Took from the Little Free Library on 16th St. in Los Osos today.

In this book Coetzee imagines the experience of Dostoevsky when he returned to St. Peterson from Germany to claim the body of his stepson. He first goes to the apartment where Pavel was living: a mother, Anna Sergeyevna, and her daughter live there and had rented a bedroom to Pavel. He tries, by putting on Pavel's white suit, by lying on his bed, by talking to Anna Sergeyevna, to get into Pavel's mind, to hear his thoughts. He wants to know: did Pavel kill himself? Or was he murdered? Or was it an accident?

He goes to the police department to listen to the official reports. He meets the revolutionary the police are seeking, with whom Pavel apparently connected.

Dostoevsky has a young wife at home. In St. Peterson he finds Anna, closer to his age, and he wants her. He is greedy in wanting all that was Pavel, including Pavel's friendship with Anna's young daughter. It isn't a pretty picture and at times I just didn't want to read it. I came to dislike the writer. I wanted Anna to kick him out once and for all. Fortunately, it is not a long book and it did make me think about Russia at the time, about Dostoevsky, about this period of time.

Inside the box.