Brothers Karamazov ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky ~ Part I ~ 6/01 ~ Great Books
Joan Pearson
March 8, 2001 - 01:35 pm


Ease back into the story ~ HERE, Part II of the Discussion

EVERYONE IS WELCOME TO GREAT BOOKS!

"Except a grain of wheat shall fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone, but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit."



A Love Story!

A Murder Mystery!

A Classic Tale of Sibling Rivalry!


This is Dostoevsky's last work, his crowning achievement, considered by many to be the best book ever written! How can we NOT read it?

It is a tale of parricide and family rivalry that embodies the moral and spiritual dissolution of an entire society (Russia in the 1870's), the murder of depraved landowner Fyodor Karamazov by one of his sons (all four hated him) and the subsequent investigation and trial.

It portrays the struggle between faith and the lack of it, the nature of love and hate, the question of God's existence, and generational conflict with "Shakespearean force."

*****************************************




(We recognize that each of you will read the book at your own pace. The following Schedule is for DISCUSSION purpose only. We ask that you not refer to content beyond these pages out of respect for those who have not yet read them.)












Dates Book Chapters
6/18 - 6/24
Book Six
Chptrs. I, II & III




For Your Consideration
June 18 - June 24

1. Do you see a parallel between the relationships of Ivan/Alyosha and Markel/Zosima?

2. Were you surprised to hear about Zosima's "salad days"? What was the turning point in his life? Do you understand "instant" conversions, such St.Paul's, or Zosima's

3. The responsibility to all men, for all men, is a recurring theme. Is this the first time that we hear from Zosima that Paradise on Earth will be achieved if/when this happens?

4. Is the concept of Paradise on Earth as idealistic as Socialism?

5.Do you sense that Zosima is criticizing the Church for being remiss in ministering to the spirtual needs of the people? Does his solution for planting new seeds of faith in the soul of the peasant seem too simple? Do you believe that religious teaching in childhood makes a lasting impression?

6. What does Zosima say of the importance of children to the spirtual power of the people and the impact on Russia's future?

7.Does Zosima say anything about Russia's future under socialism? Can men be taught to share property equally? Does Animal Farm come to mind?

8.How does the "grain of wheat" apply to Mikhail, the man who confessed murder and reinforce the lesson that the seed that dies will produce fruit? Do you completely understand this concept?


DLs for this discussion ~ Maryal & Joan P.



Russia and Dostoevsky || Russian Names || Bros.K Concordance || Russian History 1689 ~1917 ||Russian Art(19th/20th c) || Important Names, Dates, Russian Terms - Imperial Russia, 1682-1918 ||Schiller's "Die Raeuber" || mid 19th c. Russian Women || The Christianisation of Russia/Orthodox Church || Kramskoy's Contemplation||Joyce Carol Oates thesis || Dostoevsky links/drawings || The Holy Fool ||The Empire That Was Russia - The Prukodin-Gorskii Photographic Record Recreated||

Characters/Nicknames in Brothers K

The Brothers Karamazov (electronic text)




Joan Pearson
March 8, 2001 - 02:40 pm
It is with great pleasure we announce the discussion of one of the greatest books ever written! It is a wonderful book, a joyful book and one that promises to change your life in some way, great or small.

Please don't be intimidated by the bulk. We will go very slowly. You can print out the short chapters found in the electronic text in the heading if you think you will run up charges renewing it at the library.

This promises to be one of the best discussions in Great Books so far! Will you join us?

If you are just getting here, you are not too late! Please post a message announcing that you are here. Folks are already gathering and their comments have resulted in the helpful links you will find in the heading here.

You DON'T have to read all the pre-discussion posts! Our discussion of the book will not begin until April 2. You have not missed anything! The April 2 posts begin with #180

WELCOME!

Deems
March 8, 2001 - 07:51 pm
I'd like to add my invitation to Joan's. Although grog will not be served, I am thinking of all the drinks I can offer you with Wodka. Er, Vodka.

This is one of my very favorite novels. I put off reading it for years and years. It was always on my "summer reading list." Then, I DID finally read it, and I wondered why I had denied myself the pleasure for so long.

Come join us!

~Dmitri/Maryal

Hats
March 9, 2001 - 08:42 am
JOAN AND MARYAL, I have my book. The size is intimidating, but I am not afraid because I will have such wonderful company.

Before I read the quote, I decided not to read this one. But the quote really moved me. It has spurred me on, and I am waiting anxiously for April first.

This is my first Dostoevsky novel. How long will we be reading this? All summer? All fall? All winter? You do not have to answer me. I am just being a jokester.

HATS

Joan Pearson
March 9, 2001 - 09:15 am
HAHAHA! Welcome Hats! Super! And a jokester too! That's what we need here! In answer to your question, let's just say that it took us a year to read The Odyssey!

Maryal and I are determinded to keep this one moving and rewarding! We look forward to hearing from you regarding the tone and pace! We can adjust!

Our first item of business is to determine how we are going to refer to these characters in our posts! The names can be daunting...not just the spelling, but the fact that they each have several different knicknames. Perhaps a running table in the heading will simplify matters.

Thank you so much for drawing attention to that quote. It's been a while since it went up and I had quite forgotten it. In the meantime, I have had quite a jarring family situation arise and must admit it has knocked me for a loop. When you commented on the quote, I read it again and the message hit home. And gives me strength.

Oh yes, this is going to be quite an adventure, I can tell! Welcome, dear Hats!

Traude
March 9, 2001 - 10:59 am
Joan, I have an iMac and its mouse has only one button !

But I will go into the Mac help folder right now and ask for Mac-enlightenment.

Nellie Vrolyk
March 9, 2001 - 02:04 pm
I shall be one of the brave ones and will join you in discussing this book. It has been a long time since I first read it.

Lady C
March 9, 2001 - 03:30 pm
I am so impressed with the preparatiion you have done. I followed and printed out most of the links you provided and hope I have enough time to read it all before April 1. It feels as if I'm in class again. Read this almost thirty years ago when I did an independent in Russian Lit but so much water under the bridge and the bridge is getting creaky too. Thanks. You inspire me. I'll try to keep up.

Joan Pearson
March 9, 2001 - 03:52 pm
Just wait till you see what Traude (WELCOME!> is bringing us once she masters the copy/paste feature on her iMac! We look forward to that!

Welcome Lady C ...as in "creaky bridge"...this is wonderful. Your input will be invaluable! I wonder if there is any Russian history left on the bridge???!!

And dear Nellie, you read the book years ago! Wonderful! I've read Crime and Punishment, and the first 100 pages of Brothers K I think this will be fun.

Those of you who were with us some weeks ago in Animal Farm have picked up some Russian history too. That is something we can relate to as we have had some recent exposure to the history. It will be quite helpful to understand what's going on in Russia at the time this story takes place. I believe it is 1871 or thereabouts...any history buffs in our midst?

Welcome, welcome you two brave souls!

betty gregory
March 9, 2001 - 06:32 pm
Joan and Maryal, I've got my trusty book from the bookshelf and am beginning to read....I knew the right time would come to finish this. About 5 years ago, I made it almost halfway through when something from real life interrupted. I had been on a Russian authors reading jag and had saved the best for last. So finally, I'll get to read the "best" and with a better group than I had before (only me).

One thought on the names. With other Russian authored books, my INTIMIDATION over the long names (and their pronunciations--because, when reading, one must pronounce them silently) FADED QUICKLY. Within a chapter or so, the slowing down to pronounce them silently brought a comfort with the names...and pretty soon, the names flowed along in the prose without any problems or slowdown. Which, I have to tell you, when facing the first book with Russian names, I never pictured myself getting comfortable with them (for those of you who might be feeling that).

IF we type out the whole name (first name?) instead of use an abbreviation, it will help along the comfort that will be beginning to happen in the reading. I had been thinking of keeping a written list of my own, so when I post, I can just refer to the list for spelling.

Whatever we choose to do with the names, though, we'll get used to it soon enough...abbreviations or whole names. After a few chapters, it won't matter (so abbreviations would work just fine).

Betty

Deems
March 9, 2001 - 09:04 pm
BRAVE SOULS!!




Welcome to HATS and NELLIE and LADY C and BETTY and TRAUDE(?). I, too, read this novel years ago, and I am really looking forward to reading it again. I remember some basic elements, but time has a way of altering the way we read. As we grow older, we have more experiences and find more people we can identify with.

Length is no deterent. I distinctly remember not wanting this novel to end. It is way more full of life (and death) than Crime and Punishment.

Maryal

annafair
March 10, 2001 - 06:59 am
I will be joining you ...I have this book in my library and now I have to find it ...perhaps it will be easier to just pop over to the library about 8 min away and get it there. My library is my home and heaven knows where this book is located! To save time and my sanity I will just go by the city's library! Looking forward to hearing others opinions. When I read it by myself I longed to discuss it and NOW I CAN....anna in Virginia

Joan Pearson
March 10, 2001 - 08:14 am
Annafair, our poetess in residence! Aren't we lucky to have you join us in this grand adventure! I'm a bit worried about this library business though...how many times can you renew? Watch those dates! Tell us when it is due and we'll post reminders to get it back to the library! Anna, maybe if you'd alphabetize your library, you'd have an easier time finding the books you on your shelves!!!hahahaha

And Betty! Welcome to you and your insightful posts! A fine group we are assembling. This is such a source of relief! You mention the names...I've read the first 100 pages and must say they are getting easier and I do like to roll the names off my tongue. I'll tell you my problem with an example, using the name of my favorite character to date:
Alexei Fyodorovich Karamazov
Finally I am spelling Karamazov correctly...and sometimes even pronounce it right! The "z" buzzes, it's not sharp as in Mozart. Okay, so far so good. And I see that the middle name indicates his father's first name... the vich means son of...so we have son of Fyodor. Tell me, is a female's middle name also her father's name?

Alright so far. We can refer to each character in our posts by first name once they are introduced into the discussion. But here's where it gets interesting. The first names are often referred to by nicknames, without any explanation. We're just supposed to know who is being referred to. Sometimes Alexei is referred to as Alexei, but other times, he's Alyosha, Alyoshka, Alyoshenka, Alyoshechka, Alexeichik, Lyosha, Lyoshenka... See what I'm saying? I'm thinking of typing up a page of these names to use as a reference in the heading, unless one of us comes across a url that already contains this information...it would be easier posting a link.

Maryal, you remember Brothers K as being more full of life (and death) than Crime and Punishment...do you recall more punishment as well? You asked and I just checked, which translations we are reading...mine is "a new translation by Richard Pevear and Larrissa Volokhonsky." The cover is the same as in the heading here.

So good to be talking with you all again! I miss you between these great books!

Deems
March 10, 2001 - 09:15 am
Welcome, Annafair!





Joan---YES!! We have the SAME translation!! Wahoo. I had four to pick from, read the same paragraph in all of them and decided I liked this one best. I have another cover though. Interesting.

~Happy in Spring in Maryland

annafair
March 10, 2001 - 11:01 am
Organization has never been my strong suit. I have books in every room, in closets,cupboards etc. I have recently given some away and intend to do again. I belonged to a number of book clubs over the years..Doubleday, Book of the month, History book,Great Books ( leather bound yet)Mystery and I am sure there are more plus my family gifted me with books and I could never go by a bookstore without stopping in just to "see" what they might have. I am sure to come upon the Brothers lurking in some dark corner the minute we are finished ...off to the local library. anna in Va PS Dont you find a sense of adventure to set upon a journey through a book with fellow travelers? The best thing about any book it is there to read. The worse thing is it is a lonely pursuit. Not that that is bad in itself but I am always wishing when I come upon an interesting page, paragraph, story line for someone I can say "What do you think?" how wonderful in our book discussions I can do that. The hardest part is to limit myself to reading just one!

betty gregory
March 10, 2001 - 01:10 pm
Oh, dear, hadn't thought of different translators. My rather old Modern Library version, published by Random House, no date, is translated by Constance Garnett.

Tell me why you chose the other translator(s)?

Betty

robert b. iadeluca
March 10, 2001 - 01:39 pm
Using a library book is out of the question for me. I read with a red pen in my hand and the library would not be too happy about that.

Robby

Nellie Vrolyk
March 10, 2001 - 03:01 pm
I have the Constance Garnett translation too.

Annafair, did you get those leather bound Great Books from the Franklin Mint? That is where I got my copy of the Brothers Karamazov and a number of other books.

robert b. iadeluca
March 10, 2001 - 03:35 pm
I am tempted to read it in its original Russian.

Robby

Deems
March 10, 2001 - 03:46 pm
Betty and Nellie--I don't think the translation matters all that much, but I was glad to see that Joan and I have the same one so that as we come up with questions, we can be "on the same page." When I read BK years ago, it was another translation--have no idea which one--because the one I have now came out recently.

ROBBY--Hello there! Going to be carrying BK with you around Washington? In that fine red/orange carryall you have that I look forward to seeing?

fairanna--Not to worry about such small things as a little external disorder. I am sure that INSIDE, where it counts, you are exceptionally well-organized!

~Maryal

robert b. iadeluca
March 10, 2001 - 03:51 pm
Maryal:--You've got it! People recognize my bright red overnight bag before they recognize me.

Robby

CharlieW
March 10, 2001 - 04:46 pm
Ich habe die Granatübersetzung Constance in meinem Ebuch.

Deems
March 10, 2001 - 04:50 pm
Charlie!!




Welkommen. Or something like that! I was hoping you would join us, but I thought you were off on your exotic trip.

betty gregory
March 10, 2001 - 07:07 pm
Allo a Charles!! Allo avec joie!! Delices voyez mais amis. Regarder! Trois pour Constance!

betti

CharlieW
March 10, 2001 - 07:16 pm
I'll begin with everyone and then I'll be gone a few weeks along about April 12th. Keep the samovar warm.

annafair
March 10, 2001 - 10:32 pm
It has been many years since I purchased those Great Books in Leather so long ago I think they were only 12 dollars a book. Compared to what I was paying for others it seemed a lot. My oldest grandchild will be 9 this year and I am going to gather them and give them to her for her room. She is an avid reader and while some may be formidable I read many formidable books when I was twelve. Many I re read as an adult and was surprised to see how different my understanding was then. anna in VA

annafair
March 10, 2001 - 10:41 pm
TSK TSK you mark your books? Except for the dictionary and out of date school books I never OWNED a book as a child. The school books were left over from my older brothers education. Parents had to purchase them and since new ones came out frequently my parents kept the outdated ones. I had a library card as soon as I was old enough and was thrilled when I became twelve because it meant I could check out six books instead of the usual three.My parents would have been appalled if I had marked a library book. I would have been in deep yogurt! IN RED YET? anna in VA who is guarding her books from ROBBY

robert b. iadeluca
March 11, 2001 - 04:04 am
Anna:--Over the years many people have reprimanded me for marking books. To me a book is not a material thing. It is not leather, or cloth, or paper, or printers ink. It is a medium by which thoughts are transmitted to my brain. If it can do that better by my concentrating on and reading and re-reading underlined passages, then it has done its job. Its job is to enhance my mental ability, not to look pretty on a shelf.

I realize that this horrifies you, Ginny, and others in B&L but a book, to me, is a functional tool. As you know, I am the DL for "Democracy in America." If you could see my much heavily underlined copy of deTocqueville's book in front of me, you would probably go out of your mind. It will never beautify a shelf.

I will admit to a disadvantage if I were to pass this book onto others. No one likes to borrow my book after I have read it. They find they can concentrate only on what I have underlined. That's their problem. I buy my books for me, not for posterity.

OK, gang! Now you've got an emotional subject to dig your teeth into!!

Robby

Deems
March 11, 2001 - 09:40 am
Robby----You and I must fend off the "Don't mark a book" crowd. If I did not mark books, how would I ever glance back and find what I was looking for.

Not only do I mark books, but I encourage my students to mark their books, so I am passing on this vile activity.

The only books I do not mark (AND write in the margins of) are mysteries and other light reading.

My daughter has read a number of books I have marked and always wants to argue with what I have noted in the margins. She herself never marks books.

I have a copy of Tennyson that my Dad had when he was at Johns Hopkins in a reading club called "Tenny-sons" or something like that, and it has markings in it. I wished he had marked more because I am fascinated at what he found compelling or interesting.

On second thought, the name of the group may have been Sons of Tennyson, but no matter, you get the idea.

Maryal the Marker

robert b. iadeluca
March 11, 2001 - 09:56 am
Throughout my lifetime I have often picked up a book I had read decades before and this time read only what I had underlined. It gave me what I considered the important thoughts in the book but saved time for me to read other books. The closer you get to my age the more time-conscious you are.

I should add that I rarely read "light" books so the types of books I read lend themselves to notes.

Robby

Joan Pearson
March 11, 2001 - 02:25 pm
Welcome Robik ~ Karol! Karol, Betty et Nellie, sie haben die Granatübersetzung Constance! Wunderbar!

Hahaha, Betty, the truth, I selected the Peavear/Volokhonsky translation because of the compelling cover (see above in the heading...) I'm certain the Modern Library's Constance Garnett will be superb.

It is fun ~ and helpful to have different translations at our disposal (I'm noting who has what.) We did that often here in Great Books years ago with phrases from The Odyssey ~ when the meaning was not clear in one, we checked the others. Another powerful example of the wonders of these discussions!

Fair Anna, Robby, I must admit here that I mark up library copies! I use pencil and try to remember to go back and erase when I'm done. With a long book like this however, I'm glad to have my own. That would be a lot of erasing as we are only allowed to renew the same book twice in Arlington!

Jo Meander
March 12, 2001 - 06:05 am
AAARRRRGH! JOAN P., you mark library copies!!!!
Oh, well. So what. Your markings probably help the next reader. I recall my students looking up at me as if they had been introduced to the resident madwoman: "Go ahead and underline that. You'll want to refer to it later!" They were virgins, poor things; never had permission and encourgement to use a book that way.
Just a tiny reverie. I really came in here to join the other BRAVE SOULS. I read this years ago and it has had a lasting effect upon my life, my thinking. I remember it better than books I read a few months ago! Hope you have room in the ranks, and I pray that most of the posts will be in ENGLISH!
JO

Deems
March 12, 2001 - 08:28 am
Welcome, Jo!!




----I too hope that the posts will be in English! MY posts will be in English; I can guarantee you that. You said that this book changed your way of thinking. It had that effect on me. I have just started to read it again, and everything is both familiar and different. So glad that you will be joining us.

Maryal

betty gregory
March 12, 2001 - 12:41 pm
Oh, good, Jo. I so enjoy how you think and am glad to see you here. Can't wait to hear how this book changed/affected your thinking, Maryal and Jo. A preview of same from either of you??

betty

Jo Meander
March 12, 2001 - 03:44 pm
Betty, I remember a long speech by one of the characters --it may be Dimitri. He goes on for several pages talking about the injustice of the system under the czars. His particular focus was the suffering of the peasant class. To say anymore now would be to defuse the impact when we get to it, so I'll wait.

Joan Pearson
March 12, 2001 - 07:29 pm
JO! Super! Like old times! Now listen, I don't mark up the library books in red ink! That's Robby! I also buy the books I'm really interested in marking. When I do mark up the library book, it is with pencil...lightly...lightly! Gee if I knew you were coming in here, I never would have mentioned it!

I have heard nothing but wonderful comments from those who have read this book. Some say it changed their lives. Others call it a "joyful experience"...and as Hats pointed out...the quote from the book at the top of the heading made her decide to join us. I say you all made an excellent choice...the selection of the book and the choice to join in with the really fine group of people assembling here! Brave, maybe...smart, definitely! Welcome home, Jo!

Deems
March 12, 2001 - 07:59 pm
I am off to the beach for a few days. And, believe it or not, I am taking The Brothers K with me. Not exactly a beach book, but then it isn't exactly beach weather either.

The Jack Russell terriers (Kemper and Ben) are VERY excited. They run free on the beach and even go into the water for balls.

Maryal

Jo Meander
March 13, 2001 - 05:45 am
Maryal, your doggies are lucky as well as you! I am planning a vacation for next winter just so I can run Chloe on the beach!


Joan, thank you for the welcome! I've had library books with underlines and stars, etc., that were actally interesting and helpful because of the marks. Maybe I had one that you had before me!

robert b. iadeluca
March 13, 2001 - 08:18 am
Yes, I do use red ink but I don't do it to library books. I do have some couth!!

Robby

Jo Meander
March 13, 2001 - 01:13 pm
The world stand sorely in need of couth. The more couth the merrier!

betty gregory
March 13, 2001 - 01:38 pm
Love this discussion on writing in books. I have always written in textbooks...margin writing, highlighting, arrows. Something about novels, though, brings out the guilt...wonder if some third grade teacher shamed me and I just don't remember.

Anyway, I do write in novels, but always carefully, as if not only my eyes will see it. (See pg. 24), I'll write, thinking the next reader (even though I keep most books) won't remember to look back to page 24. I'm writing to a ghost.

I also make lists of page numbers on the back inside cover, with explanations along side each. Then, on the referenced page itself, just a checkmark of where to look. (So, the next reader will only be interrupted by a checkmark.) If something makes me think of another book, I write the name of the book and, in parenthses, name of author...in case next reader needs to know author.

betty

Jo Meander
March 13, 2001 - 05:17 pm
The idea of coordinating the checks with the page numbers is a good one, Betty. I underline and write page number in the back, but making them work together that clearly is a good idea. These are habits we picked up when we knew we were going to be held accountable in some way for understanding the content of a reading and making it clear in writing that we did. Now we mark out of sheer joy in the idea and images, or because we need to recall in these discussions things that have impressed us.

robert b. iadeluca
March 13, 2001 - 05:39 pm
I have decided that I am going to make a little genealogy chart to keep next to me as I read -- who is son of whom, who is father of whom, etc. -- along with their first names. Otherwise I'll get hopelessly confused as to who is doing what.

Robby

Jo Meander
March 13, 2001 - 06:15 pm
Good idea, Robby, Robbie or Robert --- which is correct here? It's a faux pas to ask, I guess, but a worse one to be wrong every time! I remember on my first reading, the "nicknames" saved me. I recognized the brothers by the names they called each other, and those names had some resemblance to the longer names. Maybe we should invent Russian names for ourselves for the discussion!

Joan Pearson
March 13, 2001 - 06:22 pm
JO, I'm writing to Andara who speaks Russian, inviting her in here and hopefully, she will provide us the Russian form of our names. That would be fun.

WE ARE getting together a chart for the heading with the boys' nicknames!

Thanks Betty, I don't feel so back about the fine pencil notes in the library books! Honestly, I don't write as much in them as I do my own! Now if I had fine, leather-bound copies like Anna, I'd think long and hard before I did anything to mark it up. Did you find Brothers K, Anna?

Barbara St. Aubrey
March 13, 2001 - 09:38 pm
I just cannot miss this one - nineteenth century Russia - oh boy - lots to learn here - and we have a resident Russian translater as well - wow this is going to be great! Now to get Yule Breneer out of my mind's pictures as I read.

robert b. iadeluca
March 14, 2001 - 03:37 am
Jo:--All my friends address me as Robby with a "y" and I assume you are my friend.

Robby

Jo Meander
March 14, 2001 - 06:24 am
Thanks, Robby! I knew it wasn't "Robert"!

Hats
March 14, 2001 - 01:37 pm
Oh, these Russian names!!! I am afraid all the names will run together. Are they all major characters? Which ones can I forget???

Like Mrs. Khokhlakov. She is at the monastery. Her name scares me to death. I won't let the names make me afraid, Right???

HATS

By the way, my book is translated by Andrew R. MacAndrew. Does that matter?

Oh, what have I gotten myself into?

Jo Meander
March 14, 2001 - 03:50 pm
Hey, HATS, what page are you on? Isn't it too soon to hit the panic button? Fasten your seat belt, it's gonna be a bumpy ride, and you're gonna love it!!!

Hats
March 14, 2001 - 04:19 pm
Jo, I believe you. I will enjoy the bumpy ride. I have my seat belt fastened and know I will enjoy the journey.

I am on page 50, but I am going to start from the beginning again. I am so excited. I will be glad when April first is here. I am reading about 19th century (in the heading) Russia at the present time.

Bye, Jo

HATS

Jo Meander
March 15, 2001 - 11:11 am
I'm still trying to finish the reread of House of S.& F. I'm so gladd I read Brothers K. before; otherwise, I wouldn't have the nerve to sign up. <bk> See ya both places!
JO

Joan Pearson
March 15, 2001 - 02:40 pm
C'mon JO! You know how slowly we read! We will take the first "Book" the first week. I think that's only about 27 pages.

Barbara! Good to see you here. Your research is much appreciated. I have a feeling we will need your special help throughout.


Katerina Osipovna Khokhlakov...Hats, nah, don't let the names scare you! No one will hear you pronounce them! Will put a table in the heading identifying the characters as they appear. Names won't be an issue! Which ones can you forget? Hmmmm...you'd better remember the Karamazov boys!

Andrew MacAndrew! Great...that's a third translation for comparison of difficult passages.

Deems
February 14, 2001 - 07:11 pm
I'm BACK! And yes, it was wonderful, and the terriers ran and ran and wore all the callouses off their pads. Currently, they have both gone to bed, sacked out, totally exhausted. If you know anything about Jack Russell Terriers, you know what an awesome accomplishment it is to wear the little darlings out!

OK---I am catching up in here.

Names are nothing to fear. Alyosha is the youngest. Generally he is called Alyo'sha (accent on the middle syllable). He is the saintly one. He is 20.

The oldest is Dmitri, not a hard name at all. Sometimes spelled differently, but a manageable name. His nickname is Mitya.

Then there's Ivan. Now there is a really easy name. Think of Ivan the Terrible.

Popa Karamozov has Dostoevsky's first name, Fyodor, which is simply Theodore in Russian.

We can ALL do this. It is not hard, and you get used to the names really quickly. I promise.

Greetings to all........

The Beached-out one.

Hats
March 16, 2001 - 02:54 am
Maryal and Joan, I am feeling more comfortable by the minute. I know the boys, and that's what matters. You guys, are so encouraging.

Maryal, glad you are back.

HATS

Lady C
March 17, 2001 - 06:48 am
Re question 3: Would it help to remember that a name ending in "ovitch" means son of and is masculine? And one ending in "ovna" is feminine and means daughter of It wouldn't be the last name but the middle one. So both of Karamazov's wives had the middle name of Ivanovna, which is confusing, but the first was Adelaida and the second Sofya. And Mitya is the diminutive of Dmitri--little Dimitri.You can figure this out for Alyosha. Ivan is one of the most common Russian names and is roughly the equivalent of John.

Is any of this useful?

Joan Pearson
March 17, 2001 - 07:39 am
Oh yes, yes it t'is, Lady C!...will run right down to the basement and add it to the Character table...the whole post!

Thanks so much! We are going to have a splendid time with this because of YOU all!

Deems
March 17, 2001 - 08:36 am
Lady C---It certainly is useful, and thank you. All the sons have "Fyodorovitch" as their middle name because, as you point out, they are all the son of Fyodor.

Ivan is like Ian with a v inserted--both names akin to John.

Maryal

Lady C
March 17, 2001 - 08:44 am
Super! You are all so smart! You can see the connections so quickly that by the end of the book you would have found them for yourselves anyway.

I'm such a poor editor. Please overlook my errors.

Jo Meander
March 17, 2001 - 02:05 pm
Lady C and all: I remember the "ovitch" and "ivanova" distinction, but I'm still not clear about what the third part of the name reflects. I know, I should look it up, but as I am certain you know, heck, why not ask (she said lazily!)?

Joan Pearson
March 17, 2001 - 04:06 pm
Jo, I think the third name is the family name...mine would be Pearson...theirs is Kamarazov? Will someone check me on that? Can it be that simple?

Lady C
March 17, 2001 - 04:27 pm
Joan;

I think that's right. If you think of equating Russian names with Western ones, would Ivanovitch be Johnson? But then what about Ivanovna? Johnsonsdaughter? Either that or change her gender. Gets to be nonsense after a while, but fun to equate names like Pyotr, Grigory, Sophy, Adelaida--. Those are easy but there are a lot that just can't be transposed. Somehow, I remember who's who better when I play with the names.

Jo Meander
March 17, 2001 - 04:39 pm
OK, but where did Karamazov come from? Had to be former ancestor-- how far back, I wonder?

Joan Pearson
March 18, 2001 - 05:24 am
Perhaps...the "azov " at the end of Kamamazov means something like that, Jo? Yes, it is fun, isn't it Lady C? Does the link in the heading to Russian names answer the question...I haven't read it in a while. Will look later today...

Lady C
March 18, 2001 - 07:34 am
Frankly, I wouldn't even bother about where the last name came from any more than I would try to figure out where Smith, Jones, or Pearson came from. They're just last names as far as I'm concerned, and if a number of characters have the same last name, they're probably members of the same family. For me, when I first read Dostoevsky, keeping the first, nicknames and middle names straight was sufficient. That's difficult enough until you become accustomed to who's who.

Jo Meander
March 18, 2001 - 07:40 am
OK, thanks, that makes sense! The middle name signals immediate family connection because it's based on the father's name, and the last name is extended familyc connection, like ours, right?

Lady C
March 18, 2001 - 10:54 am
Jo, Sounds right to me. As you read I think it will fall into place. It would be nice though if the author would refer to a character using the same name consistently. For example it can be trying at first to remember that Alexey is Alyosha, that Pyotor Karamazov is also referred to as Pyotor Ivanovitch, etc.

Lady C
March 18, 2001 - 12:16 pm
Whoops. I goofed. Meant to write Fryodor Pavlovitch, not Pyotr Ivanovitch (whoever he is).

Joan did you check the names link? Keep us posted as to what you find out.

robert b. iadeluca
March 18, 2001 - 12:31 pm
Lady C:--I delved into my extensive knowledge of Russian names and the Russian language and immediately caught your mistake.

Robby

Lady C
March 18, 2001 - 12:42 pm
Robby

Hey, catch me up when I goof. I make LOTS of mistakes.

Joan Pearson
March 18, 2001 - 03:16 pm
Jo, I did...I went up to the link in the heading here? Do you see it? It's the middle one. I found two answers. The first is that the "ov" a the end of Karamazov does in fact mean "son of"....(But we won't even think about that as we read as we don't think that Pearson means "son of Per". It an old family name...(that once meant son of Karamaz or something like that.)

Here's something interesting from the link in the heading on Russian Names...
In modern Russian, names consist of a GIVEN NAME (imia), a PATRONYMIC (otchestvo), and a SURNAME (familiia), but as Tumanova notes quite well: "Russian naming conventions for early period are first name (baptismal name, usually that of a Biblical saint), followed by the everyday or common first name, patronymic, and rarely a surname. Russian naming conventions for mid to late period are first name, patronymic, and surname" (1989: 4). More precisely, Russian names started only as a given name, adding the patronymic around the 10th century, and finally the surname (from the patronymic constructions) only in the late 15th or early 16th century. The surname did not become common, in fact, until the 18th century (Tupikov, 1903: 21-22).


So that last name, the surname wasn't used until the 18th century. I gather because when a child was born there were so many "sons of Ivan" (patronym-father's name)~ Ivanovich for example, that another name, the surname was needed for better identification.

I'll go get the page that will identify all those nicknames that Lady C mentions...be right back!

Jo Meander
March 18, 2001 - 03:41 pm
Well done, Joan! Probably more info. than I'll be able to remember, but I do remember being able to figure out who was who when I read the novel a long time ago.

Barbara St. Aubrey
March 18, 2001 - 03:42 pm
Interesting in Indonesia today the use of GIVEN NAME (imia), a PATRONYMIC (otchestvo), omitting the SURNAME (familiia), is alive and well - the second name, the patronymic name is a combination of both parents patronymic names with each child carrying a different combination of the parents names. example; Smith and Jones - one child could be Joith another Smones another Smithjones anther ithjon. Not have surnames, husband and wife nor sister and brother share the same last name.

Now I wonder where this practice originated? After all Russia is as much an eastern nation as they are western.

Something else I read recently about family. It seems family, as an identity and place with certain people, to come back to has only been with us since the industrial revolution. Up until that time coming home or back to a place of family ment a location. Not a specific location like a family plot of land but a part of the country where the landscape and cultural ways are familiar. Home was a more tribal concept, rather than todays concept of the nucular family, with the father setting the mores for behavior. Your father's name and reputation was your passport so to speak of your station in life.

Family was a center that you passed through. Except for inheriting land or money, you left the family to seek your own life and fortune with many never returning again.

I also read that the bigger societal difference in the seventeenth and eighteenth century Russia was between the city and the country side. That the cities, like St. Petersburg, had more in common with European education and sophistication. The big split between understanding and acceptence in Russia was not between nations but between the urban ways and values versus the rural culture and traditions.
eighteenth-century definitions of glush' is an isolated and backward locale, an idea conveyed by notions like "the sticks"or "the bush" in English.

While the condescension toward the provinces implied by this term still suffuses contemporary Russian capital-city culture, the concept itself evolved during the eighteenth century in response to initiatives from St. Petersburg and in provincial noble culture itself, for the idea of backwardness attaching to glush' referred specifically to the rural nobility.





Studying the emergence of the provinces as backward and vicious as depicted in satirical journals, literary works, and state materials--casts new light on well-known currents in eighteenth-century Russian history, including "western-ization," the impact of the Petrine reforms, and relations between state and nobility. From this point of view, the provinces emerge as a challenge to the reforming efforts of the post-Petrine state and those capital-city servitors that espoused its civilizing mission.

It was this tension between capital center and provincial nobility that gave force and meaning to European ideas as they were appropriated in St. Petersburg as the sources of Russian notions of backwardness can be sought in the encounter between reforming state and recalcitrant countryside, rather than between Russia and Europe.

This same challenge permitted the rural nobility to find a language through which to contest the claims of the absolutist imperial state. Also, the elite notions of where "Russia" lay appear to have shifted from the enlightened and virtuous "sons of the fatherland" found in 1760's St. Petersburg to rural estates like those inhabited by families such as Tatiana Larina's in Eugene Onegin.

Joan Pearson
March 18, 2001 - 03:51 pm
Just reading and thinking about the names, patrynomic and surnames...if the names were based on the father's first name (before the surname was added, what what happened when there was a question about who the father was? For that reason, I think the surname is important...the child can take the mother's surname.

Here is the page currently being compiled on those names...and nicknames. What else would be helpful to include on such a page since it is still under construction? Will put it as is in heading now for reference.

Characters of Brothers K

Barbara St. Aubrey
March 18, 2001 - 05:24 pm
Wow from the University of Arizona words and phrases in the Russian (Cyrillic), learn the Russian alphabet in one hour, history, culture, proverbs.

And Joan this one may be useful but we can all enjoy the graphics by clicking on them one by one. Index of Russian Art from Stetson University

Russian Icon collection from Auburn also Russian nineteenth and early twentieth century Art

I especially like Vasily Perov's (who painted Dostoevsky) painting of Last Tavern at the City gates as it fits so well to our story.

And than this wonderful site from Bucknell University Russian History

Lady C
March 18, 2001 - 05:32 pm
Barbara and Joan

This is already exciting and we haven't even begun to discuss the book itself! Thank you both so much for finding all this info for us to explore.

Barbara St. Aubrey
March 18, 2001 - 05:34 pm
Russia: The Petrine state - Britannica Peter The Great, changed the tsardom of Muscovy into the Empire of All Russias, and he himself received the title of Emperor.

Peter introduced single inheritance of real estate (1714), attempting in this way to break the traditional inheritance pattern that had led to the splintering of estates. In so doing he hoped to create a professional service nobility unconnected with the land and totally devoted to the state, but the resistance the law met in its application forced its revocation in 1731.

He also required the nobility to be educated as a prerequisite for service. Schooling, whether at home or in an institution, became a feature of the nobleman's way of life. Schooling was a radical innovation, at first resented and resisted; but within a generation it was accepted as a matter of course and became the decisive element in the status and self-image of the nobility.

The peasantry had been enserfed during the 17th century, but the individual peasant had retained his traditional ties to the village commune and to the land that he worked. To prevent tax evasion through the formation of artificial households, Peter introduced a new unit of taxation, the "soul"--i.e., a male peasant of working age--and the lords were made responsible for the collection of the tax assessed on each of their souls.

The peasant thus became a mere item on the tax roll who could be moved, sold, or exchanged according to the needs and whims of his master--whether a private landlord, the church, or the state. The serf became practically indistinguishable from a slave.

betty gregory
March 18, 2001 - 09:25 pm
Well, I can spend hours getting lost in that incredible art, Barbara. Ivan Kramskoy, this painter, you must go look. (Click Russian Nineteenth and early Twentieth century link) Inconsolable Grief, such beauty. But, his other 4 paintings are just as wonderful. Oh, my. Thank you for these links!! I have to go back and look again at Kramskoy.

Betty

Barbara St. Aubrey
March 18, 2001 - 10:49 pm
Oh Betty yes - thanks for pointing it out - it's the hand isn't it - as it downloads the face is almost hidden but that hand just makes you melt.

Another that I thought is delightful, so much fun and ought to be a graphic for some child's lit. is Gorbatov's The Invisible City of Kitezh

Jo Meander
March 19, 2001 - 05:37 am
BARBARAand BETTY, Thank you for the paintings! My browser missed Barbara's post with all the clickables, and when Betty talked about them, I went back and found them! How wonderful! The Invisible City of Kitecz is now my wallpaper! I went through many of the paintings, found them beautiful and provocative, in many cases. Alwas loved Chagall, now have new acquaintance with painters I don't think I've seen before. The tension in many reflects the temper of time and place.

