Welcome to Week 6, and let me just say: yikes. I’m talking to you, pages 246-264 in the Pevear and Volokhonsky translation. There are brains made to absorb an endless prose description of a religious poem about faith and free will (and aftermath chit-chat) like the one we experienced this past week. Some of those brains are among us, as evidenced by this week’s excellent comments section. But I’ll confess, I have that other kind of brain. To me it all sounded like the same three sentences over and over and over again. And I say: here’s to all the ‘marchers! Because I’m sure I would have been left by the wayside had it not be for the lure of the trail and the shame of constructing magnets for others whilst having no BKDM magnet to call my own.
Fortunately, Smerdyakov was waiting on the far side of this maddening section. Good old broth-making, scurrilous, creepy, super-dooper compelling Smerdyakov. Fyodor’s beard-behavioral analysis lay just beyond that. And the Brothers Karamazov Cannonball Run was on again…. Next Wednesday: Let’s meet up at the end of Part III, Book Seven, Chapter 2, “because it’s very opportune for us.” (which is to say: please use this Week 4 thread for comments on pages 0-343; aim to finish reading that section and shout out here by end o’ day Tuesday)
Oh, thank GOODNESS, Father Zossima’s biography will be “shorter and not so fatiguing.” I’d hate to think that it’s going to be like Ivan’s two line poem. I think Dost was tired of writing in the third person and wanted an excuse to write in the first person.
Now I really am feeling like Sisyphus pushing that rock up the hill. Just when I think I’m almost caught up (or at least only 75-100 pages behind the pack), Cecil The OVERACHIEVER makes a pronouncement that it’s time to reach page 343 or some other ungodly milestone. Here’s the Dostoevsky word for this march: STRAIN. (I told you I was far behind.) However, I am fascinated with how we hear the characters’ innermost thoughts (especially Alyosha’s) via the narrator’s words, even though he (the narrator) doesn’t seem all that omniscient most of the time. In fact, he often seems clueless. Or is it just me feeling the STRAIN of pushing the rock and that is STRAINING the oxygen out of my brain. That’s it–Dostoevsky Brain Strain. That’s my problem.
This assignment was much easier and finished it quickly. The long anticipated death of Zosima turns into Alyosha’s ultimate temptation– not the death of his faith, but what….? Will wait until next week to discover this. Actually (maybe it was my mindset this week), I found the account of the stinking corpse and its many consequences to be amusing if not funny. Would never have completed this book on my own, but am enjoying this bite by bite way of slogging through it. Must confess — had to sit in a waiting room 1 1/2 hours, thus the early posting.
Saint Stinky!
Elder Zosima gives this elevated, mystical discourse on his deathbed, and when he passes folks are expecting his immediate elevation to sainthood and miracles to start happening based on his sterling, lifelong piety.
They also expect the bodies of departed saints to not decay in the normal fashion. But this saint’s body starts to smell–even faster than normal. This requires re-evaluation. Either their expectation of non-decay is in error, or this guy wasn’t as saintly as folks thought he was.
Most folks prefer the latter theory, and start reviewing Zosima’s life and words to find fault. Unfortunately, they didn’t have the 24-hour cable news networks and Nancy Grace to help them along, but they got the job done. Since his body started to smell bad even faster than average, they conclude that not only was he not a saint, he was probably in league with the devil.
This story alone is worth the price of the book. Makes me think of what folks say about someone who thinks too highly of himself: “He thinks his shit don’t stink!”
Saint Stinky, indeed!
I found this section, surprisingly, the easiest to read so far, perhaps because the philosophical parts were mostly sound bites (“no one learns from the mistakes of others,” that sort of thing), and the plot had movement (duels! death! decomposition!). Or maybe because, as The Old Man points out, this section is worth the rest of the book.
At the end of this week’s reading, however, I was unable to leave off with Alyosha heading towards Grushenka’s place. What fate may come to our hero who, in such a distressed state, heads to the source of his family’s current discord?
Must… continue…. reading….
