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X
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Zircus
![[cecil]](http://cecilvortex.com//monkey/graphics/ceciliconm.gif)
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Several weeks back I was comparing Dosty to the more recent Ayn Rand as writers of fiction wrapped around an ideological agenda. This seems particularly relevant to the way the brother Ivan is portrayed. He gives these eloquent, intellectual speeches and has these profound conversations with himself. Then he totally screws up in the real world, finally going nuts.
Dosty's agenda with Ivan seems to be to promote the idea that atheism, materialism, and intellectualism will be misunderstood & misused by the peasant (as in Smerdy's appropriation of Ivan's "everything is permitted" to justify himself). And it will, as Ivan himself illustrates, cause one to be ineffective, or even lead to madness. I think Dosty's making a case for sticking with the "old time religion" of Russian Orthodoxy, like brother Alexei represents.
And just as I said last week, Ivan's taking the three thousand rubles away from Smerdy's place eliminates the only tangible evidence of Smerdy's guilt.
Ivan has a lot in common with Raskolnikov, the protagonist of "Crime and Punishment." I haven't read that one for a long time, but as I recall, Raskolnikov's amoral philosophy allows him to intellectually justify committing a murder, but he is ultimately driven mad by a conscience that refuses to be silenced.
Wonder if Dostoevsky was ever sued for self-plagiarism, a la John Fogerty?
One by one the prosecutor discredited his own witnesses -- "what was the ingredient in the poultice you used on your back the night of the murder? What year is this?" ...and was finished with the prosecution's closing arguments before I could handle the conclusions being drawn from these 'dangerous' witnesses. The medical 'team' finally 'proved' Dimitri's guilt by the way he stared straight ahead as he entered the courtroom! Actually the reading here was fun after wading through the words and discarding CSI" forensics.
There've been NO Biblical diatribes in quite a while. Maybe when the "hero" of the book shows up again? Dostoevsky was right on about readers disagreeing with his assertion that Alyosha is his hero.
And (slow learner that I am) discoved from Jack and Erin that Gloria is my 'kinfold'! We've marched a long way together, haven't we, Gloria? Am quite nearby our fearless leader here in Alameda--and that's exciting!
Enjoying the trial. Interesting that the prosecutor paints Mitya as "ingenuous Russia" herself.
"We are of a broad Karamazovian nature...capable of containing all possible opposites and and of contemplating both abysses at once, the abyss above us, an abyss of lofty ideals, and the abyss beneath us, an abyss of the lowest and foulest degradation." (p. 699).
I think that captures it pretty well.
Is it bad that I couldn't wait until the end and just finished the book?
This is the first Russian novel I've read. It's been fun. Would have been torturous reading in H.S. I'd think. Many of the insights in the comments have reminded me of how shallowly I read books, and how inadequate I felt in my H.S. literature classes. Yet, I'm very happy I did it with this group.
Here's hoping Cecil and I remain BFF.
it's early in the day and i suppose i could catch up, but i'm taking that monkey off my back and promising to be caught up next week, when i suppose we will be getting to the end.
Enjoyed the trial until the closing arguement. I don't do well with monologues that go on for pages at a time. I enjoyed Ivan's testimony. I enjoy Dmitri yelling things out sporaticlly. Katya's testimony bored me. I think she may actually be the most unstable of the bunch.
I think the chapter titles are some of the best writing in the book. Psychology at Full Steam? A Stick with Two Ends? Dosty wasted a couple of great *book* titles there.
Once again the writer proves that people are people, whatever era they live in and whatever country or culture they are indoctrinated to:
"We are, on the contrary, even possessed--precisely possessed--by the noblest ideals, but only on the condition that they be attained by themselves, that they fall on our plates from the sky, and, above, all, gratuitously, gratuitously, so that we need pay nothing for them. **We like very much to get things, but terribly dislike having to pay for them,** and so it is with everything. Oh, give us, give us, all possible good things in life (precisely all, we won't settle for less) and, more particularly, do not obstruct our character in any way, and then we, too, will prove that we can be good and beautiful."
