Welcome to Week 9, in which I’m late again, the gap-doth-inflate again, I’m a need-to-be-reading-more ‘march mate, again. Bewitched, bothered, and bewildered, I’ve fallen behind! I’m in a great part of the book tho — still marveling at the fact that she’s an onion. Lovely story, that.
Just think of me as the voice from your not-so-distant past, cheerfully turning pages on the dusty path ye’ve already trod. Don’t wait for me though. Charge on! Charge on! And here’s hoping I have that extra productive weekend I need to get back in the thick of the pack….. Next Wednesday: Let’s meet up at the end of Part III, Book Nine, Chapter 7, or “I’ll probably start raving.” (which is to say: please use this Week 4 thread for comments on pages 0-499; aim to finish reading that section and shout out here by end o’ day Tuesday)
Gloria — you and me both!
Been a fun scramble of a week, including launching a site for the creativity interviews I was hosting on this site (now at: http://www.about-creativity.com).
Hoping to catch up this week, because I’m hopeful like that.
-Cecil
We’re really cruising now! Finished the “assignment” already and wanting to keep reading…but I won’t. The irony of “…a little more and I’ll probably start raving.” made me LOL! Thanks for this Deathmarch. Am wondering what the next one will be. I might even join War and Peace if it should come up (but not likely).
Shut up & lawyer up!
How many episodes of Law & Order, The Closer, Columbo, etc., etc., have involved folks talking themselves into trouble because they didn’t take advantage of the right to remain silent? Now the officials were a little late in “Mirandizing” Mitya: “In case you are still unaware of it…you have every right not to answer the questions….” (p. 468)
Apparently even in 19th century Russia you were allowed to be quiet.
But ol’ Mitya can’t be quiet, and like an episode of one of the above mentioned TV shows, we get to see him dig himself into a hole that will be hard to escape.
By the way, I expected we’d be asked to march to the end of Part III this week. But since our Fearless Leader has fallen behind, he asks us to cover a measly 42 pages. So Dmitri will have to remain in that stinkin’ interrogation room for another week!
Ahhhh, right in the heart of a potboiler murder mystery/procedural now. Easy reading indeed. The prosecutor’s attitudes/behavior towards Dmitri are interesting. Are they just offering false platitude/sympathy towards him at certain moments, or do they really believe he might be telling the truth? I’m still thinking that D. made it quite clear to us that Dmitri is innocent, but even given that it was hard not to raise eyebrows at the explanation of the missing money. Will they find the amulet? Or was Dmitri actually lying about this too? And I wonder, most important, if Dmitri really is innocent of this particular crime, how much down a Kafka-esque road does D. go now? Is there any redemption to be had for Dmitri—if he does indeed deserve it? Or does it keep playing out like a nightmare…
So many questions I have!
Cecil: We love you and especially appreciate the fact that you admit to being a mortal like the rest of us marchers. Your god-like capacity for unlimited multi-tasking (blogs, interviews, book clubs, kids, poems, plays, coffee-shop musings) has made me awe-struck many times, and I’m even more awe-struck by your admission of being behind like so many of the rest of us have been during this particular march (I’m not sure why, but it sure seems like there has been a very large crowd in the rear column this time). So, Marchers of the Deathmarch Nation: Rally Round our Leader! Cut him some slack! Give him time to catch up!
That said, I’m mostly with the Old Man from Kansas regarding the blabbermouth Mitya. And doesn’t our fearless inspector seem almost Columbo-like? There is always “one more thing.” Even though I think I know what’s going to happen, the ride is exhilarating!
I second Computilo in her proclamation of love for our leader. I couldn’t have gotten through Don Quixote and now BK without him and y’all.
My new ambition is to try to draft 19th century Russian Miranda warnings. Potentially very amusing and an excellent use of a law degree in my opinion.
I would also be willing to take on War and Peace deathmarch style as that might be the only way I’d finish it.
