Happy Wednesday, everyone! Wednesdays also mean WWW Wednesday updates. WWW Wednesday is a bookish meme hosted originally by SAM@TAKING ON A WORLD OF WORDS. 

The mechanics for WWW Wednesday are quite simple: you just have to answer three questions:

  1. What are you currently reading?
  2. What have you finished reading?
  3. What will you read next?
www-wednesdays
What are you currently reading?

It’s already the middle of the week—technically, it’s Thursday. Anyway, how has your week been so far? I hope it’s going well and moving in the direction you hoped for. With the weekend within reach, I hope you make it through the rest of the week smoothly. How time flies—we’re nearly halfway through the eighth month of the year! As time takes its natural course, I hope everything is going well for everyone. I hope you’re being showered with blessings and good news. May the rest of the year be fruitful—not only materially but, more importantly, in terms of physical and mental well-being. I also hope everyone is making steady progress on their goals. But if the year hasn’t gone your way, I wish for the remaining months to be kinder and gentler to you. Reading-wise, I’ve been lagging behind on my reading challenges. To catch up, I shifted my focus to my reading lists, immersing myself in the works of European literature; many of the books on my challenges are written by European authors.

My current read, however, is not part of any of these challenges. Still, it is by a writer who has earned my admiration. I mean, who hasn’t heard of Fyodor Dostoyevsky? I must admit I was initially daunted by him; his name precedes him, after all. The Brothers Karamazov set the tone for my exploration of the highly heralded Russian writer’s oeuvre back in 2016. Nearly a decade later, I’m reading my fifth novel by Dostoyevsky: The Idiot. Originally published serially in the journal The Russian Messenger from 1868 to 1869, The Idiot is part of a literary quartet that many critics consider among Dostoyevsky’s most defining works, published after his return from exile in Siberia. By reading this book, I am completing that quartet. The titular “idiot” is Prince Lev Nikolayevich Myshkin, a young man in his mid-twenties descended from one of Russia’s oldest noble families. When we first meet him, he is on his way to St. Petersburg on a cold November morning. It is a sort of homecoming after spending four years in a Swiss clinic for treatment of a severe epileptic condition.

He is set to visit and make the acquaintance of a distant relative, Lizaveta Prokofyevna Yepanchin, the wife of General Yepanchin. During his journey, the Prince encounters Parfyon Semyonovich Rogozhin, a young man of the merchant class. The Prince’s interest in his fellow traveler is piqued by Rogozhin’s intense devotion to – almost obsession with – Nastasya Filippovna Barashkova, a strikingly beautiful woman. At his relative’s house, the Prince meets the General’s ambitious and somewhat vain assistant, Gavril Ardalyonovich Ivolgin (nicknamed Ganya). Ganya is set to marry Nastasya, who, we learn, is the mistress of the aristocrat Afanásy Ivánovich Tótsky. However, Ganya secretly yearns for Aglaya, the youngest and most beautiful daughter of General Yepanchin. His situation is further complicated by his family’s refusal to accept Nastasya as a potential wife.

In an attempt to confront Ganya’s family, Nastasya finds herself stopped by the Prince, who inadvertently saves her from humiliation. On the other hand, the Prince finds himself increasingly drawn to her. What follows is a love triangle, as the Prince competes with Rogozhin for her affection. While the love triangle provides one angle for examining Dostoyevsky’s work, the novel’s primary focus remains on the Prince himself. He is Dostoyevsky’s attempt at portraying a truly beautiful and innocent soul. However, his innocence and kindness are threatened by the world around him. The exploration of the human spirit’s conditions is a Dostoyevsky trademark, paired with his examination of the waning Russian soul. With just under a hundred pages left, I can’t wait to see how the Prince’s story unfolds.

What have you finished reading?

It was yet another productive reading week, although somewhat limited by the heft of The Idiot—at over 700 pages, it is the very definition of hefty. Regardless, I was able to complete two books before diving into my 1,320th novel. The first of these two books was Guido Morselli’s The Communist. I first encountered the Italian writer and his novel through an online bookseller and the New York Review Books catalog. I acquired the book despite having no idea what it was about; I had also never heard of Morselli before. This was way back in 2019. The book, however, was left to gather dust on my bookshelf, which eventually prompted me to include it in my 2025 Beat the Backlist Challenge.

