Book – White Nights / Belye Nochi
Author – Fyodor Dostoevsky
Genre – Philosophical Fiction, Romance, Classics
Originally published in 1848
"My god! A whole minute of bliss! Is that really so little for the whole of a man's life?"
—Fyodor Dostoyevsky, White Nights.
What a beautiful book I read these days! Every time I opened the book for reading I didn't feel I was reading a novella, I always feel like I was reading a poems from a lone poets. After finished the book I just got to realize that the narrator name was untold. Every time you read the book you feel like you are the narrator and you are the one for whom the author wrote this book.
A solitary dreamer notices a woman crying and goes to comfort her. They spend four nights together, getting to know each other and forming a strong and deep connection. It is a story of love, loss, and wanting to build a connection with someone. It May be the saddest philosophical thoughtful love story I’ve ever encountered! You will feel the pain the protagonist is going through while reading it. It’s one of those predictable books that you know how it’s gonna end but you still enjoy every single word from start to finish. The connection the main characters made in a short time was so strong.
I have quite some favorite quotes and lines from this beautiful story:
It was a wonderful night, the kind of night, dear reader, which is only possible when we are young.
It will seem better to you when I have told you everything openly.... I
don't know how to be silent when my heart is speaking. Well, never mind....Believe me, not one woman, never, never! No acquaintance of any sort! And I do nothing but dream every day that at last I shall meet some one. Oh, if only you knew how often I have been in love in that way...." “How? With whom?...” "Why, with no one, with an ideal, with the one I dream of in my sleep. I make up regular romances in my dreams.
I looked over all my furniture, examined every chair, wondering if that was the problem (because I'm not myself if even one chair isn't in the same place as it was the day before). I looked at the window, but it was all in vain ... I didn't feel any better.
A new dream is new happiness! A new dose of exquisite, voluptuous poison!
I realize now, more than ever, that I have lost all my best years! And now I know it and feel it more painfully from recognizing that God has sent me you, my good angel, to tell me that and show it. Now that I sit beside you and talk to you it is strange for me to think of the future, for in the future—there is loneliness again, again this musty, useless life; and what shall I have to dream of when I have been so happy in reality beside you! Oh, may you be blessed, dear girl, for not having repulsed me at first, for enabling me to say that for two evenings, at least, I have lived."
Listen, I am going to Moscow and shall be there just a year; I hope to establish my position. When I come back, if you still love me, I swear that we will be happy. Now it is impossible, I am not able, I have not the right to promise anything. Well, I repeat, if it is not within a year it
will certainly be some time; that is, of course, if you do not prefer any one else, for I cannot and dare not bind you by any sort of promise.'
"'I am writing to you. Forgive me my impatience; but I have been happy for a whole year in hope; am I to blame for being unable to endure a day of doubt now? Now that you have come, perhaps you have changed your mind. If so, this letter is to tell you that I do not repine, nor blame you. I do not blame you because I have no power over your heart, such is my fate!
"'You are an honourable man. You will not smile or be vexed at these impatient lines. Remember they are written by a poor girl; that she is alone; that she has no one to direct her, no one to advise her, and that she herself could never control her heart. But forgive me that a doubt has stolen—if only for one instant—into my heart. You are not capable of insulting, even in thought, her who so loved and so loves you.'"
Today was sad, rainy day, without a ray of hope, just like my future old age.
When we are unhappy we more strongly feel the unhappiness of others; feeling is not shattered, but becomes concentrated …
"My god! A whole minute of bliss! Is that really so little for the whole of a man's life?"
Why is it that corpses are so heavy in their coffin? They say that it's because of some sort of inertia, that the body is no longer in control of itself ...
No doubt, this is going to be one of my top reads of 2024 for sure!
For more Book Notes and Review : https://fahimmuntashir.com/book-notes