Onwards and upwards,
I don’t know, I think I’ve gotta take The Old Man’s side on this one — that Cecil is a scoundrel, and sorely sub-punctilious!
In other news, glad to report I’ve gotten a little more reading in this week. Still wildly behind but getting a wee bit of momentum going. Dmitri’s throwing money around and looking for Jews and Gypsies to liven things up. Favorite recent chap (for me — old news for many of youse): Gold Mines….
-Cecil
sorry, but i’ve gotta say it: cecil (aka cecilya) did it. he’s got motives galore–creates a diversion so he can short the page count and catch back up. grabs the cash to bankroll the magnets (beaucoup de roubles, people). also, “cecil”??–fake name!
A few random thoughts:
-Mitya makes for a very entertaining suspect. Of course he’s the type who would never take advantage of the right to remain silent–he’s just got too much to say.
-If this story belonged on any modern cop/lawyer show, it would be the perpetually overheated “Boston Legal” (free associating here, William Shatner would make a great Fyodor).
-Love it on p. 458 when Dmitri asks “Who could have killed him if not me?” Am I the only one who thought of O.J. Simpson?
-Also, am I the only one on this Deathmarch who can’t read the name “Dmitri” without hearing Peter Sellers in “Dr. Strangelove?”
if only dmitri had had a couple of credit cards, all this could have been avoided. he could have taken a cash advance to pay back the money he blew on the first bash, and then i guess the story would have been over.
Love the idea of credit cards in the 19th century! However, what a lot of great literature would be lost to us. But I digress…
A great feeling of relief TWICE this week: First, as already noted, the reappearance of our fearless leader after an anxious day or two.
And a dead certainty (no pun intended) that Mitya cannot possibly be the perp! A tale like that must surely be the truth — and just like messy Mitya, too.
I think Ivan may have done it. He was taught the knock. He is “supposedly” away. He is capable of killing someone but not so into needing money.
I think Dmirti stole the cash and isn’t really capable of killing someone.
I think Smyrdekof is capable of both……
follow me or i may get confused again—i’m somehow giddy
yessiree, i’m at page 500 and while not exactly giddy am happy to be thusly diverted. thanks.
Little bit behind again, will have caught up soon… getting the sense that dmitri is in some very hot water,
oh and Cecil, about-creativity.com looks great, and is.
I feel sorry for Dmitri, but I also don’t particularly like him either. Everyone knows who I still have my eye on.
Also, I love the idea of Fyodor Pavlovich being played by William Shatner!
Love Dmitri–reminds me of all the honorable, passionate, lunatic people I’m attracted to. I’m just a couple of pages ahead–had to finish Part III–and am drawn to two descriptions of him: “All of us are prepared to recognize you as a young man who is noble in principle, though one, alas, carried away by certain passions to a somewhat inordinate degree” (Parfenovich thinks he did it) and “guiltless man, who have been your own ruin” (Grushenka, who knows he didn’t).
Love Dmitri–reminds me of all the honorable, passionate, lunatic people I’m attracted to. I’m just a couple of pages ahead–had to finish Part III–and am drawn to two descriptions of him: “All of us are prepared to recognize you as a young man who is noble in principle, though one, alas, carried away by certain passions to a somewhat inordinate degree” (Parfenovich thinks he did it) and “guiltless man, who have been your own ruin” (Grushenka knows he didn’t).
Grushenka: ‘Kiss Me! Beat Me, torture me, do what you like with me…Oh I deserve to be tortured….Stop! Wait, later, I don’t want to now,’ I just thought that was pretty funny.
I was impressed by the criminal justice system in Russia back then. Telling Dmitri he doesnt have to talk, offering to read the transcript back to him for any corrections, questioning witnesses in his presence. The prosecutors et al may think he is guilty, but if I know my 19th century Russian juries, and I think I do, if you play them a videotape of the whole interrogation, I think Dmitri walks.