Jo Meander
March 19, 2001 - 05:44 am
Joan P., could some of Barbara's clickables go in the heading? You probably plan to do it already -- hope so!


Barbara, Betty, Lady C., anyone who has had a chance to look: I'd like to read reactions or interpretations of Fedotov's A Poor Aristocrat's Breakfast!

betty gregory
March 19, 2001 - 07:11 am
Jo, that one was sooo interesting, wasn't it? Another, something about "the sorcerer who came to the wedding," oh my goodness...the use of dark black shadow. Incredible. No, I've never seen these painters, either. Another about haystacks in the evening, the use of the odd color green, but it's perfect, just perfect. Another, about the spring flooding. Another about "the bells." I could look at that one all day. Go find the one with "bells" in the title.

Betty

Oh, and the one about the "death of the peasant," with the child sitting and the woman distraught on the ground. Breathtaking.

Jo Meander
March 19, 2001 - 08:09 am
I will Betty, I promise. The one I mentioned is so charged with fear, secretive reaction, it made me feel as if he were in danger just trying to have breakfast Is he trying to hide something?

ALF
March 19, 2001 - 12:55 pm
The last great book discussion that I was involved in was led by Maryal (the marker) and Joan P., who enlightened me as to the wonders of Chaucer. It was and is still my favorite discussion.

I have in my possession a CD-Rom Windows version 4.8 "The complete Text of over 5,000 Historical, Classical and cultural Works." GUESS which one I am going to try to read? Dostoevsky's Brothers.. If I can't muddle thru without markings (yes, I too am guilty of that infraction) then I will find it, quickly, somewhere else. I am truly excited to be able to enrich my love of literature with you all, once again. Yes, Maryal, I will try to behave.

Lady C
March 19, 2001 - 01:20 pm
Barbara Thank you so much for the links. Finally got to explore some of the paintings and fell in love with two of thoseI viewed. Fedetov's use of stark black and white in Young Widow immediately brought to mind Whistler's similar use in a portrait of an elegant lady (I forget the name and am too lazy to look it up). Of course there are equally strong differences, but that's what struck me first off. And Natalia Gocharova's The Invisible City is so fantastic (in the literal sense). And her delicate use of color! I'm sure it must illustrate an old folk tale, and I just wish I knew the story.

Deems
March 19, 2001 - 02:04 pm
welcome, ALF!




Now we are sure to have fun. We'll just keep nibbling away at this big novel with all the funny names.

Now, where is Fae? I think we might need her magic to keep us going.

I am all the way up to page 60 or so, folks, and moving full steam ahead whenever I'm not grading papers. IRK!

Barbara St. Aubrey
March 19, 2001 - 03:29 pm
Jo that poor aristocrate is certainly wary isn't he - no candle or lit lamp, everything about him and the dog on alert. I wonder if it is his creditors he is worried about or is he trying to keep his filling early morning breakfast a secret from the servents who probably know of his financial demise and think he should not eat so well.

Betty is this the one you are refering Invaovs' death of the mirgrant such un-consolable grief and the sitting, waiting child watching. It looks like a baby on a cradle board is between the mother and the watching child.

I thought this one amazing by the same artist that painted the poor aristocrat. Not only the decorative room so well depicted and the design using pattern scattered all over the painting but the scene tells a frightening story of the courtship of the major. Fedotov's The Major's Courtship

Joan Pearson
March 19, 2001 - 06:13 pm
WELCOME, ALF! Behave?
Now don't you dare behave! It is your own irrepressable humor, and determination to get right to the point without mincing words that we treasure...and count on! YOU, the Alf we love, have just been counted among the brave!

Now, I'm off to feast on Barbara's links!

Joan Pearson
March 19, 2001 - 07:03 pm
Russian History (Imperialist Period 1689 ~ 1917

This link is particularly helpful to us, setting Dostoevsky and his works into chronological order! Methinks we need some Russian History to understand what is going on with religious beliefs and socialism...

A number of us recently reread Animal Farm. We understood Old Major represented Karl Marx, who wrote Das Kapital in 1872, eight years before Brothers K was published. This fact alone may help us to understand, that there were many in Russia at the time who responded to Marx's socialist doctrines, sang the Beasts of England anthem and then there were the conservatives, who did resisted. That group would have included the Church. It also included Dostoevesky, who hated radical views, who believed that the survival of Russia depended on the Orthodoxy of the church.

Any history buffs out there with more?

Will put the History...and the 19th-20th century art links in the heading right now. Did you notice the painters last names during this period...most seem to end in "ov". Pavel Fedorov. Pavel...Paul? son of Fedor?

Deems
March 19, 2001 - 07:06 pm
I'm doing a little background reading on our author and I ran into a poignant letter, very brief, that Dostoevsky wrote to his brother, Nikolay, informing him of the death of his three year old son, Alexey. In this short note, full of a father's pain, Dostoevsky refers to his son as "Alyosha," "Leoshechka," "Kolya," and "Lyosha," all loving nicknames he used for Alexey.

Alexey Dostoevsky died on May 16, 1878 (the letter is dated that day). He was Dostoevsky's favorite son, a boy of apparently bright promise. Dostoevsky began publishing The Brothers Karamazov the following year, 1879.

Dostoevsky suffered from epilepsy and little Alexey died after having his first epileptic seizure. Dostoevsky felt guilt in addition to great grief because he believed his son had inherited epilepsy from him.

~Maryal

Joan Pearson
March 19, 2001 - 07:13 pm
Oh my. Oh my. I am always accused of looking for autobiographical links between the writer and his fiction. For one fleeting moment here, I feel somewhat vindicated. Alyosha, his favorite, guilt, loss.

Thanks for sharing that, Maryal!

Barbara St. Aubrey
March 19, 2001 - 11:30 pm
Oh Maryal yes, the pain in this man's life - did you read where his letter to his brother from Siberia asked for books rather than the very needed food and warm cloths -

Ok read and read and this is a synopsis of what I understand as the change in the serfs thinking to becoming free and the connection between the peasants, church and elite.

Serfdom, like the army, seemed to have been means for repressive, and there were many instances of brutality in both institutions. But, in practice, landlords allowed their serfs considerable leeway. The risks of farming poor land were shared through communal land, and peasant liability for taxes and other dues was a collective responsibility.

The village community was a kind of "ghetto," confirming the cultural as well as social distance between the elite and the peasantry. The peasantry understood Russia to be guided by the principles of military power, religious morality and social equality. But they had no sense of territory beyond the village and no idea of a nation community.

They understood Russia as a community bound together by the Orthodox faith. Here the peasants worked their own beliefs into official religious doctrine and practice. What survived was a rigid peasant suspicion of the state.

The Orthodox church in Russia was subordinated to the state, as compared to Germany and England where the church was the center for their national language and culture.

Peter the Great abolished the Patriarchate. By the nineteenth century the Guardian of the Holy Synod were government ministers. Parishioners enjoyed little autonomy ( In 1868 there are parishioners, but there is no parish in the sense of the word). Priests were appointed and enjoyed a difficult relationship with their flock. The scriptures were not available to the masses in modern Russian version until after the middle of the nineteenth century.

Weak guilds and competition from other social groups hampered the development of bourgeois identity. Only Moscow merchants from mid-nineteenth century onwards had a balanced social force and a sense of national politics.

The literary elite champion a cosmopolitan, European outlook, which contributed further to the rift between elite culture, the church, and the ordinary people. It was left to Fedor Mikhailovich Dostoevskii to re-connect the myth of "holy Russia" for a late nineteenth-century reader, by seeking to blend the idea of a suffering, compassionate narod (populist) and Russia's religious mission.

The new reading public, enlarged during the later years of the nineteenth century, gave importance to the idea of a "Russian nation." National identity grew with the use of symbols; currency, flag, anthem, postage stamps, sports, holidays and festivals. War and migration helped to introduce the peasantry to a new identity as they met their first "foreigners." Though, Russia's humiliation in the Crimean war developed a rift between state and society.

The 1841 ban against the sale of peasants did not overcome the political and cultural distance between the peasantry and their political masters. Peasant self-government established in 1861, though liberating the peasants from serfdom, created a problem economy for peasant agriculture by favouring the landowners in redistributing the land and by imposing an involved system of taxation on the villages. The Russian state did not crush the peasantry, and this failure confirmed the peasantry as the bearers of a communal tradition.

Jo Meander
March 20, 2001 - 05:42 am
Barbara, Your interpretation of The Poor Aristocrat's Breakfast confirms my reaction: Someone was interrupting hs meal because they felt he had no right to keep it, or anything else he had, for himself. I looked at The Major's Courtship again and realized that it was not a happy occasion for the young woman. I had missed that restraining hand on her dress the first time. It appears that a wedding is in the offing, whether she likes it or not!
I seem to recall that Dostoevsky championed the peasant class, especially in light of brutal treatment they frequently received from the aristocracy. You said his politics were conservative, that he favored the traditional system, or did I misunderstand? Where did he stand regarding the suffering of the peasant class and the government of his day? Maybe there's a specific reading I need to locate in the heading?

Joan Pearson
March 20, 2001 - 06:27 am
Jo, that was me, trying to piece together where Dostoevsky stood regarding the Socialist Doctrine's of Marx and the position of the Church in Russia at this time, which it seems were at odds. From the first link in the heading above, "Russia and Dostoevsky":
Although he foresaw many of the evils of Communism, 19th-century writer Fyodor Dostoevsky probably would be enormously unhappy at the breakup of the Russian empire, says one of the world's leading authorities on the author of Crime and Punishment.

Joseph Frank, professor emeritus of Slavic languages and literatures and of comparative literature, is finishing work on the fourth volume of his five-volume biography of Dostoevsky.

Dostoevsky, Frank said, hated the ancestors of the Communist regime, the radical intelligentsia of his time. While living in Switzerland in 1867, he attended a meeting of the Congress of Peace and Freedom, which had drawn a number of noted Russian revolutionaries including Mikhail Bakunin.

Summing up his reaction, Dostoevsky wrote in a letter that he had never heard such nonsense in his life.

His novel The Possessed savagely satirizes the radical ideologies of his day. In it, one of the radical characters says: "I began with absolute liberty and ended with absolute despotism. ANIMAL FARM? It's confusing, but there is no other solution."

The Possessed and other Dostoevsky works "kept undermining the Communist point of view all through the Soviet regime," Frank said.

At the same time, though, Dostoevsky was an intense nationalist who believed in the greatness of the Russian empire and saw it as the salvation of the world, Frank said.

"He thought that only in Russian Orthodoxy had the true image of Christ been preserved, and that this would create a new civilization of the future," the Stanford scholar said.


I think I mis-spoke in calling Dostoevsky a conservative. He was indeed a champion of the peasants, although he hated the radical socialist methods as the solution to their problems. In that sense, I guess you could call him conservative.

Barbara! Thanks so much for the information on the plight of the peasants and the link to Dostoevsky's thinking at the time:
It was left to Fedor Mikhailovich Dostoevskii to re-connect the myth of "holy Russia" for a late nineteenth-century reader, by seeking to blend the idea of a suffering, compassionate narod (populist) and Russia's religious mission.


This is really helpful! We are finally beginning to talk about the underlying conflicts of Brothers K Will have to get the information together onto another table in the heading for those who tune in once this discussion "officially" begins!

betty gregory
March 20, 2001 - 10:34 am
So...I'm trying to understand...Dostoevsky would be comfortable with a Church-led solution, a church-led state? I think I'm mixing up what I've just read in the book with the last few posts, or am I correct? Not a "State" with capital S, led by a church, but the Church to lead the people?

Barbara St. Aubrey
March 20, 2001 - 11:04 am
Betty I get the impression from the various readings I have completed that the Church was not a free independent Church - in other words no seperation of Church and State but rather the State actually appointed the priests. Being puppets of the State was not a problem to the peasents since they not only did not read in addition they had no understanding of a political nation. To them the mission of the church was one and the same as their nation.

I can now better understand why communists broke up the church. The church was simply an arm of the government and as long as the church held sway the peasants would follow the church priests and not change into the socialized governing body the early communistic movement espoused.

Sounds to me like Dostoevsky wrote from a peasent mentality rather than from the intellictual passion of the elite.

By the way if you research the net using this spelling Fedor Mikhailovich Dostoevskii you find all kinds of information that does not pop up when we use the Dostoevsky spelling.

Does anyone know how to download the Russian alphabet. I found site after site that offers the alphabet for downloading but I do not know how to do it.

betty gregory
March 20, 2001 - 11:29 am
For the moment, Barbara, (grin), I'm sticking with the English and will use all the help I can get.

Joan Pearson
March 20, 2001 - 12:11 pm
Barbara, I'm afraid to go there (cyrillic alphabet)...will really scare off folks who are skittery about this discussion! Will email you links if I come across them though.

Betty, read this and tell me if it answers your question about Dostoevsky, the Church and the intelligentia??? And if it does, will you sum up your understanding for us?
Dostoevsky ~ Russian Orthodox Church


From this article:
"While in prison and exile Dostoevsky had associated closely with people of lower-class origins--peasants and poor city dwellers. He found that these common people identified the progressive intelligentsia (of which he himself had been a part before his arrest) with the land-owning, serf-holding classes. It was bitter for Dostoevsky to learn that those intellectuals, who worked for progress and improvement in the lives of the poor and disadvantaged, were considered by those whom they were trying to help to be not one whit better than those who were oppressing them. He was appalled at the convicts' deep and undiscriminating hatred for the upper classes. Dostoevsky began to feel that the only way to restore unity and harmony among Russians was for the educated upper classes to reject the imitation of European ways and ideas and to return to a uniquely Russian manner of life.

The specific characteristics of such a way of life would include the following: (1) a basis in family life, with patriarchal relations within families and democratic relations between families; (2) recognition of the primary importance of religion (that is, the Russian Orthodox church) and the religious way of life"

annafair
March 20, 2001 - 08:55 pm
I did stop off at the library and check out Brothers K it is a Constance Garnett translation. So I am ready to delve into it once again. I know it will seem new to me since it has been many years since I read it. I recalled I liked it although I am not sure that is what I really mean to say. I enjoy books that give me something to think about and especially books that have one foot in history.

ROBBY now if you want to mark up your books that is fine with me! I understand it is fine with you and perhaps your notes are legible and helpful mine would look like scratches and I would spend innumerable hours trying to decipher what I wrote and why. That is why this idea of reading and sharing is desirable to me. I do want to discuss my feelings about a book and here it is immediate. I dont have to keep unreadble notes in a book They are in my head and I can just throw them out and see where they land.

I am going down and get the book now and read some. My family was here for St Pat's day and since when all are together we overflow the dining room it requires a bit of preparation on my part. All is tranquil now and I have time to open the book and start the journey of my mind.

Looking forward to this ..anna in Va

Hats
March 21, 2001 - 12:43 pm
Hi All,

I have been delving into all the links and have learned a lot of new information about Russian history. It is interesting to learn more about Dostoevsky's life. I think Maryal posted about the death of his son and the guilt felt by Dostoevsky. Barbara wrote about Dostoevsky's desire for books rather than food and clothing. Fascinating.

From what I understand from the posts, Dostoevsky supported the cause of the peasants. Was he a reformer like Charles Dickens?

In one of the posts, I read about his exile. Why was he exiled? I missed that information.

Is there a way to abbreviate Dostoevsky's name during our posts? It takes a long time to type it out. If not, that is alright because each time I type it, I learn to spell it.

robert b. iadeluca
March 21, 2001 - 12:54 pm
In deTocqueville's "Democracy in America," we tend to write deT.

Robby

FaithP
March 21, 2001 - 01:35 pm
I read this so many years ago that I am truly grateful for all the links and also the comments so far to get me into the whole mood again. And it takes a mood too, to sustain a straight through read of a big Russian Novel. I will take it a few chapters at a time, maybe I will understand it this time with the help of the discussion. Also I believe the perspective of a greater age plus all the world happenings since the 50's when I read this will definitely effect the way I preceive the novel this time around. PS Joan the Books and Lit heading with all the spring birds is WONDERFUL. Faith (Vera in Russia)

Deems
March 21, 2001 - 02:07 pm
FAITH!!!!---There you ARE. I have been scanning the horizon looking for your wagon, campfire, or other sign of your presence.

WELCOME to Ye.

(the Fae is here!)

HATS---After we have all learned to spell Dostoevsky, and have passed the "And-who-are-his-sons-and-what-are-their-nicknames?" test, I don't see why we can't call him Dos.

However, We can't call him "D" because there is also a son, Dmitry, and I will get confused. And everyone has to spell out IVAN and Alyosha. Anyone else think that Dos. will do for Dostoevsky? After the exam, of course.

HATS Dos. was a reformer of sorts. He believed that Russia had escaped some of the breaking up of the family that he saw happening in other parts of Europe along with some of the disillusionment, but he saw many problems in Russia, such as the treatment of serfs. Dostoevsky's father was a landowner who mistreated his serfs, and Dos. had observed the behavior when he was growing up. Dos. believed strongly in the importance of family bonds and religion.

Dickens lived at a time when England was rapidly undergoing industrialization and faced different (and, as I think of them, more modern) problems. What the two authors share--this is just what jumps into my mind--is a profound concern about children, that children not be mistreated and abused. Or abandoned.

Maryal

Joan Pearson
March 21, 2001 - 02:11 pm
Faith! I mean, Vera!!!! We were looking for you! You add so much! Yes, please, just a little at a time. We have much to sort out...together! You're right, we now have the benefit of a lifetime of experience to better understand this big Russian novel! It was not I, but Joan Grimes who designed the bird heading on the main Books & Lit page, and I agree. It is wonderful. She says she had a good time doing it ...and you can tell!

Fair Anna we appreciate your transquil posts. It is good you are with us again after a difficult winter! Did you see your mention in the Welcome Center heading? The robin and daffodils were meant specifically for YOU!

Hats, you bring up some good questions...which I see Maryal has answered. I found a few additional facts about his father which might help us understand the author a little better.

Hats
March 21, 2001 - 02:18 pm
Robby, (Det) I like that abreviation.

Maryal, thank you for the reformer information.

Joan, I can't wait to see more about the author.

You guys, are so helpful.

HATS

Joan Pearson
March 21, 2001 - 02:35 pm
I didn't know that his father mistreated his serfs, Maryal, but while Dost was away at school, his father was killed by the serfs on his estate> After this the young Dos became obsessed with death...crime, murder all of his life. I don't think that as a young man you would say he was a champion of the serfs!

My source says that he became influenced by new radical ideas from the West and became affiliated with those who wanted to revolutionize Russia with Western reforms. (Not sure what these were specifically.)

He published articles calling for reform, was put in prison, tried, found guilty of treason and condemned to be shot by a firing squad.

Seconds before his execution, the Tsar granted him a reprieve...it is said he wanted to teach him and other revolutionaries a lesson...and then banished him to Siberia. Here he underwent a great change...began to reexamine his values. He began to reject a blind acceptance of new ideas which Russia was absorbing. He underwent a spiritual change and emerged with a new belief in the sacred mission of the Russian people. He believed that the salvation of the world was in the hands of the Russian people...including the serfs. And that Russia would rise to dominate the world.

So, would you say he was a champion of the poor? Or was it more? He regarded them as Russia's salvation, Russia who would dominate the world. Sounds like one of the Beatitudes to me...Blessed are the poor ...

Deems
March 21, 2001 - 02:43 pm
Oh gooood a Biblical question and I am currently reading Matthew. "Blessed are the poor in spirit; the kingdom of heaven is theirs." (Matt. 4:3). It is the gentle who get "the earth as inheritance."

Maryal

Deems
March 21, 2001 - 02:44 pm
Or, in the KJV---"Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." So, if we think of meek peasants, it should work out ok.

Joan Pearson
March 21, 2001 - 02:46 pm
I like that! I like the beatitudes...better than the commandments.

Lady C
March 21, 2001 - 05:03 pm
I don't think the peasants could have been so meek. They killed D's father. And the ones D met in prison hated the aristocracy. That doesn't sound so meek either.

Deems
March 21, 2001 - 05:14 pm
Lady C--Good point. One has to take into account the surly peasant as well.

annafair
March 21, 2001 - 06:02 pm
Well surly landowners do deserve surly peasants anna in Va who is enjoying re reading The Brothers K ...You can call him Dos but most likely I will spell the whole name out when needed as I love those long impossible, difficult to pronounce and write names DONT ask me why I could never tell because I dont know. They have always held a fascination for me..

Deems
March 21, 2001 - 06:12 pm
Fair Anna---I like the names also, especially the ones I know how to both spell and pronounce. How about everyone does what he/she wants to do as long as we can all figure out who is being referred to.

I was going to suggest that we call Dostoevsky "Fyodor," and then I realized that not only is this breaking protocol but also Father Karamazov's first name is "Fyodor," so it wouldn't work.

So good to have you with us again!

betty gregory
March 22, 2001 - 01:04 am
What a unique thinker Dostoevsky was. After reading through the historical link that Joan gave us, I was left thinking that it would be difficult to apply today's "liberal" or "conservative" to him, so I'm suggesting that when we do run into those words, that we remember that we are looking at a unique time in Russian history.

What's not so difficult to understand, as the leftist critic N.S. Dobroliuvov proposed, is that Dostoevsky's leading quality was his "pain for man, his impassionned defense of the moral and human worth of downtrodden people." (quote from Joan's link)

His solution, however, did not fit with the "left" of the times. In fact, a group that formed to espouse his theory, the Pochvenniki, was known as "anti-progressive." They did not support the European vision of a "new age of reason and harmony." Dost was opposed to this new doctrine of "reason and enlightenment"...a rational ordering of society that would bring about "perfect human happiness and contentment." (In fact, Dost believed people were more irrational than rational.)

He proposed, instead: a basis in (Russian) family life, primary importance of the Russian Orthodox church and a religious way of life, acknowledgement by people that they cause their own failures, and people supporting each other, both morally and physically. He called this program "a return to the soil."

Some scholars believe his book Notes from the Underground is the key to understanding the rest of his work. Major points from this book (from Joan's link)...(1) criticism of the idea that people can use reason to create a perfect society and abolish suffering, (2) human imperfection is a law of nature and is the cause of human suffering (suffering is expected and acceptable), (3)humans are essentially irrational and incomprehensible, capable of the most noble and the most base actions.

Some view Dostoevsky's ideas as a forerunner to existential thought...of man's essentially irrational nature, and so thought and wrote Satre.

Waisoek has the most positive outlook on Dost's Notes from the Underground. He wrote that the major themes are (1) an attack on rationalism, (2) an attack on social utopianism and materialism, (3) the proposition that man is capable of the most incredible generosity and nobility and, at the same time, also the greatest baseness, (4) a belief that man's motives come from the desire to gratify his own self-will.

betty

Joan Pearson
March 22, 2001 - 03:19 am
Betty, thank you so much for that. It really does help! Yes, we must cease and desist from using the terms, "left" and conservative, because the causes to the left and right of center were different than we understand them today. "Center" was different!

Parallels to Animal Farm continue to present themselves. This new doctrine (Marx/Old Major's) of "reason and enlightenment"...a rational ordering of society that would bring about "perfect human happiness and contentment."

Orwell reached the same conclusion as Dostoevsky:

"Humans are essentially irrational and incomprehensible, capable of the most noble and the most base actions."

I'm wondering how many anti-progressives there were at the time who thought as Dostoevsky did. I'm like you, Anna, Maryal, I like to type and say these names...for now! Once we get three or four in the same paragraph, it might get old!

Thank you all! The more we talk, the more I feel I understand this man, the author, whose own father was murdered by the serfs, whom he mistreated. Imagine the conflicting emotions in this young boy!

Hats
March 22, 2001 - 06:02 am
I am learning so much. I am wondering when the serfs murdered Dostoevksy's father were others killed during the uprising? Other members of the family?

Betty mentioned the "...primary importance of the Russian Orthodox church" to Dostoevksy. What are some of the beliefs of the Russian Orthodox Church? I might have missed that in the headings or in the posts.

What caused the uprising? Were the serfs mistreated by Dostoevksy's father?

HATS

Hats
March 22, 2001 - 06:17 am
Joan, I'm sorry. I reread your post. You had already answered my question about the serfs.

HATS

Joan Pearson
March 22, 2001 - 07:26 am
Front page of today's Washington Post... Learning to Read Laura Bush

What may be of interest here in the Books is the fact that we do have a first lady who loves to read! Today's front page will not be visible tomorrow, so I'll include some excerpts here which I found interesting in the article:

"What's your favorite story?" one asks the president. "I like reading the Bible," he says. "There's a lot of good stories in that. And 'The Willie Mays Story.'" None of the children asks the first lady about her favorite book. It would be fascinating to hear her tell them about Dostoevski's "Brothers Karamazov." ( read that somewhere else too.)

Deep inside her very private life, the first lady may well be a woman whose passion is ideas. She laughs off this notion, but her hobbies are the solitary pursuits that captivate only those whose minds are engaged.

The voracious reading is one.

Her reading list reveals a certain intellectual rigor, like the complete works of Willa Cather. She is reading all of Edith Wharton's novels for a second time, along with a biography of Wharton. Lynne Cheney, wife of the vice president, gave her "Girl With the Pearl Earring," literary fiction inspired by a Vermeer painting.

betty gregory
March 22, 2001 - 09:40 am
I wanted to say...(what I'm saying to myself, too) that we don't have to be scholars on the European call for "reason and enlightenment" to enjoy this wonderful book. And we certainly don't have to digest all this new information on Dostoevsky all at once. When the discussion starts, pieces will fall into place and we'll have many chances to see how Dostoevsky the person influenced Dosteovsky the author.

I'm still mulling over that long article that Joan posted and trying to put it into my own words. The family and religion were at the top of Dostoevsky's list of priorities....somewhat like today's phrase "getting back to basics." He also believed that each person needed to take responsibility for his own life, his own failures, successes.

A familiar character in his novels is the person who is a wonderful, generous hearted fellow....but with terrible faults.

He also rejected many ideas of the "left" or "progressive" intellectuals of his day....he disagreed with their methods of helping, but not their focus of concern for...the "downtrodden." Interestingly, both political sides often reviewed his work favorably, thinking that he was supporting their "side." Some critics thought his personal tragedies clouded his thinking...a real insult. Later, a few critics gave him credit for a unique way of addressing the lower classes' problems.

Some thought he was an early existentialist....a pretty bleak and pessimistic view of humans.

What I find delightful is that I cannot classify him. He doesn't fit into any pure left or right (of his day) or liberal or conservative of our day.


betty

Jo Meander
March 22, 2001 - 10:29 am
That's my perception, too, Betty. I'm gald to read that I don't have to become a "European reason and Enlightenment" scholar to continue!
The FD material I've read so far suggests that he believed in the Russian identity as essential to solving their problems, not modern socialism. He thought they should cling to family and their traditional church, as several of you have noted, rather than imitate European methods of social improvement. From the novel (original, long-ago reading), I was convinced he wanted to end the abuse of the peasants by the aristocracy. He seems to recommend a spiritual, almost mystical approach to conflict among the classes, not a "Manifesto" dictating highly organized government control of everybody's life.

Deems
March 22, 2001 - 12:21 pm
Such good posts this afternoon and how good to read them after finally getting connected to the internet! Grumble, groan!

Yes, labels are not appropriate. Let's look at this conflicted man who held many ideas, some when he was younger, others when he was more mature, and understand the man. And let us keep in mind that this is RUSSIA we are thinking about, part East, part West, with very different traditions from those found in either East or West.

And I'm soooo glad that I don't have to become a scholar on the period of history. I love the work that scholarship involves, but I have quite enough going on right now.

By the way, some scholars now think that Dostoevsky's father was not killed by his serfs, but I have not been able to discover what they think DID happen to him. I have a colleague whom I will corner next time I lay my eyes upon him. Maybe David will even answer an email.

Maryal

Lady C
March 22, 2001 - 12:23 pm
Jo I agree that Dostoyevsky believed in an almost mystical approach to Russia's future. My impression is that he believed the Russian soul would be the basis of the changes needed. And the Russian "soul" is not what we in the west have come to mean when we use the term. I think it encompasses a national approach to all of life and death, to motivation, behavior, the capacity for both good and evil, responsibility for self as well as others (eg Father Zossima's belief that everyone is responsible for everything) and much more that I haven't even begun to try to understand. As has been already noted by others, Russia's history of amalgamation of both Scandinavian and Eastern peoples has created a unique culture that we have difficulty in understanding. For me it's easier to examine the psychology of his characters and try to get a handle on them as individuals. Perhaps collectively, they illustrate the Russian soul better than any other analysis I am capable of making.

Jo Meander
March 22, 2001 - 01:52 pm
I think that's why I enjoyed his work so much, Lady C. I didn't know much about Russian history, but the characters were so compelling, their interior lives so well presented that I felt as if I were experiencing their thoughts and feelings right along with them. I thought Dostoevsky was great, and now I think that is because he captures that uniquely Russian spirit and conveys it so well.

CharlieW
March 22, 2001 - 01:53 pm
"examine the psychology of his characters and try to get a handle on them as individuals. Perhaps collectively, they illustrate the Russian soul better than any other analysis I am capable of making."....LadyC


Excellent observation.
Charlie

Joan Pearson
March 22, 2001 - 01:53 pm
I understand better the tensions in Russia at the time between those who wanted to preserve the Russian culture, centering on the family and religion, rather than the Socialist doctrines which were becoming popular at the time. I believe my interest in understanding this time in Russian history comes from our recent Animal Farm discussion. We left off to see Socialism/Animalism run amok because the animals were after all, only human, some more equal than others! And now we read of Dostoevsky and other Russians who continued to rail against socialist system. Fascinating!

I will take Jo's word, that Dostoevsky has portrayed the individual characters so well, that we don't really need to know more beyond this to appreciate the book....as Lady C has said, the characters themselves will let us know their souls!

Sources refer to Brothers K as having strong autobiographical influences. This was Dostoevsky's last work, published in 1880. He died in 1881. He had obsessed about death as a boy when his father was murdered and his last work centers around crime, redemption. I will keep that in mind.

Kathleen Zobel
March 22, 2001 - 02:36 pm
This will be my third time reading "The Brothers Karamazov." I find Dostoevsky a compelling writer with so many levels to his novels I don't think antone has plumbed them all.

I'm using the Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky translation.

The first paragraph of the introduction reads " The Brothers Kara mazov" is a joyful book. (?) Readers who know what it is "about" may find this an intolerably whimsical statement (amen). It does have moments of joy, but they are only moments; the rest is greed, lust, squalor, unredeeemed suffering, and a sometimes terrifying darkness. But the book is joyful in another sense: in its energy and curiosity, in its formal inventiveness, in the mastery of its writing. And therefore, finally in its vision." The last two sentences are all Dostoevsky no matter the story line. I'm looking forward to this reading since the last one was a good 10 years ago. Will I understand more because I'm ten years older?

Deems
March 22, 2001 - 02:46 pm
Hello, kathleen!!!! and Welcome. I have the same translation you do and marveled also at that line from the introduction. But, despite all the gravity in the novel, there is also a wonderful sense of an author who creates real living people who are full of passionate intensity and of LIFE.

Hi Charlie--Good to see your happy face again.

OK, off to read, first Luke and then Brothers K.

Maryal

Lady C
March 22, 2001 - 03:37 pm
I have always believed that the artist (in any medium) can not avoid bringing his/her own experiences, values, and perceptions to the work at hand, even at those times when playing devil's advocate. My feeling is that intention seldom, if ever, is involved in works of literary fiction.

Joan Pearson
March 22, 2001 - 03:46 pm
Ah kathleen! It is so good to have you back with us! Yes, of course, 10 more years of living should lend many new insights!

You bring up a point I have wondered about..."a joyful book". We shall see! Perhaps ten years later, you will find joy in the third reading. I like your choice of the word whimsical...I thought the title of Book I was a bit of whimsy on Dostoevsky's part. But I'm getting ahead of the discussion schedule. Again, it is so good to have you join us. Your reasoned posts are always a joy!

Lady C, I agree. I find myself (subconsciously) looking for the author no matter what I read. I find it helps to know something about the author when trying to comprehend complex characters.

Carolyn Andersen
March 23, 2001 - 03:06 pm
After reading through the postings so far, I'm really excited about following along. This morning I logged in to our local library's online catalog, and was amazed and disappointed that they didn't seem to have any of Dostoevsky's works. Moved up to the county library (you can get every public library in Norway on your home computer) and was appalled that THEY didn't have anything either. Then I tried a more sophisticated search option, and had to laugh at myself. Of course the Halden library has all the works of Fjodor Mikhajlovitsj Dostojevskij, and I'll pick up volume I of "Brødrene Karamasov" tomorrow. Wonder what all those characters' names and nicknames will look like! Thank you, Joan and Maryal, for all the preliminary work you've done, and thanks to all of the others who've contributed links. And special thanks for all the interesting information and commentaries that have been posted. Carolyn

Deems
March 23, 2001 - 06:36 pm
Carolyn! Welcome.So glad that you have found the book. It is also available online, or at least chapter one is. Check in the heading. We are glad to have such a diverse group here.

I shudder to think of what the names will look like in your version. Oh dear, what to do? What to do?

How much daylight do you have in Norway this time of year?

~Maryal

CharlieW
March 23, 2001 - 08:57 pm
If anyone has been intimidated by the talk of "bravery", of bulk, or put off by the Russian names - I'm here to tell you: Don't be. Having read the first three chapters this evening, I found them eminently readable and not at all confusing - even in the names. Find a copy of the book (or follow along with the entire text on-line). This book is accessible.


Charlie

betty gregory
March 23, 2001 - 10:31 pm
Agree, Charlie! Also, the story itself will hook you. Underneath all this beautiful writing is a good old fashioned murder mystery!

betty

Hats
March 24, 2001 - 03:36 am
Charlie, it is accessible. I felt much better knowing we would focus on the psychological side of the family. I read up to chapter 8 yesterday, and I made myself stop.

Surprisingly, it's readable. It's like a family saga, and most of us have read those at one time.

Some parts struck me as humorous. Perhaps, by that time, I was tired and just hysterical. For those of you who have read it before, are there any light moments?

HATS

Joan Pearson
March 24, 2001 - 08:40 am
Isn't this fine...Carolyn from Norway checked in while we were sleeping! She has been with us since the early days of Books & Lit and has made it to just about every discussion here in Great Books. Welcome home, Carolyn!

You may want to read the electronic text here...we have the whole thing available (just made the font larger in the heading)
The Brothers Karamazov (electronic text)


Geeeeee... Hats wants to get started YESTERDAY!!! hahaha! I have some bad news for you, Hats - we're going to have to put off the start date. I'll be out of town next week and my partner is "swamped" right now. Instead of starting on 4/1, we'll start on 4/2, okay? Humor will be the "assignment"! Read the first Book carefully for examples ...in any form - whimsy, irony or just plain old belly laughs! But wait till 4/2 to post them here, okay?

Charlie , do you think we're scaring people off with talk of bulk, the names and bravery? If so, we can tone it down. Or are posts like yours, Hats' and Betty's attesting to the readability of the text enough to reassure? Robby feared that 27 pages the first week was too much. I'll bet he said that before reading them.

I'm going to dash around changing the start date for the discussion to 4/2 ~ no fair starting when I'm out of range across the pond next week! Hats, do you hear me? hahaha! This is wonderful, the enthusiasm. And I have great confidence that Dostoevsky's writing will sustain such interest throughout! What a wonderful group assembling here!

FaithP
March 24, 2001 - 11:39 am
I am glad Charlie posted that the book is basically a family saga which is the way I read it in my youth and will again. I truly can't remember being daunted by it except my family was young then and it was difficult to find the time to sustain a reading habit like I had, most of my reading was after Nine at night and before Eleven when I would fall asleep from sheer exhaustion after working 8 hours per day in the office and then all the 1950's big dinner three kids and hubby to take care of. Read time was precious to me. fp

CharlieW
March 24, 2001 - 12:05 pm
Joan - I was feeling a little daunted myself before I actually started reading, so just wanted to reassure others that this book can be enjoyed on a number of levels, and that the story itself is (at least so far) readable, easy to follow. One need not know the context of the politics of Bakunin or that FD was embraced by the existentialists (and why), or that agrarianism and Mother Russia and The Church are topics of concern for the author. These things reveal themselves (as they should) in the story, and through the characters. That's why it is, after all, a classic. Not because it's difficult.


Charlie

Hats
March 24, 2001 - 02:10 pm
Joan, all I have to say is hurry up and come back. We will be waiting for you.

I will just continue reading "The Constant Gardener."

I would like to welcome CAROLYN.

HATS

annafair
March 24, 2001 - 02:49 pm
Only parts of what I have read do I vaguely recall The names sound a bit familiar to me. I am sure as I read further there will be times when I know what is going to happen. But I enjoyed it the first time around and am doing so now. I found it very readable and the names I just sort of pronounce them as I see fit..I never agonize over things like that..Hurry back Joan I am ready to start thinking about this ...anna in Va

Hats
March 24, 2001 - 03:10 pm
Joan, I found the humor in the latter pages; I do not know if I found any humor in the beginning.