They may not have had 24-hour cable news, but the media are represented here by the Obdorsk monk, who “asked questions everywhere, listened everywhere, whispered everywhere with a sort of specially mysterious look” (probably an investigative reporter in deep cover), and Rakitin, who is sent by Madame Kholakhov “to observe everything and report to her immediately in writing, about every half-hour, on everything that happens.” A 30-minute news cycle–not bad for the 19th century.
I’ll be back later, but Molly’s “I cheated on this book all week with two other books, I confess.” is my confession also. I finished “Watchmen” and grabbed bites from a complete collected Arthur C. Clarke. In my defense, the weather has been so gorgeous as to be drowse-inducing, making it environmentally difficult to read Dosty.
I also found this section better sledding. Maybe with the krazy Karamazovs out of the picture for a while, the story unwinds at a less “Marx Bros. Night at the Existential Opera” sort of pace. (RaptorMage, did you sing in the chorus for that one?)
Appreciated the peek behind the curtain at Zosima’s soldierly youth. His narrative seemed yin to Ivan’s yang. I thought it was curious that where Ivan clips newspaper stories to make his case for human badness (and God’s for allowing it), Zosima relies on face-to-face encounters with persons he’s actually met for his more love-affirming philosophy (“Paradise,” he said, “is hidden in each one of us, it is concealed within me, too, right now, and if I wish, it will come for me in reality, tomorrow even, and for the rest of my life,” p. 303).
Cookie asked a while back about the novel’s Russianness: I’m starting to think part of it lies in D.’s mystical faith the Russian people, the “star from the East” (p. 313) that’ll defy all the scientific eggheads and bring a saving twinkle back to the loveless world.
The story of guy who killed his lover is like Crime and Punishment’s Mini-Me; that thought must’ve haunted D. on cold Moscow nights. After the sweet self-sacrificing love of Zosima’s narrative (“Until one has indeed become the brother of all, there will be no brotherhood,” p. 303) it’s a release to see the monks being bitchy and jealous when he dies. And Alyosha considering a slug of vodka. And Grushenka! Onward …
Three things struck me about this passage.
First, and most intensely, like rodney, the yin/yang aspect of Zosima and Ivan’s two accounts. Ivan all cynicism and cruelty; Zosima all devotion and sweetness.
Second, like Lynn Barrett, I found the whole stinking saint thing a scream and a good example of the way closed communities act. I suspect both Lynn and I have seen much less extreme versions in religious organizations we’ve been involved with.
Third, the “Brothers” part of the title comes home in this passage as well, even if the brothers in question are not the Karamasovs but Zosima and his brother. Practically the first thing of signicance in Zosima’s autobiography is about his relationship with his brother.
On the whole, I found this segment a lot more interesting — perhaps even more so in light of the mirroring of the previous not-so-easy one.
Man, I am always against the grain here. I must be an alien or something.
I found this week’s segment to be the toughest so far by a longshot. Last week’s was much easier for me. It took me pretty much the whole week just to slog through Zosima’s chapter alone–I just found it deathly dull, and even pondered skimming or skipping—though I did not!
Maybe I just identified more with Ivan’s cynicism and doubt. Maybe I am in need of Zosima’s love! In any event, I march on, even if I must be marching to a different beat than some of y’all. 🙂
“Oho, so that’s how we are now! We’re snappish, just like other mortals! And we used to be an angel!”
that’s from rakitin (341). really appreciated the sarcasm; and it was a nice counterpoint to the narrator’s fussing over his beloved alyosha. rakitin’s alright–he teases unkindly at this big moment, but then he’s dragging our hero off for some nice sausage and vodka. so rakitin’s the one i’d compare to ivan and dmitri–he’s just the kind of big brother little al needs.
this is for me one of the most natural and best-observed small moments so far. oh, and the wee crime and punishment was good too! (jeff, how can we get you back from bizarro deathmarch? sausage and vodka??)