(emphasis mine, of course) Save perhaps Sparta, it could be anyone, but this seems especially an American attitude to me.
I love that the devil, despite being spiritual and not strictly physical, still keeps track of the speed of light in a vacuum. My kind of guy.
I was interested to find that, despite my complete loathing of nearly all the main characters in the book, I resented the nasty prosecutor mischaracterizing these people that I knew so much better than he.
I suppose this might be an indication of great literature: even though you're sick of the endless monologues, don't like the way the plot is moving, can't stand the way most of the characters act, and are offended by the author's perceived attitudes on women, Jews, religion, peasants, and a host of other things I can't remember just now, you still can be so drawn into the book that you have a reaction like this. Whaddya think?
And Lynn, yes, I did know that you were Erin's mother -- found this out when my "dear" brother, after oh so scintillatingly persuading me 5 weeks and about 250 pages late to join this March, broke it to me that he and Erin had that very week dropped out. Your participation was offered as a sort of consolation.
But amazing how often, even though we've only met once, our reactions to the book have been similar, isn't it?
I loved the fact that the prosecutor, our very own Ippolit Kirillovich, "began his statement for the prosecution all nervously atremble, with a cold sickly sweat on his forehead and temples, feeling alternately chilled and feverish all over." (Page 693). For a minute I thought he had the swine flu. There are so very many sickly people in this book, yet somehow, all of them (except a notable one toward the end but I won't spoil the read-ahead) seem to recover nicely in order to make their (or FD's) point.
And going backwards, the speech reminded me of how interesting were the members of the jury (659-660): four officials, two merchants, and six local peasants and tradesmen. The officials were old men with old wives "with a heap of children, perhaps even going barefoot." The merchants were weird looking, especially the one with the medal around his neck. And our pal Dostoevsky, not one to mince words or hide his distaste for Jews, Poles, Catholics, Doctors, and now Germans, reminds us that two of the tradesmen (page 660) were in German dress, "and perhaps for that reason looked dirtier and more unseemly than the other four." A jury of his peers, indeed.
The prosecutor's speech, at least to the point we're at so far, is brilliant, and shows just how much every little detail of the story was planned out by Dostoevsky despite the seeming "messiness" of the story. It's coming together beautifully.
However, it's also profoundly depressing, to me. It's been hinted at that Dmitri is going to be found guilty, that we are not going to get a Hollywood happy ending. So now I'm anxious to find out why. Why is the author going to punish his character this way? Why, in the end, is he going to make all the brothers of his story suffer?
Both looking forward to and dreading the conclusion.
I'm a bit behind but have closed the gap. I'm in the middle of the trial now. I'm fascinated by Ivan's diatribes about the secular paradise that awaits civilization once it realizes that God does not exist, is merely a human creation, etc. We'd stop worrying about the afterlife and questions of immortality; we'd accept our mortality and tend to more important things, like being happy and serving others.
The self-conscious narrator is also interesting to me. He (she?) not only reports but also comments a bit, intruding more and more into the narrative.
I always enjoy the drama of courtroom scenes. They provide their own tension and conflict.
no time this week; just checking in.
CS: So Ivan=Lennon?
This prosecutor is driving me crazy. So logical, such a reasoned consideration of the known facts, so wrong! It's like watching Law and Order when the bad guys get away with it.
I'm behind but am planning a BK marathon on the plane to London. Meet you at the finish line.
I have be traveling for 10 days and I am still not home - but I am caught up. I am enjoying the trial, I think it is pretty exciting. Yes, much of the book has led up to this. But, I still think there are many things that happened along the way that had no connection. But that is the author's perogative - and there is still time. The defense is not doing a bad job. A good closing argument showing the doubt could do it. I was counting on Alyosha to help out but he really did not. It seems strange that we know who did it. Or do we. I remember the movie Witness for the Prosecution (a favorite). The person that I "knew" did it changed about three times.