Book Review on White Nights

Some time ago, I was reading a book called White Nights by Fyodor Dostoevsky. The whole reason I wanted to read it was that my roommate had the book, and someone told me it would make a boy cry. I just wanted to cry, and since it’s about unrequited love, I wanted to explore it anyway.

While reading, I felt one thing above all: the narrator was me, and how could my story have been written so long ago? That was pretty interesting to me. If I had to summarize the book, two big feelings stood out. The easiest way to put it is: you could be the prettiest shade of green, but you can't convince someone whose favorite color is blue. There's nothing wrong with either side. You could be the best person in the world, but if the person you love doesn't feel the same way, there is nothing you can do. You just have to let them go. You can't force them to like green when they like blue. And for that person too, they don't like green, so why should they have to accept it when they love blue? Neither person made a mistake. I think that is something I could perfectly conclude from that book.

Another thought I have is about the feeling of connection and love itself—how important that is for a man. The narrator spent all his time isolated, but when he fell in love with that girl, he was a different person. That particular feeling is definitely worth it. If the story continued, he might have found someone, or even if he didn't find someone, he found meaning in himself. He realized and found himself. In this world, even if you find no one else, if you find yourself, that is the greatest win of your life. Sometimes you just need someone to give you the key to open your own heart. When you can open your heart and listen to yourself, what bigger achievement could you ever need?

I felt really bad for that man because he loved with a pure heart. Of course, you might wonder if there is any true value in selfless love. I felt that deeply because I loved someone with a similar, even greater feeling of selflessness. Whenever the boy expresses his love, I could feel those pure emotions myself. It made me feel like there is no point in loving someone so deeply and selflessly. There is no point in burning and caring so much to someone that you are being hurtful with yourself with those emotions.

Yet, in the end, there is a value to true love. The boy's true love wasn't successful, but the woman's true love was. She waited for someone she truly loved and ultimately chose him instead of the boy. Even though one person's true love wasn't returned, another's was. Love doesn't just disappear. The boy wasn't unhappy that she didn't choose him; he was happy that she was smiling.

There's a quote: If you like someone, you will pluck the flower, but if you love someone, you will water it daily. That’s something I felt. When you love someone very deeply with a selfless heart you want to do everything she wants in her life, giving all my time and energy just to see her smile. If she becomes your, that is happy ending that you both could have helped each other grow and lived happily. But even if she has just likes different shades of blue, it's still fine. At the end of the day, if you love someone, you just want them to be happy anyway.

I think that sums up White Nights. I didn't end up crying while reading it, but the emotions felt intensely real. At times, it made me question whether romance is dead, whether loving someone so deeply is even worth it, or whether unrequited love is simply something we all eventually experience. But maybe love doesn't have to be reciprocated to have meaning. Maybe if loving someone teaches you something about yourself, opens your heart, changes the way you see life, and makes you capable of wishing happiness for someone even when they cannot be yours, then it is probably worth having that ache in your chest.

Maybe that is what White Nights taught me: sometimes, you don't get the person you love, but you can still become someone different because you loved them.