Actually, that part was great, e., you’re right (and you gotta love the name “rakitin”), as was the reaction in general to the “corruption” of Zosima. I think I was just not mentally prepared for another humongous chapter of religious pontification so soon after Ivan’s. But, in retrospect, the contrast between the two, and the state of despair Alyosha is in at the end of this, which Rakitin mocks, is in fact quite tasty indeed.
I humble myself before you as the most evil and worthless amongst us for doubting this section. And, yet, too, I rejoice to the heavens for this revelation! But, nay, I do so not out of pride, but merely for the joy it brings me to discover how low I am. I log off now to offer my apologies to the birds.
hello from hong kong! my one quick comment is that the whole zosima monologue is pretty much infuriating. originally he was the one character i actually really liked but now he’s just mister pious pie. oh well. still, something compels me to keep going. but, then again, it is a death march. 🙂
Alyosha’s reaction to his stinking saint was interesting. It seemed to me he was more loyal to Zosima than to God and that sent him into a tailspin. His faith in Zosima was not shaken, which makes him the only one in that category in the universe, including me and most readers here, I think. But I wonder what this really has to do with the main plot. The narrator tells us (top of 339) it is important to understand Alyosha’s reaction to comprehend the story. There may be a hint in the middle of that page: he forgot his brother Dmitri and he forgot to take the 200 roubles it Ilyusha’s father. So what but maybe that is not it?
i still find the most interesting thing on these pages to be the numbers at the top (i’m finally caught up again), but i did enjoy the story of the blessed virgin first trying to win a pardon for the suffering souls in hell and when that was refused, lobbying the saints and winning the condemned an annual vacation. i liked a line about the grand inquisitor, “the kiss burns in his heart. . . .” i long for some physical description!
Struggling, lurching, teetering, dozing, slobbing, slumping, sagging, sleeping, you get the idea… but… still marching. be caught up really soon once i fire up my new coffee machine.
I love the expression “mister pious pie”, so thank-you Del.
Holy comedy.
Dosto’s satirical voice was at its most plangent in the stinking corpse incident, I thought. Comedy of (stinky) ‘Airs’
When the meek father, hieromonk Iosif, the librarian responds to the ethical dilemma scenario with his own, even more outrageous and off-beat ethical dilemma scenario, specifically, “…it is not bodily incorruptibility that is regarded as the main sign of the glorification of the saved, but the color of their bones after their bodies have lain in the ground many years and even decayed in it…” Dosto must have been sneeringly giggling when writing this scene…it was riotous. Bobd, I think Alyosha’s ‘twisted smile’ on departure, is actually a smirk of disregard and shows that he has a lot more of Ivan the gloomy satirist in him than displayed thus far.
Zosima, despite his putrefaction, was a very charming monk, perhaps a bit self-aggrandizing, but still an insanely charming monk…”…Then everyone laughed.”
Forgive me, birds… chirp twice for confirmation.
I liked Zosima’s bio, and I dealt with it a lot better than Ivan’s “poem” simply because it had a narrative arc and wasn’t just a ten-page philosophy sermon.
As Rakitin suggests going to Grushenka’s, it feels to me like two guys on a road trip, the older saying to the other, “Let’s stop at the Mustang Ranch!” What the *hell* is Alyosha going to do to detach himself from this giftless liberal windbag?
Bits that are sticking with me, many pages later:
p.231, “if God exists and if he indeed created the earth, then, as we know perfectly well, he created it in accordance with Euclidean geometry, and he created human reason with a conception of only three dimensions of space. […] I have a Euclidean mind, an earthly mind, and therefore it is not for us to resolve things that are not of this world.” Ivan says this to justify his faith beginning and ending simply with belief in God; to me, it recurs in my thoughts as the start of a defense of humanism.
p.253, “Feed them first, then ask virtue of them!” Something I said first when I was a preacher, and said again when I was a socialist, and say again now that I am a liberal agnostic.
p.318-20, I would have Zosima’s teaching “Of Prayer” read out from every pulpit in the West. “Love man also in his sin”, if only people would. Environmentalism, in 19th century Russia? “Look to yourself every day and hour, every minute, that your image be ever gracious.” Even the ocean would be better if we considered ourselves a model and an aspiration for it. Wow.
