Another Few Highlights

A few months ago I highlighted those books that, in my two years reviewing for Lorehaven Magazine, were most memorable. These highlights were mostly flash reviews with a slight turn of book recommendation, if you want to take them that way (I disclaim). I decided to reprise the idea and broaden it – not highlights of Lorehaven books, or explicitly Christian books, or even necessarily books. These are highlights – flash reviews, book recommendations if you want them – of speculative fiction. There is no unifying theme to the stories chosen except that I, personally, liked them.
“Bobok”, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Last year, in one of my sporadic efforts to become well-read, I read a collection of Dostoyevsky’s short stories. I would have read one of his novels, but they all seemed to be a minimum of 600 pages, and I didn’t have that kind of commitment. In “Bobok”, a man lingers in a graveyard after a funeral and overhears the corpses’ conversation. It’s hinted that the man is a drunk, and possibly a lunatic (I mean, even before the eavesdropping on the dead begins). But he might have really heard it, and it almost doesn’t matter. What matters is the conversation. This short story is horror, but of a different flavor than its bare premise suggests. Although not overtly religious, “Bobok” possesses a spiritual horror, less from death than from what death unveils.
I’ve read the larger novels of Dostoyevski, but now I need to look into that short story. The other books you mentioned I’ve read and can heartily endorse them.
Good Lord, I LOVE Leaf by Niggle. Finally, someone else who likes it, too. I’ve shown it to a bunch of people who just didn’t like it. I was profoundly moved by it. Different strokes for different folks, I guess. But I love Tolkien’s imaginative play on Heaven, and how he reveals a lot of our cultural interpretations of the afterlife for what they are: cultural, rather than biblical. But again, the “allegory” doesn’t overtake the story itself. It’s allegory done right, IMO. If I have to take one more look at Pilgrim’s Progress, I might lose my lunch. But that? I could read it ten times over.
Haven’t read any of these, but I’ve been slightly curious about Dostoyevsky’s work lately, so maybe I’ll try Bobok some time.
Most of the Russian famous works are unarguably Important, but they are not actually that enjoyable.
Hm…in what way? If they’re just long or grim or depressing or something I might not mind.
Ponderous. Beautifully written, but so ponderous that my attention flags and my intellect bends under the weight of SO MANY WORDS. But maybe I’m just an idiot. Regardless, I never got past page 200 in War and Peace. Or The Brothers Karamazov. I’ve given up on being “well-read.” It’s enough work to write. I want to read for fun.
Ah, I see. Might be hit or miss on which of those stories I like or not.
Sounds like an interesting set of works–I’m interested!