Every so often.. Freedom from Fear - The American people in Depression and War 1929-1945 Day 3, A Death in the Family: My Struggle Book 1 (My Struggle 1 Day 1

Every so often the faintly discernible thread that links the reading of one book with the reading of the next is cut by something external - it might just be a change of venue, or even an abrupt change of mood where what you wanted to read yesterday suddenly becomes distant and boring, or it might even be (worst case scenario) a slow growing disillusionment with a book, a creeping sense that this really isn't worth the effort of plodding through, a narrative that gradually condemns itself with weary banal slow (very slow) steps, as you spend more time wondering whether it's worth finishing, especially if you have put hours and hours of reading effort in.  It's like climbing a promising hill, nice path, interesting prospects on promise only to peek over the top at yet another steeper hill lost in mist and drizzle, with no relief or end in sight.

For me two days ago it was just being in a different place, a long drive up to Retford for the funeral of my best friend,  and picking up a huge unwieldy book  called Freedom from Fear - The American people in Depression and War 1929-1945, starting it, and being completely transported into the desire to know what happened in this huge country, to make it what it is today, along with a not quite random secondary desire to maybe pick up Boardwalk Empire again - I think we left off watching about episode 4 or 5.  It means I abandoned The Point, although I will go back and read those stories, perhaps in parallel.

Then back home, sitting at the table in the kitchen reading the Guardian review, I found a book review of the second book in a series by Karl Ove Knausgaard: A Death in the Family: My Struggle Book 1 (My Struggle 1), a review that made me turn to my Nexus 7, charging quietly on the computer desk behind me,  and, since it was reasonably priced, buy it immediately, and then begin to read it, and realise  certainly from the first two pages, that this was a good decision.

So there I am with two new starting points, the Dostoevsky looking less attractive now, though I think I might gallop through Notes from the Underground again, but now as then I find his vituperative, twisted character strangely uninteresting, a mouthpiece for views and prejudices that don't really sit very easily in my life. It feels like a very nihilistic text. And then alongside, a difficult parallel read again ( I'm keen on parallel reads, sometimes linked, sometimes not, one book enriches another if only by giving you a change of style and track) of Rowan Williams book about how Dostoevsky (probably) can show and teach us a lot about faith and belief, once you separate put the rabid nationalism and obviously ridiculous poses. I'm beginning to prefer Chekov to Dostoevsky, and, possibly, Tolstoy.