How’s this for weird? My wife just served a cheese at dinner that she’d never bought before in her life. The name of the cheese? “Monk’s temptation.”
I’m kinda freaking out.
The good news? I’m not as far behind as I thought I was. Almost caught up. But this family is seriously freaking me out. I too am curious to see Alyosha’s character develops. His responses/reactions are mystifying and he is a little too understanding sometimes.
i too am about 100 pages behind, which is not good. i’ll try to catch up next week… quote that struck me:
“It’s still possible to love one’s neighbor abstractly, and even occasionally from a distance, but hardly ever up close.”
sounds like nimby to me…
T’was behind but caught up yesterday, thanks to those interesting essays about Zosima in “his own words.” I liked the change in the narrative voice and the homilies about love. I guess Dostoyevsky was drawing from the writings of saints of the Eastern Orthodox church of generations past.
I’ll need to reread the Inquisitor section, but maybe it’s not designed to be analyzed too easily. Do we call this “stream of consciousness”? Or babel? Or both?
T’was behind but caught up yesterday, thanks to those interesting essays about Zosima in “his own words.” I liked the change in the narrative voice and the homilies about love. I guess Dostoyevsky was drawing from the writings of saints of the Eastern Orthodox church of generations past.
I’ll need to reread the Inquisitor section, but maybe it’s not designed to be analyzed too easily. Do we call this “stream of consciousness”? Or babel? Or both?
Two quick passages that struck me:
“We are assured that the world is becoming more and more united, is being formed into brotherly communion, by the shortening of distances, by the transmitting of thoughts through the air. Alas, do not believe in such a union of people.”
and the description of the timeless truth of God, versus “the wavering truth of the world.”
It’s official: the BK has made me insane. I am trying to find the post I left on Tuesday and I cannot. Is this a kind of extreme, surreal experience that arises when reading Russian lit from the 1800s? The disappearing comment? You are parched and weary as you stumble to the week’s finish line. You make your little mark on the thread. You then look back and realize it never happened? Or am I still in a reader’s delirium and can’t find what is right there? Cecil?
****
Hi Roxana — check under the Week 5 thread. If you search “rox” on that page, there’s a comment from March 23. Is that the one you’re looking for?
I only got thru p313 and I’m posting late due to a fun outbreak of strep here in the fam.
I have to say, F.D. really needed a good editor to tighten things up, strip out the fat. Does a book really need a chapter called Talks and Homilies? I think not.
But on the positive side, every time I read the Elder Zosima’s recurring theme about the importance of: Just experience the joy of being alive, I am responding to that. I am at least an agnostic and possibly an athiest, but I do think the Elder Zosima is on to a great deal with that thought. And about how collecting possessions just takes us further and further away from the importance and joy of life. Not that I’m going to step out of modern day life, but it’s great to get the perspective every now and again. These days, I need to hear it more often. And he’s really got a damn good point.
But I definitely lament the lack of an aggressive editor for old F.D. I’m going to have to gird my loins for Chapter 3. The title of the next chapter, The Odor of Corruption, calls to me far more, I have to admit. Blame the Catholic upbringing -just the word “Homilies” makes me want to run screaming.
The more I read this book…the more I hate the authors writing style. It seems it is written to confuse and keep the readers constantly behind in the “assigned” readings because they need to go back and reference who is who! With all those Russian names to remember he then throws in nick names, family names, neighbors, little boys, etc…..
I too am about a hundred pages behind. Not due to strep though…mostly due to creating exhausting exams for my students!
The more I read this book…the more I hate the authors writing style. It seems it is written to confuse and keep the readers constantly behind in the “assigned” readings because they need to go back and reference who is who! With all those Russian names to remember he then throws in nick names, family names, neighbors, little boys, etc…..
I too am about a hundred pages behind. Not due to strep though…mostly due to creating exhausting exams for my students!