HATS

Barbara St. Aubrey
March 24, 2001 - 08:37 pm
Trying to stay engaged and not discuss the book I started to look for things Russian today. Learning about food is always a start to understanding a culture so here goes -
appetizers
Ikra - Caviar, black or red. Served with eggs, bread and butter, or pancakes.

Gryby so smetanoi - Mushrooms with sour cream sauce. Served hot or cold and usually quite good.

Stolichny salat - The classic Russian salad. The main ingredient is potato; other ingredients depend on what is around that can be hidden by large quantities of mayonnaise.

Vinegrette - Pickled cabbage, potatoes, beets, carrots and onions are the basis of this salad.

Zalivnoye, Studen - Cold meat or fish covered with gelatin. Sometimes carrots, peas, can be found in there too.

Myasnoye/Rybnoye Assorti - Meat or fish cold cuts. The fishy variation can contain some rather salty aquatic specimens.

Salo - Thoroughly frightening slabs of pure fat. This Ukranian speciality is good news for your cardiologist.
Soup
Most Russian soups are based on a few key ingredients: beets, cabbage, onions, garlic, carrots, potatoes, and stock of meat or bone, and are usually topped with a dollop of sour cream. The naming of soups depends on which ingredient receives the most emphasis or on any strange addition to the usual repertoire.
Meat and Fish
Kotlety - Russian hamburgers; the meat is usually cut with breadcrumbs and covered in a semi-sweet reddish sauce that resembles ketchup about as much as these resemble hamburgers.

Escalop - A typical slab of pork or veal cooked in a sour cream sauce.

Kotlety po-Kiyevsky - One of the most famous dishes, Chicken Kiev is a large fried chicken football stuffed with mushrooms and butter. A true expert can cut it in such a way as to squirt hot butter on fellow diners.

Beef Stroganov - In Russia Beef Stroganov is strips of meat with a thick creamy sauce.

Tsyplyonok tabaka - Fried chicken with garlic.
Dessert
Tvorog - resembles cottage cheese and comes in various degrees of sweetness. Often it is served with sour cream or jam.

Blini - Russian pancakes, are a common dessert (though they sometimes double as an appetizer or as breakfast) and are often served with tvorog, sour cream, or jam.

Pirog - This can be a small pastry or a larger cake. Pastries are usually filled with apple, tvorog, jam, or cabbage.

Tort - Russian cakes. Lots of creamy frosting and usually extremely sweet.

Morozhenoye - Ice cream. Eaten with a vengeance both in cafes and on the street, regardless of the weather. On the street or in simpler establishments there are usually almost two flavors...call it one.
Blini are the main component of Russian board at Shrovetide, served as a symbol of Sun and Spring. Blini are also popular throughout a year, being served with different fillings and topped with sour cream or butter.

Difficulty Level: Easy
Time Required: 1 hour
  1. Ingredients: 3 cups wheat flour; 3,5 cups milk; 1 teaspoon yeast; 3 eggs; 0.5 teaspoon salt; 2 teaspoon sugar; 0.5 lbs. butter; sour cream.
  2. Dissolve the yeast and sugar in 1 cup of warm milk.
  3. Add another 2.5 cup of milk.
  4. Add salt, eggs, butter, 3 cups of flour and mix until the mixture is smooth.
  5. Cover with a cloth and set aside in a warm place.
  6. When the batter becomes bubbly, begin to bake blini on a pre-heated pan. Try not to disturb the batter as you bake blini.
  7. Spread the blini with melted butter.
1.Serve the blini hot, topped with a spoonful of sour cream.
2.You may also serve the blini with red or black caviar instead of sour cream.

Hats
March 25, 2001 - 01:40 am
Barbara, what a fun way to learn about a culture.

HATS

annafair
March 25, 2001 - 08:28 am
Barbara I find I like Russian food...thanks for sharing all of that ..I like caviar with fresh white bread and unsalted butter. And pickled beets I could eat several times a day etc etc also thanks for the recipe...I may just try it although it would seem to make a lot...anna in Va

Joan Pearson
March 25, 2001 - 11:06 am
hahaha! At this rate, I'll never get packed, Barb! I don't know WHAT to pack. Heaviest rains since 1772! The good news is that our hotel is a block from the underground trains. The bad news...the threat of an underground strike! Walking shoes...waterproof! Don't have 'em!

Here's a dinner menu from the story for you to research, Barb!
five dishes: fish-soup made of sterlets, served with little fish patties; then boiled fish served in a special way; then salmon cutlets, ice pudding and compote, and finally, blanc-mange.


Bon appetit!

Barbara St. Aubrey
March 25, 2001 - 11:52 am
Joan if there is an IRA or other store that sells hiking equipment in your area - run on up, there is a product to waterproof hiking boots that comes in a spray on can. Than just spray on whatever shoes that you are going to use as your walking shoes. It does not work too well though on Tennis shoes with all that cloth. How about Scotchguard for the tennies. Of course they do have shops in London I am told! Just buy yourself a pair of what everyone else is wearing when you get there.

Are you planning to see theater or is there another attraction that has you off to all the rain?

Barbara St. Aubrey
March 25, 2001 - 01:00 pm
Sterlet

This is a fun site with lush graphics that originates from the Netherlands - Dinner with Dostojevski - The Brothers Karamazov explore The Reader's Museum/Het Leesmuseum is located in Booktown, the capital of The United States of Reading (USR), formerly - before the coup - known as The Republic of Letters.

Lent Meal in "The Brothers..."

So many Russian Recipes Just replace the perch in the fish soup recipe with Sterlet.

Sterlet is mentioned in War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, in The Clalash in Taras Bulba and Other Tales by Nicolay Gogol and in Beauty And The Beast. A Story Of Old Russia. by Bayard Taylor.

Burakovyi Kvas (fermented Beet Juice)
Categories: Vegetables, Russian, Christmas
Yield: 10 servings
Scrub beets, pare and cut into quarters. Place in a clean jar or crock and sprinkle with the salt. Boil the water and pour into the jar. Cook, add the bread to aid in the fermentation, cover with the cheesecloth and tie with the string. Set in a cool place to ferment for about 1 week. (Do not do this in hot humid weather; it will decompose, not sour.) Remove any mold as it appears. Flavor develops in 1 to 2 weeks. Remove the bread, mold, and cheesecloth. Taste. It should be sourish but mild, not brackish. Pour into clean dry jars and cover, keeping it refrigerate until ready to use. It will keep well in the refrigerator.

Lady C
March 26, 2001 - 08:10 am
OK, these are fascinating, but when is someone going to come up with a recipe for vodka????

CharlieW
March 26, 2001 - 02:25 pm
Well..........
The following is freely adapted from the late LJ Klein's recipe for sozzled Duck:

Any ready-made stuffing mix for fowl
Use Vodka instead of water
Throw in some raisins
Stuff it in a duck the insides of which are lined with mandarin orange slices
Bake it off at 350-375 20-30 min/lb (Slower and longer if its a wild duck)
Pour Vodka over the serving dish
Light it and stand by with a fire extinguisher


Charlie

ALF
March 26, 2001 - 02:29 pm
Now Chas, I can't wait to "teal" everyone about this "ducky" recipe.

Deems
March 26, 2001 - 02:41 pm
Charlie---I'm no cook, but I think L.J.Klein left out the most important part of the recipe which would be imbibing the vodka while stuffing the duck.

Jo Meander
March 27, 2001 - 08:02 am
How about adding a fire extinguisher to the preparations?

Barbara St. Aubrey
March 27, 2001 - 12:05 pm
Ok if you have had a weekend of Kvas or drunken Duck you are now ready to make those promises that accompany the horrible hangover - and so in order to properly bow down and emplore your well being you will need to know about the Russian Cross won't you -
Origin and Meaning of the Slavic Cross

It is common knowledge that the Cross is the primarily symbol of Christianity. It represents Christ's execution for the sins of humanity. The use of the Cross to identify Christianity and Christians was started by the Emperor Constantine. When he made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire, he replaced the eagles, which symbolized the god Caesar, with the Cross of Christ. Different Christian traditions have developed a variety of Cross designs over the two millennium since Christ's death. One such Cross is the Slavic Cross used by the RussianOrthodox Church.

The Slavic Cross is unique in that it has three, not one, crossbars. In the early 800s AD, the Byzantines added the bottom crossbar to represent the location where Christ's feet were nailed to the Cross. This lower crossbar was placed in a horizontal position. Sometime between the 10th and 11th centuries (900s to 1000s), the Slavic Cross was designed with the lower crossbar placed at a sharp angle to the main vertical post of the Cross. As you look at the Slavic Cross, the left side of this crossbar is elevated. Why?

There are several possible explanations. Many believe that this was done as a visual condemnation to nonbelievers. By having an angled crossbar for Christ's feet, one foot would have been attached much higher, on the Cross, than the other, further intensifying His suffering.

Other explanations are more spiritual in nature. The right side of the crossbar (as you look out from the Cross) is higher to symbolize the second coming of Christ and life for believers/death for nonbelievers. Another popular belief is that the slanted crossbar speaks to the two thieves who were crucified to either side of Christ. In Scripture, the thief to Christ's right begged forgiveness and was promised, by Christ, eternal life (Lk 23:39-43). Thus, the raised side of the crossbar to the Cross' right. Likewise, to the Cross' left, was the thief who taunted Christ.

This explanation is probably the most widely accepted. In the prayers of the 9th hour, we read, Between the two thieves Thy Cross did prove to be a balance of righteousness: wherefore one of them was dragged down to Hades by the weight of his blasphemy; whereas the other was lightened of his transgressions unto the comprehension of theology. O Christ God, glory to Thee.

Most Western crosses include only one crossbar which represents Christ's outstretched arms. Some will add a small sign at the top of the Cross to represent that which was nailed to Christ's Cross by the Roman soldiers. Likewise, the Slavic cross adds a third crossbar not as wide as the primary crossbar. The inscription on this sign reads This is Jesus, the King of the Jews (Mt 27:37; Lk 23:28; Jn 19:19) It is, typically, inscribedin Aramaic.

Many believe that the Slavic Cross is the same as that of the Apostle Andrew, the first called of the apostles, who planted across in the Caucasus and predicted that agreat church would, someday, arise there. Today, St. Andrew's Cross is in the shape of a large X, the shape of the cross upon which the Apostle was crucified.

TOP CROSSBAR is where the plaque, which Pilate had nailed to the Cross, was placed. Here IC XC is inscribed. This is the Greek shorthand for Jesus Christ. Situated above this crossbar is the icon Not Painted by Hands, the face of Christ. On either side of the crossbar are adoring Angels. Beneath the Angels, instead of Pilate's inscription, it reads King of Glory.

SECOND CROSSBAR, which appears on all crosses, represents Christ's outstretched arms and the location where his hands were nailed to the Cross. Son of God is inscribed on either side of Christ's head. His halo bears the words, The Being and there is no crown of thorns. In the top corners of each end of the crossbar, there is the sun and moon. This refers to the prophecy of Joel; The sun hid its light and the moon turned to blood. Beneath Christ's arms, we read, Before Thy Cross we bow down, O Master, and Thy holy Resurrection we glorify.

The early Church celebrated one holy day for Christ's birth (nativity), acknowledgment as the Divine (visit of the Magi) and the onset of His ministry (Baptism). This was the Theophany celebrated on January 6/7th.

Later, the West divided this celebration; Nativity (Dec. 25), Epiphany (Jan. 6 or the proceeding Sunday) and Baptism (Sunday following Epiphany).

The Russian Orthodox Church followed the Julian or Old Calendar. Nativity of Our Lord (Christmas) ~ January 7th; New Year's Day ~ January 14th;Theophany (Christ's Baptism) ~ January 19th. The differences between East and West evolved after the Great Schism of 1054.

The Russian Orthodox Easter

Pascha (or Paskha) is the highest celebration of the Orthodox Church. Russian Orthodox churches will herald in the glorious event with a service, beginning at midnight on Pascha Sunday. After the service, proclaiming Christ's Resurrection, Easter baskets are blessed and shared. This signifies the end of the Great Lent, a forty day period of fasting.

Holiday fare includes paska, which is adorned with crosses made of raisins. The Paska is served with Easter sweet bread, or kulich, which is accompanied by vividly colored hard boiled eggs. Red is symbolic of Easter and beauty. Thus, most of the colored eggs are red. The main course of the traditional Pascha dinner is lamb or ham. Easter is a holiday for visiting friends and relatives. The traditional greeting is, Christ is risen, to which one would respond, Christ is truly risen

Great Snow scene during a Russian winter in the country.

Henry Misbach
March 27, 2001 - 04:13 pm
If by nothing else, I am heartened to notice that an apparently recent version of the Brothers K. is the translation by Constance Garnett. Heartened because that means I would not gain anything by replacing my Modern Library edition that turned 50 just last year.

I hadn't really expected to find so many posts on this book so early on, but I'm glad I stumbled into it. We face a challenging read, here. I read this book while I was in college during one semester in which I quite suddenly found myself open for one additional course. Since it was too late to enroll in something, I decided to read the Brothers K. I have not re-read it since then, but there is one section of it that I have re-read numerous times. I'll point out that part when we get there.

Maybe y'all are well versed in Russian history, but I feel it necessary to point out some things that set Russia apart from any other tradition. It may or may not be true that the Rus hailed originally from northern Europe occupied by an uncommonly enterprising sea- and river-borne merchant group known as the Frisians. We know more about what they were not than what they were. They were one of the last of the northern-most peoples other than Vikings to be converted to Christianity. They made a handy buffer against the Vikings for a good part of the 700's to 900's CE. We know that they used the western Russian river route that came to be known as the Varangian route under their king, Rurik.

What all this boils down to is, there were two "good" Russias prior to the middle 1200's that, had they been allowed to make some sort of sympoliteia or synoikismos would have made for a strong combination. First, there was Kievan Russia, centered in Kiev on the Dnieper River in the region called Ukraine. Located southeast of Moscow, it received its principal civilizing influence from Byzantium. Of course that gave the Russians the not altogether healthy notion that theirs was the civilization of the third Rome. But on the whole, Kiev enjoyed a rich cultural heritage.

To the north was something we not only don't associate with the Russians but we would never expect to find in their early history. The city-state of Novgorod, built entirely on the strength of its trading position, was both different from other Russian cities and was aware of the fact. Every free citizen there was invited to come and vote in the Veche, any time the assembly so named was called by the ringing of the church bell. The city had a prince, whose powers and prerogatives were very closely circumscribed. Although he could raise an issue before the Veche, so could any other free citizen. And when the Veche issued a formal voted-upon statement, it was called the Word of Lord Novgorod the Great. More closely explored, the prince would hardly come off as strong as some of our city managers. It was almost as precarious a position as the podesta of the Italian city-states. And this was in the 12th-13th centuries (thereabouts).

But the invasions of the Mongols changed everything. Moscow was so beset by enemies, even after throwing off the Mongal Yoke in the 1400's, that the resultant Russia was a far different place from what it might have become.

I submit--and I think you'll find--that the suffocating sense of powerlessness to change things importantly, itself hardly more than the outcome of basic historical process, is unintelligible in Dos except in the light thereof.

Barbara St. Aubrey
March 27, 2001 - 04:52 pm
Wow Henry first thanks for joining and what a great post filled with so much valuable background for us. And so even in the mid nineteenth century Dostoevsky was writting with a foot in that powerless position of not being able to change the important, history.

Won't it be fun to see how differently we react to this story since we were young and since Russia represents a different Icon of national relationship with us.

Back to your post - are you saying that the Russian Orthodox Religion was not the State system of moral judgement, culture, and depot of social behavior in Northern Russia? That the Byzantium influence grounded in the Eastern Orthodox Religion stopped short of Northern Russia? Do you know what influence the Mongols had on the Russian society and it's culture?

Deems
March 27, 2001 - 04:53 pm
Henry---Thank you for the early history. I love history myself but admit to a real lack of Russian History before Peter the Great.

While we are waiting for Joan to return from her trip, I for one would be more than glad if you took the history further.

What happened during the Mongol invasion and thereafter?

~Maryal

Hats
March 28, 2001 - 05:14 am
Barbara, I found the religious information very interesting. So much about the cross, Slavic cross, that I did not know, and another Easter tradition. I am going to enjoy the link you gave us today.

Henry, could you give us a sneak preview of that passage in Bros. K that you have reread more than once?? Would that be cheating? No, we better wait for Joan.

HATS

Deems
March 28, 2001 - 05:17 am
Shhhhhhhhhh.......but I think I know which section Henry is referring to, and it doesn't come up for a while.

Be good, and pat your foot (as my mother used to say) until we Begin.

~Maryal

Hats
March 28, 2001 - 05:17 am
Your so funny, Maryal.

HATS

Deems
March 28, 2001 - 05:19 am
shhhhhhhhhhh........

Jo Meander
March 28, 2001 - 10:40 am
I'm "patting my foot" too, Maryal! I have a hunch about that passage, Henry! We'll certainly wait and see, though!

Henry Misbach
March 28, 2001 - 12:29 pm
Barbara, I don't dispute that Russian Orthodoxy was, until probably at least the mid-19th century, the locus of Russian religious activity. But Russian Orthodoxy is rooted in Byzantine (Greek) Orthodoxy, and Kiev, which was swallowed up into Muscovite Russia, was its earliest touch point.

By the way, I recall reading somewhere in the mid-70's, that the Baptist faith could legitimately claim more than half the professing Christian population by that time.

Barbara St. Aubrey
March 28, 2001 - 12:36 pm
Henry please I am not disputing I am down right curious - it sounded to me from reading your post that there is a difference in social/cultural history centered in religion between the south and north of Russia - I was hoping you would enlarge on that difference and also, add any history you are aware of how the Mongols influenced the culture of Russia.

Henry also do you mean the mid 1970s or the mid 1870s that the Baptists were representing more than a half of Christian Russians.

Henry Misbach
March 29, 2001 - 09:46 am
Barbara, any 70's in which I can remember reading must needs be the 1970's, else I have redefined the "senior" in seniornet <G>.

In reply to your other questions, I really don't want to get into the early history of Russia in any great depth. But let's imagine a situation that is not hugely different from that experienced by most countries in Western Europe, but one that hit Russia later and with more severe consequences than in the West. What would France or England have been like if the successive waves of barbarian invaders had not been pretty well defeated by about 950 CE. I was going to add Germany to the list, except that Germany had its own national development considerably stunted by the fact that she still experienced similar depredations into a later period. And the carryover of the Holy Roman Empire concept continually prevented a full concept of German nationality from taking root there, even into the 19th century. But that's another story.

Anyhow, as late as 1475, the Russians were subject to sudden, random depredations by the Mongol Hordes. These horse-back semi-nomadic tribes raided the settlements all through Russia at their pleasure. One description says that lived on mare's milk and dried bread while on campaign and carried baskets into which to chuck the nearest Russian child (especially a girl), to facilitate kidnapping. They also carried leather thongs with which to drag away Russian men-prisoners, whom as slaves in the market of Kaffa to all parts of Asia Minor, Africa, and ironically to parts of Europe.

This kind of thing happened in France in about the 4th to the 9th centuries. Feudal structure, based on manorial agriculture, was the only effective solution to the problem. In Western Europe, the feudality continued hugely beyond the era when it was militarily necessary. The Russians, on the other hand, say in about 1800, were only about as far chronologically from such military dicatates as we are from Thomas Jefferson. In France of the Revolution (1789), the last time France really needed a feudality for self defence was at least as far back as Charlemage (800), and more certainly in the era of Clovis(600).

Look up the history of the Cossacks and the background of Russian serfdom for further information. Note the dates. Compare them with similar events in the West. Brutality begets brutality. It tends to promote absolutism. Despite some fine efforts by John the Dread in the direction of democratic institutions in the mid-1500's, his wars eventually drove him crazy. And, even at that, it is estimated that Russia lost not fewer than 130,000 prisoners to raiding Tartars in his reign alone. It's tough to start a nation with all this going on.

Lady C
March 29, 2001 - 01:08 pm
Henry, I'm absolutely swept away with your command of early Russian history! Like others in the group, it's a special interest of mine and I'd love to be able to do some reading in this area. Won't you tell us some of the books you would recommend? I'm sure you have many resources you could share with us.

Louise Licht
March 29, 2001 - 02:01 pm
Joan, Maryal, friends it will be a delight to join you in discussing a very old friend. I read "The Brothers Karamazov" as a young girl. (I believe I was in my Russian Tragedy Stage, along with my Verdi, Brahms & Puccini mania.)

Now that I have more time at home I look forward to a stimulating discussion. Thanks for the link to the book itself. I printed out Book one, and shall order a nice used but not abused copy from Bibliofind or Half.com.

The discussion has already become quite interesting with Henry's illuminating backround notes. I shall now look into the links provided, order the book and then read Book 1.

See you all Sunday!

Deems
March 29, 2001 - 04:41 pm
Louise!--Welcome to our merry band (oops other book, sorry). So good to have you with us.

Henry---I am very much enjoying your posts on the history. Long time ago, I was a history major, but, as I'm pretty sure I posted before, I don't know that much about Russian History.

This is a very readable book, and we will have a fine time.

~Maryal

Auntie Mame
March 31, 2001 - 11:25 pm
I had a hard time finding a stopping place. I remember really liking this book the first time around, but I was still surprised at how readable it is. I have the Constance Garnett version. Already I'm getting alot more out of it than I did 40 (?) years ago. There's nothing like Life, is there, when it comes to education?

Anyway, I think we're in for a real treat.

Barbara St. Aubrey
March 31, 2001 - 11:37 pm
Been reading so much history about Russia - for me it gives me a sense of the a story and what it is saying as it relates to the socialization of the people. I didn't realize that Tarters were Turks. Now I've even broadened my reading to include some background on Turks and especailly the Eastern Orthadox Religion and how it traveled into Russia. But to our story and it's time in history as well as its place in literature these quotes from various sites put so much together.
Serfdom was abolished in 1861, and the time for mere lamentation over its evils was gone. Proof that the peasants were human beings, accessible to all human feelings, was no longer needed. New and far deeper problems concerning the life and ideals of the Russian people rose before every thinking Russian. Here was a mass of nearly fifty million people, whose manners of life, whose creed, ways of thinking, and ideals were totally different from those of the educated classes, and who at the same time were as unknown to the would-be leaders of progress as if these millions spoke a quite different language and belonged to a quite different race.

The best men felt that all the future development of Russia would be hampered by that ignorance, if it continued, and literature did its best to answer the great questions which besieged the thinking man at every step of his social and political activity.

The years 1858-1878 were years of the ethnographical exploration of Russia on such a scale that nowhere in Europe or America do we find anything similar. The monuments of old folklore and poetry; the common law of different parts and nationalities of the Empire; the religious beliefs and the forms of worship, and still more the social aspirations characteristic of the many sections of dissenters; the extremely interesting habits and customs which prevail in the different provinces; the economical conditions of the peasants; their domestic trades; the immense communal fisheries in southeastern Russia; the thousands of forms taken by the popular coöperative organisations (the Artels) ; the "inner colonisation" of Russia, which can only be compared with that of the United States; the evolution of ideas of landed property, and so on-all these became the subjects of extensive research.

The great ethnographical expedition organised by the Grand Duke Constantine, in which a number of the best writers took part, was only the forerunner of many expeditions, great and small, which were organised by the numerous Russian scientific societies for the detailed study of Russia's ethnography, folklore, and economics.

Russian educated society, which formerly hardly knew the peasants otherwise than from the balcony of their country houses, was thus brought in a few years into a close inter course with all divisions of the toiling masses; and it is easy to understand the influence which this intercourse exercised, not only upon the development of political ideas, but also upon the whole character of Russian literature.

The idealised novel of the past was now outgrown. The representation of "the dear peasants" as a background for opposing their idyllic virtues to the defects of the educated classes was possible no more.




The clergy in Russia-that is, the priests, the deacons, the cantors, the bell-ringers-represent a separate class which stands between "the classes" and "the masses"-much nearer to the latter than to the former. This is especially true as regards the clergy in the villages, and it was still more so mid-century.

Receiving no salary, the village priest, with his deacon and cantors, lived chiefly by the cultivation of the land that was attached to the village church; and in mid-nineteenth centure, in Central Russia, during the hot summer months when they were hay-making or taking in the crops, the priest would always hurry through the mass in order to return to their field-work.

The priest's house was in those years a log-house, only a little better built than the houses of the peasants, alongside which it stood sometimes thatched, instead of being simply covered with straw, that is, held in position by means of straw ropes. His dress differed from that of the peasants more by its cut than by the materials it was made of, and between the church services and the fulfilment of his parish duties the priest might always be seen in the fields, following the plough or working in the meadows with the scythe.

All the children of the clergy receive free education in special clerical schools, and later on, some of them, in seminaries; and it was by the description of the abominable educational methods which prevailed in these schools in the 1840s and 1850s. Both the lower and the higher schools were then in the hands of quite uneducated priests, chiefly monks, and the most absurd learning by rote of the most abstract theology was the rule. The general moral tone of the schools was extremely low, drinking went on to excess, and flogging for every lesson not recited by heart, sometimes two or three times a day, with all sorts of refinements of cruelty, was the chief instrument of education.

Monastery monks led a most dissolute life, drinking excessively, overeating, and stealing away from the monastery at night.

In the mining works of the Urals, in Permian village, or in the slums of St. Petersburg, "Podlípovtsy" the inhabitants of a small village Podlípnaya, lost somewhere in the mountains of the Uráls. They are Permians, not yet quite Russified, and are still in the stage which so many populations of the Russian Empire are in the mid-nineteenth century living through the early agricultural.

Few of them have for more than two months a year pure rye-bread to eat: the remaining ten months they are compelled to add the bark of trees to their flour in order to have "bread" at all. They have not the slightest idea of what Russia is, or of the State, and very seldom do they see a priest. They hardly know how to cultivate the land. They do not know how to make a stove, and periodical starvation during the months from January to July has taken the very soul and heart out of them. They stand on a lower level than real savages.

The leaders of these communities can count to five , tell others when to plough, knows how to get to the next town, try to find buyers for their communities domestic industry, generally take care of the villagers.

Heros featured in novels are the heros of endurance. Women are depicted seldom drinking are the heroines of persevering labor, of struggle for the necessities of life, as the female is in the whole animal world; and such the women are in real popular life in Russia.

Barbara St. Aubrey
March 31, 2001 - 11:58 pm
The world over, every movement, among the educated classes in favour of the poorer classes, begins by an idealisation of the latter. It being necessary to clear away, first of all, a number of prejudices which exist among the rich as regards the poor, some idealisation is unavoidable.

If it is very difficult to avoid romantic sentimentalism, when the author who describes the monotony of the everyday life of a middle-class crowd intends to make the reader sympathise nevertheless with this crowd, the difficulties are still greater when he descends a step lower in the social scale and deals with peasants, or, still worse, with those who belong to the lowest strata of city life. The most realistic writers have fallen into sentimentalism and romanticism when they attempted to do this.

In the early 1870s, Young Russia was in the grip of a great movement "towards the people," and it must be owned that in this movement, as in every other, there was some idealisation. New problems arose for Russian literature. The readers were now quite ready to sympathise with the individual peasant or factory worker; but they wanted to know something more: namely, what were the very foundations, the ideals, the springs of village life? What were they worth in the further development of the nation? What, and in what form, could the immense agricultural population of Russia contribute to the further development of the country and the civilised world altogether?

When beginning to read a novel of Dostoevsky we seem to have plunged into chaos. Every one of the heroes of Dostoevsky, especially in his novels of the later period, suffers from some psychical disease or from moral perversion. We have the description of a commonplace landscape, which, in fact, is no "landscape" at all; then the future hero of the novel is a person whom we may see with no claims to rise above this crowd, with hardly anything even to distinguish him or her from the crowd.

Gradually, owing to scraps of thought, to an exclamation, to a word dropped here and there, or to a slight movement that is mentioned, we feel interested in them. After several pages we feel that we are already decidedly in sympathy with them and we are so captured that we read pages and pages of these chaotic details with the sole purpose of solving the question which begins passionately to interest us.

The works of Dostoevsky are penetrated with the most unreal characters along side characters so well known to every one of us, and so real, that all these defects are redeemed. His sympathy with the most down-trodden and down-cast products of the civilisation of large towns is so deep that it carries away the most indifferent.

Hats
April 1, 2001 - 06:07 am
Maryal, for awhile I stopped patting my foot. Today I started again because Tomorrow is Victory Day. We are almost there.

You would think I am burning to say something very interesting. Not true. I just can't wait to read the other posts. Then, I will know that there are really people here reading "Bros K."

HATS

robert b. iadeluca
April 1, 2001 - 06:13 am
I read it regularly but won't have anything to say until April 2.

Robby

Hats
April 1, 2001 - 08:14 am
Robby, I will be anxious to hear what you have to say. I can not believe you read it regularly. What do you find so stimulating or should I say interesting or should I say intriguing? Perhaps, I will be converted.

Hmmm. I guess you can not tell that until tomorrow.

HATS

robert b. iadeluca
April 1, 2001 - 08:16 am
My God!! Is April 2nd tomorrow?

Robby

Deems
April 1, 2001 - 09:39 am
Yes, my anxious ones, TOMORROW is April 2 indeed. I overslept (by one hour, of course) this morning and awoke to find that it was April 1. I think it ought to be illegal to roll the clocks ahead (or back) at the same time that the month changes.

Such disorientation.

All foot-patting is now cancelled. Put your discussion caps on and get ready, get set............

CharlieW
April 1, 2001 - 10:03 am
I too, have taken a vow of silence until tomorrow. At which time I shall have some stunning revelations.*)


Charlie

robert b. iadeluca
April 1, 2001 - 10:17 am
Charlie:--Do you mean that you are the long lost descendent of the Russian monarchy?

Robby

Hats
April 1, 2001 - 11:18 am
Charlie, Maryal says you can break your "vow of silence." Go for it.

HATS

CharlieW
April 1, 2001 - 11:39 am
Rasputin, more like.

Barbara St. Aubrey
April 1, 2001 - 01:29 pm
While y'all are waiting here is album after album filled with photos of St. Petersburg.

Louise Licht
April 1, 2001 - 02:27 pm
Babara -

I find your dissertation very interesting, but where is your source? I must have missed it along the way.

The scene that is set is one that mirrors many of the of the abuses of Medieval Europe. We know from our readings that Mother Russia was still in the throws of a darkness, that could not shaken off.A few were trying very hard to catch up with the Europeans of the 19th Century. But those were rare.

Enlightenment never really arrived in Russia, did it?

Tomorrow!

Joan Pearson
April 2, 2001 - 04:36 am
GOOD MORNING! OPENING DAY! Obviously you are ready to begin! Never a group more eager to begin than this one! Maryal and I have loved every minute of the pre-discussion ~ your restraint from getting into the nice little story has been admirable! Especially yours, Hats!

It's grand that we have a number of different translations going for us. Will you post the translation you are reading and the translation of Book One's title? I think you will find the differences veddddddddy interesting!

What fun! Let's go! The only thing we ask is that you do not go beyond the discussion schedule with your comments ~ in other words, this week, we will be discussing only the chapters in Book One.

You are quite a group! Speak your mind! Speak to one another! This is obviously going to be quite an adventure!

Hats
April 2, 2001 - 04:57 am
We missed you, Joan. We were counting the minutes until your return. I will be back later to answer your questions.

HATS

Hats
April 2, 2001 - 07:25 am
My translation is written by Andrew R. MacAndrew. The name of my first chapter is FYODOR PAVLOVICH KARAMAZOV.

The name of BOOK I is A PECULIAR FAMILY HISTORY

HATS

Hats
April 2, 2001 - 07:52 am
The first lines that interest me in my forward are written by eighteen-year-old Dostoevsky to his brother.

"Man is a mystery: If you spend your entire life trying to puzzle it out, then do not say that you have wasted your time. I occupy myself with this mystery, because I want to be a man."

I find it interesting that a young teen of only eighteen years old could or would ponder such a deep thought. I wonder what led Dostoevsky to think about such a subject when he was so young.

HATS

Lady C
April 2, 2001 - 09:13 am
Mine is the 1996 Modern Library edition translated by Garnett. The first book is titled The History of a Family.

HATS: Isn't the threshold of adulthood the time such a man would be searching for his identity (not recognized as such at the time) and looking at other lives for inspiration and understanding of where he is headed. Also, the educated at the time would have been exposed to western ideas about the age of reason and the questioning of religion. These must have prompted at least some of his own questions about the different range of thought prevalent in his social circle. Wouldn't that in turn lead to his trying to figure out what prompted such diverse thinking in the individuals he encountered? Given the emotional "Russian soul", obviously feelings would enter into the conclusions these men arrived at and would be part of what he was seeking to understand.

Lady C
April 2, 2001 - 09:43 am
And ins spite of Freud, Jung, and others, doesn't man remain a mystery indeed?

CharlieW
April 2, 2001 - 09:50 am
My edition is also the Garnett – downloaded to an e-book, making it difficult to reference page numbers – but making it easy to do a word search, for instance. My third e-book experience.



I don’t know, Hats. I guess I’d agree with LadyC. Sometimes I think that thoughts such as expressed by the 18-year old FD to his brother are more at the front of consciousness for those of that age. More so than mid-lifers, or older. I’ve often felt that one is more likely – and it is easier in some respects – to integrate one’s thought in a worldview when we are younger. Time and ‘responsibilities’ changes our concerns, and our priorities. The day to day is more pressing than the long range. Lives are lived tactically, rather than strategically when we are “of a certain age.”

C

ALF
April 2, 2001 - 10:56 am
As requested, please note the title and translation of Book I for me is: The Brotheres Karamazov (1880) by Fyodor Mikhailovich Doestovesky. Translated by Constance Garrett - electronically enhanced text from the World Library . Part I - Book I- The History of a Family. Chapter I- Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov. ALAS! It is the same electronic text as the link above.

Add to those " Man is a Mystery " thoughts above, is the fact that FD was able to spend time contemplating such issues as human behavior. His father was a military physician and I'm sure human suffering was addressed in his household. He read thought provoking literature by classic European writers such as Homer, Shakespeare, Voltaire, Goethe and Schiller, which I'm sure influenced his thinking .

Deems
April 2, 2001 - 11:14 am
YIKES!--Joan is barely back and she starts right in with a hard question for me. I have two translations. And I am at work whereas the books are both at home. I will pop in again later with the information. One of my books is entitled The Karamazov Brothers, though. I do remember that!

~Maryal

ALF
April 2, 2001 - 11:40 am
The die has been cast; the scene has been set.  We have met the obnoxious, vile, philandering sot, Fyodor who epitomizes the title of "buffoon."  (the clown, the bozo)  He has managed to be an abhorent, repulsive man whose maltreatment of his two wives, Adelaida and Sofya,  has left his three sons Dimitri, Ivan and Alyosha  as "orphans."  The boys are reared in a variety ofsettings and I am certain this will be manifested thrughout the story.   Fyodor is a disturbing,  delinquent absent father who cares for noone but himself.  I actually look forward to his murder,  the clod!

FaithP
April 2, 2001 - 12:07 pm
Well I am reading the on line text in this discussion. It may well be the same text I read in my youth. I am going to find a copy before the week is out.

Alf, I think Adelaide held her own with this "obnoxious sot" as she beat him and she left him, leaving her own child so she could also become a philanderer much like the modern woman of the late 1960's did as I remember stories of women seeking equality doing this. I however was sorry to think she died alone in a garett.

The person who suffered from all this tomfoolery was Mitra. At least up to the point I am.

I am not going to sign with my initials fp anymore I will return to Fae

Hats
April 2, 2001 - 12:20 pm
I don't know. I am just thinking that Dostoevsky might have been brillant for his age, intellectually ahead of the rest. I am thinking at that age a young man would be thinking of what college he would attend or at least, his career.

I am also wondering were European young men more mature than the average young man here in the west.

I just think contemplation of that particular question made him beyond the rest, beyond the normal Joe Blow. I am not disagreeing with his idea that "man is a mystery." Wonderful thinking.

I felt that a man in his twenties would be more apt to reflect on such thoughts.

I do think that origin of country and personal environment play a part in how we think and what we think.

HATS

robert b. iadeluca
April 2, 2001 - 12:24 pm
You folks move ahead much too fast for me. I am still within the first few sentences where Fyodor is described as one of those "senseless" persons who is nevertheless "very well capable of looking after his worldly affairs." Just how is this possible? Isn't that contradictory? Not only that, but D tells us that this type of person is a "strange type pretty frequently to be met with."

I have been going through the list in my mind of the people I know and those who are well capable of looking after their wordly affairs are "sensible" people. I wonder what D meant by "senseless?"

Robby

Hats
April 2, 2001 - 12:30 pm
I am still looking at what I find interesting in the forward. Here is another one.

"Dmitry, Ivan and Alyosha are three aspects of Dostoevsky's personality, three stages of his spiritual way."

From what I can understand this will be like a spiritual autobiography. My forward mentions that Dostoevsky wrote a part of himself into each of the boys: Dmitry, Ivan and Alyosha.

The forward is quite fascinating. I am learning more about Dostoevsky.

HATS

Deems
April 2, 2001 - 02:01 pm
Finally at home, I discover that I have:

1. The Karamazov Brothers (Oxford World Classic) trans. by Ignat Avsey. Book One--"The Story of a Family" Chapter One--"Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov."

