Why read Russian Literature
They probe life and come up with insights we direly need. Name the best short story or novel in the world literature and one is most likely to answer some writing from Russian literature. By general consensus Tolstoy and Dostoevsky are the greatest novelists. To be the greatest novelist is to be the greatest teacher of life. We hardly live life; don’t know its beauty, glory and meaning. We are enslaved by what Schopenhauer called Will and live life as if under bondage. We have complaints and grudges against almost everyone; we keep cursing others and even ourselves at times. We come and go without having learnt the meaning of life with all its challenges, guilt, violence, tragedy, horror and countless distractions and games that ego invents to avoid facing reality of nothingness within. The question is “where is life lost in living?” – in vegetating, in complaining, in cursing, in “fret and fever,” in day dreaming, in begging for fame or recognition. ...