Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by polaris_luci
White Nights by Fyodor Dostoevsky
4.0
...............Did I read this book or did this book read me?
.⋆｡⋆☂˚｡⋆｡˚☽˚｡⋆.
I don't know how to review this book anything I write will fall short of it's brilliance so let me just quote my favorite lines:
☂“Oh, if only you knew how many times I’ve fallen in love like that! …’
‘But how, with whom? …’
‘Why with nobody, with an ideal, with the one I see in my dreams.”
☂“… And you regret that the momentary beauty faded so quickly, so irretrievably, that it flashed before you so deceptively and in vain – you regret this because there was not time for you even to fall in love with her …”
☂“ I was walking and singing, because when I am happy I am sure to hum something to myself, like every other happy man who has neither friends nor good acquaintances and who in a joyful moment has nobody with whom he can share his joy.”
☂“In the end all that I’m asking her for is merely to say a few brotherly words to me, with sympathy, not to drive me away at the very first moment, to take me at my word, to listen to what I have to say, to laugh at me if she likes, to give me hope, to say a few words to me, just a few words, even if we never meet again afterwards!”
☂“The story of my life? My story! But who told you that I have a story to tell? I don’t have a story …"
"But how have you lived if there’s no story?"
"Absolutely without stories of any kind! I lived, as they say, on my own, that is, absolutely alone – alone, completely alone – do you understand what it means to be alone?"
☂“I have long been searching for someone, and that is a sign that I was looking precisely for you and that we were fated to meet now – now in my head thousands of valves have opened and I must set loose this river of words, or I will choke to death”
☂“you deceive yourself, and unwittingly and dispassionately believe that it is a genuine, true passion that disturbs his soul, you unwittingly believe that there is something alive and tangible in his incorporeal daydreams! But, you see, it’s all a delusion”
☂“ Would you believe, when you look at himthat indeed he has never knownher whom he loves so in his frenzied daydreams? Can it be that he has only seen her in certain captivating phantoms and only dreamed this passion?”
☂“As I sit beside you and talk to you now, I’m terrified even to think about the future, because the future is once again loneliness, once again this stagnant, useless life; and what will there be for me to dream about when I have already been so happy in real life beside you!”
☂“Oh, bless you, dear girl, for not turning me away from the very first, for making it possible that I can now say that I have lived at least two evenings in my life!”
☂“ Do you know you have reconciled me with myself for a good long time? Do you know that now I will not think so badly of myself as I sometimes have done?”
☂“ And don’t think that I have been exaggerating anything to you, because sometimes I am overcome by moments of such anguish, such anguish… Because at those moments it begins to seem that I will never be able to begin living a real life; because it already seems that I have lost all sense, all feeling for the genuine, the real; because after my fantastic nights I am visited by sobering moments that are horrible”
☂“ It will be sad, you know, to be left alone, quite alone, and not even have something to regret – nothing, absolutely nothing… because all that I have lost, all this, it was all nothing, it was merely a dream”
☂“You know, we thank some people for merely living at the same time as we do. I thank you for the fact that I met you, that I will remember you for all my life!”
☂“You see, now we’ll always be together, isn’t that so?’
Oh, Nastenka, Nastenka! If only you knew how lonely I am now!”
☂“My God! A whole minute of bliss! Is that really so little for the whole of a man’s life?”
.⋆｡⋆☂˚｡⋆｡˚☽˚｡⋆.
.⋆｡⋆☂˚｡⋆｡˚☽˚｡⋆.
I don't know how to review this book anything I write will fall short of it's brilliance so let me just quote my favorite lines:
Spoiler
☂“Oh, if only you knew how many times I’ve fallen in love like that! …’
‘But how, with whom? …’
‘Why with nobody, with an ideal, with the one I see in my dreams.”
☂“… And you regret that the momentary beauty faded so quickly, so irretrievably, that it flashed before you so deceptively and in vain – you regret this because there was not time for you even to fall in love with her …”
☂“ I was walking and singing, because when I am happy I am sure to hum something to myself, like every other happy man who has neither friends nor good acquaintances and who in a joyful moment has nobody with whom he can share his joy.”
☂“In the end all that I’m asking her for is merely to say a few brotherly words to me, with sympathy, not to drive me away at the very first moment, to take me at my word, to listen to what I have to say, to laugh at me if she likes, to give me hope, to say a few words to me, just a few words, even if we never meet again afterwards!”
☂“The story of my life? My story! But who told you that I have a story to tell? I don’t have a story …"
"But how have you lived if there’s no story?"
"Absolutely without stories of any kind! I lived, as they say, on my own, that is, absolutely alone – alone, completely alone – do you understand what it means to be alone?"
☂“I have long been searching for someone, and that is a sign that I was looking precisely for you and that we were fated to meet now – now in my head thousands of valves have opened and I must set loose this river of words, or I will choke to death”
☂“you deceive yourself, and unwittingly and dispassionately believe that it is a genuine, true passion that disturbs his soul, you unwittingly believe that there is something alive and tangible in his incorporeal daydreams! But, you see, it’s all a delusion”
☂“ Would you believe, when you look at himthat indeed he has never knownher whom he loves so in his frenzied daydreams? Can it be that he has only seen her in certain captivating phantoms and only dreamed this passion?”
☂“As I sit beside you and talk to you now, I’m terrified even to think about the future, because the future is once again loneliness, once again this stagnant, useless life; and what will there be for me to dream about when I have already been so happy in real life beside you!”
☂“Oh, bless you, dear girl, for not turning me away from the very first, for making it possible that I can now say that I have lived at least two evenings in my life!”
☂“ Do you know you have reconciled me with myself for a good long time? Do you know that now I will not think so badly of myself as I sometimes have done?”
☂“ And don’t think that I have been exaggerating anything to you, because sometimes I am overcome by moments of such anguish, such anguish… Because at those moments it begins to seem that I will never be able to begin living a real life; because it already seems that I have lost all sense, all feeling for the genuine, the real; because after my fantastic nights I am visited by sobering moments that are horrible”
☂“ It will be sad, you know, to be left alone, quite alone, and not even have something to regret – nothing, absolutely nothing… because all that I have lost, all this, it was all nothing, it was merely a dream”
☂“You know, we thank some people for merely living at the same time as we do. I thank you for the fact that I met you, that I will remember you for all my life!”
☂“You see, now we’ll always be together, isn’t that so?’
Oh, Nastenka, Nastenka! If only you knew how lonely I am now!”
☂“My God! A whole minute of bliss! Is that really so little for the whole of a man’s life?”
.⋆｡⋆☂˚｡⋆｡˚☽˚｡⋆.