i will now name ever russian writer i can think of...umm...ummm...

Tonight I started reading The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri. I didn't know what it was about, didn't even read the back of the book, but it's been selling like crazy...and I'm a little sick of seeing it around, poking out of displays, and not knowing what's so special about it. Because everyone I talk to says it's fantastic.

I'm only bringing it up because I had just recently decided that (after finishing all the books I have in my house I haven't read yet, which could take months...or years) I want to start reading some Russian novels, like Dostoevsky or Nabokov, because the closest I've come to reading anything Russian was Ibsen...who happens to not be Russian at all, but Norwegian. Oh yes, and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, that I read in tenth grade, which was I'm amused and shocked seven years ago. And realistically, that's probably how long it will take me to read The Brothers Karamazov, which is roughly two gazillion pages long. And I'm a wimp.

So, I'd just made this decision, the decision to acquaint myself with Russian literature, right before I start reading, tonight, The Namesake, in which (according to the back of the book, because I've only reached page 11) a young Indian couple living in Boston names their baby boy Gogol. Because the dad's grandfather taught Russian literature and got him to love it. Or something. Don't know really, haven't read it yet. Anyway, it surprised me.