I finished Hannibal Rising the other day. If you want Hannibal Lecter to remain a mystery, skip it. Then again, I'm still not sure why he became a cannibal in the end. It's not like he was showing the signs of serial killing or whatever when he was a child. And it seemed to me that there was more motivation for him to actually not be a cannibal than for him to take it up, even as a hobby. Nevertheless, I'll probably still see the movie.

I read some more of The Brothers Karamazov, and by more, I mean another chapter. The scene is still at the church where the Karamozov family is meeting with the church's elder. While waiting for the eldest brother, middle child Ivan has a discussion with the priests about the separation of church and state. What I gathered by the end is that he believes that the church should be held as the highest standard in terms of moral and personal governance, and the state should try to attain that standard. The church should lead by example, and the state should follow it.

This is all well and good. But I know now that Dostoyevsky was getting paid by the word, because there's no way anyone would stand for this shit in any other novel.