2. The Brothers Karamazov, trans by Richard Peavear and Larissa Volokhonsky. Book One--"A Nice Little Family." Chapter One--"Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov."

Avsey (see #1 above) makes an interesting point in his introduction. He says that Dostoevsky breaks "every rule of grammar, syntax, and punctuation". . .in short he stretches his own language to its uttermost limits, exploiting its potential to the full."

He adds that the translator has to be careful not to be "mesmerized" by the original, and in the process violate the norms of his target language. The example he gives is the title, "The Brothers Karamazov," which follows the original word order, the only one possible in Russian. And then he adds, "Had past translators been expressing themselves freely in natural English, without being hamstrung by the original Russian word order, they would no more have dreamt of saying The Brothers Karamazov than they would The Brothers Warner or The Brothers Marx."

Robby In the translation I have been talking about, I have "muddle-headed" where you have "senseless." I just checked the other book and it also has "muddle-headed." I have known some people that I considered "muddle-headed" when it came to leading their lives with an awareness of others and the impression they made but who were downright SHREWD when it came to business. I don't think the two are contradictory. Nonetheless, I see what you mean.

Maryal

robert b. iadeluca
April 2, 2001 - 02:18 pm
Maryal:--Yes, I guess we have some of the recent millionaires who are "muddle-headed."

Robby

Lady C
April 2, 2001 - 02:33 pm
HATS: Don't forget that until we invented adolescence, eighteen would have meant manhood. And what was the education system like for someone that age? I agree that senseless hardly fits the picture of someone who can take care of his affairs sufficiently to grow fairly rich. Muddle-headed does seem more accurate to our present-day ears and minds. But this man is not always unaware of his impact on others. He seems to enjoy the discomfort and chaos he creates. Maybe this gives him a sense of controlling the situation as well as making him the center of attention. Of all the characters in this book, this is the one that leaves me most puzzled and dissatisfied with Dostoevsky's portrayal.

Lady C
April 2, 2001 - 02:37 pm
Oh, boy! Talk of muddle-headed. I should have differentiated between father Karamazov (the latter part of my post) and Dostoevsky himself--referred to in the initial couple of sentences. i'll try to get a grip!

Nellie Vrolyk
April 2, 2001 - 02:46 pm
My book is from the Franklin Library Great Books collection and is translated by Constance Garnett and illustrated by Walt Spitzmiller.

My early impression of Fyodor Pavlovich? The man is a creep.

Interestingly enough I took 'senseless' to express the idea that F.P. is totally without feeling when it comes to other people; although the meaning of muddle-headed does come closer to what is meant within the context.

A couple of early 'off the cuff' thoughts.

Jo Meander
April 2, 2001 - 02:54 pm
I also have the Garnett translation. Almost finished with this week's reading, and, like ALF, I won't feel bad when the bozo's gone! Maybe Dostoevsky made him obnoxious so that we would cheer! The "senseless" and "shrewd" contrast in his nature applies to his treatment of people vs. his handling of business. He certainly has no gift for parenthood! His disolute life leaves no time or space for his children. When they reach young adulthood, they come seeking him for some patrimony or, in Alyosha's case, to find his mother's grave. The blubbering affection he has for Alysha may be his way of making sure his spiritual son prays for his evil soul! D. says he is "evil and sentimental." Interesting combination!

Deems
April 2, 2001 - 02:55 pm
Father Fyodor is certainly not a man to admire. And he does have to be the center of attention. Add to that his establishing a brothel in his own house and packing his sons off without caring whither they are bound. Good thing we discover in the opening sentence that he is to have a "dark and tragic" death. Couldn't happen to a more deserving fellow!

Maryal

CharlieW
April 2, 2001 - 07:23 pm
Thanks for picking that out Robbie. Nellie- I took the same meaning of "senseless"- a man insensitive to the needs and feelings of others, self-centered and vile. Remmeber, FD says the man (in the Garnett translation) is "senseless" and "a peculiar national form of it." So it appears that not only is he making commentary on Fyodor Pavlovitvh Karamazov, but he is assigning a national "type" to him.


Charlie

robert b. iadeluca
April 2, 2001 - 07:43 pm
Fyodor "ran to dine at other men's table, and fastened on them as a toady, yet at his death it appeared that he had a hundred thousand rubles in hard cash." Isn't that the way many people in America do it, never mind the Russian "type?"

Robby

robert b. iadeluca
April 3, 2001 - 03:49 am
"How it came to pass that an heiress, who was also a beauty, moreover one of those vigorous intelligent girls, could have married such a worthless, puny weakling, I won't attempt to explain."

The more I read this book, the more I acclaim Dostoevsky for being an astute observer of human nature. All this may have taken place in Russia but doesn't it take place everywhere else?

Have you ever walked down the street, looked at a couple and said to yourself: "I wonder what he/she ever saw in him/her?" You might have added the thought: "Well, maybe she saw something in him that I don't see" but later find out that he was indeed the "nothing" that he appeared to be.

WHY? WHY? WHY?

Robby

Hats
April 3, 2001 - 06:31 am
Fyodor Karamazov marries for the second time. His second wife dies after baring two children, Ivan an Alexei.

"When she died Alexei was only just over three, but I know for sure that he remembered his mother all his life, though, of course, as in a dream."

Does this tell something of Alexei's character? His ability to remember his mother "as in a dream," in some way, point to his spiritual life, the life he would lead in the monastery. Is it a foreshadowing of his mysticism that would come later? Are we seeing a person who will be able to show deep love and concern?

I agree with you Robby. Dos. "was an astute observer of human nature."

HATS

betty gregory
April 3, 2001 - 07:42 am
What caught my attention in the introduction by one of the narrators, Richard Pevear, was his marveling at FD's ability to make each character's language style so distinct. So, I'm going to try to listen for what makes each character sound different from everyone else. I assume that will include things like rhythm, content, quirks, sounds of personality, maybe. (It's been a while since I read the introduction.) There is always a rush of words from the father, Fyodor. Alyosha sounds quiet to me, even beyond the reader being told his voice is quiet.

What is this thing that FD does with repetition or what would otherwise be called exaggeration, though it doesn't feel like exaggeration. The first son, Dmitri....his early mistreatment went on and on, his being passed from one person to the next, to the next. Where have I seen this kind of repetition before? Was it Tolstoy? Is this a characteristic of Russian writers? Or mid-19th century writers? It's very different from spare writing of later writers, isn't it? Does anyone know what I'm talking about?

Joan Pearson
April 3, 2001 - 07:45 am
Senseless and shrewd, wicked and sentimental. And a buffoon as well! Why are women attracted to him? "Why, why, why," Robby asks! What is Dostoevsky trying to tell us of this man?

Some sort of an answer is beginning to form in my mind, based on your posts of yesterday...tell me what you think?

From Hat's post from the foreward:

"Dmitry, Ivan and Alyosha are three aspects of Dostoevsky's personality, three stages of his spiritual way."

My forward mentions that Dostoevsky wrote a part of himself into each of the boys: Dmitry, Ivan and Alyosha."



Dostoevsky certainly does not portray Father K. as a very nice person, does he...a "creep", (Nellie)...he is the most unappealing character we have met, and probably will meet in the book.

Lady C. keeps confusing the author and Fyodor Karamazov. Is there a reason for this, Carolyn?

Dostoevsky wrote this novel the year before he died. In his letter, the forward found in my Ralph Matlaw's revision of the Garnett translation he writes:
"I have two novels* and only one life story. The main novel is the second - it is the action of my hero in our day, at the very present time. The first novel takes place thirteen years ago...I cannot do without this first novel because much in the second novel would be unintelligible without it. But in this way my original difficulty is rendered still more complicated: if I, that is the biographer himself, find that even one novel might perhaps be superfluous for such a modest and undefined hero, how can I appear with two, and from my point of view can I justify such presumption"

*According to Dostoevsky's wife, he had planned to start writing the second part in 1882 It was to take place in the 1880's. (He died in 1880.)



Can it be that Dostoevesky is writing of himself as the character of Fyodor Karamazov? Isn't one's self always one's own harshest critic?

By the way, who do you think D. names as the hero, his protagonist? And another question, do you have any thoughts on the unnames narrator?

Lady C
April 3, 2001 - 07:50 am
It seems to me that each character in this book portrays one aspect of the human psyche, greatly exaggerated and highlighted. Although the father is abhorrant to us, without any redeeming features, he and all the others together present us with a picture of ourselves. We are all capable, though generally don't act on, the impulses, thoughts and feelings of each of them. While not complete, they add up to at least a partial picture of what it means to be human.

robert b. iadeluca
April 3, 2001 - 07:53 am
I'm not sure the father doesn't have any redeeming features. He seems to be constantly battling against himself and his worse features come out despite himself.

Robby

Joan Pearson
April 3, 2001 - 07:55 am
hahaha, Betty, Hats, Lady C, sorry ~ I just now see your posts...not ignoring you...such interesting points! Back in a moment!

Lady C
April 3, 2001 - 07:55 am
Sorry about the above, I hit the wrong key. I didn't confuse the two, only muddled my response and sent a correction. I couldn't edit it so it was messy. (Couldn't edit after hitting the wrong key, either)

Lady C
April 3, 2001 - 07:59 am
I wasn't feeling ignored, didn't mean to give that impression. Am actually stimulated by the discussion and happy to be part of such a brilliant group. Also, you may have noticed, I'm not at all bashful about speaking my mind.

Joan Pearson
April 3, 2001 - 08:14 am
another interesting contrast:
"Although the father is abhorrant to us, without any redeeming features..." ( Lady C)

"I'm not sure the father doesn't have any redeeming features. He seems to be constantly battling against himself and his worse features come out despite himself." Robby



I think this is consistant with my hunch that the author is writing of himself, portraying his own worst features, of which he is more conscious than anyone, despite his inner "battle" ...Look closely at every man who plays the buffoon. There is always more to him than meets the eye!

Hats
April 3, 2001 - 08:18 am
Joan, I think you asked who is Dostoevsky's hero? In my book, there is an Author's Preface.

"In starting out on the life of my hero, Alexei Fyodorovich Karamazov, I feel somewhat at a loss. By this I mean that, although I refer to Alexei as my hero, I am well aware that he is by no means a great man,....

So, if I am reading correctly, Dos. chose Alexei as his hero.

HATS

Jo Meander
April 3, 2001 - 08:19 am
Joan, I picked up the Matlaw revision at the library yesterday. Have already read the part we are supposed to do this week, but haven't gotten too far into the inroduction yet. It seems to be a very thorough study! By the way, I paired "senseless" with "evil" in my attempt to quote D. talking about Father K. yesterday; it's "wicked," not "evil." I'm not sure there's a clear distiction, but thought I should clear up the mistake.
Father K. is the worst scenario of all our animal impulses run riot.
I'm going to take a chance and say I'll bet that hero whose other book was never written is Alyosha.

Jo Meander
April 3, 2001 - 08:22 am
Betty, that repetition/exaggeration observation: Have you ever strained trying to explain why something impressed or upset you greatly ...? Or is that just me? When I'm emotionally moved or really angry, I find myself almost sweating trying to put my feelings into words! That's how D. strikes me when he is trying to explain, for instance, how wicked Fyofdor K. is. And it gets funny!

Joan Pearson
April 3, 2001 - 08:32 am
Jo! I do believe you have found some humor, right off! I agree, it is funny! Look at the letter "From the Author" right before Part I begins...there is the good stuff on Dostoevsky's intentions. Difference between wicked and evil noted and amended!

Hats, you picked up on something hit me very close to home ~ Alexei's memories of his mother stay with him throughout his life, though she died when he was only three! I was 7 when my mother died...leaving me with very few memories, very dim...I don't remember her face, her voice. I don't remember anything she ever said to me. Is that unusual? Or is extraordinary that Alexei lives with these memories. It shows me that at a young age, he is super-sensitive and observant.

Betty, what a fascinating idea! I do know what you are talking about...and am so happy that you said it! I am going to watch and listen from now on to see how D. accomplishes these differences.

This is a little aside, but I feel compelled to mention it here. A few days ago, I had the pleasure of seeing a play, billed as a comedy ~ Stones in His Pocket ~ it won the Olivier award for best comedy in London last year. Here's the connection...the amazing thing about the play, is that there are only two actors, who play 15 different roles! And they are so believable that you end up not noticing this! Each of the characters is distinct! You believe the beautiful movie star, the movie-extra, the old has-been, the director. Gesture, yes, but voice, vocabulary...all provide the differences.

Thanks for the tip, Betty! I wonder if you sense that Alyosha is quiet because he doesn't say much...keeps his thoughts to himself.

I suppose it isn't much of a secret is it, that Dostoevsky names Alexei as his "hero" and the second novel which was never written, would have been his story.

Talk to you later... this is amazing!

Hats
April 3, 2001 - 08:33 am
I found another exciting point in the forward. I think it points to the murder.

"The brothers, each in his own way, experience a single tragedy, they share a common guilt and a common redemption."

This quote reminded me of the short story "The Blue Hotel" by Stephen Crane. In it a stranger is murdered at a card game. The reader is left to think that each man at the table, although only one man pulled the knife, is responsible for the murder.

Responsibility is interesting to me. I think one of Dostoevsky's themes is that we are all responsible for one another.

From the Forward,

"Not only Ivan with his idea "everything is permitted," not only Dimitry in the impetuosity of his passions, but also the "quiet boy" Alyosha--all are responsible for their father's murder. All of them consciously or semiconsciously desired his death, and their desire impelled Smerdyakov to the crime."

Wow!!! I find that so interesting. A light bulb moment.

HATS

Hats
April 3, 2001 - 08:35 am
Joan, I had the same thought. That Alexei could still remember his mother made me think of him as such a compassionate person.

I am glad you told us to read the Forward. I am gaining so much from it.

HATS

robert b. iadeluca
April 3, 2001 - 08:36 am
You folks are so far ahead of me. You talk of a murder and I don't remember reading about a murder. I'm still on the description of Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov. Wasn't I supposed to begin yesterday?

Robby

Hats
April 3, 2001 - 08:38 am
Robby, I am still reading the Forward. So, you are probably farther along than me.

HATS

robert b. iadeluca
April 3, 2001 - 08:41 am
I didn't read the Forward. I wanted to start with the story itself and not be affected by the thoughts of anyone else.

Robby

Jo Meander
April 3, 2001 - 08:42 am
Robby, i think D.mentions Fyodor K's coming demise at the very beginning? I forgot myself, but somebody mentioned it here in the last day or so.

Hats
April 3, 2001 - 08:51 am
Robby, I started with the story too, but then, I read the question above and ran back and started my forward.

Anyway, I hope this is not silly, but I found a copy of "Blue Hotel" on my bookshelf. Here is a quote on the theme of responsibility.

"Johnnie was cheating. I saw him. I know it. I saw him. And I refused to stand up and be a man. I let the Swede fight it out alone. And you--you were simply puffing around the place wanting to fight. And then old Scully himself! We were all in it! This poor gambler isn't even a noun. He is a kind of an adverb. Every sin is the result of collaboration. We, five of us, have collaborated in the murder of this Swede."

And this is what I think Dos. wants us to think about, collaboration, responsibility.

HATS

Jo Meander
April 3, 2001 - 09:04 am
Good work, HATS! I'm sure I read the story many, many years ago.

betty gregory
April 3, 2001 - 11:47 am
Egad. I knew there was a murder, but someone just told us the murderer!! Don't tell us more!

Hats
April 3, 2001 - 12:43 pm
Betty, it's not a secret. Patricide is written in the heading. It is also blatantly told about in the Forward, and it is on the back of my book. No secret.

HATS

robert b. iadeluca
April 3, 2001 - 01:20 pm
Now you know why I am reading it from the very first sentence in the first chapter without reading anything else.

Please don't share any more items which come later in the book.

Robby

Barbara St. Aubrey
April 3, 2001 - 01:28 pm
Forward, backward? Preface, what ever my copy it is the Introduction and a sentence stands out for me
"Characters and ideas do not evolve or develop, they appear simultaneously, in a decisive moment."
and others
  • His sentences tend to flounder most when he is most serious, notably when he talks about Alyosha Karamzov. But he can be quite pointed when skewering someone he does not like -- for instance, Pyotr Alexandrovish Miusov.

  • Each major character in the novel has a distinct way of speaking...he delighted in the richness of spoken language, its playfulness, its happy mistakes, its revealing quirks and peculiarities.

  • The Brothers Karamozov is, among many other things, a novel about the word in all senses, from the incarnete Word of God to the emptiest banality.

  • The "auther" asserts that Alyosha is the hero of the novel. Many commentators have disagreed with him, as he suspected they might. They find Alyosha pale and unrealized as a character, too slight to bear the weight of the "positive message" Dostoevsky wanted him to carry. But why I wonder, would he give such a message to a young man of twenty who hardly has an original idea in his head?...His critics, who expected something else, overlook the delicacy with which he allows us to laugh at his hero...It is Alyosha"s first homely, earnest and unoriginal, but counter-pointed by a gentle comedy of style that lifts it into a new light.

Lady C
April 3, 2001 - 02:09 pm
BARBARA, re characters and ideas not evolving or developing: Having read way ahead, I wont go into detail, but characters do develop and their ideas unfold in unexpected ways. So I can't agree with whoever wrote that. And I can't see where FD's lanquage flounders when writing about Alyosha, or anyone or anything else. Though characters sometimes flounder when expressing themselves, especially where they have strong feelings about what they are trying to say. And Alyosha, so young, often appears to be trying to formulate half-developed ideas, struggling to understand what he really thinks and feels. But yes, each character does have a distinctive voice. I think that is part of what makes FD so good at characterization.

Nellie Vrolyk
April 3, 2001 - 02:45 pm
To wander aside for a moment: I find it rather interesting that the two women FP marries both have the same surname. The first is Adelaida Ivanovna and the second is Sofya Ivanovna. Is that because Ivan is the most common name in old Russia or does it have some other meaning?

How the three brothers end up being home with their father? Dmitri comes home to settle about the property he believes his father owes him. Fyodor P. and Dmitri get into a quarrel over this and Dmitri sends for Ivan to come and help. The narrator finds the return of Ivan a mystery. Is that because Ivan has no reason for returning? Alexey has never really left, except to go into the monastery.

I find Dmitri to be closest to his father in his character. In spite of the fact that I feel somewhat sorry for him because he was abandoned by FP, I find him as dislikable as his father so far.

Hats
April 3, 2001 - 02:54 pm
I just won't make any more comments. I will be afraid of writing the wrong comment. I would not dare "spoil" the book for anyone, but it is my idea that everything was written in the heading.

I will remain a lurker.

HATS

Joan Pearson
April 3, 2001 - 03:43 pm
hahaha! Hats! If you lurk because you mentioned this murder, most of the rest of us will have to self-inflict the same punishment! Anyone who read the header knows there will be a murder...a PATRICIDE...which means the murder of the father! You didn't go ahead, you started with the heading and the foreward, the author's own words, before he begins his tale. And the murderer in Dostoevsky's sense is much more subtle than the one who fires the gun, or yields the knife, or administers the poison...whatever! We haven't gone ahead, so we don't know how this patricide took place. Anyway, the point is this...knowing that there is a murder will not spoil the story in the least. Knowing the name of the son who committed the murder is not the point either...but rather the guilt of each of the sons who hated him and could have, would have done the deed if the one had not!

If you read any biographical information on D., you would know that his own father is said to have mistreated his own serfs, and was murdered by them during an uprising. Which one would have been considered his murderer? The one who succeeded, or all of those who intended the murder?

But now this! Maryal is unable to get on, and sent along this information regarding Dostoevsky's father's own murder...


I talked with a colleague, today. He taught The Brothers K this semester and is up on the criticism. He says that the story about D's father being murdered by his serfs was started by FREUD. It certainly fits into some of his theories well. From what is known Father D. did die on his grounds, but no one seems to have discovered how. It is not even known that he was murdered. He may have had an accident or a heart attack. At any rate, his murder by his own serfs is now a non-issue in Dostoevsky criticism.

Isn't it interesting that Freud invented the story of the murder?


Nellie, if you have a bit of time, there's a link in the heading on those Russian names...the middle name, the Ivanova, is merely an indication of the father's first name as Lady C just pointed out....aren't we getting an education here?

Lady C
April 3, 2001 - 03:43 pm
NELLIE We discussed names in March. The wives did not have the same surname. Ivanovna means daughter of Ivan, just as Fyodorovitch--the second name of each son means the son of Fyodor--the father's first name. The second wife's surname was Miusov. Also Alyosha returned to the town to seek his mother's grave. He was raised by others elsewhere. HATS; Please don't just lurk. You always have such interesting things to say.

Hats
April 3, 2001 - 04:25 pm
Thank you Joan and Lady C, I am glad the story plot is not spoiled. I am having a lot of fun reading the posts, and I won't lurk.

Funny, my lurking lasted about thirty minutes. HA HA HA!! I must be hooked on these discussions. Well, you are my cyperspace friends.

See you in the morning, HATS

Hats
April 3, 2001 - 05:32 pm
Joan, that is interesting about Freud telling the story about D's death. I wonder what led him to tell the story. I am glad Maryal shared the story from her colleague.

HATS

robert b. iadeluca
April 3, 2001 - 05:34 pm
Fyodor did his utmost for a long to tranfer her dowry to his name and he might have succeeded merely from her "moral fatigue." I find that term intriguing. How do you folks interpret that?

Robby

FaithP
April 3, 2001 - 08:24 pm
Robby I would think her "moral fatigue" is another way of expressing what we might call a traumatic stress syndrome which can occur from repeated psycological abuse as I understand it. Do you think that could apply in this expression? Faith

robert b. iadeluca
April 4, 2001 - 03:58 am
Can "repeated psychological absuse" have a moral component to it?

Robby

Joan Pearson
April 4, 2001 - 04:38 am
Good morning, Fae! It's always fun to find you here! I agree...you are right on track with Dostoevsky's thinking on the repeated "psychological abuse", but boy, did you notice the physical abuse the husband received at the hands of his wife? At least the abuse was a two-way deal. There are other examples of the physical attack and the "remarkable strength" of these Russian "ladies" in Book I. Did you notice them? To me this is a major difference between the eastern and western portrayal of women at this time...the 1870's. Do you agree? Can you think of any ladies in western literature pounding on the men who are psychologically abusing them?

Robby, this is a good example of the advantages we have in these on-line discussions...the many resources, yes, but also the fact that we can draw on the many translations to get at what D. is meaning to say. There are so many variations in the translations.

The title translation for Book I is a good example of this:
  • MacAndrew ~ A Peculiar Family History
  • Garnett ~ History of a Family
  • Avsey ~ The Story of a Family
  • Pevear ~ A Nice Little Family


  • It is Pevear who got my attention first. They all have translated the word family, but then they deviate...is NICE LITTLE FAMILY irony? Sarcasm? Is this what Dostoevesky intended? They weren't a family at all in the beginning, but now they are "home". It is clear that Demtri is home for his share of his estate...his mother's? But why are Ivan and Alexei back in town, Nellie? A nice little family indeed!

    I like the Pevear translation because he did it in collaboration with Larissa Volokhonsky ~ doesn't that sound very Russian to you? Wouldn't she pick up on the sublties of the language? So Robby I checked with Pevear/Volonkhonsky for "moral fatigue" and here's their translation of that passage:
    "...and the townhouse were in her name and he tried very hard to have them transferred. He probably would have succeeded because of the contempt and loathing his shameless exhortions and entreaties aroused in his wife, merely because of her emotional exhaustion ~ anything to be rid of him."


    Does that answer your question?

    Have a good day everyone! A NICE one too!

    ALF
    April 4, 2001 - 05:04 am
    Moral fatigue , I took to mean "ethics exhaustion." The old geezer wore her down.

    Hats
    April 4, 2001 - 05:42 am
    Alf, that's funny!! The old geezer wore her down. He certainly was an "old geezer."

    When I read his name in the book, I think I'll just replace Fyodor for "old geezer." ha, ha, ha.

    HATS

    Lady C
    April 4, 2001 - 07:51 am
    Phychological abuse does have a moral component in that it sometimes happens that the victim can begin to identify with the abuser and thus accept his moral outlook--i.e. concepts of right and wrong.

    Although emotional exhaustion would be a more current term, perhaps FD really did mean moral fatigue. He didn't use words lightly, and often translaters choose terms more acceptable to contemporary usage.

    Hats
    April 4, 2001 - 08:29 am
    Robby, I find the words "moral fatigue" interesting too. I need help understanding its meaning. I comprehend what LadyC writes,

    "The victim can begin to identify with the abuser and thus accept his moral outlook."

    Would this be like brainwashing? Is that what happened to Patty Hearst? No? Something different?

    HATS

    Jo Meander
    April 4, 2001 - 08:46 am
    "Can you think of any ladies in western literature pounding on the men who are psychologically abusing them? " Joan, it wasn't because of psychological abuse, but remember Mrs. Joe in Great Expectations? The stick ("the tickler") that she used on Pip and occasionally, I think, on poor Joe?
    HATS and Lady C, I think the "brainwashing" idea works well as an alternate way of characterizing "moral fatigue." I was wondering if D. was indicating a state wherein a person's judgment or sense of fairness is diminished as a result of exhaustion from fighting a losing battle for her rights. She (or He) would just give in???

    Hats
    April 4, 2001 - 09:22 am
    Jo, its been awhile since I read "Great Expectations." However, who can forget Pip and his benefactor.

    I have been trying to think of Joan's question too. It's a hard one. I thought of "Wuthering Heights" because I just finished reading that book. Isabelle and Catherine, Catherine Linton's daughter, were both psychologically abused by Heathcliff, I think.

    Yet, neither one of them struck out physically. Isabelle did run away, but she did not use physical abuse against him.

    I did find it surprising when I read about the physical abuse perpetrated by Fyodor's wife.

    I have also been thinking about how different the translations are for each book. In my book, instead of "moral fatigue," it uses these words,

    "He kept trying desperately to have them transferred to his name by some suitable deed; he probably would have succeeded because of the loathing and disgust his constant pleading and begging inspired in his wife, because she would do anything to have peace, sick and tired as she was of him; but luckily Adelaida's family intervened in time to put a stop to his greed."

    So, was her "moral fatigue" a desire for peace? Wanting peace is a desirable and moral choice. Is it possible that emotional abuse can lead a person to make a moral choice?

    HATS

    robert b. iadeluca
    April 4, 2001 - 09:36 am
    I wonder how common it is to drop our moral and/or ethical standards just to "have some peace."

    Robby

    Jo Meander
    April 4, 2001 - 11:11 am
    Robby and HATS, in other words, "Peace at any price"? I guess it's possible to make a moral choice after physical abuse, but it's hard for me to imagine it's because of the abuse, unless the choice is to escape it!

    Lady C
    April 4, 2001 - 12:32 pm
    JO & HATS, RE MORAL FATIGUE: It's more subtle than just peace at any price. It's more a question of identifying with the aggressor, not being a victim, and the decision isn't conscious. Freud examined this question pretty thoroughly, and I think that, yes, Patty Hurst is a clear example of that. I caught her on TV some weeks ago, and although she's very articulate, she had a difficult time trying to get the interviewer to understand the process she lived through that resulted in her helping her captors rob a bank.

    RE WOMEN ABUSING A MAN: We have contemporary records of such, and would probably have more I think, if most males wouldn't find it shameful to admit to. Fyodor Karamazov certainly didn't find it shameful, and maybe in that sense could have been "senseless". (No pun intended.)

    Louise Licht
    April 4, 2001 - 12:38 pm
    What interesting reading all your posts make!!

    I am reading the e-book until my Gardener translation arrives from a store on Bibliofind. There is no foreward. I look forward to it!!

    In my print-out e-edition - the first words, of the first chapter, of the first book is, "Alexey Fyodorovitch Karamozov was the third son of Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov ........"

    Why would Dostoevsky choose these opening words if not to introduce his main character. But the title of the book is, "The Brothers Karamazov." So we are briefly introduced to each son. I look to the next chapters to discover how the tragic early life of each young man brings them to be complicit in the, "gloomy and tragic death" of their father.

    robert b. iadeluca
    April 4, 2001 - 12:45 pm
    I'm wondering why Adelaida Ivanovna, married to a wealthy landowner, and with "remarkable physical strength," strong enough to beat him up, would run away with a "destitute" divinity student. Was she always looking for someone "below" her whether in physical strength, finances, or morals?

    Robby

    Moon Dancer
    April 4, 2001 - 12:49 pm
    Joan: I'd be interested to know where in Freud's writings,your colleague was able to pinpoint Freud's declarations about the murder of the father by the serfs.

    Literary patricide,would certainly have been well known to F.D.especially since there is evidence that he read Shakespeare. Is there any evidence that F.D. was familiar with Sophocles?

    Lady C
    April 4, 2001 - 02:33 pm
    Robby:

    FD writes at some length about the women who threw themselves away for their destructive ideas of the romantic--one who literally threw herself over a cliff into the river. He tells us that if the edge of the river had been flat, she probably wouldn't have, but the bluff overlooking the river was romantic.

    Re the death of Dostoevsky's father: Garnett in the preface of my book and also whoever wrote the forward, both, tell us that his father was a penurious doctor who raised his five children in two rooms. It doesn't sound as if he had an estate, or serfs, does it?

    robert b. iadeluca
    April 4, 2001 - 03:24 pm
    Fyodor was a landowner which might not have put him in the aristocratic class but it was certainly above the serfs.

    Robby

    Carolyn Andersen
    April 4, 2001 - 03:24 pm
    For the time being I'mstaying with the version borrowed from the local library, translated to the Norwegian by Geir Kjetsaa. For the adjective describing Fyodor as "senseless" in some of the English translations,GK uses the Norwegian "enfoldig", which means "simple" (in intelligence), "naive", even "innocent". Almost what you'd think could be applied to Aleksei.

    LADY C, you've mentioned the very passage I was going to bring up. Maybe I have a warped sense of humor, but I thought the whole business, capped by the narrator's remark that the girl wouldn't have thrown herself into the river if the site had been less romantic, was ironic and witty. It was here that I first chuckled a bit.

    Deems
    April 4, 2001 - 03:38 pm
    AT LAST!! My apologies to all. I have had problems with my computer, the one at home. I have read all your comments and am excited about this discussion.

    I will check to see where Freud mentions Dostoevsky's father. I'm the one with the friend who put me on to this story. Or rather non-story. But even though scholars today do not put much credence into the story of FD's father being murdered by serfs, the information is still printed in many books about Dostoevsky.

    I found a wonderful description of Fyodor Karamazov that I will put in here later. Sorry to be so brief, but I AM relieved to get here at long last.

    Back later, assuming that the computer is working. I have deleted a couple of things that seemed to be interfering with my system. One of them was Microsoft Messenger. I wonder if it has bugs. I know that there are problems with MS Outlook which I do not use.

    Later, Maryal

    robert b. iadeluca
    April 4, 2001 - 03:39 pm
    Carolyn:--That is so great that you can share with us the Norwegian version. By the time we bounce it around, we will have a pretty good idea of what Dos meant.

    Robby

    robert b. iadeluca
    April 4, 2001 - 03:55 pm
    After Fyodor's wife left him, he "used to drive all over the province, complaining tearfully to each and all of Adelaida Ivanovna's having left him." "One would think that you'd got a promotion, Fyodor Pavlovitch, you seem so pleased in spite of your sorrow."

    Reminds me of a significant number of people I see like that. They glory in being a martyr and acting the victim. If life gets just a bit happier for them, they immediately find some other negative thing about which they can "brag."

    Robby

    Hats
    April 4, 2001 - 04:16 pm
    "Moral Fatigue" could mean a person becomes too debilitated to hold onto their morals. This person will let go of everything good and true they ever believed in just to experience quietness again.

    From what I read Fyodor could be more than a handful. He could make any woman give up their true values just to be rid of his trying, irritating and cruel behavior.

    He drove Adelaida to physically abuse him. This was the loss of her morals. She does not sound like the type of woman who wanted to use her physical strength. She is described as displaying "incomparably more dignity and generosity than her husband,"

    I think she ran away with the divinity because she had hopes that his religious training would lead him to be a kinder man than Fyodor. She had experienced human cruelty. Now, she needed to experience human kindness. So, she placed her love not totally in a man and his physical attraction but in his value system, his belief in God.

    This man's economic standing did not matter to Adelaida. She just wanted a life without traumatic consequences.

    HATS

    Joan Pearson
    April 4, 2001 - 04:22 pm
    But Hats, she left her child! Her little three year old child! If she was leaving because of the moral climate, or the abuse, why didn't she take him? She must have known that Fyodor didn't want him!

    Do Dostoevesky and Karamazov share the same first name? I've got to get dinner now...Fyodor?

    She left her child to fend for himself in that awful place! I wonder if Dmetri had any fond memories of his mother as Alexei did of his own?

    betty gregory
    April 4, 2001 - 05:05 pm
    About her leaving her 3 year old child....even though FD doesn't mention it, in the majority of countries at this time, remember, the father would have been awarded instant custody of children (if they eventually divorced). All property and children stayed with the husband. I don't know specifically about Russia in the mid 1800s....but that's what came to mind when I read that Dmitri was left behind.

    That wasn't my only thought, though, because the father, Fyodor K., wouldn't have noticed if the mother had taken Dmitri with her! I felt angry with both of them when little Dmitri was being shifted all over the place. When FD wants to emphasize something, his repetitions or exaggerations do drive home the point.

    In addition, of course, is the narrator saying in several places...remember this. I like this touch, this gentle admonishment to pay attention to a detail...or marking it as a puzzle piece. It is also amusing. It also makes me wonder what investment the narrator has in how he's telling the tale?

    betty

    betty gregory
    April 4, 2001 - 05:40 pm
    "Moral fatigue." I would not have thought of this, if not for reading through such remarkable posts, one of yours specifically, Hats.

    Moral fatigue makes me think of the slow erosion of a rock's shape from the force of water moving over it. A wearing away of conviction.

    My other thought about moral fatigue is not about what it is, but why it almost has to happen, or how easily it can happen in the case of abuse. When the (in this case) emotional abuse begins, the thought of having to experience more of it is almost unthinkable...impossible. The thought of continuing to be abused is in conflict with what the brain says is "right." That's the idea behind cognitive dissonance---two opposing beliefs trying to occupy the same space (thinking). That's when slight shifts in perception or beliefs can restore homeostasis, a sense of balance. (I'm not saying this very well.) Less conflict!

    By the time there has been, in this author's words, signs of moral fatigue (yelling isn't so bad, at least he isn't hitting me...and I'm sure I make him angry too often), the brain has less conflict to deal with. That's when it becomes easy to rationalize not leaving.

    betty

    Deems
    April 4, 2001 - 06:58 pm
    that I especially liked. Liked enough to write it down. (Do you think that Border's minds that I do research in their bookstore?)

    "Old Karamazov is life under the Old Dispensation. He is a force and no more; he does not know himself for what he is. He contains within himself the germ of all potentialities, for he is chaos unresolved. He is loathsome and terrible and stormy for he is life itself."

    ~~Middleton Murry

    I like that description. It is better than one I could come up with. Except I think maybe I would add that he is the ingredients of life itself, without the necessary organization. No, I guess I won't since it seems that is more or less what Murry has already said.

    I'll continue to work on the death of Dostoevsky's father and see what I can come up with.

    ~Maryal

    Deems
    April 4, 2001 - 07:01 pm
    Betty---I understand exactly your definition of "cognitive dissonance." Does that mean that I suffer from it?

    Alas, Maryal

    CharlieW
    April 4, 2001 - 07:15 pm
    I apologize here foir this and future postings - I seem to have but an hour at the very most at night to even read this discussion - so I fear I will always be behind the thread. Please excuse.



    There have been thoughts expressed that FD is writing of himself (in Fyodor)! At this point I remain unconvinced - but after these few short pages it would perhaps be wise to reserve judgment. So I shall.



    And a confession. I tend not to get hung up on the meaning of the turn of odd phrase here and there. I just put it down to fractured translation. We've seen this before in translated novels. Joan has pointed out one example of a translation that is simpler, straightforward, and clear - leaving no doubt as to intended meaning. I believe that in many translated phrases, there is no great mystery behind them other than a lazy translation.


    Charlie

    Deems
    April 4, 2001 - 07:25 pm
    I don't think that Father Karamazov is a reflection of the author. Dostoevsky's father was an alcoholic. I think we are getting his portrait, or at least partially. (Of course, Dostoevsky is in some way all of the characters!)

    Maryal

    CharlieW
    April 4, 2001 - 07:40 pm
    Maryal- That is a grand and very useful characterization of Fyodor. Thank you so much.


    By the way - Chapter 1 ends with this thought:
    As a general rule, people, even the wicked, are much more naïve and simple-hearted than we suppose. And we ourselves are, too.


    The narrator uses this by way of explaining Fyodor's rather melodramatic reaction to Adelaida's death. Let's take the "wicked" people. Are they so simple-hearted? Not in my book [of life]. More complicated than we may ever be able to imagine, maybe, but not so simple-hearted at all. I understand though, why this belief would fit more neatly in FD's scheme. Oddly enough, though, I do believe that "we ourselves" (the good and the "wicked" amongst us) are "more naïve" than we suppose. Always. Contradictory?


