Finished two books recently.

The Brothers Karamazov was my random piece of famous literature for the season. This hefty novel tells the story of the Karamazov family and the murder of the patriarch. The setting, nineteenth century Russia, is quite key to the story; much of the cultural references were lost upon me. I enjoyed the story for its exploration of human personalities in the four very different siblings. However, Dostoevsky’s questions about God and free will did not leave much of an impression upon me, perhaps because I am strongly not religious. Although I didn’t appreciate it as a masterpiece in literature, I did enjoy reading this novel.

I was spontaneously lent Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by a coworker one day. It is a nice contrast to Karamazov. A short, exciting sci-fi dystopian, Androids asks us what it means to be human, telling an engaging story along the way. In contrast to Karamazov, I wouldn’t call the characters very intriguing. I enjoyed how Dick explored the relationship between artificial intelligence and humans, in particular, how one can (or cannot) distinguish between the two. Androids is a short, fun read, but I wish it had gone a bit deeper to explore the dystopia and questions about future technology.