Week Six, and I’m rolling along with the stinky corpse. I am not sure why Mr. D chose to finish Elder Zosima off in such a way. Was it just a literary devise to put Alyosha in a certain emotional place in order to move the story along? Or does he hold the character in such distain after all? In any case, we now have Alyosha in the hands of Ratkin and Grushenka. Will Alyosha fall under her spell like the rest of the Karamazovs? Reading on…
Oh, thank GOODNESS, Father Zossima’s biography will be “shorter and not so fatiguing.” I’d hate to think that it’s going to be like Ivan’s two line poem. I think Dost was tired of writing in the third person and wanted an excuse to write in the first person.
The deathmarch is killing me. Have a weekend to try and catch up. Hope my little legs can keep up.
Now I really am feeling like Sisyphus pushing that rock up the hill. Just when I think I’m almost caught up (or at least only 75-100 pages behind the pack), Cecil The OVERACHIEVER makes a pronouncement that it’s time to reach page 343 or some other ungodly milestone. Here’s the Dostoevsky word for this march: STRAIN. (I told you I was far behind.) However, I am fascinated with how we hear the characters’ innermost thoughts (especially Alyosha’s) via the narrator’s words, even though he (the narrator) doesn’t seem all that omniscient most of the time. In fact, he often seems clueless. Or is it just me feeling the STRAIN of pushing the rock and that is STRAINING the oxygen out of my brain. That’s it–Dostoevsky Brain Strain. That’s my problem.
This assignment was much easier and finished it quickly. The long anticipated death of Zosima turns into Alyosha’s ultimate temptation– not the death of his faith, but what….? Will wait until next week to discover this. Actually (maybe it was my mindset this week), I found the account of the stinking corpse and its many consequences to be amusing if not funny. Would never have completed this book on my own, but am enjoying this bite by bite way of slogging through it. Must confess — had to sit in a waiting room 1 1/2 hours, thus the early posting.
Saint Stinky!
Elder Zosima gives this elevated, mystical discourse on his deathbed, and when he passes folks are expecting his immediate elevation to sainthood and miracles to start happening based on his sterling, lifelong piety.
They also expect the bodies of departed saints to not decay in the normal fashion. But this saint’s body starts to smell–even faster than normal. This requires re-evaluation. Either their expectation of non-decay is in error, or this guy wasn’t as saintly as folks thought he was.
Most folks prefer the latter theory, and start reviewing Zosima’s life and words to find fault. Unfortunately, they didn’t have the 24-hour cable news networks and Nancy Grace to help them along, but they got the job done. Since his body started to smell bad even faster than average, they conclude that not only was he not a saint, he was probably in league with the devil.
This story alone is worth the price of the book. Makes me think of what folks say about someone who thinks too highly of himself: “He thinks his shit don’t stink!”
Saint Stinky, indeed!
I found this section, surprisingly, the easiest to read so far, perhaps because the philosophical parts were mostly sound bites (“no one learns from the mistakes of others,” that sort of thing), and the plot had movement (duels! death! decomposition!). Or maybe because, as The Old Man points out, this section is worth the rest of the book.
At the end of this week’s reading, however, I was unable to leave off with Alyosha heading towards Grushenka’s place. What fate may come to our hero who, in such a distressed state, heads to the source of his family’s current discord?
Must… continue…. reading….
They may not have had 24-hour cable news, but the media are represented here by the Obdorsk monk, who “asked questions everywhere, listened everywhere, whispered everywhere with a sort of specially mysterious look” (probably an investigative reporter in deep cover), and Rakitin, who is sent by Madame Kholakhov “to observe everything and report to her immediately in writing, about every half-hour, on everything that happens.” A 30-minute news cycle–not bad for the 19th century.
I’ll be back later, but Molly’s “I cheated on this book all week with two other books, I confess.” is my confession also. I finished “Watchmen” and grabbed bites from a complete collected Arthur C. Clarke. In my defense, the weather has been so gorgeous as to be drowse-inducing, making it environmentally difficult to read Dosty.