    Charlie

    FaithP
    April 4, 2001 - 09:27 pm
    Like Charlie I don't get hung up on a phrase that seems cloudy because of translation. I have had an family association with an in-law who came here from Russia in the early 90's and could speak "Biznez English" and read it but had a very difficult time translating more complicated things such as emotions, reactions to our way of life,feelings etc. and even medical stuff was hard for him to translate. He tried very hard to accliamate but could not and after a divorce he returned to Russia, St. Petersberg, where he wrote "was able to return to managing the Bowling Alley and Restuarant as if he had never been to America, but he could never forget our food and now was always hungry for American Food." He no longer corrosponds as he remarried. I liked him but never understood him or his reactions at all. He was always a stranger to me though he called me BaBa. The closest I got to some understanding is when he bought some Fairy tale books to send to his daughter in Russia. We read them together one evening before he mailed them and it was very interesting the different interpretations we had and he would tell me how something would have appeared in his childhood translations into Russian of World Famous fairy tales. I wish I had paid more attention now. What a missed opprotunity. faith

    Hats
    April 4, 2001 - 10:38 pm
    Betty, "Moral fatigue makes me think of the slow erosion of a rock's shape from the force of water moving over it. A wearing away of conviction."

    "Cognitive dissonance" two opposing beliefs trying to occupy the same place."

    Well, Betty, that gives me a lot to think about and I understand completely your definition of Cognitive dissonance. However, I could not say or write it like you have here.

    Joan, Adelaida leaving her child does bother me tremendously, of course, but perhaps, her leaving him was a part of the moral fatigue, being so worn down that she was unable to do the morally correct thing and then, Betty does write that some countries treat their children differently than our culture.

    On a lighter note, I have been thinking of something humorous. I hope it is funny. When Fyodor thinks about hell, and its description. Of course, I hate to even give him credit for being funny. He thinks his ultimate destination is hell so he wonders whether there are hooks in that place.

    "What hooks? What are they made of? Are they iron hooks? If so, where were they forged? Do they have some kind of ironworks down there, or what? Why, I'm sure the monks in the monastery take it for granted that hell has, for instance, a ceiling......And what difference does it make whether hell has a ceiling or not? Oh no, it damn well makes all the difference in the world, because if theres no ceiling, there aren't any hooks, then the whole idea goes to pieces."

    That made me laugh but my sense of humor might need adjusting.

    HATS

    robert b. iadeluca
    April 5, 2001 - 04:21 am
    Concerning the death of Adelaida, Fyodor "rejoiced at his release and at the same time wept for her who released him."

    A very common trait. I see this all the time -- for example, the family caretaker who is worn out from years of caring for an invalid parent and finally takes him or her to a nursing home. Breathes with a sigh of relief at regaining one's own life yet wracked with guilt when thinking of the parent who is now "warehoused."

    Ambivalence. Cognitive dissonance. Moral fatigue?

    Robby

    Joan Pearson
    April 5, 2001 - 05:20 am
    Good morning, Robby! This man, this actor, this buffoon is driving me to distraction! First you think you know him and then you don't! Charlie that is a wonderful quote!

    "As a general rule, people, even the wicked, are much more naïve and simple-hearted than we suppose. And we ourselves are, too."
    Like you, I've been looking closely at this repugnnant man for something more complicated ~ and still searching for some redeeming qualities too. (Do NOT understand what all the women see in him! Ugh!) But if Dostoevsky believes that even the wicked are simpler than we suppose, I think we should remember that as we read his tale.

    I'm going to put it in the heading right now so we keep it in front of us as we puzzle through this elusive character.

    I searched and found some interesting on Doestoevsky's prototype for Papa Karamazov. Will bring it up as soon as I get it abbreviated and organized. Want to spare you!.

    That is funny, Hats! ...you do have a sense of humor! He says something else to Alyosha in this same passage that made me smile too...

    "I'm ready to believe in hell, but without a ceiling. It makes it more refined, more enlightened, more Lutheran that is."


    And Alyosha takes this very seriously and offers reassurance that their is no ceiling in hell. The funny thing about Dostoevsky's humor is that it is not easily understood. I mean, I chuckle, but I don't know why. I don't know what "more Lutheran" means exactly, but I still get it. Do you feel this way? An off-beat humor...that leads you, Hats, to comment, "at least I hope it's funny." We aren't reading a comedy here, it is a tragedy, I suppose, but there is a very dry sense of humor at work here, isn't there?

    Carolyn, you also picked up on the droll observation of the romantic suicide spot! when speaking of something really serious, potentially tragic, D. is injecting a does of humor that has us smiling!

    I will have to say again, that I cannot understand Adelaida running off and leaving little Dmetri in that house, but will have to settle for cultural differences and let it go. She had to get out, she knew that her husband had custody of her son, because that was just how it was at the time? I still that a mother's love and protection for her child is basic, universal instinctive ~ throughout the animal kingdom. But will have to let her run off to a better life with the divinity student.

    Let's look at what happened to the child that she left behind...and Adelaida's cousin, Pyotr Miusov's reasons for wanting to take on the responsibility of the little waif. Why?

    robert b. iadeluca
    April 5, 2001 - 05:33 am
    I wouldn't say a mother abandoning her child is a "cultural" difference. It happens in America all the time.

    Robby

    Jo Meander
    April 5, 2001 - 06:35 am
    Reminds me of a significant number of people I see like that. They glory in being a martyr and acting the victim. If life gets just a bit happier for them, they immediately find some other negative thing about which they can "brag."

    Robby, when you said this about Fyodor's reaction to his wife's departure, I thought of people I know who do the same thing! I think it's often embarrassment over the good things that one has which others don't mingled with a touch of supersition: if you don't emphasize the negative aspects of your fate the gods will whisk the good things away. I think I read this in an Amy Tan novel: the family complains loudly about how ugly and unfortunate the new baby is to keep the gods from taking the beautiful, longed-for child away.
    Betty, I appreciate the cognitive dissonance explanation. How do we deal with this ourselves? Is it always wrong to change a belief? I certainly see (and have experienced) a "wearing away" of certain beliefs due to life experiences and observations.

    Joan Pearson
    April 5, 2001 - 07:43 am
    Jo, that's an interesting question..."Is it always wrong to change a belief? I certainly see (and have experienced) a "wearing away" of certain beliefs due to life experiences and observations."

    What happens if you don't change a belief and doggedly stick with the "dissonance", no matter how destructive? Is this what happened to Karamazov's second wife? Now that was really "Cognitive dissonance" - two opposing beliefs trying to occupy the same place and the result was her hysteria and death! I guess it isn't remarkable that Alexei would remember this mother, more than Dmitri would remember his...



    Can't this change of a belief, or previously held values in the face of life experiences and observations be a part of growth/development? Part of education too? Or is that too extreme in this context? Probably so! How about survival?

    I like this quote from Robert Frost...it almost fits here, but not quite! I like it anyway and besides, isn't everything ambiguous here these days?

    "Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence."


    Fae, it is remarkable that you remember this relative with "biznez English"...he made a lasting impression on you because he spent those moments with you and you and the fairy tales. I'll bet you were a quiet, observant child, like Alexei...somwhat of a mystic, too!

    Deems
    April 5, 2001 - 09:17 am
    For me the point is that both Fyodor Pavlovich's wives manage to escape him, one way or the other.

    Married to his second "very YOUNG" wife--Sofya Ivanova-- old Karamazov holds it over her head that he has saved her from "the noose" (she had tried to commit suicide to get away from her "benefactress")and can therefore do whatever he wants.

    And what is it that he wants? "He would invite loose women to the house in his wife's presence, when licentiousness would commence."

    I love that phrasing, deliberately old-fashioned: "when licentiousness would commence."

    ~maryal

    Jo Meander
    April 5, 2001 - 09:46 am
    Maryal, wasn't it her young, innocent face that captured him? Isn't it interesting(! -- don't know what word to use!) that he marries a young woman who looks like an icon in the church and then brings into her home women who are harlots? He is a paradox,chaos personified!
    Joan, you said" Can't this change of a belief, or previously held values in the face of life experiences and observations be a part of growth/development? Part of education too? Or is that too extreme in this context? Probably so! How about survival? " I think both are true in different contexts. the tough question is whether we are adapting beliefs because our convictions have changed or because we want to survive? Both can be true at the same time, I guess, but sometimes I wonder if we "cop out"! Also, love the Frost quote!

    Deems
    April 5, 2001 - 10:00 am
    Jo---Ah yes, that young sweet face. An innocent that he is at once attracted to and compelled to corrupt. I notice also that Sofia comes from "another province" where Fyodor P. has been doing business. But even though he is not a familiar presence there, his suit is rejected. So he convinces the innocent and young (16) Sofia to elope with him! Oh my!

    Maryal

    Jo Meander
    April 5, 2001 - 10:35 am
    There is an essay by the Russian critic Konstantin Mochulsky in the Matlaw edition of The Bothers K.>. His analysis of Fyodor offers a view of him that should continue to be relevant long after the old devil has been removed from the scene. “…in him…lives the soul of the ancient pagan world, a cosmic force, the irresistible element of sex.” Fyodor says that there are no ugly women, and that he wonders about them when he realizes that other men have failed to appreciate and approach them; evidently he has made a practice of doing so “successfully.” Commenting upon Fyodor’s satyr-like behavior, Mochulsky goes on: “But ancient paganism has ended, Great Pan is dead, and the fauns have turned into demons.” The sensualist, the “wicked buffoon, cynic, and blasphemer,” defends himself to Father Zossima by apologizing for himself and saying that he is really ashamed, feels very inferior, and acts the buffoon in self-defense. “I am a buffoon from shame…it is simply from over-anxiety that I am rowdy."
    When he talks about those hooks ready to drag him down to hell, he seems to believe he really deserves it; the translation cited in the article quotes him as saying, …”if they don’t drag me down, what will there be then, where will justice be in the world?”
    Later, he asks Alyosha, whom he does love, to pray for him, and Alyosha worries about the family and the “ ‘earthly Karamozov force,’ earthly and unfashioned….I don’t know if the Spirit of God hovers over this force….” Mochulsky says,”But Dostoevsky believed in the great and saving force of Mother Earth: the father Karamazov’s ‘impetuosity’ is the chaotic ebullition of creative powers, which are predestined to transfigure the world.”

    Old Fyodor, then, is more that a dirty old man, perhaps as all dirty old men are! (The line at the top of the page quoting Dostoevsky implies as much when it refers to our universal naiveté). Is Dostoevsky saying that he is the source of an energy which is necessary for the world’s transfiguration? Does he mean this in a positive sense? Do Fyodor’s sons contain the force for which he has served as the repository?

    betty gregory
    April 5, 2001 - 11:17 am
    I don't know the answers, Jo, but I like reading your questions. How does your question about Fyodor K. being the repository fit with the theory of the 3 sons representing 3 aspects of Dostoevsky?

    On cognitive dissonance. All the posts are making me think of ambiguity (dictionary: capable of being understood in two or more ways) and its second cousin ambivalence, with all its indecision and hesitation (dictionary: contradictory attitudes or feelings).

    Jeff Shapiro, author of Renato's Luck who took part in the discussion, wrote at length on ambiguity and on the parts of us that seem to be in conflict with each other...or aspects that we're ashamed of. His thought is that these conflicts are an integral part of life and that we must, ultimately, accept, even embrace, those parts that give us the most trouble or are forever in conflict.

    It's always a comfort to read something like that, but I find it difficult to do.

    betty

    Lady C
    April 5, 2001 - 11:30 am
    You've thrown out so many ideas, and I want to try to respond to all of them, so here goes: Although the elder Karamazov defends himself as you say, Father Zossima tells him not to lie, above all to himself. As FD tells us earlier, Fyodor Karamazov loves to act. And yes, he does ask Alyosha to pray for him, (another bit of acting?)but ends up saying he doesn't believe in it after all. You're probably right that he is more than a dirty old man, a more complex character, and Dostoevsky does use the word naive, but I wonder in what sense he means that. Is it the translator's word, or did he write is as "naive'? I'm going to look up the word in Webster's and see if there is an older or archaic meaning that is no longer in use.

    betty gregory
    April 5, 2001 - 11:59 am
    In the world of psychology, I think one is suppose to believe things are a little more complex than meets the eye. Heretic that I am, I've always been moving in the other direction.

    Our wondering if Fyodor K. is simple at heart makes me think of a particular experience with a well known bully (well known to me). Having thought of him as complex, it was such a shock to see that he was embarrassed to tell a waitress that she brought him the wrong meal. (The whole plate was wrong.) Instead, he was obnoxious to those who were eating with him, furious with the restaurant, vowing never to return. And I sat there, "seeing" him, thinking of his inability to be assertive, to get a need met. Not complex at all.

    Also, and this may just be a personal bias, people who are loud and busy and out there, as Fydor K. is, are usually simpler than the quiet ones.

    Deems
    April 5, 2001 - 12:22 pm
    Betty---I too am a heretic. Is it possible that things are both more complicated and simpler than we believe?

    I really like what Jeff Shapiro said about ambiguity. I am quite at home with ambiguity, except of course when my personal well-being is at stake in which case I want certain answers with no ambiguity at all.

    Maryal

    Joan Pearson
    April 5, 2001 - 12:52 pm
    I find the whole concept so exciting! We are all so much more complicated, and yet more simple than we appear to be to others? Why do I find that idea so ........liberating? In the sense that I know longer have to puzzle over one way or the other! Both! At the same time! It seems to explain so much! Yet it is so simple. Where have I been? It makes me think of certain people that I may very well have underestimated.

    Don't you feel the same about yourself, depending on the circumstance? Don't you feel that people expect too much of you ~ that you don't really feel you can fulfill expectations? And other times, don't you feel somewhat insulted when you are talked down to, as if you aren't capable of understanding a simple concept? Not only are others more/less complex than they appear...I am the same too myself! Sometimes a very simple soul with few needs and simple tastes. Other times so impossibly complicated! So we shall not expect otherwise of Fyodor? Dostoevsky or Karamazov!

    I love the question, Jo & Betty "How does the question about Fyodor K. being the repository fit with the theory of the 3 sons representing 3 aspects of Dostoevsky?" Will get it up right away!

    Jo Meander
    April 5, 2001 - 12:57 pm
    Betty, I think the three sons / three parts of Fyodor idea is one that may become clearer to us as we read. I also think it fits with the Fyododr-as-energy idea. What about that "Mother Earth" idea that Molchulsky attiributes to Dostoevsky? Mochulsky seems to see Father Fyodor as complex.
    The "naivete'" line ends chapter 1, and the Garnett translation as reised by Matlaw uses the word.
    Maryal, me too! I want to know which medicine is going to work and how is the orthopod going to fix my bad foot? Also, who is going to wash all the dishes if I cook a huge meal? No ambiguity, please! As far as ambivalence goes, if I couldn't tolerate it in myself, I'd be long gone!

    Joan Pearson
    April 5, 2001 - 12:58 pm
    Maryal, yesterday you came up with an interesting suggestion! Dostoevsky could be expressing contempt for his own father in the portrayal of Karamazov. His biography continues to captivate...the death of his father especially. Do you think that perhaps you can persuade your colleague to come in and speak to us about Freud and his involvement in the story that mal-treated serfs retaliated by murdering Dostoevesky's father? It certainly is a prevalent story. I see it in nearly every biography! The murder and Dosto's preoccupation, obsession with death, punishment...and redemption ~ from the time he was 18 when his father was killed. I've got to start remembering the sources from which I copy these passages. I think this was from an essay titled, Prison, by Jennifer Jay:...
    "...(the liberation of the serfs) This issue was especially of interest to Fyodor, who had been exposed to the cruelties of serfdom early in his life. He had a deep hatred of the institution of serfdom, which was perhaps rooted in his guilt towards the murder of his father. It was thought that Mikhail Andreevich was murdered by his own serfs during a particularly violent bout of anger towards them. Fyodor, while he was in no way associated with the death (he was in school in Saint Petersburg at the time), none the less felt guilt. Part of this may have been due to his incessant nagging for more money from his father during his last few years. (Sounds like Dmetri?)

    But this morning, I came across this piece:
    "Dostoevsky was born in Moscow, as the second son of a former army doctor. He was educated at home and at a private school. Shortly after the death of his mother in 1837 he was sent to St. Petersburg, where he entered the Army Engineering College. In 1839 Dostoevsky's father died propably of apoplexy but there was strong rumors that he was murdered by his own serfs." http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/fdosto.htm


    What exactly is apoplexy?

    Hats
    April 5, 2001 - 01:02 pm
    I am so far behind. You guy, write so much, so quickly and all good.

    I feel like a person who left the room for one moment and when she gets back, all the family secrets have been told.

    Wait up. I've got to get my bearings.

    HATS

    Joan Pearson
    April 5, 2001 - 01:18 pm
    Jo, we were posting together. Yes, I agree, this is a matter of semantics...ambiguity:doubtfulness or uncertainty as regards interpretation.(double meaning)...and ambivalence: the coexistence of opposing attitudes or feelings.

    But it appears we have both going here, doesn't it? The translations provide the ambiguity;the Karamazov character (all of our characters?) the ambivalence...

    And you know what? I'm ambidexterous...sometimes!

    Joan Pearson
    April 5, 2001 - 01:18 pm
    Maryal, yesterday you came up with an interesting suggestion! Dostoevsky could be expressing contempt for his own father in the portrayal of Karamazov. His biography continues to captivate...the death of his father especially. Do you think that perhaps you can persuade your colleague to come in and speak to us about Freud and his involvement in the story that mal-treated serfs retaliated by murdering Dostoevesky's father? It certainly is a prevalent story. I see it in nearly every biography! The murder and Dosto's preoccupation, obsession with death, punishment...and redemption ~ from the time he was 18 when his father was killed. I've got to start remembering the sources from which I copy these passages. I think this was from an essay titled, Prison, by Jennifer Jay:...
    "...(the liberation of the serfs) This issue was especially of interest to Fyodor, who had been exposed to the cruelties of serfdom early in his life. He had a deep hatred of the institution of serfdom, which was perhaps rooted in his guilt towards the murder of his father. It was thought that Mikhail Andreevich was murdered by his own serfs during a particularly violent bout of anger towards them. Fyodor, while he was in no way associated with the death (he was in school in Saint Petersburg at the time), none the less felt guilt. Part of this may have been due to his incessant nagging for more money from his father during his last few years. (Sounds like Dmetri?)

    But this morning, I came across this piece:
    "Dostoevsky was born in Moscow, as the second son of a former army doctor. He was educated at home and at a private school. Shortly after the death of his mother in 1837 he was sent to St. Petersburg, where he entered the Army Engineering College. In 1839 Dostoevsky's father died propably of apoplexy but there was strong rumors that he was murdered by his own serfs." http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/fdosto.htm


    What exactly is apoplexy?

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    April 5, 2001 - 01:43 pm
    What about the father representing chaos in which is born from the ferment the physical, mental and spiritual aspects of man symbolized by the three sons?

    Hats
    April 5, 2001 - 01:51 pm
    Joan, Apoplexy, being crippled by a stroke.

    I have been think of Mitya and Pyotr Miusov. It seems that Father Fyodor forgot all about his son, little Mitya. That's strange, but anyway, Gregory, the servant took Mitya to live with him.

    "If it hadn't been for Gregory, there would have been no one to change the boy's shirt."

    After awhile, Pyotr Miusov returns and becomes concerned about Mitya. At first, I thought his concern stemmed from being the first cousin of Mitya's mother, but I think his feelings went deeper. I think he wanted to be sure that Mitya received an education.

    "This was the first time that he met Fyodor Karamazov; he told him point blank that he wished to take the boy and be responsible for his education."

    At first, I thought he would be a perfect guardian for Mitya, but later, he became so involved with a revolution an other matters that Mitya got passed off to another home. The narrator suggests that Mitya might have been placed in four different homes.

    I get the idea that Mitya might have been the angrier one of the brothers. Is it any wonder? How in the world does a father forget he has a child? And four different homes? How sad.

    Miusov does not seem like a "bad" person. I think he was just too involved with political situations. I like him simply because he knew the stupidity and weirdness of Fyodor Karamazov, Mitya's father.

    "When he learned of Mitya's plight, he decided to intervene, although that involved approaching Karamazov, whom Miusov loathed and despised with all the ardor of youth."

    HATS

    Deems
    April 5, 2001 - 02:14 pm
    Hi HATS! Welcome to the melee. Have you been patting your foot when you should have been on SeniorNet? Hmmmmmmmm?

    Joan: Will do my best to catch up with David on the Dostoevsky's father's death matter.

    Meanwhile, I have an interesting question for you all...............Have you noticed that our friendly narrator sometimes seems to know the details of what happened and sometimes seems to have only heard rumors from someone else?

    I find the narration here absolutely fascinating. Remember that we can only know what this narrator knows and chooses to tell us. The narrator is not a real character, of course, but another creation of Dostoevsky.

    ~Maryal

    Jo Meander
    April 5, 2001 - 02:29 pm
    Maryal, something else I noticed along the same line that made me backtrack at the time: he used the first person plural,"we" or "us," as if he were a member of the community and shared in their personal reactions to what was going on with the family. I'll try to find the spot.

    Jo Meander
    April 5, 2001 - 02:33 pm
    "What about the father representing chaos in which is born from the ferment the physical, mental and spiritual aspects of man symbolized by the three sons?" Barbara, sounds like a real possibility!
    HATS, isn't it interesting how the servants like Gregory seem to be loving and trustworthy caretakers of these children when they are neglected by their parents?

    Hats
    April 5, 2001 - 02:54 pm
    Jo, it is interesting that the servants, like Gregory, are their to restore some sort of order to the child's life. The only problem is that they can not fulfill all of the needs of the child.

    For example, Gregory can not afford an education for Dmitry. Neither can he give a great deal of time if he has to serve a master like Fyodor.

    Then, of course, I think Gregory did would he saw as a humane deed, but we don't get the idea that he had time to give love. Did Gregory really know how to take the rest of the steps that it takes to raise a child?

    Gregory saved Dmitry, and Gregory is needed at that time. However, someone else needed to pick up the pieces of this child's life and quickly.

    I have been thinking of Fyodor Kararmazov. He seemed only to abuse women and children. Did he abuse men too? Was he a brawler at the local bar?

    HATS

    Jo Meander
    April 5, 2001 - 03:05 pm
    I remember reading that he was as shrewd in business as he was senseless in human relations. Didn't he manage to amass quite a bit of money? Maybe he was too careful to get into physical altercations with men he might want to do business with!

    Hats
    April 5, 2001 - 03:10 pm
    Jo, that could be true. I had not thought his business dealings with men.

    He certainly mistreated women and children. I have forgotten what his home life was like. I think it tells a little bit in the beginning of the book.

    HATS

    Hats
    April 5, 2001 - 03:21 pm
    Jo, Gregory, the servant, is an interesting person. He does have more character than Fyodor. When Fyodor held the orgies in front of his wife, Gregory became outraged.

    "once he even broke up a party and drove the guests and the women out of the house."

    I wonder will Gregory continue throughout the story and play an important part in the family.

    HATS

    Joan Pearson
    April 5, 2001 - 04:41 pm
    Hats, I wonder the same about Grigory. I don't think we've seen the last of him! I thought it interesting that he also became the caretaker for the two sons by the second marriage. My favorite Grigory episode:
    "Exactly three months after Sofya Ivanovana's death, the generals's widow suddenly appeared in our town (there's that narrator again!)...Instantly upon seeing (Fyodor drunk) she gave him two resounding slaps on the face, seized him by a tuft of hair, and shook him three times up and down. (Physical Russian "lady" again!).

    Then without a word, she went straight to the cottage to the two boys. Seeing them...unwashed and in dirty linen, she promptly gave Grigory too a box on the ear...Grigory accepted the blow like the devoted slave, ...made her a low bow and pronounced that 'God would repay her for the orphans.' 'You're a blockhead all the same', the old lady shouted as she drove away.



    I don't think we've seen the last of Grigory! I can't get over the physicality of these Russian women!

    Maryal, I first thought the narrator was Dostoevsky, but then when he started appearing in the story, I thought he might even be F.Karamazov. After a while it was clear that he was everywhere, but interestingly, always a part of things. I'm sitting here trying to think of another example of a narrator/participant in other literature. An omnipresent narrator, who is as one of the characters in the story...but not quite........

    CharlieW
    April 5, 2001 - 05:17 pm
    In Chapter 5, the narrator outlines for us the nature of Alyosha in some detail. Detail greater than given of Dmitri or Ivan - or even Fyodor. The physical detail is quite particular: "red-cheeked" and "clear-eyed", "handsome", "graceful". "moderately tall", dark brown hair with an "oval-shaped face", and "wide-set dark gray, shining eyes." Apart from these physical details, the details imparted of Alyosha's inner-thoughts reveal an intimacy far beyond what we are given of the rest of the family. This "realist" who nevertheless believed in "miracles." And the narrator gives us this spectacular gem.



    "Faith does not, in the realist, spring from the miracle but, the miracle from faith."


    My point is that the narrator seems on very intimate terms with Alyosha. Has had long conversations with him about, faith, about miracles, about "the existence of God and immortality." Has a deep understanding of his spirituality and how he (Alyosha) arrived at it. The narrator at one point in this chapter says that "brooding on these things he may have come to us perhaps only to see whether here he could sacrifice all or only "two roubles," and in the monastery he met this elder." [emphasis mine] The narrator also refers to the monastery as "our monastery". For all of these reasons I have assumed that the narrator is a brother in the monastery who is telling the story off the Karamazov family (and especially of Alyosha).


    Charlie

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    April 5, 2001 - 05:30 pm
    As I understand it, the less able you are with words - the less able you are expressing your feelings in words, the more you will probably espress yourself physically. We know the level of education in Russia was not on a par with Europe. The countryside was still rather limited and millions of serfs with no education where freed in 1861. Do we know if Sofya was the child of a serf? In any case, she appears to be able to say better how she feels by hitting rather than by using her words.

    Lady C
    April 5, 2001 - 05:34 pm
    I have not tried to identify the narrator, but don't believe he's a monk. The "us" referred to repeatedly, I take to mean the inhabitants of the town, and the town itself. The narrator is at different times omnipotent, and mysterious, and teasing. But that is true of many books written in the first person. I don't believe he is meant to be identified as part of the story.

    It was Adelaide, from a good family, not Sofya that beat Fyodor Karamazov.

    Joan Pearson
    April 5, 2001 - 05:54 pm
    Ooooooooh, Lady C, I was just looking back through the first chapters and thought Charlie's observation brilliant! Unless the monastery is NOT in the town, I couldn't find anything that would say otherwise? Something else to watch as we read???

    Barbara, hitting, hair pulling, yes, when words fail. Sophia used hysterics when words failed, Adelaida, emotionally exhausted, lashed out physically, and the Major's Wife...???

    Traude
    April 5, 2001 - 06:01 pm
    Have only just peeked in and not read all the posts yet. That willk take some time !



    My BK translation is by Constance Garnett; the edition was published by BN 1995 and contains a copyrighted Introduction (no author given).



    Now, as to "senseless" :

    As a translator and linguist by training (Russian is one of my languages), I am in a position to say that the specific translation of any given term,, like "senseless" e.g. , is the interpretation, the definition of the respective translator. That is very significant point, for a DIFFERENT translator at a DIFFERENT time may convey the same term slightly differently.

    For precisely that reason I suggest that we not cling tenaciously to each and every word but, rather, read, savor, "take in", form impressions - in other words, get to the SUBSTANCE . After all, it is the story that counts, the plot, not the form, or one or two words.

    Consider how many translations of the ODYSSEY e.g. were made over the last century or two - or of Dante's INFERNO, for that matter- ALL based on the SAME original text ! Clearly, it is the interpretation of the individual translator that makes any work specia. And yes, a translator's work is definitely subjective to a certain extent, and not all translations - especially of contemporary works, I found - are good. Some are quite bad.



    One other point : Tartars, also TATARS, are a Mongolian tribe and NOT synomymous with (modern) Turks.

    Lastly, would it possible to cite the specific source when quoting extensively from a reference work ? That would be helpful.

    Onward... this is going to be long --------

    Joan Pearson
    April 5, 2001 - 06:08 pm
    Welcome aboard, Traudee, I think that's what we have been doing all along...citing from the reference. In some cases, we are providing the URLs for the internet pages we are citing...you will see that once you've read the posts! Start with post #180. That was opening day...the day before yesterday.

    So glad to have you with us! A Russian specialist, too! What is the Russian for Charles? Have been trying to find that for days...is it Karol?

    betty gregory
    April 5, 2001 - 08:31 pm
    It was the narrator's word "us" that convinced me, too, Charlie, that he is someone inside the monastery, monk or...??

    I like how the narrator speaks as if he's telling a tale, with asides, backtracks, guesses, uncertainty. He identifies rumors, questions part of his own tale.

    All this makes me believe him, but also makes me question his "take," his investment in the tale. He (in just the first few chapters) does seem to adore the youngest brother, Alyosha.

    Hats
    April 6, 2001 - 03:51 am
    Joan, I love the "Gregory episode." In my book, she shows the same behavior toward Fyodor. "...She caught him by the forelock, pulling it hard three times. Then, still without explanation, she went to Gregory's cottage where she found the two little boys."

    I think Mrs. Vorokhov slaps both Gregory and Fyodor. Pulling their forelock, can you picture that? I can, an I got a good laugh.

    "Noticing right away that they were unwashed and that their shirts were dirty, she turned on Gregory and slapped his face too."

    These women are strong, and they have no inhibitions about showing their strength. Did the Russians have wrestling matches for women? ha, ha.

    Maryal, I have been thinking about the narrator. You can't help but think about him. He is all over that town. I love the narrator. He's like the neighbor who lives on the corner but seems to know everything.

    In Philadelphia, we had a neighbor, a woman, she swept the sidewalk from morning until night, talking to everyone who walked past. I tell you she knew everything about everybody. My mother called her "a walking newspaper."

    This narrator knows the rumors. Telling about Adelaida, he writes, "Adelaida had died in Petersburg. She died suddenly, in a garret, of typhus, according to some, of starvation according to others."

    The narrator keeps us in suspense. "It was this confrontation between Karamazov and his eldest son that led to the catastrophe..."

    Is this person male or female or is that left to our imagination? Did Charlie write that he is a a monk? I am not sure about the gender. You guys will have to tell me more.

    HATS

    Hats
    April 6, 2001 - 04:54 am
    Pyotor Miusov, one of Dmitry's caretakers or guardians, young, idealistic and fervent seemed to be very involved with the February Revolution of 1848. Does anyone know what that Revolution was about? was it a serf uprising?

    I know nothing about it, so, where are the history buffs?

    HATS

    Jo Meander
    April 6, 2001 - 05:42 am
    HATS, is Pyotr Dmitri's first caretaker? It's wonderful how you folks keep me from having to recheck things because your memories are so much better! Don't know enough to say anything about the 1848 revolution, but I know someone will be in here today that does know! About the Narrator, I think he is a "walking newspaper," like your old neighbor. At this point he could be a monk in the monastery with Zossima or a village resident. It may be part tof Dostoevsky's plan to reveal who he is later.

    Hats
    April 6, 2001 - 06:17 am
    Jo, I might be wrong, but I think Gregory would have been Dmitry's first caretaker.

    "He was turning his home into a house of debauchery, a faithful servant of the household, Gregory, took the three-year-old Mitya into his care. If it hadn't been for Gregory, there would have been no one to change the boy's shirt."

    I'm like you, Jo. I have a hard time keeping up with everything too. I have not gotten to the chapter about the monastery yet. I am anxious because I want to learn more about Alyosha.

    I think Joan and Maryal want us to discuss what caused the boys to return home after they left.

    I think Dmitry came home to settle his money account with his father. Mitya led a wild life and spent much of his funds. However, his father cheated his own son, didn't he?

    HATS

    Joan Pearson
    April 6, 2001 - 06:23 am
    Pyotr Miusov interests me on several levels. Jo, I think it is stretching it a bit to call him Dmitri's caretaker, but he does figure prominently and what is curious is that he sticks around all these years so that he becomes part of the story when we all look in on this nice little family

    He's a cousin of Dmitri's mother Adelaida, who just happened to have returned from Paris at the time Dmitri is living in the servant's cottage. What's been going on in Paris is directly related to the reason Pyotr shows any interest in the little boy.

    Underlying this whole story is the western influence on Russian culture and thought. Some are resistant, many embrace the "enlightenment." Pyotr Miusov, while living in Paris and other "capitals abroad...came into contact with many of the Liberals both abroad and in Russia." He considered himself a Liberal, one of the enlightened...


    He owned an estate that bordered on the monastery lands. He disputed the clericals on hunting and fishing rights..."he regarded it his duty as a citizen to open an attack upon the "clericals."

    He at one time had "been interested" in his cousin Adelaida, and so when he returned home he got himself appointed "joint guardian" of Dmitri, who owned a small property left to him by his mother. He made some sort of a deal with Karamazov, and took Dmitri to one of his aunts "once removed" who lived in Moscow...and went back to Paris to take part in the Revolution.

    "In his declining years he was very fond of describing the three days of the Paris Rovolution of February, 1848, hinting that he himself had almost taken part in the fight on the barricaades."


    He forgot Dmitri too! The very fact that he will return to the story and become a "player" is of great interest to me. I think he's worth noting.

    Poor Dmitri! What kind of a life is this? No bonding, no affection, no nothing...Hats, I guess I can understand why the boy finally makes his way home to claim some of his inheritance. Don't understand why the other boys came "home" though!

    Jo Meander
    April 6, 2001 - 06:41 am
    Thanks, HATS and Joan! I misspoke when I phrased my question. I really meant guardian, the one who came and took Dmitri from Grigory's care. I thought Ivan wanted money, too, as Dmitri, did, and that Alyosha felt a deep need to locate his mother's grave. He wanted Fyodor to show him where it was. I still have the impression that these children were receiving more loving care from distant relatives and others than they ever would have from Fyodor.

    ALF
    April 6, 2001 - 06:50 am
    Oh--  thank God for  the kindness of strangers!  These children have all been passed along for someone else to rear.  Ivan "almost from the beginning had an unusual aptitude for learning."   Yefrim believed the boy's genius should be educated by another genius.  Our Ivan was not only bright , he was clever.     "The young man was by no means despondent and succeeded in getting work, at first giving
    sixpenny lessons and afterwards getting paragraphs on street incidents into the newspapers under the
    signature of "Eye-Witness."   He published a "striking"  article on the ecclesiastics courts that brought him notoriety.  How is that those who are wordly, rather than spiritual , the atheists and the pious all agreed with this article?  That is quite a feat.  Pytor is assured Ivan  is not at his father's home for want or need of money but due to his brother, Dimitri, who needs a mediator,who was in open quarrel with his father.

    Hats
    April 6, 2001 - 06:54 am
    Joan and Jo, I like Alyosha, and I do remember reading he wanted to visit his mother's grave. I think Fyodor, the father, had forgotten the location of the grave. Boy, Fyodor is so goofy!

    Joan, do you think Pyotor's age, as I read it he was a young man, influenced him in leaving Mitya?

    HATS

    Deems
    April 6, 2001 - 07:26 am
    Of all the boys, Alyosha is the luckiest in that everyone seems to love him and take to him immediately. He is welcomed into a series of homes and wins the affection of all.

    I have a great nephew who is like Alyosha (at least so far). Josh is an active little boy but he was blessed at birth with the most easy-going, sunny temperament as well as a smile that melts hearts. He is just three, but he seems to pass through all the "disagreeable" stages with just minor indications that he is going through them.

    Maryal

    Hats
    April 6, 2001 - 07:42 am
    Maryal, does it seem that Alyosha is even able to turn the heart of his father? His father loves him too. Alyosha seems so special. What is the meaning of Alyosha's name, I wonder. I bet his name tells something about his character.

    Ivan is on the genius level, right? He is a gifted writer.

    I might be wrong, but I am beginning to like Gregory too. He shows Alyosha the spot of his mother's grave, and he is the one who placed a marker on the grave.

    However, Alyosha, although he loved his mother deeply, does not return to the grave until a year later. Did seeing her burial spot make him too sad?

    It also shocked me to read that Fyodor, the father, opened several taverns. I thought, at first, all of his money came from sponging off of other people and stealing (I am thinking of Dmitry's money).

    If Fyodor, the father, had not been a womanizer and a heavy drinker,he might have done some wonderful things with his life.

    HATS

    Joan Pearson
    April 6, 2001 - 08:02 am
    Hats, the Fyodor K's character is facinating, isn't it? I'm beginning to see him in a clearer light, and suspect that the key to understanding him is much simpler than we are making it. More about him later...I'm sure!

    I found Dostoevsky's likely prototype for this enigmatic character... he has a name and everything! . I found this in an From an essay by L.M. Reynes in the Garnett/Matlaw translation. I promise not to go into any detail, but you might like to hear about the town in which Dostoevsky lived while writing Brothers K and also an event that closely parallels the story, a man who closely resembles Karamazov...




    "Dostoevsky first stayed in Staraya Russia (Old Russia), a sizable town and spa about 125 miles south of Petersburg in 1872. He spent every summer but one thereafter in the town, remaining well into autumn, sometimes later, and wrote most of The Brothers Karamazov there.

    He spent the winter of 1874 in Staraya. There he heard a story of a terrible crime . He wrote in his notebook an idea for a future plot.

    Another terrible event took place in the town in 1870 close to his home. He took many notes on the story of a man named Major General K.K. von Sohn...a "rapacious man, trying every possible way to make money."

