On Progress

  This evening I find myself at Florence, making progress in my studies and in my writing. I started reading Frank’s one-volume Dostoevsky in May, and I thought that I would finish it within a month, but I was so busy with work in the subsequent months that I have been able, still, to enjoy reading this book while at Italy.

And with sentences such as “Raskolnikov thus finds himself confronted with someone who is not only personally hateful but who also reveals the moral dubiousness of exactly the same Utilitarian logic to which he had become so ruinously committed,” you can imagine how I like to take the book in small doses. And you can see here how I have been taking the book, and how I strive now in September to reach page 932.

You can see that I’ve made some excellent (and enjoyable) progress this month, but hundreds of pages remain. And the inspiring view you see below is something I check every day, a short walk up the hill behind my apartment, before returning to my writing and Dostoevsky.