I also found this section better sledding. Maybe with the krazy Karamazovs out of the picture for a while, the story unwinds at a less “Marx Bros. Night at the Existential Opera” sort of pace. (RaptorMage, did you sing in the chorus for that one?)
Appreciated the peek behind the curtain at Zosima’s soldierly youth. His narrative seemed yin to Ivan’s yang. I thought it was curious that where Ivan clips newspaper stories to make his case for human badness (and God’s for allowing it), Zosima relies on face-to-face encounters with persons he’s actually met for his more love-affirming philosophy (“Paradise,” he said, “is hidden in each one of us, it is concealed within me, too, right now, and if I wish, it will come for me in reality, tomorrow even, and for the rest of my life,” p. 303).
Cookie asked a while back about the novel’s Russianness: I’m starting to think part of it lies in D.’s mystical faith the Russian people, the “star from the East” (p. 313) that’ll defy all the scientific eggheads and bring a saving twinkle back to the loveless world.
The story of guy who killed his lover is like Crime and Punishment’s Mini-Me; that thought must’ve haunted D. on cold Moscow nights. After the sweet self-sacrificing love of Zosima’s narrative (“Until one has indeed become the brother of all, there will be no brotherhood,” p. 303) it’s a release to see the monks being bitchy and jealous when he dies. And Alyosha considering a slug of vodka. And Grushenka! Onward …
Three things struck me about this passage.
First, and most intensely, like rodney, the yin/yang aspect of Zosima and Ivan’s two accounts. Ivan all cynicism and cruelty; Zosima all devotion and sweetness.
Second, like Lynn Barrett, I found the whole stinking saint thing a scream and a good example of the way closed communities act. I suspect both Lynn and I have seen much less extreme versions in religious organizations we’ve been involved with.
Third, the “Brothers” part of the title comes home in this passage as well, even if the brothers in question are not the Karamasovs but Zosima and his brother. Practically the first thing of signicance in Zosima’s autobiography is about his relationship with his brother.
On the whole, I found this segment a lot more interesting — perhaps even more so in light of the mirroring of the previous not-so-easy one.
I am glad to hear this was an easier read, because I have not read it yet….am about 100 pages behind.
Man, I am always against the grain here. I must be an alien or something.
I found this week’s segment to be the toughest so far by a longshot. Last week’s was much easier for me. It took me pretty much the whole week just to slog through Zosima’s chapter alone–I just found it deathly dull, and even pondered skimming or skipping—though I did not!
Maybe I just identified more with Ivan’s cynicism and doubt. Maybe I am in need of Zosima’s love! In any event, I march on, even if I must be marching to a different beat than some of y’all. 🙂
“Oho, so that’s how we are now! We’re snappish, just like other mortals! And we used to be an angel!”
that’s from rakitin (341). really appreciated the sarcasm; and it was a nice counterpoint to the narrator’s fussing over his beloved alyosha. rakitin’s alright–he teases unkindly at this big moment, but then he’s dragging our hero off for some nice sausage and vodka. so rakitin’s the one i’d compare to ivan and dmitri–he’s just the kind of big brother little al needs.
this is for me one of the most natural and best-observed small moments so far. oh, and the wee crime and punishment was good too! (jeff, how can we get you back from bizarro deathmarch? sausage and vodka??)
Actually, that part was great, e., you’re right (and you gotta love the name “rakitin”), as was the reaction in general to the “corruption” of Zosima. I think I was just not mentally prepared for another humongous chapter of religious pontification so soon after Ivan’s. But, in retrospect, the contrast between the two, and the state of despair Alyosha is in at the end of this, which Rakitin mocks, is in fact quite tasty indeed.
I humble myself before you as the most evil and worthless amongst us for doubting this section. And, yet, too, I rejoice to the heavens for this revelation! But, nay, I do so not out of pride, but merely for the joy it brings me to discover how low I am. I log off now to offer my apologies to the birds.
hello from hong kong! my one quick comment is that the whole zosima monologue is pretty much infuriating. originally he was the one character i actually really liked but now he’s just mister pious pie. oh well. still, something compels me to keep going. but, then again, it is a death march. 🙂
It sounds like Zosima loved the booze/life in the fast lane when he was a young ‘un. I hope I turn out so holy.