    "The inhabitants of Staraya Russia were struck while reading Dostoevsky's novel byt the resemblance of Fyodor Karamazov to the von Sohn who lived among them. they could not fail to notice that one of Karamazov's sons was a carouser while the other was disntinguished by his piety- just like the sons of the Major General.

    In Dostoevsky's day town gossip persistently connected von Sohn and his sons with the novel's heroes. It is interesting to note that among the inhabitants of Staraya Russia that conviction still exists."

    Hats
    April 6, 2001 - 08:08 am
    Wow, Joan, that is interesting and gives more background to the story.

    HATS

    Joan Pearson
    April 6, 2001 - 08:12 am
    I thought so too...it let's Dostoevsky's father off the hook somewhat, doesn't it?Young Alyosha... isn't the name Aloysius? Not sure about the spelling. I can understand the sunny disposition ...I know children like Maryal's little nephew. But he is also referred to as a holy fool. What does that mean? I can't help but wonder what made him different from the rest of his schoolmates...so chaste and pious?

    Lady C
    April 6, 2001 - 08:32 am
    Alyosha is the affectionate nickname for Alexei, his given name. I think somewhere reference is made, perhaps by father Zossima, to his being named after a saint. His mother Sofya was religious, so this is likely. The narrator tells us that he recalls at age three being held by her in front of the icon, even remembers the sunbeam on them, and that this might have influenced him strongly. As to his being a holy fool, people tended to think him somewhat simple because he spoke little, but FD says that wasn't so, he just didn't say all he thought and felt.

    As to the elder Karamazov loving Alyosha, I believe FD tells us that this son had more influence over his father than anyone else, was kissed by him repeatedly (usually when he was drunk--which seems to have been a great deal of the time). But it didn't seem to stop the drunken carousing. Alyosha just withdrew when he couldn't stand any more. Maybe Karamazov was responding to Alyosha's not being judgmental about this behavior as everyone else tended to be.

    Deems
    April 6, 2001 - 09:20 am
    HATS and LadyC---Excellent points about Fyodor's response to Alyosha. He does love this son that he never cared about before, insofar as an alcoholic CAN love, that is. And his sentimentality really comes to the fore when he is drinking. But Alyosha does NOT judge his father, as Lady C points out, and that has to make Fyodor feel kindly toward him especially since Dmitri (Mitya) wants his inheritance and Ivan is generally disapproving.

    Joan--I really enjoyed reading the background material.

    Maryal

    CharlieW
    April 6, 2001 - 09:36 am
    Lady C- Exactly. The relevant passage, from Chapter 4 (all emphasis mine):
    There was something about him which made one feel at once (and it was so all his life afterwards) that he did not care to be a judge of others that he would never take it upon himself to criticise and would never condemn anyone for anything. He seemed, indeed, to accept everything without the least condemnation though often grieving bitterly: and this was so much so that no one could surprise or frighten him even in his earliest youth. Coming at twenty to his father's house, which was a very sink of filthy debauchery, he, chaste and pure as he was, simply withdrew in silence when to look on was unbearable, but without the slightest sign of contempt or condemnation. His father, who had once been in a dependent position, and so was sensitive and ready to take offence, met him at first with distrust and sullenness. "He does not say much," he used to say, "and thinks the more." But soon, within a fortnight indeed, he took to embracing him and kissing him terribly often, with drunken tears, with sottish sentimentality, yet he evidently felt a real and deep affection for him, such as he had never been capable of feeling for anyone before.

    What caught my eye - and I had missed it before, is this bit: "His father, who had once been in a dependent position, and so was sensitive and ready to take offence...". Explains a lot about his father, no? This "dependent position" is something of which we have not been told as of yet???

    C

    CharlieW
    April 6, 2001 - 09:38 am
    Judgement. Is there a place for "judgement" in this world? Suspect we have not heard the last of this concept.
    C

    Lady C
    April 6, 2001 - 09:51 am
    FD tells us that early on Karamazov played the buffoon at other men's tables, toadying up to them, at a time when he was much poorer. Perhaps that is what is referred to here.

    Henry Misbach
    April 6, 2001 - 10:33 am
    The character of Alyosha always did strike me as crucial to any understanding the novel, because he is a foil for the others. To think of anyone like him, you have to come up with someone who is devout, but not judgmental; aware of the scheming of others, but guileless himself; rather withdrawn from the world (which he views as a lost cause), yet socially capable. He doesn't fit the "holy fool" mold except under a special definition thereof. The way I see him, I don't know many people like him. In his circumstances, he's a tough act to follow.

    I had to chuckle about Miusov's non-role in the Paris Revolution of February, 1848. Could too many iterations of him, liberal yet cool, have assured the failure of the '48 Revolution? I didn't catch this the first time I read it, not having read R. R. Palmer's chapter of his textbook, "The Revolution that Misfired." Oh, well. It was only in driving past Alliance Nebraska that Walt Kelly's invention "Cahoots, Neb." suddenly rolled into the mental pocket.

    Lady C
    April 6, 2001 - 10:33 am
    I think FD means sensitive insofar as his own feelings are concerned. He certainly isn't when others' are. It's not that he is unaware--only unfeeling. For example, he knows Precisely how to find Miusov's weak spot when the family is in father Zossima's cell, and deliberately zeroes in on it.

    betty gregory
    April 6, 2001 - 11:51 am
    I've decided that wondering whether someone is simple or complex will only take us in circles. In fact, in my thinking further about what we all wrote, difficulties of semantics (meanings) will make a label of simple or of complex meaningless.

    Even though I wrote that something can be simpler than first thought, I don't support trite or stereotypic or meaningless simple descriptions.

    "He's a mean s.o.b.," then no matter what the next person says, the first person repeats, "No, he's just a mean s.o.b." Well, that's simple, but meaningless.

    "She's a bad kid," is also simple, but meaningless...and usually incorrect.

    So, maybe one has to look at accuracy first, then whether something can be simple or complex.

    It may be a difference of mental picture. I picture the essence of someone as (usually or eventually) easy (simple?) to find/describe, although I also think of that essence as something deeper than surface descriptions. So, the essence of someone (one of my favorite things to think about...for myself, family, etc.) is neither simple nor complex....but as with so many things, may be some of both.

    betty

    Hats
    April 6, 2001 - 11:56 am
    I am still wondering why Alyosha might have been called a "Holy Fool." Sometimes when a person is too kind people tend to think of the person as stupid or maybe simple might be the word or maybe naive.

    Also, I see what Alyosha thought of money. He did not have the desire to make or possess money like most people. "He never cared whose money he lived on. In this respect, he was a striking contrast to his brother Ivan.....In general, he did not seem to know the value of money....when he was given pocket money (for which he never asked) he either kept it for weeks on end without knowing what to do with it, or spent it at once on anything."

    When he decided to go back home, he decided to pawn his watch. A gift given to him by the widow of Mr. Polenov, the nice and honest man.

    The ladies stopped Alyosha. They did not want to see him pawn his watch. "They gave him a goodly sum of money and, in addition, bought him a complete wardrobe. Alyosha, however, returned half the money, assuring them that he preferred to travel third class." He reminds me of a young Ghandi. Who would settle for third class? He is Holy.

    HATS

    Traude
    April 6, 2001 - 12:14 pm
    Quite true, there was no "enlightenment" in Russia. It was Peter the Great (Piotr Alekseyevich), 1672-1725, tsar from 1689 until his death, who literally "opened up" the immense country.

    He visited western Europe, hired teachers to take back to Russia with him, founded the Russian navy and reorganized the Russian army. Among wide-ranging reforms he instituted obligatory service to the state by the gentry, virtually imposing Western ideas and customs on his subjects. By driving out the Swedes, he gained Russian outlets on the Baltic Sea and, on the marshes of the Baltic at the mouth of the Neva river, he built Russia's "window on the west", St. Petersburg, which he made the capital.

    Peter's reforms created Russian civilization and set the direction for the immense country's next 200 years, and it is important to note that his introduction of Western ways to the Russian gentry laid the basis for the split between the upper classes and the peasntry , a split that was to plague Russian society until the 1917 revolution.

    x-x-x-x

    BK is a dense work of great complexity and D. sets the scene carefully (with the aid of an unnamed narrator) so that the reader be aware of all ramifications of the family history. I agree with Betty that we simply read what the author tells us about each of the characters. And yes, it is important to "listen" while reading how each of them talks, and sounds.



    The introduction(s) given in some books are, to be sure, helpful to the 21st century reader, especially for historical context, but they do represent an evaluation of sorts by the author of the respective introduction - and BTW, there IS one in mine; his name is Jon Surgal.



    Perhaps some salient biographical points are permissible. I have gleaned them from a seminal work by Leonid Grossman DOSTOEVSKY : HIS LIFE AND WORK (1962) translated by Mary Mackler (1975), and from DOSTOEVSKY - REMINISCENCES by Anna Dostoevsky (his second wife who survived him), translated and edited by Beatrice Stillman, with an introduction by Helen Muchnic.

    D.was the second of 8 children. The mother was a kind soul who succumbed to TB in 1837; the father, a stern, rigid man who regularly beat his serfs but considered himself "a good Christian" was murdered by his serfs in 1839.

    Money, or the lack of it, played an important role in D.'s life (and it does in BK). To escape his creditors, he and Anna wandered the continent for years; his gambling ruinous.

    D. suffered from epilepsy.

    To get back to Leonid Grossman (who died in 1965) : this important Soviet literary scholar and outstanding authority on D., was UNABLE to publish anything about the author because D. was held in "official disrepute" until the mid-19-fifties. We know that D. started BK in 1878 and the unknown narrator tells us that the story begins 13 years earlier. That would bring us to 1865. That then is the period of Russian history with which the reader is concerned.

    Sorry this is getting long and I will now return to read (the book and your posts - all wonderful).

    Hats
    April 6, 2001 - 12:31 pm
    Traude, be sure to share more of the biography. I think we have been undecided about how the death of Dos' father happened. I think there are two different views.

    HATS

    Traude
    April 6, 2001 - 02:58 pm
    HATS,

    let me quote from Grossman, page 17, from the subchapter In Moscow Boarding Schools, par. 2 - (but before I begin : Dyodor was the second oldest and very close to his older brother Mikhail)

    " Their father taught them Latin, of which he had acquired a good knowledge at the Podolosk Seminary and the Medical Academy. With his usual sternness, he would interrput their recitals of declensions and conjugations at the slightest error with shouts of 'Sluggards' !, 'Dolts' ! and, pushing aside the old Bantyshev textbook, would stalk our in anger. It is no wonder that Dos. never manifested any interest in Latin language or literature and that the only classical Roman poet he ever mentioned was Juvenal - and even that was in quoting someone else."

    pg. 38 ff, subchapter The Murder of Dos.'s Father, from the beginning.

    "The harshsness of Mikhail Andreevich Dos.'s character was imperceptibly preparing disaster for him. Having gone into seclusion in Darovoe with the younger Children after his wife's dath, he let himself deteriorate and became crueller than ever. 'One summer day', Lyubov Dyodorovna, Dos.'s daughter, wrote : 'he set out from Darovoe for his other property, Cheremoshna, an never returned. He was later found halfway there, suffocted by a cushion from the carriage. The driver had vanished along with the horses. Several peasants from the village disappeared at the same time. Other of my grandfather's serfs testified that this was an act of regence : the old man had always been very hard on is serfs. Themore he drank the more savage he became.'

    There are other family versions of this event, one told by Dos.'s younger brother Andrei, who was living with his father at the time :



    ' his passion for alcohol was apparently growing more intense, and he was almost always in an abnormal state ...[On 8 June, 1839] a gang of about ten to fifteen men were working together in a field in Cheremoshna on the edge of a forest. Infurirated by something the peasants did wrong, or perhaps it only seemed so to him, Father lost his temper and began to shout very angrily. One of the bolder peasants said something extremely rude in reply and then, fearing the consequences of this, called out : ' Come on fellows, let's do him in !' With this exclamation, all fifteen peasants fell pon Father and, of course, finished him off in an instant. '



    This account presents a general picture of the event, but it remains in the realm of supposition and cannot be considered authentic. No witness to the murder came forward, no evidence about it was preserved, none of the murderers was discovered, no judicical enquiry took place. The son wanted to make his father's horrible death seem as presentable as possible; but the facts were apparently quite different.

    Almost the only important step taken by the l aw officers who investigated the crime was to order an autopsy, as Andrei Dos. himself reported. The autopsy record has not come down to us but the family knew what it contained, and not everyone kept silent about it. Dos.'s niece, Maria Alexandrovna Ivanova, who lived in Drovoe at the end of her life, told V.S. Nechaeva in 1926 that the murder had been committed without bloodshed and that therefore no signs of violent death were to be found on the body. At that time Danila Makarov and Andrei Savushkin, who had been serfs in Darovoe, gave the same testimony. A staff member of the newspaper Krasnaya Niva (Red Ploughland) reported that same year, 1926, that he had been told by some Darovoe peasants that three peasants from Cheremoshna had made up their minds to kill their cruel mast. 'As soon as he came through the gate the three men fell upon him. They did not beat hin, of course; they did not want to leave marks. They had a bottle of spirits ready, poured the whole bottle down the master's throat and then gagged him with a kerchief. This suffocated him.'

    The records concerning this crime make clear that apart from the general hatred all peasant felt for proprietors, there were some who had special grounds for personal enmity against Dos.'s father.

    One of the conspirators, Isaev, had a duaghter, Akulina, was only fourteen at the time of the murder. She had been taken into the house by the master's wife; so it must have been prior to 1836, when she was no more than 10 or eleven. She was very pretty. The master kept her on in the house after Maria Fyodorovna's death and even had her assist him in his medical practice.

    Anothr participant in the murder, the peasant Yefimov, had a niece named Katya, whog rew p with his own children. Maria Fyodorovna had taken her into the house as a chambermaid when she was fourteen. Katya was, in Andrei Dos.'s words, 'full of fire'. After his wife's death the doctor made sixteen-year old Katya his mistress and fathered a chld by her, which died soon afterwards.

    Mikhail Andreevich Dois.'s death can be interpreted as VENGEANCE FOR A WOMAN. When one considers that two of the murderers, and perhaps all four, had close female relatives among old Do.'s home serfs and that the name of Katya's uncle is first among the persons named as murderers (the murder took place in the yard of the house in which Katya was raised), this interpretation seems to be confirmed.' (says Nechaeva).

    However, this was probably not the only motive for the crime. The 'abnormally quick temper and suspicious disposition of the alcoholic proprietor who vented his misfortunes and depression on his peasants' probably seved as the chief cause. What we know about his end from these records brings out very clarly the theme of the dissolute conduct of Dos. (his behaviour towards peasant girls).

    Tne murdered man's body lay in the field for two days. The law officers who came from Kashira to investigate mae no discoveries. They had probably been bribed by the murdered man's relatives, who were at pains to cover up his disgraceful end.

    According to family tradition (reported also by Fyodor Dos.'s daughter), when the news of his father;'s death reached Dos., he had his first serious attack of convulsions and fainting, a condition that was diagnosed much later as epilepsy.

    ....

    ....

    This was one of the most tragic chaptrs in Dios.'s family chronicle. The writer's daughter spoke of it in her memoirs : All his life long he analysed the reasons for that horrible death. When he was working on the characterization of Fyodor Karamazov, perhaps he recalled his father's miserliness, which caused his sons so much suffering and angered them so, and his drunkenness and the physical revulsion he inspired in his children. The celebrated novelist said nothing about this for forty years. But in the novel he wrote before his death he expanded his father's obitu

    Traude
    April 6, 2001 - 03:05 pm
    I am never successful in editing, I always lose words, so I won't edit anything else and

    replace the words I lost in trying :

    ...obituary into a shocking tale of sin, vice and crime.

    Now I throw myself on your mercy and hope you will overlook the typos.

    I am not sure I understand the question about Freud. Will try to find the earlier post. Perhaps someone could be so kind as to provide the post #. Many thanks

    Hats
    April 6, 2001 - 04:13 pm
    Traude, that information is very interesting and enlightening.

    HATS

    Jo Meander
    April 6, 2001 - 05:03 pm
    Traude, thank you for the excellent bilgraphical material. D. had some inspiration at home, it appears!

    Joan Pearson
    April 6, 2001 - 07:34 pm
    We are waiting for Maryal to collar her colleague who just taught a Brothers K course last semester for more information on the link between the differing stories of Dostoevesky's father's death and Freud's explanation, Traudee. Murder at the hands of the maltreated serfs OR apoplexy! Perhaps something in between! It would be great if she could get him to come in here and chat a bit with us about it, don't you think? Thanks so much for the biographical notes! Aren't we fortunate to have so much information on the table?

    Henry, yes this is going to be Alyosha/ Alexei's story, isn't it? Dostoevsky has a soft spot for him. In an earlier post, there was a letter from his wife, saying that Brothers K was intended to be an introductory novel to the main one ~ which was to be Alexei's story. In Chapter II, that tantalizing narrator tells us,
    "It is of that brother Alexey I find it most difficult to speak in thie introduction, before bringing him on the scene in the novel. Yet I must give some preliminary account of him,if only to explain one queer fact, which is that I have to introduce the future hero of the novel to the reader wearing the cassock of a novice."


    Will someone please take my finger and place it on the page where Alexei is referred to as a "holy fool"? I've been searching the pages for too long and can't even find it! Can you help? I thought I'd compare translations to see if it is worded differently...but can't even find it once! Hopeless! I find the term disparaging, in a way, although I do know A. is loved by everyone. I can just picture folks rolling their eyes as they say 'holy fool.' It's not surprising that he enters the monastery, I don't think.

    Charlie, I hadn't picked up on Karamazov in a dependant position, sensitive...will have to watch him closely from now on. And I think we can all learn a lesson from Alexei...the non-judgmental approach will get us further..just as listening quietly is more effective than hysterics. Where did he learn this?

    Alf, I agree, these children, all three, though they were moved around a lot, certainly had a strong family support system, and interested caretakers. Yefim Plenov, the young heir of the aunt who boxed Grigory's ears and took the two younger sons, certainly was responsible for their education...and Pyotr Miusov, Dmitri's guardian, and second cousin, has now resurfaced from Paris and has taken an interest not only in Dmitri, but also the other two. Of course he feels that neither is interested in Karamov money, so they are no threat to Dmitri's fortune. He really likes Ivan. I can see him rolling his eyes at the "holy fool"!

    Lookee here...another "holy fool", and an Elder too!

    Holy Fool ~Blessed Feofil of the Kiev-Caves Lavra

    Deems
    April 6, 2001 - 08:49 pm
    Joan---"holy fool" reference---page 21 in P and L.

    Traude
    April 6, 2001 - 08:53 pm
    The Freud message was # 232. Moon Dancer's question was # 251.

    With all due respect, I cannot imagine how or why Freud, born in 1856, would have STARTED the story of D.'s father who was murdered in 1839. I guess in today's term we would have to add "allegedly". And yet the murder seems to have been an accepted fact, as the excerpts from Grossman's book indicate.

    May I now quote from the introduction by Jon Surgal in the 1995 BN BK edition, pp vi, vii :

    " The peculiar genius of Dost. as a psychological novelist was his ability to portray massive ambivalence in clinical detail while maintaining a cohesive and complex narrative form. Add to this the particular genius he displayed in The Brothers Karamazov by creating from his own conflicted temperament a disintegrated family which when brought together creates a synthesis representative of the human condition (it is no accident that the brothers all come together for the first time as the novel opens), and Dos. may be said to have preceded Freud in the matter of paradigmatic self-analysis. Combine Ivan's assertion of the universal will to parricide with the competition between Dmitri and Old Karamazov for the alluring Grushenka (from grusha meaning "pear", suggesting forbidden fruit), and you end up with something much like Freud's Oedipal scenario. Karamazovshchina may be seen to represent the wellspring of instinctual drives which Freud identified as the id. Consider also Dos.'s sophisticated grasp of the death instinct (which Freud at first perceived as a strictly Russian phenomenon !) and his profound understanding of ambivalence, including the sadomasochism he calls "laceration" ( nadryv), and you can see why Freud would come to admit that 'inspite of all my admiration for Dostoevsky's intensity and pre-eminence, I do not really like him.'



    True, Freud had a number of reasons to dislike Russians at the time (1927) that he wrote his essay titled "Dostoevsky and Parricide" - he was descended from Lithuanian Jews, his sons had fought on the Eastern Front in the First World War, and he was disillusioned with the Soviet experiment - but his personal resentment of Dostoevsky must, I think, be seen in the same light as his refusal to acknowledge the influence of Nietzsche : where his forerunners were concerned, Freud was not above acting out his own Oedipal will to parricide. Psychoanalysis did not come to Freud as a virgin, and its flower may very well belong in the worn lapel of his intellectual father, Dostoevsky."

    betty gregory
    April 6, 2001 - 10:02 pm
    Maybe I missed the collective importance of author Dos' father....until I read Traude's account of the many accounts of his death and of his life. Wow, so fictional father Karamazov may be fashioned on Dos' father? I guess I didn't realize how rotten a guy he was...thought we were just tossing around accounts of his death.

    So, if Fyodor Karamazov, the fictional father, the womanizer, the drinker, the terrible father, is similar enough to the author's father, I wonder which of the fictional children, Dmitri, Ivan, Alyosha, is Dostoevsky. Any information out there, Maryal, Traude or anyone on Dostoevsky's brothers and sisters?

    And, how important is this for our discussion or is it an interesting side issue?

    betty

    Traude
    April 7, 2001 - 07:19 am
    Betty, to get to your last sentence first, a question really. How important is it ? Not much, in my humble opinion.



    If I may say so, we ought to leave it alone, at least for the time being. We are not looking, after all, for similarities or parallels. Let's not lose sight of the fact that we are reading a very long, complicated book with many involved, LONG dialectic discourses ahead of us,and THAT is our object, right ?



    Re the beginning of your post, Betty:

    it has been pointed out here, and is specifically mentioned in the introductions which some of your translations carry, that the brothers K, all four of them, represent in fact the various aspects of the author's own personality .

    In fact, we are reading now only a prologue- if I may call it that: the characters are introduced one by one, the scene is being set carefully (with some astonishingly detailed observations of people), we begin to see motivations, aspirations, filial loyalty, enmity, rivalries, and violence barely smoldering under the surface, but the FULL story proper will unfold AFTER the unlamented death of father K. with elemental force and demand our full concentration.



    How the author's own father was killed, or WHETHER he was in fact murdered and, if so, by whom, does not really matter in the scheme of things, IMHO.

    Therefore, full speed ahead ! Thanks, Betty

    Jo Meander
    April 7, 2001 - 07:26 am
    Betty, could each son represent one part of his nature? Barbara ssuggested that each son may represent part of old Fyodor's nature. On the other hand, maybe your question about brothers and sisers is more to the point, if Fyodor is inspired by D.'s father, and each son manifests a part of his nature, as Barbara suggests: sensual, intellectual, spiritual?

    Jo Meander
    April 7, 2001 - 07:37 am
    To be more precise, Barbara said,What about the father representing chaos in which is born from the ferment the physical, mental and spiritual aspects of man symbolized by the three sons?

    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Joan Pearson
    April 7, 2001 - 08:33 am
    Thanks for the page reference to "holy fool", Maryal I find the whole concept fascinating, especially to learn the "holy fool" was a term commonly attributed to Christ.

    And for the additional research, Traude I think we can all agree, that Dostoevsky's father was a disagreeable fellow, and that whether he was murdered or died of apoplexy, his death made a deep impression on Dostoevsky, causing him to obssess about death from a young age. I think the character of F. Karamazov is probably a combination of Major von Sohn from Staraya Russia where D. wrote the novel, strongly influenced by memories of his father. In this, I think it has been valuable to discuss such influences. You will see shortly that von Sohn is mentioned by name in the coming chapters!

    I find it difficult to see anything of Alyosha's gentle, pious nature in the father at this point, Betty...but there appear to me indicators that Dostoevsky in admitting it "difficult" to speak about this character, sees his own gentler nature, his difficult-to-articulate feminine side, perhaps?

    The introductory material indicates that "all four sons" hated the father, implying that they all had reason to murder him. Such hatred is certainly not evident in the opening chapters, is it? I cannot begin to imagine such from Alexei!

    Shall we move to the present, to Alexei's life in the monastery with the elder, Zosima, as introduced in Chapter V? I had never heard of such elders, and the considerable power they wielded at the time. I thought it interesting that Papa K was familiar with the elder, even admired him for some reason, and for this reason was even enthusiastic about Alexei's decision to move into the monastery.

    Given his nature, it wasn't a surprise that he makes this move. We are told that he decided to move into the monastery shortly after the visit to his mother's grave. Was there any connection, do you suppose?

    I'm wondering how Alexei came to share the revered Elder's cell? I wonder if this was common to bring in the new candidate in this way, or if there was another reason the Elder invited him there? It occurs to me that Karamazov may have had something to do with the arrangement. Or am I stretching too far ~ as usual?

    Deems
    April 7, 2001 - 08:49 am
    I like that. Each son represents a part of the composition of Father Karamazov--Dmitri is a sensualist (the body); Ivan an intellectual (the mind); Alyosha is spiritual (the spirit).

    But aren't those qualities also our basic components? Not to mention Dostoevsky's. And where did all the evil and chaos in old father Karamazov go?

    ~Maryal

    Deems
    April 7, 2001 - 09:02 am
    Morning, Joan. We seem to be posting at the same time. I too find the term "holy fool" most intriguing. I interpret it as being holy--that part is obvious--and a "fool" in terms of the way the world judges success--getting and spending, climbing to the heights of financial or social realms. The holy fool is interested in none of these pursuits and thus is seen as foolish by those of us so employed.

    Of course old Karamazov has a spiritual side, no matter how much he has bent it, denied it, undervalued it.

    Maryal

    ALF
    April 7, 2001 - 09:05 am
    Aloysha:  Our handsome 19 yr. old was described as a realist,  a sensible, practical man who sees things as they are not as an idealist portrays them.  Miracles are never a stumbling block to the realist Dos tells us.    What a fantastic paragraph follows this thought as Dos begins a dissertation on faith vs. miracles .  Can we take this one slowly?
    The genuine realist, if he is an unbeliever, will always find strength and ability to disbelieve in the miraculous, and if he is confronted with a miracle as an irrefutable fact he would rather disbelieve his own senses than admit the fact. Even if he admits it, he admits it as a fact of nature till then unrecognised by him. Faith does not, in the realist, spring from the miracle but the miracle from faith.
    Where do you begin with thoughts this profound?  I felt such saddness when I read this.
     

    Deems
    April 7, 2001 - 09:15 am
    ALF---What a fine quote to single out. Here it is in a slightly different translation:

    Some will say, perhaps, that red cheeks are quite compatible with both fanaticism and mysticism, but it seems to me that Alyosha was even more of a realist than the rest of us. Oh, of course, in the monastery he believed absolutely in miracles, but in my opinion miracles will never confound a realist. It is not miracles that bring a realist to faith. A true realist, if he is not a believer, will always find in himself the strength and ability not to believe in miracles as well, and if a miracle stands before him as an irrefutable fact, he will sooner doubt his own senses than admit the fact. And even if he does admit it, he will admit it as a fact of nature that was previously unknown to him. In the realist, faith is not born from miracles, but miracles from faith. Once the realist comes to believe, then, precisely because of his realism, he must also allow for miracles.

    Why do you find the passage sad?

    Maryal

    Joan Pearson
    April 7, 2001 - 09:40 am
    Yes, Alf, I would love to take this slowly, as I think it is important too. Why sad? I've been thinking about your comment- does it make me sad to think that reality is notthe same for all? Maybe it makes me uncomfortable. I'd like to think that there is a set standard of what is real, and that it is possible, with some work, to shed subjective bias, to reach that plane of reality.

    But D. is saying in this passage, that reality is in the eye of the beholder. For some, miracles are unacceptable because they cannot be explained in measures of reality...for others, those of faith, miracles are very real...

    I think it is important to understand this because of what is going on in Russia at this time...the Socialist, atheist and the believing clerical", with the populace divided.

    ALF
    April 7, 2001 - 09:43 am
    It is not miracles that bring a realist to faith. Miracles are a phenomenon, a wonder . If something sensational and surprising occurs it saddens me to think that I, as a realist, will not see my faith as an underlying reason to be blessed with a miracle. My faith is a profession of belief. Why can't a true realist also have faith? Can't one be pragmatic and authentic and still develop a connection to piety or an allegiance to a supreme being? Am I reading too much into this thought?

    Joan Pearson
    April 7, 2001 - 09:46 am
    Alf, does Dostoevsky say here that Alexei is a realist, and a man of faith - at the same time?

    It occurs to me that your question is the one that is being asked at the time? A difficult time to be a Russian Christian...a sad time?

    I read this as meaning that a miracle will not necessarily make a believer out of a sceptic. If someone is "healed" by a miracle, the sceptic will find some other explanation ...I think we're going to see that in the next chapter. A believer accepts the miracle as a confirmation of his belief, his faith.

    ALF
    April 7, 2001 - 09:58 am
    A true realist, if he is not a believer, will always find in himself the strength and ability not to believe in miracles as well, and if a miracle stands before him as an irrefutable fact, he will sooner doubt his own senses than admit the fact. And even if he does admit it, he will admit it as a fact of nature that was previously unknown to him.

    I read this as meaning whether by miracle or by faith, being a realist it is hard to accept either way.

    Traude
    April 7, 2001 - 10:02 am
    Chapter 4 titled THE THIRD SON, ALYOSHA begins this way :

    "He was only twenty, his brother Ivan was in his 24th year at the time, while their elder brother Dmitry was twenty-seven."

    Chapter 5 titled ELDERS says in the second sentence

    "Alyosha was at that time a well-grown. red-cheeked, clear-eyed lad of NINETEEN (!) ..."



    I find such apparent inconsistencies a little annoying.

    A quick comment concerning Pyotr, the relative who first rescues little Mitya. In the second paragraph we read "He had an independent property of about a thousand souls , to reckon in the old style."

    Interesting ! To measure wealth in terms of the number of "souls" i.e. serfs one possessed !



    Actually, there are four sons- with the illegitimate Smerdyakov.

    Joan Pearson
    April 7, 2001 - 10:31 am
    Alf, I think that Dostoevsky is saying that it is possible for a realist to accept miracles...if he has faith. "...if the realist once believes, then he is bound by his very realism to admit the miraculous also."And he is also saying through Alexei's character, that he and Russians, can be men of faith and realists at the same time. Perhaps you are sad, because you do not think that is possible. But Dosto does!

    Traude, my Matlaw/Garnet translation has Alyosha at the start of Chapter IV twenty when the story begins, and nineteen at the start of chapter V...this is at the time he entered the monastery?

    I find A's status in the monastery a bit confusing
    "He lived in the cell of the Elder, who was very fond of him and let him wait upon him.

    It must be noted that Alyosha, who lived in the monastery at that time, was bound by no obligation and could go where he pleased and be absent for whole days. though he work monateic dress it was voluntarily, not to be different from the others."



    So he was different from the others...he's just living there...with the revered elder? Does anyone find this strange? Has an exception been made for him? Why?

    robert b. iadeluca
    April 7, 2001 - 10:44 am
    I have been gone for 2 1/2 days and have just arrived home to find 75 postings!! If it is agreeable to all of you, I will let you know the next time I am gone for a period of time and would appreciate it if you would all go into hibernation and not say a word until I return.

    PH-E-E-E-W!!

    Robby

    Jo Meander
    April 7, 2001 - 11:06 am
    Maryal asked,"...where did all the evil and chaos in old father Karamazov go? "
    Maryal, the critics who see Fyodor as the seed of the three dispostitions seem to be interpreting the "evil and chaos" in the father as a creative energy that is transformed into the "physical, mental, ansd spiritual" temperaments of the three brothers. Maybe that fourth son can account for some part of him we don't see in the others!
    I read the realist/miracles several times when I came to it. So far, it seems to me that Dos. sees realism and faith as possible in the same person, as Joan P. says.

    Lady C
    April 7, 2001 - 11:13 am
    Father Zossima had the ability to look at someone and see their innermost being. He was also reputed to have the gift of prophecy. Perhaps he could see that Alyosha needed love--which had been in short supply in his young life--and also support in his faith. I suspect that his faith would be greatly tested as this book progresses. Alyosha had only entered the monastery a short time ago, but not as a novice, so maybe he was struggling with that decision at that time. Or would he have needed his father's permisiion to do so, or a dowry given to the monastery before he could become a novice.

    Question: Why did Father Zossima bow down before Dmitri?

    Hats
    April 7, 2001 - 11:24 am
    I have been wondering about the Elder. Are we comfortable, today, with someone who has so much power? The monks had to confess all of their thoughts and activities to this man.

    At first, I likened the Elder to a Catholic Priest, but I am thinking priests don't have that much power over the others, do they? And I have nothing against Catholicism.

    Today, wouldn't we call the Elder a cult figure? Or is that silly? Of course, Zosima does not have that power over Alyosha yet. Alyosha still has his freedom, and Zosima is a very kind man. Yet, I still wonder should I feel comfortable with this Elder?

    HATS

    Deems
    April 7, 2001 - 11:31 am
    It doesn't really matter whether Alyosha is 19 or 20, does it? Some of our greatest writers are not always consistent. I know that Faulkner wasn't, for example. Somewhere in one of my translations, I remember reading that Alyosha was "in his twentieth year" which would make him 19 but in his 20th year. When a child has a third birthday, the following day he is at the beginning of his fourth year.

    As to realists and faith---realists are on both sides of the issue. There are your believing realists (Alyosha) and your non-believing realists. Despair not, ALF--being a realist does not mean that one does not have faith.

    Maryal

    Joan Pearson
    April 7, 2001 - 11:33 am
    Lady C, I do remember the elder's ability to look into the soul and read one's thoughts and desires. Maybe that's what happened when he looked at Alexei and saw how "needy" he was...

    There was a dowry involved. Even though Alexie isn't formally entering the monastery. Remember the funny scene? Papa K drunkenly promises Alexei:
    "I'll never desert you, my angel. I'll pay what's wanted for you there, if they ask for it. But, if they don't ask, why should we worry them."
    Why this elder bowed before Dmitri is puzzling...but he is not yet on the scene in Book I. Will put your question up with those for Book II.

    But the very idea of this powerful man, not equivalent to anyone on earth today. And at that time, he seems to have stood apart in his power over those professed to him. But Alexei is not there yet, is he? I think of the Elder, more as a supernatural, mystic power rather than a man, Hats. God-like, Christ-like. Non-judgemental. Understanding and forgiving of human nature and the weakness of man.

    This is SOOOOOOOO interesting, I'm going to force myself away to do real stuff! Can't wait to come back! You are all wonderful!

    Carolyn Andersen
    April 7, 2001 - 12:18 pm
    Can anyone provide a reference to background material about Elders in the Russian chiurch at that time? The narrator's comments give us an impression of figures with intense spiritual influence, and if I recall, he mentions that they had begun to be an institution about a century previously, although most people believed it had been much longer. I'm curious about how one became an Elder -- through appointment by the church, or by acclamation of believers in general, or perhaps by self-declaration. It probably has nothing to do with the development of the story, but it might throw some light on the character of Father Zossima.

    Deems
    April 7, 2001 - 02:26 pm
    Carolyn---Here's a little information about elders.

    The Russian word for “elder” is starets (pl. startsy).

    I have a footnote in the Avsey translation that says, “A starets was a monk, usually one extremely rigorous in self-denial, an ascetic, a guru, a man of particularly high spiritual authority. A starets was not always a monk; he could well have been a layman who had traveled to the holy places—especially Mount Athos in Greece, or Jerusalem—and then returned to Russia to lead a mendicant life, teach, etc. Rasputin called himself a starets."

    I thought the part about not necessarily being a monk very interesting as well as the fact that Rasputin called himself a starets.

    Maryal

    Lady C
    April 7, 2001 - 03:29 pm
    Joan: I know Karamazov said he would pay. Evidently he knew he was supposed to. But given his stinginess and his tendency to lie or change his mind, he may never have done so even had the monastery asked. Evidently he hadn't done so up to this time, even though Alyosha had been living there.

    Joan Pearson
    April 7, 2001 - 04:15 pm
    hahaha, Lady C, I wonder if he would have promised a dowry if sober!!! Kamamazov does seem impressed with the elder, Zosima, when Alexei brings up his name, though. And he also does not resist going to meet him when Dmitri suggests it. I still don't know why he is so amenable to the idea of the elder deciding their argument...unless he has some information which leads him to believe the elder will settle in his favor?

    So Alexei is going to the monastery to live, not as a monk, but just a trial? And of course, that can't be free, so I can see where a dowry, maybe by another name, an amount of money, room and board should be paid.

    Now, Maryal finds information that Father Zosima doesn't necessarily have to be a monk either...just a holy man...who has made no vows. Maybe he isn't a monk and that's why he and Alexei are boarding together???

