Should everyone read this at least once in their life? probably. and would the world be better off for it? would the icebergs suddenly harden again and would the faces of passerby seem freshly sparkling and renewed, if only they had been exposed to the sweeping beauty of this book? probably.

every summer i try to read a "big" book that i have been putting off because, frankly, to devote your time to anything other than enjoying a behemoth of a novel is utterly incomprehensible to me. so for that reason alone i dont read big books if i cannot devote my time strictly to reading them. and i suppose i dont have many thoughts about this novel, as i've just finished it, other than after i closed my copy (which, btw, is literally falling apart. the binding for parts 4-6 fell out, and about twenty pages are now taped up, and at one point i simply gave up and paperclipped the rest together) i crawled over to my bedroom windowsill and sat, staring longingly up at the sky ..... in pensive, monastic meditation..worshipping tolstoy.. longing for petersburg ... entering a Hesse-like state of spiritual bliss.. like the buddha....