A milestone in my reading life.

As of 16:15 this afternoon, I have finished reading (in translation) the six novels that are generally regarded as the crown of Russian prose fiction.  Demons (also known as The Devils or The Possessed) is an amazing work on many layers, but I found it the most tragic of Dostoevsky's quartet.  So much of the concluding parts of the book involves tracing the deathly implosion of a conspiracy meant to usher in a revolution in Russia.  The little glimmers of redemption for the characters are, unlike in the other novels, crushed almost without pity.  Still, it is a densely lived book, and a powerful conclusion to this first time through the cycle.  I next will enlarge the "canon" by reading several of the (sadly few) 19C novels by women actually available in English.  And then there will be the Pevear-Volokhonsky War and Peace this fall.