    Here's a bit more information on Elders or starets:


    "We shall briefly describe here the position of elder ("starets" in Russian) which, although rarely encountered today, is frequently mentioned in Orthodox literature. Properly understood, eldership is not a position or rank but a gift granted by God to those of exceptional spiritual caliber and therefore not limited necessarily to monks. Eldership cannot be taken upon oneself; an elder is one recognized by others as possessing outstanding spiritual discernment and wisdom, someone to whom both monastics and lay people come for guidance. The elder, or eldress, must not be confused with the hermit, although frequently an elder will have spent time in the eremitic life before blossoming forth with the gift of eldership." (Text from a translation of the Monastery of the Veil, France)


    So my friend, Carolyn of Norway, that seems to cancel out two of your three options-- "through appointment by the church, and self-declaration"...which leaves "acclamation of believers in general" Does that sound right? Does it "throw some light on the character of Father Zossima?"

    Deems
    April 7, 2001 - 04:29 pm
    My Dad's dissertation was on early Christian ascetics, hermits and the like. Some of these people were really strange. Lived in caves, some of them.

    Zosima seems like a kindly, otherworldly, psychic type to me. I like him.

    Maryal

    Henry Misbach
    April 7, 2001 - 06:19 pm
    I believe the word some of you were looking for early on is "Foreword." Forward means something else.

    I suppose the guileless part of Alyosha is the part that makes him a fool in the eyes of "most people," either in today's world or then and there. Seems to me we must deal with both time and place, insofar as monastic life is not well known to most of us. Insofar as Alyosha does try to manipulate people, he mostly does it with their best interests in mind.

    I'd hesitate to design any vast patterns at this point in the story.

    Joan Pearson
    April 7, 2001 - 06:28 pm
    HenryI hadn't thought of Alyosha in terms of a manipulator at all. It is an interesting thought, though. Vast patterns??? Vast patterns? Hmmmm I'm not aware of such.
    I am aware of the fact that I spell foreword wrong sometimes though.hahaha...

    I think I'm going to bed. Goodnight all.

    Hats
    April 7, 2001 - 08:28 pm
    At first, I misunderstood Zosima's motives. I began to feel over protective towards Alyosha. Now I can see Zosima is just a kind, old man. Not out to hurt Alyosha. After reading the posts, I have a better understanding of him.

    There is so much to learn, but everyone is helping me.

    HATS

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    April 8, 2001 - 03:01 am
    THE DIVINE LITURGY OF ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOMOS
    (The Epistle)
    Deacon; Wisdom, Let us be attentive.
    Priest: Peace be with you.
    People: Alleluia. Alleluia Alleluia.
    Priest:
    Shine within our hearts, loving Master, the pure light of Your divine knowledge and open the eyes of our minds that we may comprehend the message of your Gospel. Instill in us, also, reverence for Your blessed commandments, so that having conquered sinful desires, we may pursue a spiritual life, thinking and doing all those things that are pleasing to You. For You, Christ our God, are the light of our souls and bodies, and to You we give glory together with Your Father who is without beginning and Your all holy, good, and life giving Spirit, now and forever and to the ages of ages. Amen.


    ON ORTHODOX DEFENSE OF FAITH - Bishop Alexander of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad

    According to the plan of the Creator, all spiritual capabilities must be in harmony and reinforce one another. Genuine faith must not be blind nor light. Gullibility discloses laziness of the soul, naivete of the mind. Reason must help faith to differentiate between truth and delusion. Calm exploration of religious truth makes faith more definite and founded. The Lord Jesus Christ never demanded blind faith from His followers. On the contrary, He advised the Jews, "Search the Scriptures; because they testify of Me" (John 5:39). He also suggested that unbelievers examine His miracles in order to be convinced of His Divine ministry: "Though you not believe Me, believe the works [that I do], that you may know and believe that the Father is in Me, and I in Him" (John 10:38). Likewise, the apostles urged the early Christians to use reason and discretion in questions concerning faith: "Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world" (1 John 4:1). In particular the apostles urged their disciples to hold to sound doctrine, rejecting fables and human fabrications (2 Tim. 1:13, 4:3).

    Thus, it is erroneous to set reason against faith; they complement and reinforce each other. Reason is for searching out, proving and substantiating. It protects faith from delusion and humanity from fanaticism. Faith, on the other hand, is the driving force that opens new horizons, elevates us to new heights. It can be compared to an engine, while reason to a steering wheel. Without the engine the car will not move, and without the steering wheel it may crash.

    To be a Christian is to be a great realist. Authentic faith knows nothing pretend, no fantasy. On the contrary, it is all sobriety. It calls forth what the Pope has often called the "purification of memory." In anathematizing falsehood and, at the same time, repenting of all that is false in her own history, the Church embraces over and again the pure vision of truth and reality that is her life. BYZANTINE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN AMERICA: HOLY RESURRECTION MONASTERY

    Hats
    April 8, 2001 - 03:40 am
    From what I have been reading, Alyosha feels closer to his half brother, Dmitry than he does to his brother, Ivan. I think Alyosha is very aware of his brother, Ivan's educational background.

    I wonder is this family like most families. The social dynamics or relationships, who one feels closer to at any given time, will and can change.

    I am anxious to see what will happen when the family has a conference at the monastery. In my book, Ivan is described as a "cultured atheist." That should make the conference exciting. Not to mention the presence of father K.

    HATS

    Lady C
    April 8, 2001 - 05:53 am
    HATS: You're right. Alyosha does feel closer to Dmitri, but wants to be as close to Ivan. He has a feeling of expectation regarding this brother and is waiting for Ivan to do or say something that will remove the barrier Alyosha senses lies between them. Although he is very much aware of Ivan't intellectual superiority and is humble before it, he wants to love--and be loved by--Ivan

    Hats
    April 8, 2001 - 06:22 am
    Lady C, do you get the impression that Ivan has something weighing on his mind? If so, do you get the impression that the narrator has not told us what it is as yet.

    HATS

    Joan Pearson
    April 8, 2001 - 11:17 am
    Barbara, thanks so much for the article, AND for citing the source, the Byzantine Catholic Church. It helps us understand where Dostoevsky is coming from when he talks of faith, reason and disbelief.

    "Thus, it is erroneous to set reason against faith; they complement and reinforce each other. Reason is for searching out, proving and substantiating. It protects faith from delusion and humanity from fanaticism. Faith, on the other hand, is the driving force that opens new horizons, elevates us to new heights To be a Christian is to be a great realist.


    This seems to be a topic of major importance here, dividing the family into different factions. I was wrong when I said that F. Karamazov was not opposed to meeting with Fr. Zossima. He was the one who set up the meeting! He must feel that he will get a fair hearing from the elder, regarding Dmitri's inheritance. Maybe he feels some sort of spiritual need to see the elder?

    Ivan is not easy to pigeonhole. It is one thing to call him a cultured atheist, but remember that he wrote that article on the position of ecclesiastical courts that found favor with the Liberals, the atheists, the secularists as well as many members of the Church, who regarded him "unquestionably on their side." For the time being, he's to the left and someone that Alexei is concerned about coming to this meeting. Hats, Lady C, I agree, there is something on Ivan's mind ~ we are told that Alexei senses that he is absorbed with some inner conflict.

    There's that other cousin coming to this meeting too, Hats...just to make things more interesting! No wonder poor Alexei is nervous and wants to warn the elder. Pyotr Miusov, Adelaida's cousin has resurfaced from Paris. Why is he going to the elder's cell? I guess he has Dmitri's interests in mind. His superficial excuse is that he wants to talk to the Father Superior regarding his woodcutting fishing rights on the boundary of the monastery property.

    He's described as a liberal, a freethinker and an atheist. It is suggested that he is going out of boredom, hoping for diversion with the elder.



    No wonder Alexei was "perturbed" when he hears of the family visit! Doesn't the non-judgemental Alexei remind you very much of the elder? I wonder why he doesn't have more confidence in the ability of his elder to handle the situation...any situation?

    Hats
    April 8, 2001 - 11:49 am
    Joan, I think Alexei is afraid that his father will "act out," act the buffoon at the meeting with the elder. In the process of showing off, his father might say something or act in some way that will hurt the elder. I believe Alyosha has much love for the elder. It would hurt Alexei deeply, if he were hurt in anyway by anyone.

    I can't see his father sitting quietly and listening. I think Father Karamazov likes having the attention of everyone, and he will do anything or say anything to get that attenion, even if it's negative attention.

    Barbara, thank you for the article. It is very helpful. I am glad that I can return to these articles and reread them.

    HATS

    Hats
    April 8, 2001 - 11:56 am
    Looking at Barbara's article again. I especially like the lines, and Joan, you repeated the lines. These lines seem so significant to me.

    "faith, on the other hand, is the driving force that opens new horizons...to be a Christian is to be a great realist."

    HATS

    Lady C
    April 8, 2001 - 02:09 pm
    JOAN: I got the impression that Miusov really did go primarily to settle his lawsuit with the monastery. He wanted to meet with the Father Superior,and eagerly accepted his invitation to dinner. Although he had a particular interest in Dmitri,I think he came out of curiosity and perhaps hoped to get some support from the elder, though I cant find that in the book. He despised Fyodor Karamazov and knew he would be irritated by him, so I suspect he had his own interests forefront.

    Deems
    April 8, 2001 - 04:51 pm
    Alyosha is worried about the possibility of his family bothering Zosima because he is 19 (or 20). As yet he has great admiration for Zosima, but does not know how well prepared this man is to meet the likes of F. Karamazov. There is nothing that this strange family can throw at him that he has not encountered before.

    Thanks for the post on the Church, Barbara. Most interesting.

    Maryal

    Joan Pearson
    April 9, 2001 - 05:34 am
    Good Monday morning! We are on the way to the monastery to meet this awesome elder! Maryal recommends we put the emphasis on the second syllable of his name, Fr. Zo-SIma, Maryal, or ZosIMa? Whichever we do, I think it will help with the spelling -one s! I've written it both ways, but this helps me.

    Three things caught my attention, before we even meet the elder...the cell" where Alexei lives with the elder is not really in the monastery at all, but "off campus", some "400 paces through the woods." That indicates to me anyway, that Alexei and the elder together are in a different category from the monks who have professed their vows.

    Pyotr Miusov is among the visitors to the elder's cell, bringing along a 20 year old student he's trying to talk into accompanying him to Europe...what's this all about!!!?

    There is another landowner showing the Karamazov party to the elder's cell - Maximov. Old Karamazov remarks that he is the spitting image of von Sohn. Do you recall the earlier reference to this man? (early ref. to von Sohn)..the man from Staraya Russia, where Dostovesky wrote Brothers K...von Sohn, the protype for Karamazov himself! I got a kick out of that. Reminds me some of Hitchcock appearing as a character in the film he directs! Made me smile!

    Can't wait to hear your early observations!

    Deems
    April 9, 2001 - 07:06 am
    Joan---Excellent analogy! Hitchcock appearing in his own films, indeed! Looks like Dostoevsky just can't help tossing in a couple of clues which his contemporary audience surely would have gotten. To have F Karamazov say that a man looks like vonSohn, who was himself a real person, murdered in fact. Now that is something.......

    I think it is Zo SIM a --but my source just had the accent on the second syllable. I am also imagining a short i, but maybe it is that i that sounds like e, or the one that sounds like uh.

    Helpful, aren't I?

    Jo Meander
    April 9, 2001 - 08:07 am
    I believe that the schism is the break between the Orthodox and the Roman Catholic Churches. (Don't remember the century -- someone will!) I noticed that some of the art in Zosima's room was Italian, and there was a cross with the "Mater Dolorosa," a Latin reference to the grieving Mother Mary. Dostoevsky says the original Russian pieces are rougher, cruder, and I assumed that after the schism Russian artists and artisans produced their own religious art and avoided accumulating anything more from the Roman source?

    Jo Meander
    April 9, 2001 - 08:33 am
    Maximov the land owner has something in common with Fyodor! Both are silly, seemingly confused. Maximov act as if he isn't sure how to act, which way he should be going, what he should be doing, and he repeats himself. Fyodor is preposterous, even hilarious, in the "interview as performance "with Zosima. Maybe Dost. is being ironic when he has him remark on Maximov's resemblance to von Sohn. Who is most like von Sohn, the unattractive character that may have served as a model for old Fyodor himself? Can Fyodor not see himself? Maximov seems much more innocent.. In Fyodor's performance there is certainly silliness, but also, I believe I detect some craftiness. The intended issues are never discussed. I think Zosima, the wise and holy man, realized that no progress along those lines could be made on that occasion with Fyodor, who is seemingly bewildered and obviously corrupt.

    Deems
    April 9, 2001 - 10:54 am
    Since we will be thinking about Zosima the Elder, I thought I would track down David White, my colleague who is knowledgeable on things Dostoevsky. David said the "accepted pronunciation" at present is

    Zo SEE ma

    ~Maryal

    Moon Dancer
    April 9, 2001 - 12:05 pm
    A close examination of post # 365 seems to imply that if you are not a Christian,then you cannot be a realist.

    If that implication is correct,then,of course,most of the rest of the world seems to be ignored.

    Also,to have a quote in there that seems to cast aspersions on the followers of Judaiaism,especially on the eve of the Hebrew Passover,tends to throw a pall on the entire discussion.

    Deems
    April 9, 2001 - 02:00 pm
    I reread post #365 at your suggestion. Seems to me that it is quoted from the Byzantine Church in America. I think it was posted to provide some background on the Eastern version of the Catholic Church.

    The only reference to Jews that I could find was a paraphrase of one of the gospels about searching the scripture (at the time the only Scripture was the Hebrew Bible, the Law and the Prophets. The Writings had not yet been made a part of the canon.)

    Jesus made many references to the Scriptures he knew. I do not see any aspersions being cast upon Jews except insofar as they are present in the New Testament--and I admit that they are there. The early Christians were really a sect of Judaism and wanted to convince other Jews that the messiah had come. Obviously, many Jews did not agree.

    Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote with different agendas and for different audiences. Matthew, which is called the "most Jewish of the gospels" because there are more quotes from the Hebrew Bible than anywhere else, is also the most anti-Jewish of the gospels.

    Anti-Semitism is an abomination, a terrible fact of history.

    I think we have to admit though that The Brothers Karamazov is deeply grounded in the Russian Orthodox Church. The prejudices that may be there are a part of church history and certainly not beliefs held by many Christians today.

    It was only 1975 (I think--this is a guess) that the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church finally declared that the Jews were not responsible for the crucifixion. I'm not a Catholic, but that surely seems an admission made many, many years too late.

    ~Maryal

    Joan Pearson
    April 9, 2001 - 02:01 pm
    Jo, you think it was that schism, do you?
    "Orthodoxy and the bishop of Rome separated from one another in a schism that culminated in 1054. SCHISM


    And this painting is just one of many works to grace Zo-SEE-ma's cell? Some hermitage, isn't it? I'd say by 1870 a piece of work from the 11th century is worth something! Do you think these are prints? Do you think these are presents to the elder which belong to him personally, because he is not associated with the monastery? Hmmmm...

    Moon Dancer, I reread the passage several times and while I see nothing anti-semitic there, I do recognize that this entire discussion of Christian faith might not appeal to some at Passover. Why not take a break until next week? We really don't want anyone to feel badly here for any reason.

    I'm going to go read more about ZoSEEma's cell again...what a lovely little cottage in the woods!

    Deems
    April 9, 2001 - 02:11 pm
    OK, I guessed and I was a decade off. In 1965 Pope Paul VI proclaimed that Jews were not collectively guilty for the crucifixion of Jesus. Not forty years ago...........hard to believe.

    Maryal

    Jo Meander
    April 9, 2001 - 04:40 pm
    Joan, I thought that those items had just been there for a looooong time! Not remembering the date of that schism,I didn't realize how long that would have to be. Even so, is it not possible that this monastery is very, very old? And even though Zosima has his cell apart from the others, a little hermitage at some remove from the large building, could it not still be considered part of the monastery? I think he is a part, albeit a very special part as an elder, of the order. I doubt that the holy images are prints; did they even make prints? Did they realize the value of ancient pieces like this, as we do, or were they held sacred because of their content?

    Traude
    April 9, 2001 - 05:06 pm
    It is always helpful to glean as much information as possible about a book (or anything else, for that matter), the period in which it was written, and whatever helps a reader's understanding.

    So I would like to thank Barbara for having given us earlier a wonderful link, as in "eye-opener" , to the beautiful sights of St. Petersburg (later called "Leningrad"), which few of us- I daresay- have seen in person. When reading a classic, especially one written a century and half ago, we need all the reference help we can get, especially since some of us don't have the time to undertake the search ourselves.

    As for the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostomos in post # 365, it should be noted FIRST that it = i.e. the liturgy quoted, (as ANY liturgy, and there are a few besides the original Roman Catholic missal), is intended for the faithful, for the flock; it is memorized and recited, often quite automatically (without thinking, alas).

    SECOND : EXHORTATIONS, really guidelines, are commonplace, and what else are the Ten Commandments ? Religious fervor, of course, is nothing new, in fact it is timeless and varies in intensity (and place) : Just think of Giovanni Savonarola in 15th century Florence and (what has changed ????) the Taliban destruction of that colossal Buddha only recently !

    Moreover, missionary zeal is not limited- as we well know- to religious convictions --- just look at the case of Lori Berenson in present-day Peru NOW!

    THIRD - addressed to MOON DANCER : Please cite the exact words and lines in that liturgy which 'imply' what you say they do.

    FOURTH If my understanding is correct, we are here to discuss a book the world considers a classic. A book in toto, warts and all, a tome actually, but whatever point of you view it expresses, religious, political or whatever else, is that of the author alone.

    The theological aspect is only one of the threads the author has woven together in this book. It is no secret- and has probably been mentioned in your introduction - that Dostoevsky was a glowing patriot, firmly convinced that Russia and the Russian Orthodox Church were destined to emerge as the light of the world. (The poor man has probably turned in his grave several times since ...)



    With apologies to the discussion leaders, may I be so bold as to suggest that we suspend theological discussion for now and go on reading -- lest we be here for a

    Jo Meander
    April 9, 2001 - 05:09 pm
    Zosima, wise man, waits out the nonsense of Fyodor K. and the angry reactions of Pyotr M. He urges both of them to stay, tells Fyodor to "be himself" ( I almost pitied him when he said that!), and then hops on his opportunity to tell Fyodor the truth about his own evil and destructive behavior. He acts as if he takes him seriously when F. K. says he wants his help and advice. The best piece of advice he gives to him is NOT TO LIE TO HIMSELF! He points our the vulnerability of the insincere man, the one who is always taking offense because he is unable to see himself as he is, having told himself so many lies for so long. However, he knows that F. D. is performing and doesn't waste too much time or attention on him or the splenetic Pyotr. He turns his attention to others when they resume their wrangling, and then excuses himself to take care of other matters (the poor people on the steps, I think). I don't remember when I've been so impressed by a character!

    Traude
    April 9, 2001 - 05:16 pm
    ... lest we be here for a lot longer than we had anticipated.

    Deems
    April 9, 2001 - 05:56 pm
    Indeed. I much admire Zosima's wisdom in diagnosing Fyodor's problems with lying.

    A long time ago I picked up the following information: In order to lie to someone else, you must first lie to yourself. All lies begin with the Self. Wish I could give credit to whoever pointed out that truth, but I honestly do not remember.

    I get a kick out of Fyodor Karamazov's outrageous behavior in Zosima's cell. The whole idea of meeting there to "work things out" was an absurd one in the first place. Father Karamazov is not about to listen to reason from Anyone, and Dmitri isn't even there at the appointed hour.

    Maryal

    betty gregory
    April 9, 2001 - 06:14 pm
    Traude, your computer is bound and determined to give us comic relief, isn't it? I had the best laugh at your cut-off words (not the thought, but the fact of them).

    And your post was a good reminder of where the written thoughts originate...with the author.

    However, if someone spots racism or anti-semitism in anything we're reading, I personally would like to hear of it. Hatred is often subtle and hidden.

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    April 9, 2001 - 08:30 pm
    Ok my copy of The Brothers... includes references to most of the facts, names, places etc. in the book. I've just spent hours researching as much as possible in the first 5 chapters so that I have links to much of what I found and a few quotes from the back of my book.

    As to the schism - seems there was a schism within the Eastern Orthodox church with the reforms of Nikon 1605-1608 that seperated the Russian Orthadox Church.

    At this point I am not going to try a put this all in order - I am going to cut and past as I have these findings on my note pad.
    Mikhail Iuryevich Lermontov in his poem "Do not, do not believe yourself" he wrote the line The chafings of a mind imprisoned His writings were severely censored during his lifetime because of his passionate advocacy of freedom and his antireligious attitudes, but they did much to arouse interest in the folklore of the Russian people.

    I could not find the poem -

    Lermontov's grandmother's home the Mikhail Lermontov State Museum

    This is a great site Important Names, Dates, Russian Terms - Imperial Russia, 1682-1918

    A crisis of the "third Rome" ideology occurred in the middle of the 17th century. Nikon (reigned 1652-58), a strong patriarch, decided to restore the power and prestige of the church by declaring that the patriarchal office was superior to that of the tsar. He forced the tsar Alexis Romanov to repent for the crime of his predecessor against St. Philip and to swear obedience to the church. Simultaneously, Nikon attempted to settle a perennial issue of Russian church life: the problem of the liturgical books. Originally translated from the Greek, the books suffered many corruptions through the centuries and contained numerous mistakes. In addition, the different historical developments in Russia and in the Middle East had led to differences between the liturgical practices of the Russians and the Greeks. Nikon's solution was to order the exact compliance of all the Russian practices with the contemporary Greek equivalents. His liturgical reform led to a major schism in the church. The Russian masses had taken seriously the idea that Moscow was the last refuge of Orthodoxy. They wondered why Russia had to accept the practices of the Greeks, who had betrayed Orthodoxy in Florence and had been justly punished by God, in their view, by becoming captives of the infidel Turks. The reformist decrees of the patriarch were rejected by millions of lower clergy and laity who constituted the Raskol, or schism of the "Old Believers." Nikon was ultimately deposed for his opposition to the tsar, but his liturgical reforms were confirmed by a great council of the church that met in the presence of two Eastern patriarchs (1666-67).

    Paissy (Paisius Velichkovsky) Velichkovsky (1722-1794): studied at Kiev, spent time on Mt. Athos, and after 1763 became the abbot of Niamets in Romania. He produced a Slavonic translation of the Philokalia, published at Moscow in 1793. He taught the practice of continual prayer (the Jesus Prayer) and stressed the importance of obedience to a staretz. Paissy's disciples travelled to Russia and inspired the spiritual revival there. Canonized by the Russian Church in 1988. Dostoevsky owned a copy of the 1854 edition of his translation of the homilies of St. Isaac the Syrian, a seventh-century monk.

    Inspired by the example and teachings of St. Paisius Velichkovsky, Abbot Philaret truly became the awakener and spiritual founder of the monastery which became renowned for its eldership and wide-ranging charitable undertakings. Already at the close of the 19th century, the Glinsk Hermitage encompassed 5 churches, 4 house churches, 15 buildings to house the residents, 8 hostels for the faithful, a refectory, a laundry, a hospital with a pharmacy, and many household buildings, including 4 waterwheel-powered mills. The monastery included a vocational school in which up to 50 boys, primarily orphans, were educated. Approximately 400 people lived at the monastery.

    The elder Zosiman is modeled in part on the elder Amvrosy of Optina (1812-91)

    In 1453, the Ottoman Turks conquered Constantinople, which released the Russian Orthodox Church from Byzantium's domination. Eight years later the Orthodox Church changed the title of the metropolitan of Kiev to the patriarch of Moscow and All Russia. For the first time, the Church was run by the grand-prince in Moscow, which further enhanced the power of Moscovy.

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    April 9, 2001 - 11:31 pm
    In the 19th century, Optina reached a high level of spiritual development, attracting literally thousands of pilgrims among whom were the famous Russian writers Dostoevsky and Gogol.

    Optina Hermitage is located in what is currently known as the Kaluga Region, several kilometers from the district center of Kozelsk. Concerning the time of the founding of the Hermitage, no written information has been preserved. Only certain traditions exist.

    According to one of these, the Hermitage was founded by a repentant robber named Opts, from whom it received its name. This former robber, torn by pangs of conscience, settled in the remote, inaccessible place amidst the dense pine forests to expiate his sins in prayer. Soon, when other people heard about his solitary life, they were drawn thither seeking solitude. And so a small monastery sprung up.

    Another tradition exists, according to which the monastery was founded by Prince Vladimir the Brave. In any event, Optina Hermitage is one of Russia's ancient monasteries.

    Written traces of Optina Hermitage date from 1603. By this time already a wooden church had been built in it, around it there were six cells, and the monastery was headed by Hieromonk Theodore. The monastery was granted land for gardens and orchards by Tsar Theodore Michailovich, and also a mill not far from Kozelsk. it is known that already in 1689 a stone church in honor of the Entry Into the Temple was built in the monastery by the Shepelev boyars.

    The reforms of Peter the Great told unfavorable on the Optina Hermitage. The monastery mill and land were taken by the state. The monastery became impoverished and in the middle of the 18th century was altogether suppressed. Thus ended the first period of Optina Hermitage's existence.

    In 1795, Platon, the Metropolitan of Moscow, traveled around his extensive diocese and he visited Optina. The site and the natural surroundings pleased him, and he decided to restore the monastery. Abraamius, a monk from one of the monasteries near Moscow, was appointed, and he brought with him twelve monks from his monastery. At Optina Hermitage he found only three aged inhabitants, and he began to work on the monastery's restoration.

    He brought church utensils, icons, vestments and set to work at rebuilding the hermitage. He built an infirmary and a church attached to it in honor of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God. He built a bell-tower and cells for the monastics, and he laid out a large garden. But the main thing Abraamius did was to establish order in the monastery's spiritual life.

    Theophanes, the disciple of the famous Athonite ascetic Archimandrite Paisius Velichkovsky,came unto Abraamius and became an example for the brethren of the monastery. Theophanes together with Abraamius established a coenobitic monastery, according to the rule of Mount Athos, and in a comparatively short time gained the esteem of the surrounding inhabitants.

    In 1817, Hegumen Abraamius died. Hegumen Daniel directed Optina Hermitage--from 1819 to 1825.

    The flowering of Optina Hermitage is tied with --Moses Putilov-who directed the monastery for 37 years, from 1826 to 1862. He is considered one of the most prominent personalities in the history of the Russian Church during the 19th century. The bishop elevated Moses to the priestly rank of hieromonk and appointed him abbot of Optina Hermitage. He displayed exceptional abilities as a builder, organizer and spritual director. He invited Leonid--a disciple of Velichkovsky--to Optina, and he became the first elder of the Hermitage.

    The brethren increased significantly during the years of Moses' abbacy. While at the beginning of the twenties of the 19th century there were only 40 monastics, by the middle of the fifties their number had risen to three hundred.

    The glory of the Optina elders extended far beyond the bounds of the Hermitage. People, peasants and workers, landowners, writers and thinkers, clergy and those thirsting for the monastic struggle, came from all over the immense land of Russia for their counsel and consolation, and in this way the glory of Optina Hermitage spread throughout the whole Orthodox world.

    In May of 1862, Hegumen Moses, the superior and regenerator el' Optina Hermitage, died. Hermitage was adorned by the Elders Ambrose, Anatole, Joseph, Barsanuphius and Nectarius, who already lived in the 20th century.

    Many great people of the 19th and early 20th centuries visited Optina Hermitage. In one way or another, Optina Hermitage is reflected in the works of many Russian writers, and in their biographies. (1881), Count Leo Tolstoy sets out on a pilgrimage to the Optina-Pustyn monastery, disguised as a peasant but accompanied by two bodyguards who carry a suitcase full of clean clothes.

    The October Revolution of 1917 brought an end to the second period of Optina Hermitage. The Optina elders foresaw relentless pressure by the authorities quickly caused it to be extinguished. Its elders departed into eternity, and the remainder of the brethren were expelled. The buildings of the Hermitage were utilized for a children's home, for holding juvenile delinquents.

    In 1988, Optina Hermitage was returned to the Moscow Patriarchate and at the current time its restoration is going ahead at full speed. Elder Ambrose was canonized as a Saint at the Trinity-Sergius Lavra during the celebration commemorating the millennium of the Baptism of Russia. Choir of the monastery of St. Tikhon of Kaluga, near Optina Monastery


    Napravnik's Hall in Mariinsky. Link to the life of Napravnik

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    April 10, 2001 - 12:39 am
    And more -
    The Caucasus mountains have from time immemorial been at the crossroads of cultures. Once a barrier between early urban civilizations in Mesopotamia and their trade centres in the south, and nomad cultures in the steppes of the north, the scene changed when Scythians and Sarmatians, and other linguistically Iranian tribes penetrated the mountains displacing each other.

    Both Greek and Roman colonies reached up to the shores of the Black Sea, as did mounted Turkish nomad tribes from the Altai mountains in Mongolia such as the Iluns (Aluns) taking the Steppes.

    Beginning with the 4th century many peoples in the western part of the Caucasus were converted to Christianity from what later became Georgia, while the eastern parts came under the influence of the Iranian Sasanids. The Arabs brought Islam in the seventh century.

    Out of Turkish and Iranian tribes, defeated Huns and indigenous Caucasians came a new people, the Khazars. By 650 they had established a stable state with trading routes across the Caucasus. Each conquest resulted in migrational processes in the region. The conquerors brought thousands of immigrant families, while those conquered were either killed or assimilated, others emigrated or sought refuge in the mountains.

    The process of change, changing patterns of settlement as well as blending and superseding of ethnic linguistic and religious groups continued during Mongol raids in the 13th century. Ghenghis Khan's troops crossed the Caucasus mountains from the south forcing the local population up into the high mountains.

    In 1227 Ghenghis Khan's grandson Batu with 120,000 men, predominately Turks, moved westward and firmly established The Khanate of the Golden Horde, also known as the Kipehak Khanate, in the North Caucasus. It became the strongest power north of the mountains, and dominated Russia until the 14th century while the Il-Khan Empire, the Persian successor state of Ghengis' Empire extended to the south. At the turn of the 14th and 15th century Timur conquered a vast empire including the Caucasus and terminated the age of the Mongol Yoke or Tartar yoke 1237-1480.

    The fall of Constantinople, capital of the Eastern Roman Empire and ecclesiastical center of Orthodoxy, fell to the Turks in 1453.

    Most peoples of the North Caucasus consider themselves to be descendants either of one of the great conquering tribes or their victims. Victimization by conquering powers is a strong element in Caucasian identity. Although there is a long pre Russian history of violent attempts to cross the mountains with the aim of conquest, it is the Russian colonization which has left the strongest imprint of disenfranchisement among the peoples of the region.

    When the Golden Horde disintegrated, Russia, in the 16th century, became involved in the steppes north of the Caucasus. Russia used the Cossacks who had formed self-governing military communes at the fringes of Muscovy, to protect and expand the Russian frontier.
    The Cossacks owned all land in common. A Cossack community was governed by a headman called 'ataman' or 'hetman'. The atamans had great power. They discharged the duty of civil administrator during peacetime and that of a military commander during war.

    The Cossacks had a tradition of independence and were remarkably courageous.Alexander Pushkin says of the Cossacks "Always on horseback, Always ready to fight, Always on guard"
    The colonial war continued with renewed vigour when the mountain peoples united again under the holy flag of Islam and the charismatic and disciplined Shamil, Imam of Dagestan and Avar. In the early 1830s he called for strict observance of the Shariat, Islamic law, and for Gazawat - militant holy war against the Christian invaders.

    Within a short time a strong Muslim revivahst movement spread through the entire eastern part of the mountains, and united much of the Caucasus region in one regional state formation, the Imamat of Shamil, which lasted for nearly 30 years.

    In 1859 Shamil was caught and arrested. By 1864 the Caucasian War was accomplished. The majority of the Cherkess, then the biggest group in the region, but also Abkhaz, Chechen, Muslim Ossetes and Dagestanis were forced to emigrate and many died en route. New estimates suggest that approximately 1.2 million Caucasians emigrated from Russian-conquered territories, and 800,000 of them lived to settle in the Ottoman dominions.'~ Their descendants today form a diaspora of one or two millions, mainly in Turkey and the Middle East.

    The region, the Republics and the Peoples

    Caucasian people of the North Iranian language group the majority of whom live in the Republic of North Ossetia (Ironston), where they constitute an absolute majority.

    After the First Caucasian War [about 1780 - 1859/64] hundreds of thousands of people were forced to leave their homes and to go to the Ottoman Empire.

    Toward the end of the Caucasian War the Europeans entered the fray. We know the war as the CRIMEAN WAR. It started in 1853 as one more armed conflict between Turkey and Russia, the next year France and Britain joined the Turkish side; as did Sardinia in 1855, thus preparing the great power role of the future kingdom of Italy. Austria’s position was not neutral, and the policy of Prussia was indirectly affected. Under these conditions, expected during the war, or at the peace table, the unsolved problems of East Central Europe would be raised. The rea issue, of the outbreak of the war, was whether or not Russia would be permitted to take exclusive advantage of the decline and gradual disintegration of the Ottoman Empire.

    The second of the two great Polish insurrections, which were the most striking manifestations of the struggle for national freedom in East Central Europe during the 19th century, broke out in Warsaw on January 22, 1863. Without returning to the conception of 1815, Alexander II began by removing at least the most shocking abuses of the Russian administration in the former kingdom of Poland.

    The Ukrainians, who had taken no part in the January Insurrection, were considered dangerous. In 1863 that the Russian minister of the interior, Count Valuyev, made the famous statement that "there never was, there is not, and there never will be a separate “Little Russian” language since it was only a peasant dialect of Great Russian." And when some scientific and literary activities of Ukrainian societies continued in Kiev, the decree of May 18, 1876, prohibited the importation of books printed abroad in that Little Russian dialect.
    My copy of The Brothers Karamazov is translated by Richard Pevear and Lorissa Volokhonsky copyright 1990

    Joan Pearson
    April 10, 2001 - 04:18 am
    Our mad researcher has struck once again, and while I am grateful for all of this information, I am overwhelmed, awash in details and completely vunerable as am without morning coffee and am dentist bound after that ~ I do want to comment on initial reactions while mind is racing!

    There was another schism then in the 17th centurey, so perhaps that icon is not worth the fortune we originally thought, Jo! Hahahaah! I never thought it was a print! You couldn't see my face, so you couldn't tell I was joking! He does have a lovely cottage in the woods, though, doesn't he? This seems to make Pytor Miusov very irritable.

    The information Barbara provides gives us a better idea what these monasteries are like...and that's important because they are so very different from the Benedictine monasteries in the West in both organization and layout. There would be no elders holding such sessions in a western monastery. Father Abbot would be the one folks flocked to...

    I have lots of other thoughts on the information Barbara has provided, but won't express them at this time except insert the excellent link on the Important Names, Dates and Russian terms into the heading for easy reference and from that link, I want to zero in on this

    1873-76 Dostoevsky collaborates on magazine THE CITIZEN. Writes The Raw Youth. Lives in Straya Russia and visits Germany three times.
    1875 The Raw Youth published.
    1876-77 Publishes magazine "Writer's Diary".
    1876 November, writes story "The Gentle Spirit".
    1878 May, Dostoevsky's three-year old son Alexy dies of epilepsy.
    Dostoevsky philosopher Vladimir Solovyov visit together the Optina monastery. Begins work on The Brothers Karamazov.
    1879 The Brothers Karamazov begins to appear.
    1880 June 8, Dostoevsky delivers widely acclaimed speech at the dedication of Pushkin's statue. Concludes work on The Brothers Karamazov.
    1881 January 28, Dostoevsky dies after three days of illness, of Lung - Hemorrhages.


    I'm left finally, thinking of our elder and his reaction to Pyotr M. and Fyodor K, don't you? We had been talking about the effectiveness of listening, non-judgemental listening. We can all learn from this elder's technique, I think!

    Jo Meander
    April 10, 2001 - 06:47 am
    Sorry, Joan! Didn't mean to be so baldly naive about the "print" thing. I thought you knew something about reproductions in days gone by that I didn't! You know so much that I don't! They probably did copy things, though.

    Deems
    April 10, 2001 - 07:01 am
    Thanks, Barbara. The most interesting information to me was about the Optina Monastery. When I think of the Greek or Russian Orthodox Churches, I get pictures of icons and Rasputin in my head. That's about it.

    My father was once given a valuable icon by a wealthy woman who was grateful for his assistance one summer. He left it to the Bangor Theological Seminary, so I cannot scan it for you all. But I did see it and it was lovely. Very old but remarkably well-preserved.

    Good luck at the d e n t ** t's office, Joan. I hope you will contemplate ZoSEEma so as to escape your immediate surroundings.

    Maryal

    betty gregory
    April 10, 2001 - 07:08 am
    Wonderful information, Barbara. (Don't anyone panic. Barbara always gives us enough to mull over, pick and choose, go back to, skip over, enjoy later. I usually read through much of what she provides, but that's after realizing I don't have to read any.)

    Great list of names and dates. Be sure to have a look at notes on Russian words way at the bottom.

    In the book, I agree, Joan, there is much to learn from the elder....his way of not reacting, of staying within himself while someone is trying to get a reaction from him....amazing.

    betty

    Lady C
    April 10, 2001 - 07:22 am
    I, like so many others, have become increasingly interested in Russian History and been stimulated by the book and the posts to learn more. In my search at the local library I found a small book, printed as part of the Young Historian series. *Ancient Russia* by Melvin C. Wren has some interesting drawings of ancient artifacts. It covers geographic influences to the Mongol yoke.