Alyosha’s reaction to his stinking saint was interesting. It seemed to me he was more loyal to Zosima than to God and that sent him into a tailspin. His faith in Zosima was not shaken, which makes him the only one in that category in the universe, including me and most readers here, I think. But I wonder what this really has to do with the main plot. The narrator tells us (top of 339) it is important to understand Alyosha’s reaction to comprehend the story. There may be a hint in the middle of that page: he forgot his brother Dmitri and he forgot to take the 200 roubles it Ilyusha’s father. So what but maybe that is not it?
i still find the most interesting thing on these pages to be the numbers at the top (i’m finally caught up again), but i did enjoy the story of the blessed virgin first trying to win a pardon for the suffering souls in hell and when that was refused, lobbying the saints and winning the condemned an annual vacation. i liked a line about the grand inquisitor, “the kiss burns in his heart. . . .” i long for some physical description!
Struggling, lurching, teetering, dozing, slobbing, slumping, sagging, sleeping, you get the idea… but… still marching. be caught up really soon once i fire up my new coffee machine.
I love the expression “mister pious pie”, so thank-you Del.
Holy comedy.
Dosto’s satirical voice was at its most plangent in the stinking corpse incident, I thought. Comedy of (stinky) ‘Airs’
When the meek father, hieromonk Iosif, the librarian responds to the ethical dilemma scenario with his own, even more outrageous and off-beat ethical dilemma scenario, specifically, “…it is not bodily incorruptibility that is regarded as the main sign of the glorification of the saved, but the color of their bones after their bodies have lain in the ground many years and even decayed in it…” Dosto must have been sneeringly giggling when writing this scene…it was riotous. Bobd, I think Alyosha’s ‘twisted smile’ on departure, is actually a smirk of disregard and shows that he has a lot more of Ivan the gloomy satirist in him than displayed thus far.
Zosima, despite his putrefaction, was a very charming monk, perhaps a bit self-aggrandizing, but still an insanely charming monk…”…Then everyone laughed.”
Forgive me, birds… chirp twice for confirmation.
reuben
nope.
holiness is too much an alternative lifestyle.
I liked Zosima’s bio, and I dealt with it a lot better than Ivan’s “poem” simply because it had a narrative arc and wasn’t just a ten-page philosophy sermon.
As Rakitin suggests going to Grushenka’s, it feels to me like two guys on a road trip, the older saying to the other, “Let’s stop at the Mustang Ranch!” What the *hell* is Alyosha going to do to detach himself from this giftless liberal windbag?
Bits that are sticking with me, many pages later:
p.231, “if God exists and if he indeed created the earth, then, as we know perfectly well, he created it in accordance with Euclidean geometry, and he created human reason with a conception of only three dimensions of space. […] I have a Euclidean mind, an earthly mind, and therefore it is not for us to resolve things that are not of this world.” Ivan says this to justify his faith beginning and ending simply with belief in God; to me, it recurs in my thoughts as the start of a defense of humanism.
p.253, “Feed them first, then ask virtue of them!” Something I said first when I was a preacher, and said again when I was a socialist, and say again now that I am a liberal agnostic.
p.318-20, I would have Zosima’s teaching “Of Prayer” read out from every pulpit in the West. “Love man also in his sin”, if only people would. Environmentalism, in 19th century Russia? “Look to yourself every day and hour, every minute, that your image be ever gracious.” Even the ocean would be better if we considered ourselves a model and an aspiration for it. Wow.
How’s this for weird? My wife just served a cheese at dinner that she’d never bought before in her life. The name of the cheese? “Monk’s temptation.”
I’m kinda freaking out.
These people need a hobby.