Originally published in 1976 as Il comunista, the titular Communist is Walter Ferranini—a man born and bred for the political left. He grew up in poverty and was orphaned at 12. At a young age, he experienced the harshness of physical labor, first working in a train station’s warehouse. However, he was fired after being linked to the distribution of leaflets promoting Communism. It was while enduring these early hardships that Ferranini began to reflect on the rigors of physical work. This period was followed by his time fighting fascism: in the 1930s, he left Mussolini’s Italy to fight Franco in Spain, and later went into exile in the United States, where he got married. That chapter of his life became another period of reflection, during which he felt he had betrayed the ideals of Communism by being swept up in the capitalist system. With his marriage failing, he returned to Italy and devoted his life and career to the causes of the Italian Communist Party. By his mid-forties, he had been elected to represent his hometown, Reggio Emilia, in the Italian Parliament. It is in Parliament that Walter’s life begins to unravel. He holds strong ambitions, particularly in advocating for workplace safety reforms. However, the Party isn’t as supportive of these measures as he had hoped; they have other priorities they want to address first.

Meanwhile, Walter becomes involved with Nuccia Cors, a younger woman who works in publishing. Nuccia challenges Walter’s long-held beliefs, especially those pertaining to Communism, which for him is almost akin to a religion. The novel gradually transforms into a story of ideological and existential crisis, as Walter begins to question his commitments and his place in the world. In this sense, The Communist reminds me of Doris Lessing’s The Good Terrorist. It is a palpably political novel, referencing Stalin, The Communist Manifesto, and the broader history of socialism. It adds to the growing list of Italian political literature I’ve been exploring; I recently finished Ignazio Silone’s Fontamara, which also grapples with deep political and ideological themes. Overall, The Communist is a compelling portrait of a man forced to reckon with who he is and what he truly stands for.

From Italy, my literary journey next took me to Spain—or at least, to a book written by a renowned Spanish writer. Before 2023, I had never heard of Bernardo Atxaga. It was only through an online bookseller that I discovered some of his works. Curious about what his writing had to offer, I acquired two of his books, including Seven Houses in France, which I included in my 2025 Beat the Backlist Challenge. Apparently, Bernardo Atxaga is a pseudonym used by Joseba Irazu Garmendia, a Spanish Basque writer and self-translator. He is a prominent figure in Spanish literary circles, having even won the National Spanish Literature Award.

Seven Houses in France was originally published in 2009 under the Basque title Zazpi etxe Frantzian, and was made available to English-speaking readers in 2012. The novel begins with Chrysostome Liège, who signs a contract to serve in King Léopold’s Force Publique at the start of 1903. As part of his enlistment, he travels to the Congo, a Belgian colony deep in the rainforests of Africa. His journey takes him by pack-boat from Antwerp to Matadi, then by train to Léopoldville (present-day Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo), and finally by a small steamship, the Princess Clémentine, to his final destination: the remote outpost of Yangambi. The garrison at Yangambi is under the command of Captain Lalande Biran, who oversees eighteen white officers and five companies of askaris—soldiers recruited from Zanzibar and the Congo. Within the garrison, Chrysostome proves himself to be the best marksman, earning the envy of his fellow soldiers. He also builds a reputation as the most stoic and morally upright soldier in the Belgian Empire. The novel details not only his role within the garrison but also his interactions with both fellow soldiers and the local population.

Captain Biran is a central figure in his own right. Originally from Brussels, he agreed to serve in the Congo for five years – a plan orchestrated by his wife, Christine. While Biran commands the garrison, Christine remains in Europe, working to purchase seven houses within that five-year span – hence the book’s title. By the seventh year, Christine is in the process of closing on the final house. To meet her financial goals, she pressures her husband to send more money. This demand translates into an increased (and forced) output of mahogany and rubber—resources extracted through the exploitation of Congolese laborers, which Biran oversees. The houses, then, become a powerful symbol: Christine’s desire for wealth and status comes at a devastating cost. The exploitation intensifies. Young girls are forced to pay with their virginity. The novel lays bare the legacy of colonialism while exposing the self-serving ambitions of colonial officers. Seven Houses in France can be deeply discomfiting at times, but it is, without doubt, a powerful and worthy read.

What will you read next?