I was walking through the Riverdale library last week when a curious set of books caught my eye. Each spine was orange and white, published by Penguin, and authored by J.M. Coetzee, whom Iíd never heard of before. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that all of the books were about South Africa except for one: The Master of Petersburg, which advertised on its cover that the author had won the Nobel Prize. The blurb described a fictionalized account of the 19th-century Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky as he returns to St Petersburg after the death of his stepson, Pavel. I am somewhat of a Dostoevsky fanatic, so I picked up the book for some entertainment over the weekend. From the first 6-page chapter I was pulled in. After the next segment, I already knew it would merit 5 stars. As I followed our dear, troubled protagonist to Pavelís old rented apartment, walked in the footsteps of his beloved deceased stepson, and to the underbelly of pre-revolutionary Russia, I felt a certain indescribable emotion that only surfaces from insights into human nature. The Master of Petersburg is shortóonly 250 pagesóbut in that meager span, Coetzee fits the themes of love, loss, sin, radicalism, lust, betrayal, and more, all while outfitting the prose with excellent but never excessive detail. The writing pace seemed effortless; the author followed short sentences with multi-claused passages linked by semicolons and mixed medium-length sentences in between. He also switched from internal monologue to third-person narration, fusing the third and first perspectives in a strikingly natural manner. While reading the novel, I truly got into the characterís head, saw what he saw, and questioned what he questioned. It was a fascinating take on such a towering figure in the history of literature and a rather quick readóa consideration I know is important to many of you. Aside from its literary value, The Master of Petersburg is enjoyable, engaging, and has a fascinating plot. I would highly recommend this book to sophomores and up.
