Kindle and Crime and Punishment

Ah...Kindle. The magic little box that carries all the books I could ever desire.

My parents and oldest sister bought me a Kindle for my birthday/Christmas. Secretly I had wanted one, but I didn't want to ask for it because I knew how expensive it would be. Imagine my shock when I opened my birthday presents to reveal the slick little eBook holder. To accessorize and protect it, I also received a leather cover and an LED book light. And to top it off...a $25 gift card to Amazon. I was in my glory! Since then I have purchased a number of books, all of which I intend to read and post about here. I will write reviews of the books I have read thanks to this little wonder.

I admit, I had slowed in my reading since I had been in high school. College kept me too busy to allow adequate reading time, and while I always had a book with me, it would take upwards of two months to complete one. The Kindle truly did rekindle my love of reading and my interest in books. Sometimes we need that little extra push to get us back on track to the things we truly love and care about.

I am happy to say that since receiving my perfect little gift, I finally finished reading Crime and Punishment (a book I intended to read since Freshman year, but had just started a month before the Kindle appeared in my life). Lucky for me, Crime and Punishment happened to be one of those public domain books and was therefore free for me to download onto my Kindle. The following will be my first review of a book:

Crime and Punishment by Fydor Dostoyevsky frustrated me a great deal in the beginning. I knew what was going on, but I couldn't for the life of my figure out the significance of it. Granted, it did take me a month to read the first half of the book and only about a week to complete it. However, I was mystified and confused as to why I should continue reading. Being a faithful reader that I am, the book did interest me enough to see through to the end. In fact, it was so intriguing I had no choice but to go on. I was frustrated, yes, but by no means was I bored. It piqued my curiosity more than I had expected. I have had many classics recommended to me in the past, many of which are too boring to get me past the first few pages, but this one was different. It was a classic that wasn't dry in any sense of the word. The reader was dropped inside someone's head (a difficult task for any writer to do well) and the reader is instantly wondering the same things the character is wondering. The one drawback of the book was the longwinded speeches made by the main character Raskolnikov and his friends. The speech would literally go on for pages, oftentimes repeating notions he had previously brought up. Though even these were necessary for the success of Crime and Punishment. It was phenomenal in the way it played with the reader's mind. The reader being shoved into a crime and wondering how no one else notices the strange behavior of the character and becoming suspicious of everyone he comes across. It really felt like I was along for the ride, and what a ride it was. The ending was somewhat predictable, but getting there was the fun part anyway. The whole time one wonders where the next twist will be, who will be the one to discover the true suspect of the crime. A wonderful tale about the tricks a mind can play on itself when guilty of something truly appalling. I recommend it to those interested in the psychology of someone who is driving him/herself slowly to insanity. I recommend it to those who would be fascinated by watching the fall of someone who had seemed so in control of his/herself until the moment a crime is committed. All in all, an excellent read.

What Lasts?

I have often pondered this question. Besides our own memories, what really lasts? Even those fade with time. I like to think that books are the longest lasting form of media. VHS tapes are moot. Soon DVDs will fade into nothingness. CDs are being replaced with iPods while CDs replaced cassette tapes.

Ok, true, books are being replaced with things like the Kindle. Everything is going electronic. But is that all just a phase too? I look at the books I have and I can't imagine anything in place of them. The Kindle or something like it is cold, hard, impersonal. A book you can take with you and smell the pages as you open it. You can write in it, fold over pages noting your favorite passages. Look at the oldest books. They are still in print. They are still out there with more and more copies of them being made. Books have been around for hundreds of years.

But a book can disappear just as easily as the Internet can. Books can be burned (and unfortunately, people do burn them). They can retain water damage. They can be torn apart, be made illegible.

So, what lasts? In my heart, I still want it to be books even though I think they are fading. Maybe that's why I want to be an editor, so I can keep them from disappearing.