White Nights by Fyodor Dostoevsky

By Sneha Prasad

Edited by Kris

"It was a wonderful night, the kind of night dear reader, which is only possible when we are young."

That’s how Fyodor begins his book — with teeth so sharp and tender you don’t realize you’re bleeding until the last page.

White Nights tells the story of a man with no name who meets a woman named Nastenka. Some call it a love story, others say it is simply a story about love. Perhaps it is both. After all, what is love if not a vial of delirium and insanity that we swallow willingly?

The novel traces the meetings between a man who feels like a stranger to his own bones and a woman waiting for another’s return. Their conversations circle around the lives they’ve lived and the lives they could not. It’s like watching a waltz — and you root for them from the first step. You want him to know warmth, to hold another’s hand, to finally live.

But while it is a book about love, it is also about life. About how so many wander the streets like ghosts in their own bodies — hands empty, always cold.

The book feels like a lighthouse for those who love and those who want to — at once a warning and a safety net. It makes you ask: What are you doing with your life? Have you ever held on so tightly your hands were bruised? Have you looked inside the soul you carry and actually seen yourself?

As the two drift through their rendezvous, the story feels like a Van Gogh painting: the brightest yellow, yet edged with sadness. And sadness does return, when Nastenka’s lover comes back.

"One whole minute of bliss — is that really so little for the whole of life?"

The line leaves you gasping, drowning in cold waters. It is both a statement and a plea the narrator clings to. A psychologist had said "every high is a new low" about coffee. Perhaps love and life alike are highs that inevitably crash — burning, then ash. We can only hope the rise is worth the fall, that the remnants, like glitter, cling to our hands.

And if this hasn’t convinced you to read the book, maybe this song will:

"I don’t care if Monday’s blue

Tuesday's grey and Wednesday too

Thursday I don't care about you

It’s Friday I’m in love." —The Cure