Recommendation of the Month: The Pit and the Pendulum by Edgar Allan Poe

“Yet, for a wild moment, did my spirit refuse to comprehend the meaning of what I saw. At length it forced— it wrestled its way into my soul—it burned itself in upon my shuddering reason. —Oh! For a voice to speak!—oh! Horror!—oh! Any horror but this!”

A Nasty Anecdote by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Another one of Dostoevsky´s amusing short stories, A nasty Anecdote, takes the reader to a particular night in the life of state councilor Ivan Ilyich Pralinsky. This is a man of good reputation, whose self image is that of a highly confident, educated and refined man, capable of showing noble feelings whenever necessary and, most important of all, more than adequate to keep up to the new “thoughts”.

Bobok by Fyodor Dostoevsky

When it comes to discussing truly great writers, the name Fyodor Dostoevsky inevitably comes to my mind. His extraordinary acumen of human nature and his wondrous ability to discern and vividly depict the psychological traits in human behavior are epitomized in his two best novels: Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov. Nevertheless, many of his other less known works are just as insightful, poignant and more often than not, extremely engrossing.

 

Such is the case of his short story Bobok.