I finished my first time through The Brothers Karamazov (the Katz translation; excellent, btw) on December 2.
Noted weirdo Vladimir Nabokov said once that one doesn't read a book, one only rereads it. It's his fancy way of saying that the first time through a book doesn't really count, since the reader is mostly just trying to make sense of the scale and dimensions of the story. It's the reread where the book starts to really reveal itself to the reader.
So, I picked up the McReynolds translation (from Norton*) and started the introduction tonight (December 6 — this will be relevant in two shakes).
[* The McReynolds is worth it if only for the "Names in The Brothers Karamazov," which goes into the etymological roots of the names.]
In the introduction she mentions two scenes that I have absolutely no memory of (both quotes come from p viii in the Norton Critical Edition):
1) "But we also share Ivan's indignation as he recounts the tale of Richard, whose life was taken away twice — once, symbolically, by the biological parents who gave him away as chapel to some shepherds, and then by his social family, his fellow citizens of geneva, who chop off his head in brotherly fashion."
2) "We real from the vision of the naked, terrified little boy ripped apart by hunting dogs before his mother's eyes."
So, in conclusion: if you love a book once, it's probably worth reading twice, because what if you, too, don't remember two horrible deaths?
Do you reread ever? Is once enough? Is Nabokov full of beans?
by Mike_Bevel