Crime and Punishment: Murder Scene

I'm reading Crime and Punishment. I'm at the point where Raskolnikov viciously murders the old woman (the pawnbroker). I don't think I've read such a violent scene since the murder scene in Richard Wright's Native Son. In fact, reading this scene and all of Raskolnikov's inner stream of thoughts recalls to my mind the similar stream of thoughts of Bigger. I wonder if Richard Wright read Crime and Punishment and was influenced by it.

Nietzche the End-All?

I often marvel at a trend in modern thinking to place Nietzsche at the pinnacle of modern philosophy, at least in the area of morality. It as though with Nietzsche's "A-ha!" experience with Christianity that a vast curtain has arisen and man now sees himself in his true form.

The most recent example I've found of this happened today, when I purchased Crime and Punishment. Although the work is well-known for its profound Christian sense in relation to the difficulties posed by life, the publishers make no mention of this but only, on the back cover, tout the work as a prelude to the work and thought of Nietzsche.

Giorgio Vasari's The Lives of the Artists

Check this book out:

Giorgio Vasari's The Lives of the Artists

I just picked it up about a week ago. I studied English Literature in college, and this book would have been a great resource for me, had I known about it. Giorgio Vasari provides short biographies on the great [Italian] Renaissance artists, including Fra Angelico, Fra Filippo Lippi, Donatello, Raphael, Michelangelo, and Leonardo, among many other lesser-known artists. These artists feature so frequently in works of English poetry and other English (and other European) fiction, that knowledge of these individuals is, in my estimation, invaluable to a better understanding of the written English tradition, and to European tradition in general.

Nikolai Gogol

I just finished reading "The Overcoat," a short story by the Russian novelist Nikolai Gogol. Quite bizarre. I'm still thinking about what Nikolai attempts to convey with this short story, if anything. The last story I read by Nikolai was "The Nose," which I read nearly a year ago. My duties have prevented me from reading too much fiction besides that which I am required to read.