Meanderings of an opera obsessed mind...

Wow, I've realised that I'm reading a lot of Russian literature now (obviously translated into English, of course...all I know in Russian is 'Da', 'Nyet' and 'Dasvydanya' [meaning 'yes', 'no' and 'goodbye'], lol)

I've already read Pushkin's masterpiece, 'Eugene Onegin' and am currently going through the short stories and short novels of Anton Chekhov. 
I'm not sure though if I'm ever going to muster up the patience and interest to read Tolstoy's 'War and Peace'. What puts me off Tolstoy at the moment is the fact that he describes too many characters and that all these characters have VERY long Russian names. I have noted that even in Chekhov the men have like at least three names, their first, middle and last names when they are introduced but later are given pet names or nicknames as is the fashion in Russia. Especially with children where the affectionate ending of 'ushka' is added...so the name 'Egor' turns into 'Egorushka'. In 'Onegin', Eugene is sometimes called 'Eugeny' or 'Onegin' and his love-interest Tatyana is sometimes named 'Tanya', 'Tania' or quite weirdly: 'Larina'...what?! -___-

Maybe it's the old Russian custom of the woman adopting the husband's name that explains that...so, I think (not too sure about this), if the husband is called 'Gregori', the woman's name would be Maria Gregorivich with the woman's name being in front, i.e. Maria, in this example. to show that she is the wife of Gregori. Gah, confusing...

Ha, and I've also got hold of two Stephen Fry books...his autobiography and his first novel. I'm curious to read his book 'Making History' (the title is pretty self-explanatory in explaining my interest XD) but the shops in HK don't seem to have it. Ah well...I guess I'll just finish reading what I have at hand first.