Also, I see Ernest Borgnine as Fyodor. Or maybe Topol (Tevye)
I feel compelled to point out that Mr. Magoo sees Ernest Borgnine as just about everyone. I remember him insisting that Borgnine would have been a fantastic Willie Wonka. Another time he (stridently) made the case that Borgnine should have played two other parts in the Dirty Dozen, in addition to the one part he actually did play. He wanted Borgnine to play the Apatosaurus in Jurasic Park.
I’m not even saying he’s wrong. I’m just saying.
-Cecil
struck by the fairness of the pre-soviet/gulag/creativetorture investigation:
“Everything has been written down here will be read over to you afterwards, and whatever you disagree with will be changed as you say…”
witnesses testifying in the presence of the culprit
tea, real tea, a little something
dmitri’s docility is disappointing — grushenka was also lamer than I hoped
thought maybe i’d dreamt the part about mitya’s toes, but here it is: “And above all he did not like his own feet, all his life for some reason he had found both his big toes ugly, especially the right one with its crude, flat toenail, somehow curved under, and now they would all see it. This unbearable shame suddenly made him, deliberately now, even more rude” (484).
this part of the interrogation–the toes, the dirty underwear, the blood evidence, the humiliation of being made to dress in someone else’s ill-fitting clothing–was vibrant. i felt for him, felt the author’s sympathy for his character.
Help. I’ve fallen further behind. In my world Mitya has just murdered his father — parricide — and, covered in blood, is drawing attention to himself.
I wonder if Dost. was influenced by Hamlet or the play of King Oedipus.
At the risk of sounding like a prudish Emily Post type, I think there’s something timeless about dirty underwear being, well, just kinda gross. Alyosha = clean underwear = hero; Dmitri = dirty underwear = hmmm.
So, last Thursday, I looked at this post and thought, “Huh, I’ve read past this. I don’t want to post too early, so I’ll wait.” Now it’s past Tuesday, and I might have missed this! Yikes! I’m already back to Alyosha! Yay!
One word review of Ernest Borgnine’s Marty: Homely. (Marty is one of the best films ever made. “Marty, what do you wanna do? I dunno, Joey, what do you wanna do?” I dunno, Marty, what do you wanna do? And so on and so on doth this crisp dialogue advance the plot.)
Whew! I was afraid that our leader had gone AWOL there. No marching orders!
Gloria — you and me both!
Been a fun scramble of a week, including launching a site for the creativity interviews I was hosting on this site (now at: http://www.about-creativity.com).
Hoping to catch up this week, because I’m hopeful like that.
-Cecil
We’re really cruising now! Finished the “assignment” already and wanting to keep reading…but I won’t. The irony of “…a little more and I’ll probably start raving.” made me LOL! Thanks for this Deathmarch. Am wondering what the next one will be. I might even join War and Peace if it should come up (but not likely).
Shut up & lawyer up!
How many episodes of Law & Order, The Closer, Columbo, etc., etc., have involved folks talking themselves into trouble because they didn’t take advantage of the right to remain silent? Now the officials were a little late in “Mirandizing” Mitya: “In case you are still unaware of it…you have every right not to answer the questions….” (p. 468)
Apparently even in 19th century Russia you were allowed to be quiet.
But ol’ Mitya can’t be quiet, and like an episode of one of the above mentioned TV shows, we get to see him dig himself into a hole that will be hard to escape.
By the way, I expected we’d be asked to march to the end of Part III this week. But since our Fearless Leader has fallen behind, he asks us to cover a measly 42 pages. So Dmitri will have to remain in that stinkin’ interrogation room for another week!
whoops — actually, that was just an oversight on my part. We’ll make that back up next week…. No mercy for the likes of me! 🙂
-Cecil
Fellow marchers — let’s not pick on our fearless reader — he’s reewarding us with a MAGNET!