The good news? I’m not as far behind as I thought I was. Almost caught up. But this family is seriously freaking me out. I too am curious to see Alyosha’s character develops. His responses/reactions are mystifying and he is a little too understanding sometimes.
i too am about 100 pages behind, which is not good. i’ll try to catch up next week… quote that struck me:
“It’s still possible to love one’s neighbor abstractly, and even occasionally from a distance, but hardly ever up close.”
sounds like nimby to me…
Safety post–everybody look at your hands
T’was behind but caught up yesterday, thanks to those interesting essays about Zosima in “his own words.” I liked the change in the narrative voice and the homilies about love. I guess Dostoyevsky was drawing from the writings of saints of the Eastern Orthodox church of generations past.
I’ll need to reread the Inquisitor section, but maybe it’s not designed to be analyzed too easily. Do we call this “stream of consciousness”? Or babel? Or both?
T’was behind but caught up yesterday, thanks to those interesting essays about Zosima in “his own words.” I liked the change in the narrative voice and the homilies about love. I guess Dostoyevsky was drawing from the writings of saints of the Eastern Orthodox church of generations past.
I’ll need to reread the Inquisitor section, but maybe it’s not designed to be analyzed too easily. Do we call this “stream of consciousness”? Or babel? Or both?
Two quick passages that struck me:
“We are assured that the world is becoming more and more united, is being formed into brotherly communion, by the shortening of distances, by the transmitting of thoughts through the air. Alas, do not believe in such a union of people.”
and the description of the timeless truth of God, versus “the wavering truth of the world.”
Cookie-
I remember being quite struck by that first passage as well. Very timely, no?
It’s official: the BK has made me insane. I am trying to find the post I left on Tuesday and I cannot. Is this a kind of extreme, surreal experience that arises when reading Russian lit from the 1800s? The disappearing comment? You are parched and weary as you stumble to the week’s finish line. You make your little mark on the thread. You then look back and realize it never happened? Or am I still in a reader’s delirium and can’t find what is right there? Cecil?
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Hi Roxana — check under the Week 5 thread. If you search “rox” on that page, there’s a comment from March 23. Is that the one you’re looking for?
I continue to march.
There was another one. It’s all part of the madness.
I only got thru p313 and I’m posting late due to a fun outbreak of strep here in the fam.
I have to say, F.D. really needed a good editor to tighten things up, strip out the fat. Does a book really need a chapter called Talks and Homilies? I think not.
But on the positive side, every time I read the Elder Zosima’s recurring theme about the importance of: Just experience the joy of being alive, I am responding to that. I am at least an agnostic and possibly an athiest, but I do think the Elder Zosima is on to a great deal with that thought. And about how collecting possessions just takes us further and further away from the importance and joy of life. Not that I’m going to step out of modern day life, but it’s great to get the perspective every now and again. These days, I need to hear it more often. And he’s really got a damn good point.
But I definitely lament the lack of an aggressive editor for old F.D. I’m going to have to gird my loins for Chapter 3. The title of the next chapter, The Odor of Corruption, calls to me far more, I have to admit. Blame the Catholic upbringing -just the word “Homilies” makes me want to run screaming.
The more I read this book…the more I hate the authors writing style. It seems it is written to confuse and keep the readers constantly behind in the “assigned” readings because they need to go back and reference who is who! With all those Russian names to remember he then throws in nick names, family names, neighbors, little boys, etc…..
I too am about a hundred pages behind. Not due to strep though…mostly due to creating exhausting exams for my students!
The more I read this book…the more I hate the authors writing style. It seems it is written to confuse and keep the readers constantly behind in the “assigned” readings because they need to go back and reference who is who! With all those Russian names to remember he then throws in nick names, family names, neighbors, little boys, etc…..
I too am about a hundred pages behind. Not due to strep though…mostly due to creating exhausting exams for my students!
Week Six, and I’m rolling along with the stinky corpse. I am not sure why Mr. D chose to finish Elder Zosima off in such a way. Was it just a literary devise to put Alyosha in a certain emotional place in order to move the story along? Or does he hold the character in such distain after all? In any case, we now have Alyosha in the hands of Ratkin and Grushenka. Will Alyosha fall under her spell like the rest of the Karamazovs? Reading on…