DrivingInStPetersburg1 - The Monday Morning Memo

Having successfully negotiated with the famous Russian artist Leonid Stroganov to obtain the reprint rights to Wise Men II for Wizard Academy (Wise-ard Academy,) Ambassador Hackett-Jones will now begin a series of 6 book reviews to help us understand the Russian mindset. – Indiana Beagle

Starting at the top, and bearing in mind a visit to St Petersburg… EPISODE 1

I would recommend skipping Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov, and instead focusing on Crime & Punishment. It is one of the great Petersburg novels, the locations are all real and still exist, and we will almost certainly include some of them in a tour of the city. And it’s fantastically gruesome, both in its actions, and in its psychology. The Big D did of course write tonnes of other Petersburg novels – The Idiot being one which has a renowned café named after it, and well worth a read, but if time is tight, then C&P is your book.

“Many times after one of my six-week classes is completed, a student, excited by what he or she has just learned, has said to me, ‘You should teach an advanced class!’

I am always flattered, but always a little surprised. Advanced? I know for a fact that they have not mastered the most basic principles, and yet they feel that they are ready to move on to the next level. Being introduced to concepts is nothing like truly understanding them.

I never cease being bowled over when someone blows off a concept as basic — some people are always looking for ‘something new.’ But storytelling is as old as humanity and there is nothing new to it. Someone may have a new way to say an old thing, and that might help the concept be more clear to some, but if it is real knowledge, it will be an old concept.”

- Brian McDonald

Starting at the top, and bearing in mind a visit to St Petersburg… EPISODE 1

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