Ahhhh, right in the heart of a potboiler murder mystery/procedural now. Easy reading indeed. The prosecutor’s attitudes/behavior towards Dmitri are interesting. Are they just offering false platitude/sympathy towards him at certain moments, or do they really believe he might be telling the truth? I’m still thinking that D. made it quite clear to us that Dmitri is innocent, but even given that it was hard not to raise eyebrows at the explanation of the missing money. Will they find the amulet? Or was Dmitri actually lying about this too? And I wonder, most important, if Dmitri really is innocent of this particular crime, how much down a Kafka-esque road does D. go now? Is there any redemption to be had for Dmitri—if he does indeed deserve it? Or does it keep playing out like a nightmare…
So many questions I have!
Cecil: We love you and especially appreciate the fact that you admit to being a mortal like the rest of us marchers. Your god-like capacity for unlimited multi-tasking (blogs, interviews, book clubs, kids, poems, plays, coffee-shop musings) has made me awe-struck many times, and I’m even more awe-struck by your admission of being behind like so many of the rest of us have been during this particular march (I’m not sure why, but it sure seems like there has been a very large crowd in the rear column this time). So, Marchers of the Deathmarch Nation: Rally Round our Leader! Cut him some slack! Give him time to catch up!
That said, I’m mostly with the Old Man from Kansas regarding the blabbermouth Mitya. And doesn’t our fearless inspector seem almost Columbo-like? There is always “one more thing.” Even though I think I know what’s going to happen, the ride is exhilarating!
I second Computilo in her proclamation of love for our leader. I couldn’t have gotten through Don Quixote and now BK without him and y’all.
My new ambition is to try to draft 19th century Russian Miranda warnings. Potentially very amusing and an excellent use of a law degree in my opinion.
I would also be willing to take on War and Peace deathmarch style as that might be the only way I’d finish it.
Onwards and upwards,
I don’t know, I think I’ve gotta take The Old Man’s side on this one — that Cecil is a scoundrel, and sorely sub-punctilious!
In other news, glad to report I’ve gotten a little more reading in this week. Still wildly behind but getting a wee bit of momentum going. Dmitri’s throwing money around and looking for Jews and Gypsies to liven things up. Favorite recent chap (for me — old news for many of youse): Gold Mines….
-Cecil
sorry, but i’ve gotta say it: cecil (aka cecilya) did it. he’s got motives galore–creates a diversion so he can short the page count and catch back up. grabs the cash to bankroll the magnets (beaucoup de roubles, people). also, “cecil”??–fake name!
A few random thoughts:
-Mitya makes for a very entertaining suspect. Of course he’s the type who would never take advantage of the right to remain silent–he’s just got too much to say.
-If this story belonged on any modern cop/lawyer show, it would be the perpetually overheated “Boston Legal” (free associating here, William Shatner would make a great Fyodor).
-Love it on p. 458 when Dmitri asks “Who could have killed him if not me?” Am I the only one who thought of O.J. Simpson?
-Also, am I the only one on this Deathmarch who can’t read the name “Dmitri” without hearing Peter Sellers in “Dr. Strangelove?”
if only dmitri had had a couple of credit cards, all this could have been avoided. he could have taken a cash advance to pay back the money he blew on the first bash, and then i guess the story would have been over.
Love the idea of credit cards in the 19th century! However, what a lot of great literature would be lost to us. But I digress…
A great feeling of relief TWICE this week: First, as already noted, the reappearance of our fearless leader after an anxious day or two.
And a dead certainty (no pun intended) that Mitya cannot possibly be the perp! A tale like that must surely be the truth — and just like messy Mitya, too.
I think Ivan may have done it. He was taught the knock. He is “supposedly” away. He is capable of killing someone but not so into needing money.
I think Dmirti stole the cash and isn’t really capable of killing someone.
I think Smyrdekof is capable of both……
follow me or i may get confused again—i’m somehow giddy
yessiree, i’m at page 500 and while not exactly giddy am happy to be thusly diverted. thanks.
Little bit behind again, will have caught up soon… getting the sense that dmitri is in some very hot water,
oh and Cecil, about-creativity.com looks great, and is.
I feel sorry for Dmitri, but I also don’t particularly like him either. Everyone knows who I still have my eye on.
