 😊😊😊

[@anneworks]

Thanks for the video :) I like your little channel, it's irregularities, your thoughts etc. We only have a small overlap in reading habits and book taste, but I am about to start a translation of the Odyssey and the Iliad by a Dutch author who is a very good storyteller. I'm curious about reading plays. They're not aimed at readers, are they? The only play I've read since school is Harry Potter and the Cursed Child 😅 Didn't get on with it, but hey ;) So maybe one day you could make a video about reading plays, why you do it, if and how it differs from other types of books, if you like them more than or differently from theatre or movies. Etc. That'd be interesting

[@davidhall8656]

Nice to hear from you. Apropos of Huysman, I've been rereading Picture of Dorian Gray. Not only is A Rebours alluded to, but I read somewhere that En Route is one of the few books Oscar Wilde request while imprisoned. I've also recently read some Bocaccio, still trekking thru Proust (up to book 6), Natalia Ginzburg's Family Lexicon, and finally read Platonov's Happy Moscow ( which I think I got from you back when you were fundraising for Spain trip; thanks again). Might still do the Katz BK in Dec, but leaning in favor of a couple other chunkers...we'll see. Best.

[@ariannefowler455]

The House of Government sounds very interesting. I have been reading a lot about Russia this year and this sounds like one I need to put on my list. I had not heard of it. Thank you for putting it on my radar.

[@jonathangomez5131]

Great to see you again!

[@jboyd9062]

An interesting historical companion to The House Of Government is Moscow 1937 by German historian karl Schlogel and published by Polity Press.

[@tompagnillo]

Great seeing another video from you. I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts on The Confederacy of Dunces. Toole kept me with Ignatius from beginning to end.

[@chhhhhris]

The Slezkine book sounds interesting. Slezkine seems like a smart enough guy, probably has the right ideas. So many people write in hindsight on the soviet era, almost nothing is authoritative, especially emigre writings, they usually have negative views of their home country (its why they left) so it is never really an accurate account, but more of a caricature.

[@Kyle-ys3cv]

Maybe the most significant aspect of the Russian revolution is the one aspect that is basically never mentioned.

[@kirillpushkin]

Hi Mathew. Have you read “Master and Margarita” and “The dog’s heart” by Mikhail Bulgakov?

[@MayberryBookclub]

I still haven't read it!