I recently read the book White Nights by Fyodor Dostoevsky. It’s the story of a lonely man who meets a young woman, and through this encounter, we explore the emotional landscape of
- solitude,
- longing, and
- fleeting connection
What I loved about the book is how there’s a layered meaning to much of what’s written in the first two chapters. It hits you with moments that make you go “whoa!“.
It reveals some hard-hitting truths and emotional realities. It is certainly an excellent read if you want to self-reflect a bit (nothing too hard).
Notes & Highlights
When I am happy I am always humming to myself like every happy man who has no friend or acquaintance with whom to share the joy.
She is a girl and I am sure she is dark.
We are all so dissatisfied with our fate and so exhausted by our lives.
One deceives oneself and unconsciously believes that the real true passion is stirring one’s soul; One unconsciously believes that there is something living, tangible in one’s immaterial dream.
on manhood - is a continual exercise and all about outgrowing and shattering into fragments … into dust … one must build life up from fragments while the soul longs and craves something else.
Just a year ago, just at this time, at this hour, on this pavement, I wandered just as lonely just as dejected as today.
on old age - some more years will pass and will hit gloomy solitude, and the old age will come trembling on its crutch, and then it is all misery and desolation.
[As you grow] what you lose are your dreams.
[check] if they were moral books, for if the books were immoral it would be out of the question, one would learn evil from them.