Also, I love the idea of Fyodor Pavlovich being played by William Shatner!
Love Dmitri–reminds me of all the honorable, passionate, lunatic people I’m attracted to. I’m just a couple of pages ahead–had to finish Part III–and am drawn to two descriptions of him: “All of us are prepared to recognize you as a young man who is noble in principle, though one, alas, carried away by certain passions to a somewhat inordinate degree” (Parfenovich thinks he did it) and “guiltless man, who have been your own ruin” (Grushenka, who knows he didn’t).
Love Dmitri–reminds me of all the honorable, passionate, lunatic people I’m attracted to. I’m just a couple of pages ahead–had to finish Part III–and am drawn to two descriptions of him: “All of us are prepared to recognize you as a young man who is noble in principle, though one, alas, carried away by certain passions to a somewhat inordinate degree” (Parfenovich thinks he did it) and “guiltless man, who have been your own ruin” (Grushenka knows he didn’t).
Grushenka: ‘Kiss Me! Beat Me, torture me, do what you like with me…Oh I deserve to be tortured….Stop! Wait, later, I don’t want to now,’ I just thought that was pretty funny.
This part of the book is pretty gripping. But that must mean we are in for a very long philosophical stretch. Speaking of philosophy, where is Ivan?
I was impressed by the criminal justice system in Russia back then. Telling Dmitri he doesnt have to talk, offering to read the transcript back to him for any corrections, questioning witnesses in his presence. The prosecutors et al may think he is guilty, but if I know my 19th century Russian juries, and I think I do, if you play them a videotape of the whole interrogation, I think Dmitri walks.
Also, I see Ernest Borgnine as Fyodor. Or maybe Topol (Tevye)
I feel compelled to point out that Mr. Magoo sees Ernest Borgnine as just about everyone. I remember him insisting that Borgnine would have been a fantastic Willie Wonka. Another time he (stridently) made the case that Borgnine should have played two other parts in the Dirty Dozen, in addition to the one part he actually did play. He wanted Borgnine to play the Apatosaurus in Jurasic Park.
I’m not even saying he’s wrong. I’m just saying.
-Cecil
struck by the fairness of the pre-soviet/gulag/creativetorture investigation:
“Everything has been written down here will be read over to you afterwards, and whatever you disagree with will be changed as you say…”
witnesses testifying in the presence of the culprit
tea, real tea, a little something
dmitri’s docility is disappointing — grushenka was also lamer than I hoped
thought maybe i’d dreamt the part about mitya’s toes, but here it is: “And above all he did not like his own feet, all his life for some reason he had found both his big toes ugly, especially the right one with its crude, flat toenail, somehow curved under, and now they would all see it. This unbearable shame suddenly made him, deliberately now, even more rude” (484).
this part of the interrogation–the toes, the dirty underwear, the blood evidence, the humiliation of being made to dress in someone else’s ill-fitting clothing–was vibrant. i felt for him, felt the author’s sympathy for his character.
Help. I’ve fallen further behind. In my world Mitya has just murdered his father — parricide — and, covered in blood, is drawing attention to himself.
I wonder if Dost. was influenced by Hamlet or the play of King Oedipus.
At the risk of sounding like a prudish Emily Post type, I think there’s something timeless about dirty underwear being, well, just kinda gross. Alyosha = clean underwear = hero; Dmitri = dirty underwear = hmmm.
So, last Thursday, I looked at this post and thought, “Huh, I’ve read past this. I don’t want to post too early, so I’ll wait.” Now it’s past Tuesday, and I might have missed this! Yikes! I’m already back to Alyosha! Yay!
Am so far behind, lost in the wilderness of Zosima.
One word review of Ernest Borgnine’s Marty: Homely. (Marty is one of the best films ever made. “Marty, what do you wanna do? I dunno, Joey, what do you wanna do?” I dunno, Marty, what do you wanna do? And so on and so on doth this crisp dialogue advance the plot.)