    I know it isn't relevant to the story, but it gives a good picture of how Russia got to be Russia, and the diversity that makes up its people. I would appreciate information about other books members of our group have found.

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    April 10, 2001 - 11:23 am
    The Cossacks defiant letter to the Turkish Sultun.


    By the way kind of info - this is absolutly amazing - Get this - from the Mongolian hords we have the Dali Lama!?!
    We still hear the tales of the barbaric cruelty of the Mongolian hordes - an alternate view emerged after the threat of European invasion had dissipated.
    Interesting to me that the Mongols saw Europe as a threat. I wonder what the true story is - especially learning this - I remember reading The Travels... and what Marco Polo found sure doesn't match the image I have of a barbaric Mongol hord. I wonder if it is just one groups image of war versus, another - with all war being barbaric, especially, if it is in your front and back yard where you must protect your family and you are not armed as well to fight.

    Having seen many a movie dipicting China at war during this time in History they certainly are a formidable army racing around on horseback accompanied by huge numbers of foot soldiers. Not at all the movie view of a Historical European altercation of the same period. Their horses are clumbering in comparison.
    The Mongolian Empire guaranteed safe travel across Asia, and European. Explorers returned with stories of a great civilization. The most famous was the Description, known as The Travels of Marco Polo.

    The Travels is now believed to have been a concoction of verifiable fact, hearsay, exaggeration, legend, and out-right fabrication, the different picture it painted of the Mongol empire.

    In 1240, the contingent of the Mongol Forces entered Tibet, and later, the Tibetan Buddhist master Sakya Pandita Kunga Gyaltsen, together with his nephew, Phagpa, came to the Mongolian camp under pressure. The Pandita was able to discuss Buddhism with these high Mongolian authorities.

    Prince Khublai was on his way on a campaign against the Kingdom of Ta-li, in present-day Yunnan Province of China, when the young Phagpa was able to meet him and persuade this powerful Prince--later the Khan of the Mongol Empire--to take a sympathetic view of Buddhism. From then on Phagpa acted as a sort of court priest at Khublai's headquarters. These factors combined to further the spread of Tibetan Buddhism among the Mongolian nobles. In 1260, when Khublai became Khan, he conferred upon Phagpa the rank of Kuo-shin, the State Instructor. In 1368 the Mongols were expelled from China and many retreated to their native lands reverting to the nomadic existence of their ancestors, taking up once again the shamanistic practices.

    For hundreds of years, the Eight White Ordon of the Khan had been preserved as they were built in the beginning and the offering ceremonies had been held year after year without disturbance and interruption. The Eight White Ordon had become the only sacred place for the Mongols, even as the Mongols had been converted to the Lamaism (Tibetan Buddhism) and thousands of temples had been built all around the lands of the Mongols. As the founder of the Mongol nation, the Khan has been regarded as the son of the Everlasting Blue Heaven and has become the only icon that can inspire and unite the Mongols together.

    Buddhism again in the 16th century became a powerful force in Mongol society. The catalyst was the conversion of the Mongol leader Altan Khan (1506-1582), who believed himself to be the reincarnation of Kubilai Khan, the conqueror of China. Like Kubilai, he adopted Lamaism, the Tibetan version of Buddhism. It was Altan who ordained the lineage of the Dalai Lama in Tibet, thus cementing the relationship between Tibetan and Mongolian Buddhism.
    This to me is so interesting - With Russia spreading over East and West embracing a religion with Eastern ties - it has opened up volumns of learning that puts our world in percpective. Dostoevsky may be European because of his education and travels rather than because of his Russian heritage. He certainly does not speak fondly of the Caucacus.

    By the way it confused me - in chapter 2 - the three days of the February Revolution - three days behind the barracades - Paris in forty-eight. It is the three day revolution in 1848 that ended the reign of Louise-Philippe and the beginning ot the second Republic.

    Joan Pearson
    April 11, 2001 - 06:27 am
    Are you experiencing crazzzzzzzzzzy weather where you live? Soaring temperatures, and then storms...wind gusts! Yesterday I was blown off my computer three different times, lost all power in the house on three different occasions and decided to take a rest.

    I do see that some of our Western posters have been busy though...and am eager to get back to the crowded little cell and examine the fascinating dance between Miusov and F. Karamazov, who seem to have the stage to themselves, don't they? The monks, the two brothers Karamazov, the Miusov's "friend"...even the elder himself seem to have faded into the scenery during their dialog!

    hahaha...Jo! Prints! Lithographs! I read the chapter again and yes, there were many prints in the corner of the cell! I missed that the first time. So maybe this was a print? The text doesn't mention whether the "Mother of God" image, painted "before the schism" was a print...but don't you love the way Dos. tossed in this schism to make us aware of yet another division going on between the lines in the dialog between Miusov and Karamazov?

    From Barbara's sources, we learn that this schism is a result of the reforms of the Patriarch Nikon one hundred years previous ~ the old believers refused to accept changes.

    So we have division within Russia at this time, and new ideas, atheism, reforms,socialism pouring in from the West. I'm watching Peotr Miusov very closely. He had come out of boredom, hoping for amusement. But from the moment he enters the monastery grounds, he is disdainful of the property, his wife's cousin, the buffoon and even dislikes the elder, "petty, arrogant little soul" that he is!

    What's going on with Peotr Miusov? Why is he not having fun as anticipated?

    Jo Meander
    April 11, 2001 - 06:44 am
    Pyotr Miusov seems to see himself as a liberated, modern man. This is part of the reason he is so scornful of everyone in Zosima's room (I don't say "cell" because I am unsure if that's actually a different room). The sycophantic Fyodor really bugs him. Every criticism he levels at him Causes Fyodor to agree with him enthusiastically: "See, I just knew I was wrong" or "I knew that was my problem" or words to that affect. When he laments the fact that he is always injuring himself with his rash remarks, Miusov mutters "You're doing it now." When Miusov apologizes and starts to leave, Zosima takes him by the hands, comforts him and urges him to stay. The most poewerful personality in the room is Zosima, who takes one or two minutes to calm the visitors and tell Fyodor exactly what he needs to do.

    Deems
    April 11, 2001 - 06:57 am
    is a wimp. Fyodor K. gets off on baiting this pathetic man who keeps losing his temper. The scene would not be as funny were it not for Miusov who makes a perfect foil for Fyodor's clowning and theatricality.

    It is certainly very interesting, Joan, that the others in Zosima's cell--not just the attendant monks but also IVAN and ALYOSHA fade into the woodwork as you put it. They too are watching the farce. IVAN is unreadable when Alyosha looks to him for help, and Alyosha is clearly embarrassed. He doesn't yet know, apparently, how well Zosima can handle all this bluster.

    Maryal

    Joan Pearson
    April 11, 2001 - 07:12 am
    Pyotr sees himself as the "liberated modern man"...we know he spends a lot of time in Paris, he is a Liberal, socialist, atheist...why does he so dislike Zosima?

    And what of Zosima...a man of the church, yes, but a different sort. Not one to live by the rule of the monastery, not a "commandment Christian"...

    Then there's Fyodr K...does he represent the Russian soul, caught in the middle, looking for reason to become a believer...at least on ths surface? I'm trying to pigeonhole these characters...maybe I should't be.

    Another who MAY be experiencing the same conflicts ...Ivan? That is just early conjecture.

    Jo, Maryal...I agree. Pyotr (Peter, doubting Peter?) is the perfect straight man, which only causes Karamazov to escalate his buffoonery...but there is a lot behind what he is saying, isn't there? I like the way the Elder seems to be hearing what is behind his remarks! Did anything in particular strike you in Karamazov's ravings?

    If we have been looking for levity, for humor in Brothers K, I think we have found it!

    ALF
    April 11, 2001 - 07:24 am
    What's with this? Our visitors were at once surrounded by beggars, but none of them gave them anything, except young Kalganov, who took a ten-copeck piece out of his purse, and, nervous and embarrassed- God knows why!- hurriedly gave it to an old woman, saying: "Divide it equally."

    Yeah, sure the beggars will graciously share.

    Deems
    April 11, 2001 - 07:27 am
    ALF---Good point. Our group does not seem to be made up of philanthropists. We already know that Fyodor K. is tight with money--he has managed to get his first wife's property as well as Dmitri's inheritance.

    And young Kalganov seems to give that kopeck out of embarrassment.

    ALF
    April 11, 2001 - 07:38 am
    Maximo, the land owner @ Tula, with his "nervous curiosity " reminds me of Igor. "His eyes were looking out of his head."

    Jo Meander
    April 11, 2001 - 07:58 am
    It was difficult even now to decide whether he was joking or really moved.
    Even though Fyodor is really baiting Miusov (he mocks his bow at the very beginning of the visit), even though he says deliberately provocative things never before heard in Zosima's cell where everyone prior to this occasion has behaved with great reverence (story about the "tickling" of a man's wife for which he suffered a "tickling," bombastic blessing of Zosima --"Blessed be the womb that bare the and the paps that gave the suck-- especially the paps"),I agree with Dostoevsky, it is hard to be sure. He is a chaos of emotions and intentions.

    Joan Pearson
    April 11, 2001 - 08:09 am
    Maximov is interesting...described as having "sweet little eyes"...speaking in a "honeyed lisp"...a man of 60 - running alongside the party to escort them to the elder's hermitage...he looks like von Sohn too, according to Karamazov "in some inexplicable way. Pyotr Miusov doesn't like him much either..."a most obnoxious old fellow" he says aloud. I don't know, I thought he was most helpful, Alf, even if his eyes bulge.

    Perhaps it is because the landowner is also meeting with Fr. Superior and seems to be a regular...has already met with the elder. As Maryal points out, our group seems to be holding tight to their pocketbooks, and kopeks.

    Which one of the group do you suppose has "recently donated a thousand roulbes to the monastery. Surely not Miusov...could it have been Karamazov? Naaaaaaaah

    Joan Pearson
    April 11, 2001 - 08:16 am
    Jo...I loved the elder's reaction to Karamazov's ticklish woman comment, & Muisov's response..."The elder silently looked from one to the other."

    And then K. continues right on "....I'm a natural-born buffoon, reverent father, just like a holy fool...there is an unclean spirit within me...but to make up for it, I believe, I believe in God"

    You never know what will come out of his mouth! Or whether he means what he says...I feel confident though, that the Elder sees through his words and knows the truth.

    Lady C
    April 11, 2001 - 02:12 pm
    JOAN: Don't forget that early on, FD tells us that Karamzov loves to act. I don't think you can trust anything he says. He's like a child who says the first thing that popts into his head as a response to whatever is being said. I love that Zosima tells him to close his taverns and to not lie, especially to himself.

    As to Kalganov's embarrassment, I got the impression that he may have been embarrassed to be the only one willing to give to the beggars, and the fact that the people he was with were so stingy. Also, he's young, and probably not very sure of himself altogether.

    Miusov seems to me to be prepared to dislike everything and everyone connected to the monastery, partly because of his difficulty establishing fishing and forestry rights--he's suing them--and partly because of his sense of superiority over the "superstition" of religion. He strikes me as not being disposed to think well of anyone, really, and that may explain his response to Maximov, whom I see as a harmless, sort of bumbling, self-conscious old man. (Sixtyish would have been considered old in the nineteenth century._

    Joan Pearson
    April 12, 2001 - 05:43 am
    Lady C, Maximov is considered "old" at 60, the Elder at 65 is described as an ancient. But Peotr Miusov at 55 doesn't seem old at all. Is it because he is the liberal, freethinker who surrounds himself with the young...and new ideas? I think you're right, he seems to be disatisfied with everything connected to the monastery, with religion in general? With the old ways and ideas? I was particularly interested what the elder said to him when he got up to leave:
    "I beg you not to disturb yourself. I particularly beg you to be my guest"
    Why is the elder particularly interested in Miusov? Did you notice a change in Miusov's attitude toward the elder?

    What is Karamazov's age? Do we know? He is described in Chapter II as the old buffoon I think this chapter is going to be central to our understanding of his character, and yet he is still a puzzle. When is he acting, when is he speaking truth? I am trying to see through him...playing the role of the elder. I think he knows more than he lets on..."I am like Diderot, he says, adding that he made up the christening story, adding the Psalm, "the fool has said in his heart there is no God." He's memorized this psalm? He's speaking of himself, as foolish for saying there is no God? And then he quotes more scripture, "Teacher, what should I do to inherit eternal life"...from Matthew, Mark, Luke, (from footnotes) and again quotes John in the talk about father of a lie and son of a lie.:

    "Through this sin, Lucifer's nature was changed. No longer the bearer of light, he became Satan, the enemy, the accuser, the father of the lie (John 8:44). Through the influence of Satan, one third of the angels of heaven were cast down into spiritual death, making him the first murderer (Revelation 12:3-10, John 8:44)."


    Is he talking about himself, as Lucifer? Then which son would be the son of the lie? All of them?

    There's a lot going on in this chapter...I have a feeling we will be returning to it a closer look at the Old Buffoon!

    Deems
    April 12, 2001 - 09:09 am
    Interesting points on that slippery man, Father Karamazov, Joan.

    I think he knows Scripture well enough for his own purposes. The devil can quote Scripture for his own benefit. When he claims to be the "Father of Lies," even old Fyodor realizes he is placing himself too high, that to be the "father of lies" would be to be Satan himself, so he revises his claim to being a son of Satan.

    Maryal

    ALF
    April 12, 2001 - 02:30 pm
    Mizov had a high opinion of his own insight a weakness excusable in him as he was fifty, an age at
    which a clever man of the world of established position can hardly help taking himself rather seriously.
    At the first moment he did not like Zossima.  Immediately he gets my feathers up.

    Are these two fools a comical pair?  Antagonizing and offending one another,  you can't decide whether to laugh at their nonsense or restrain the two of them.  What a diversion they must have been for the clerics and the Divinity student who were so accustomed to the  pensive, solemn guests who were usually invited, with very pressing issues.  Dos tells us :"Of those visitors, many had been men of high rank and learning, some even free thinkers, attracted by curiosity, but all without exception had shown the profoundest reverence and delicacy--"  quite the contrast with these visitors.  Fyodor carries on like a lunatic, concocting his deranged lies and admitting to feeling inferior when he meets people.  I feel bad for him; he's a joke, a jester, mocking and ridiculing Pytor to hysterics; all for the sport of it.  This reads like a Woody Allen story.

    Jo Meander
    April 12, 2001 - 06:34 pm
    ALF,, now I'm imagining how Woody Allen would direct the scene!

    Joan Pearson
    April 12, 2001 - 07:38 pm
    hahaha! Woody Allen! haahahahaha! Alf...that is so funny! There is that comic angst, isn't there! I can just see the faces of those hiermonks, poor Alyosha, the Elder... Zosima just lets them go on, quietly listening to all of them.

    I was sort of taken aback too ~ reading that Miusov didn't like the elder (what's not to like?), but even more so at the rest of that paragraph...
    "He disliked the elder from the first moment. Indeed, there was something in the elder's face that many other people besides Miusov might have disliked..." (and then it goes on to describe the elder's physical appearance - short, bent, old, withered, wrinkled, few hairs, sparse beard... as if that would explain why he was disliked.)


    What was this about? I like the elder! I wish I had an elder who could see into my soul and give me such advice, don't you? Actually, the elder's silence seems to push Karamazov into acting out even more and it appears to me that K. is saying things that are very close to the truth...especially the falsehoods, the exaggerations. They seem to contain truth.

    Maryal, I like that..."the Devil can quote Scripture"...the Father of the Lie, the Devil!

    Manana!

    ALF
    April 13, 2001 - 06:00 am
    Beware Joan!!! I am looking into your soul!!!

    ALF
    April 13, 2001 - 06:21 am
    Miusov did not like what he saw in the old monks countenance because what he saw was life! Father Z.'s physical apperance displayed the vestiges of time! In his face what Misuvo witnessed was evidence of hardship and traces of poverty. In his weathered old eyes ,the remoteness and solitary image of a man who gave of himself as he did the Lords work. Misuvo , the inferior , sees a gateway to an extraodinare, which of course he does not understand.

    Joan Pearson
    April 13, 2001 - 06:55 am
    haha! Alf!, I always thought you had a special way about you...didn't know you had the makings of the elder though!

    Thanks for the explanation about Miusov's dislike of the elder. Others didn't like him for the same reason, I gather? They expected someone with all the answers to life's mysteries to somehow look the part! And he is withered. Does the withered, dying Elder represent the Church and it's teaching to Miusov and other free thinkers?

    When the elder speaks to Miusov, he tells him he particularly wants him to stay. And he does. I thought it was interesting the way Miusov responds to Karamazov's buffoonery...chiding him to "show respect for this venerable person." He's apologizing to the elder for Karamazov's behavior. Yet he was the one who refused to show the customary respect and accept the elder's blessing at the start! Do I detect a change in his attitude towards the elder?

    Karamazov is something else. He begins making remarks about ticklish women, bare breasts...and develops into questions of faith and quoting scripture.

    There are no women in the room...but Karamazov speaks of them from the beginning...observing that while there are no ladies within, the elder does receive them outside. He refers to Mount Athos where visits of women are not allowed - "no female creatures of any kind - no hens, no hen-turkeys, no heifers."

    It seems that with all this reference to the feminine gender, K. is referring to his greatest weakness, ...even before the elder counsels him on what he must do to inherit eternal life. The counsel he gives will be in sharp contrast to what he will say to the women outside in the next scene.

    This would make a great production, wouldn't it? I know a movie has been made of Brothers K. I wonder if it was any good. Will try to find out something about it...but definitely wouldn't want to view it until after this discussion.

    Alf, what did you think of the Elder's insight into Karamazov's soul? I thought he was stating the obvious, which somehow K. couldn't see for himself. But isn't that the way it usually is? Don't we really have the ability to "fix" our own problems if only we could listen to ourselves, to the answers within? Isn't that what makes a friend, or a good patient listener so important? Just to hear ourselves, and hopefully to listen to ourselves?

    I am particulary interested in what Zosima expresses as the "highest love"...

    Deems
    April 13, 2001 - 07:13 am
    I think Yul Bryner (sp?) played Ivan in the movie version which I dimly remember seeing. Or---I may be confused. Yul did play Jason Compson in a terrible film version of Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury.

    I think Miusov is one of those people who understands forms and politenesses very well. He doesn't seem to have much feel for who a person really IS but he will carefully follow all social customs if only to show that he is well-brought-up.

    Perhaps the wizened old monk does represent the Old Order, but his way is also part of Dostoevsky's vision of a New Order. One cannot judge the worth of someone from the outside although we all seem to fall into that trap.

    Father Karamazov, of course, is interested only in himself and his performance, so we don't know if he has any evaluation of Zosima himself. My guess is that other people don't really exist for Fyodor except as they meet his needs.

    Maryal

    ALF
    April 13, 2001 - 07:23 am
    Fyodor 's quip to the monk was "do not invite me to be my natural self."  He admits even he wouldn't go that far.  That's funny, it's like seeing yourself in the mirror and being startled.
    "I earnestly beg you, too, not to disturb yourself, and not to be uneasy," the elder said impressively.
    "Do not trouble. Make yourself quite at home. And, above all, do not be so ashamed of yourself, for
    that is at the root of it all."  The monk hit the nail on the head with that last sentence.  He didn't need a degree in theology or psychology to see that in Fyodor.  His abashment and disreputal behavior  was renown.  Father Z. sensed his awkwardness and his disquiet.    He then readily admits to the reason for his buffonery.  "If I had only been sure that everyone would accept me as the kindest and wisest of men, oh, Lord, what a good man I should have been then!"  Now, Mr. Dos has written a masterpiece in that thought, alone.  Fyodor portrays himself exactly as those around him expect him to act. or is it a damned good excuse for bad behavior?

    Jo Meander
    April 13, 2001 - 08:39 am
    Maryal, Yul Brynner was in both of those films. I think Lee J. Cobb may have played Fyodor.
    Good stuff here today!!! I wonder if it's possible that even though he is blathering away, Fyodor the gasbag actually is moved to state truths about himself in the presence of true wisdom and insight. We all wear a mask in the sense that we don't feel comfortable dropping our guard around people we don't really know, but sometimes meet someone special who moves us to be more open. Zosima is more than special; he is saintly and wise and loving.
    Miusov is like most people, especially the young (which he isn't, chronologically), at least in his initial reaction to the withered, unprepossessing figure of Zosima. As ALF has said, he can't stand to witness the ravages of life. He prefers a more polished, well-preserved look, because the external signs of earthly success are what he values. He doen't even believe in the spiritual element as something worthy of his respect. Perhaps Zosima's goodness is already working on him when he asks Fyodor to behave more appropriately in front of the Elder. Or perhaps that's just a sign of how important he thinks it is to always be decorous.
    Joan, I can't find that "greatest love" line. I couldn't find the word "schism" either. I thought we had the same book!

    ALF
    April 13, 2001 - 08:51 am
    Is the elder meant to be a Christ-like figure?  He healed and blessed the waiting crowds, as they worshiped and adored him.

    "The conviction that after his death the elder would bring extraordinary glory to the monastery was even stronger in Alyosha than
    in anyone there,---"   Alyosha believed that he (Zossima) carried in his heart the "secret of renewal for all."  Does he see him as the redeemer, then?

    Deems
    April 13, 2001 - 09:04 am
    ALF---Good question. We shall see what comes of Alyosha's belief perhaps. I think Alyosha (who is, remember a very young man) may see Zosima as a Christlike figure, as well as a surrogate FATHER--he needs a father, BUT I think that Zosima would be the first to deny his worthiness. He is simply living his life in imitation of Christ, I think.

    Jo---Thanks. Good to know that my mind isn't slipping. Yul in both films. Gotcha. Now all I have to do is go find out if Lee J. Cobb was in the film version.

    Maryal

    Deems
    April 13, 2001 - 09:14 am
    Having checked the Internet Movie Database, I find that, yes, Jo, Father Karamazov was played by Lee J. Cobb. Yul Brynner was Dmitri (not Ivan as I said), Richard Basehart was Ivan, AND---is everyone ready for this???? Guess who played Alyosha?

    Time's up. It was William Shatner!!!

    Also interesting--Claire Bloom played Katya and Albert Salmi who played Smerdjakov, won Best Supporting Actor in 1958 (or 9, as the case may be). Lee J. Cobb was nominated for Best Actor, but did not win.

    Maryal

    Hats
    April 13, 2001 - 12:48 pm
    Hi All,

    I am so behind. Where should I begin??? I need to catch up. I'll start with Monday's post.

    HATS

    Deems
    April 13, 2001 - 02:06 pm
    HATS---Not to worry. This is Easter Week and attendance seems to have fallen off. We have so far discussed only the meeting in Zosima's cell. We haven't talked about the peasant women or Zosima's comments to them yet.

    Maryal

    Hats
    April 13, 2001 - 02:14 pm
    Thanks Maryal, I felt sort of loss. I am reading chapter four. I have read the previous posts. Since we have finished "The House of Mirth" that will help.

    Looking forward to "The Blind Assassin," but I will continue to keep up with Brothers K. Joan and you, Maryal, are great together.

    HATS

    Deems
    April 13, 2001 - 02:25 pm
    HATS----

    Thanks!

    ALF
    April 13, 2001 - 05:29 pm
    Harry! A trekkie, amongst the group ?????

    Deems
    April 13, 2001 - 06:59 pm
    ALF---Yep, that's the one. I am still trying to picture William Shatner as Alyosha.

    Jo Meander
    April 13, 2001 - 07:07 pm
    I remember Albert Salmi as Smerdjakov, but I sure don't remember Shatner! He must have looked very different.

    Deems
    April 13, 2001 - 07:49 pm
    Jo---He would have been 26-27. And I don't remember him either.

    Traude
    April 13, 2001 - 07:58 pm
    The actor Albert Salmi may have identified with Smerdyakov; his life ended in Smerdyakovian fashion ...

    Deems
    April 13, 2001 - 08:00 pm
    Yes, Traude, I read on IMDB that he and his wife died in a murder-suicide. Do you have any details?

    Joan Pearson
    April 14, 2001 - 05:04 am
    Maryal! Traude! Hey!NO DETAILS! hahha! We haven't even MET Smerdyakov yet, so no murder-suicide details allowed! The movie sounds as if it can't be that bad...Lee J Cobb, Albert Salmi, William Shatner (hahahah, Alf!) ...and Claire Bloom...I love Claire Bloom. Will definitely hunt up this one...but not until we are well along in the book! Remember now, no details...Mercy!

    Jo, the "young" Miusov regards the older, withered Zosima as not all that...already disdainful of the monastery, the attention Zosima enjoys and religion in general? I can see that and I guess that's what Dos. means when he says that others dislike him too. Others who think as Miusov does and others within the monastery, (within the Church) who are uncomfortable with the attention given to Zosima...

    The two references...

    schism, another intesting variation in translations, and I understand why you can't see it. In Chapter 2, The Old Buffoon, third paragraph, the one beginning with the description of Zosima's old-fashioned mahogany sofa, covered with leather (sounds nice, doesn't it?), the same paragraph where "prints and lithographs" are described, the Garnett/Matlaw edition describes the portrait as a"huge, very ancient icon of the Virgin.", but the Pevear/Volokhonsky goes further..."...there were many icons in the corner including a huge one of the Mother of God painted, probably long before the schism."
    This is why we are fortunate to have different translations available to us! We aren't going to miss a thing!

    The reference to the highest love doesn't come until we get outside and meet the ladies in waiting. Hopefully we can get out there today?



    Alf, you pick out the best lines! I think you and Jo see Zosima as Christ among the people..."don't be ashamed, be yourself, you are loved, don't lie...special, saintly, wise, loving, healing..." while Maryal tends to see him as a saintly man who is striving to imitate Christ, am I right? I'm not sure that Dosto. doesn't intend for us to see him as Christ. And also as an ideal, a model for Christian teaching, a model for the role the Church should be playing in the lives of the Russian people. The present Church is losing favor as atheistic socialism takes hold. Dos. sees the a return to the orignian ministry of a loving Christ as opposed to the pesent, withering Church that is not in sync with the needs of the people? What do you think? Zosima as Christ, or an imitator?

    Hats is back! This is wonderful! I'm sure we will be returning to this introductory scene in the cell when you get all caught up, but in the meantime, let's move outside to the 20 women awaiting the elder in the yard?
    I was amused at the way the elder just stood up and took leave, as Karamazov held center stage, kissing his hand and raving on...but he left with a good-humored "don't you tell anymore lies now", as he went out to the adoring women....

    They are quite the contrast to the men inside, aren't they? We learn more of the women of Russia in these two chapters. WEre you at all surprised at the counsel Zosima offers them...as I was?

    Hats
    April 14, 2001 - 05:27 am
    Joan, it is so great the way you keep us moving, or we would get lost in traffic, stuck at the red light, not seeing the green light.

    In the foreseeable future, we will finish this book??? Right??? You don't have to answer (smile).

    Are we reading chapter four? Miraculous healings?

    HATS

    Deems
    April 14, 2001 - 07:06 am
    HATS---That's the chapter I am dying to discuss--Zosima in the crowd of peasant women and other ladies.

    I think what Dostoevsky does here is very clever. At just about the point where we have had enough of F.Karamazov's buffoonery, we are allowed to follow Zosima OUTSIDE, into the AIR, to watch him do what he does among the people. Some of these women have come a great distance to see him so his fame has spread by word of mouth far from his own monestary.

    I was just about to get up from my stool and lay one upside the head of old Fyodor K. and now I am allowed OUTSIDE of that cell!

    Maryal

    Hats
    April 14, 2001 - 08:52 am
    Maryal, I agree with you. Fyodor K. can really get on a person's nerves. His personality is overwhelming, too intrusive. Zosima, outside, should be very inspiring.

    HATS

    Hats
    April 14, 2001 - 09:13 am
    Zosima is a very humble man. When the visiting monk speaks to him of his miraculous healings, Zosima gives the credit to God. When he speaks of his illness, he remains meek, never wanting to draw attention to himself.

    His attitude towards his illness seems full of lessons. He remains cheerful, not complaining. He seems fully aware of his approaching death. Yet, he remains grateful for each succeeding hour.

    Zosima speaks of "understanding his illness." How many of us ever come to understand the struggle with pain?

    HATS

    Lady C
    April 14, 2001 - 10:57 am
    I think it's interesting that the women outside are divided by class. The wealthy women of standing in the community (and I assume from elsewhere) are in an area separate from the peasant women. Zosima accepts this as normal and addresses them separately as well. I would think such a saintly figure would perceive them as all the children of God and act to unify them, but he doesn't.

    I like the way he humorously teases the daughter and comforts the mother, who strikes me as a bit scattered, almost a bit of a buffoon herself.

    Joan Pearson
    April 14, 2001 - 11:02 am
    Hats, I think our lives are so complicated that we can't focus on the simple truths from which Zosima gathers his guidance, strength, acceptance of the inevitable.

    I love this Chapter ~ Zosima with these peasant women. Actually there are a few "gentlewomen" waiting to see him, and visiting clergy, but he goes right to the peasant women...to the "shrieker, pulling her up by both hands" Actually, Pevear calls them "shriekers", Garnett/Matlaw calls them "possessed women." According to Dostoevsky, such women were common at the town. In describing them and the shrieking phenomenon, he gives us a glimpse of how hard life was for the Russian peasant woman in the 1870's...

    I am still amazed at the counsel he gives them to deal with their troubles.

    Joan Pearson
    April 14, 2001 - 11:06 am
    Lady C, we were posting together. I hadn't thought of that...Zosima makes no effort to address them altogether, does he? Is it significant that he goes directly to the peasant women before addressing the "gentlewomen" and the visiting monk?

    Traude
    April 14, 2001 - 11:20 am
    Not from me, Joan, surely. Besides, it wasn't I who brought up the movie !

    In fact, it saddens me that all too often the only notion we eventually get of and from a great literary work is through a latter-day movie. And then we tend to adopt, or subscribe to whatever stance the film makers have taken, no questions asked !

    Ah well, better through a movie than not at all.



    I remember Mr. Salmi's face from another film or two, and never forgot its expression ... I see it before me even now.

    Joan Pearson
    April 14, 2001 - 11:42 am
    HAHAHA, Traudee, it was I who brought up the fact that there was a movie! The blame is at my door! I do agree with you about movies based on literarture. About five years ago we read THE ODYSSEY here...and there was a made-for-tv version at the time. Bernadette Peters was in it as I recall. It was SSOOOOOOOO bad...but we watched it and all had a good laugh about it. That was that movie, but when we were reading Benson's Lucia novels, we watched a video early on...we mailed around a video from the PBS series. I can't tell you how disturbed I was at the casting....because MY Lucia was notheing like the actress, although I will admit she was good. I prefer the real thing and the character descriptions of the author, rather than those chosen by the casting director...

    What do you think of the shrieker? I must admit, the whole concept I find amusing, although I don't mean to minimize the causes of the phenomenon. Then there's the poor grieving Nastasia, who has just lost her baby son...

    Hats
    April 14, 2001 - 03:37 pm
    The Russian peasant women lead hard and rough lives. So difficult that some are left mentally depressed. However, too often, it seems, in the Russian society their needs are misunderstood. They are said to be full of the devil or that they are shirking their work duties.

    Really, they are overly fatigued. I am reminded of our society today. Women who suffer with menopause or PMS are, sometimes, not taken seriously. Sometimes they are called overly emotional.

    The narrator grows up believing these myths about women. Then, when he is older, he learns the truth. "It was a terrible female sickness, resulting from exhausting work following too soon upon a difficult, abnormal labor without medical help and from an intensely unhappy life..."

    It is sad that these women are not taken seriously. In some cases, they are described as barking like dogs. Could they have been suffering with Tourette Syndrome or Epilepsy?

    HATS

    Hats
    April 14, 2001 - 04:42 pm
    There seems a class difference between the poor women and the wealthy women. Does it seem their is no understanding between the two classes of women?

    HATS

    Joan Pearson
    April 16, 2001 - 06:14 am
    Hats, what an interesting observation! First we meet the shrieker (does your translation refer to her as a shrieker or as a possessed woman?)...they are said to be common among Russian woman, afflicted by this terrible disease in peasant women. Alyosha's mother is said to have been one of these shriekers. But did you consider her a peasant woman?

    ...and next Zosima moves to another unhappy peasant, Natasha, who shows another kind of grief, a hopeless "silent, long-suffering, unquenchable grief." She's lost all four children, but the loss of her last son, her three year old Alexei, has caused her to leave her husband and come all this distance to Zosima for comfort. (Did you find his advice to her surprising?)

    I found a note somewhere that Dostoevsky himself had a three-year old son, also named Alexei, who died in 1878...as Doestovesky was writing this book!!!


    But back to Hat's question ~ on the difference between these peasant women, either shrieking or silently grieving, and the "gentlewomen", the visiting lady landowner, Madame Khokhlakov and her daughter, who claims to "love the people"...I take that to mean the common people, these very peasant women in the courtyard. She remains apart from them on this little stage, unlike Zosima who had moved right out to them from the first...

    Hats
    April 16, 2001 - 06:46 am
    Joan, in my translation, the word "shrieker" is uses instead of "possessed." I did not think about Alyosha's mother.She was a shreiker too, right? I'll have to go back and read about her again. I have a tendency to confuse Alyosha and Ivan's mother with Dmitry's mother. Lol.

    Natasha's grief is heartwrenching. I can not imagine losing four children. I would not be emotionally capable to accept Zosima's advice to go home and remember my baby is an angel in heaven. It would be a very long time before I could get to that stage of grief. The thought that he is an angel is beautiful, but at first, for a long, long, time, I would want my baby back with me.

    Does it seem that her husband is able to move on with his life rather quickly? Does he seem rather callous? "Why are you crying, you fool? " And then the Elder alludes to the fact that she might be disturbing her son, Alexei's grief. "Why must you disturb his bliss?" This statement must make Nastya's grief greater, but perhaps, she is afraid to say all of her feelings. My book speaks of the women bearing "a silent grief."

    HATS

    EloElose De Pelteau
    April 16, 2001 - 08:04 am
    Hi! I hope I can join you here. I read Russian authors usually in French. I was about 20 when I read Brothers Karamazov. I must find it again although I have to condition myself to not fall into their history of long sufferring. My heart breaks too easily.

    Have to go for now. I look forward to seeing some of you in Washington.

    Joan Pearson
    April 16, 2001 - 08:34 am
    Eloise , what a pleasant surprise! Welcome! We have discussed only the first 50 pages, so it shouldn't take you long to catch up. We don't even know the story, yet, except that there is a dispute between father and eldest son over the son's inheritance. In the meantime we are learning a lot of the cultural, political and religious climate in Russia during the 1870's.

    I think it's wonderful that you will be reading in French! Indeed, another translation providing insight into the meaning behind Dostoevesky's words! Go find it quick! We look forward to hearing from you! (...and we want to see ALL of you in Washington this year...or San Fran in 2002!)

    Hats, Natasha's husband tells her to stop crying (and calls her a fool); what does Zosima have to say about her insatiable weeping and mourning?

    ALF
    April 16, 2001 - 11:37 am
       Imagine witnessing the hordes of strangers that stood by the road sides for a glimpse of Christ or a blessing bestowed by him  ."Many of the women in the crowd were moved to tears of ecstasy by the effect of the moment: some strove to kiss the hem of his garment, others cried out in sing-song voices."

      Grief  feeds on the sense of its hopelessness.  
      Is this to say :  It is the futility,  the irreversibility,  that makes one's  mental suffering so acute?  Is that hopelessness that consumes and devours?     If one is heavyhearted or inconsolable does one   need to ingest the nourishment (?feed on) of unfortunate pessimism?

    Wailing, shrieking, possession-- it's simply semantics with the pain that must be endured .   Here is a soul who has lost her 4 children being told "Weep and be not consoled, but weep. Only every time that you weep be sure to remember that your little son is one of the angels of God, that he looks down from there at you and sees you,...."  Yeah, sure that would work for me.  It would take more than tears to purify MY heart.
     

    Hats
    April 16, 2001 - 01:33 pm
    Zosima understands Nastya's grief. Zosima says that Alexei is able to witness her pain from heaven. Zosima tells her to return home to her husband. This will make little Alexei rejoice in heaven. He wants to see mother and father together. Zosima does not tell Nastya to stop crying. He says her tears will be seen by Alexei and then, brought before God.

    Zosima does acknowledge that her horrible pain will be released in tears, but in someway, the tears will help her accept Alexei's place in heaven. "Weep, but every time you do, remember that your little son is one of God's angels,....You will shed a mother's tears for a long time to come, but in the end your weeping will turn into quiet joy..."

    When Zosima speaks of a "mother's tears," I am able to see his kindness. Zosima also says that her son lives because his soul is alive.

    The pain that this mother is feeling is so unimaginable. Zosima has to have great compassion just to face Nastya and to know what to say. He comes through because Nastya is able to turn around and go home. Nastya says that Zosima has "seen into her heart."

    HATS

    Hats
    April 16, 2001 - 01:44 pm
    Joan, the pain of losing four children is so great. Reading and never having experienced such pain leaves me not knowing what I would want to hear from Zosima or whether any of it would help me at the time. Nastya's experience is just overwhelmingly painful. That's all I know.

    I agree with Alf. "It would take more than tears to purify my heart."

    HATS

    Deems
    April 16, 2001 - 02:02 pm
    Welcome, Eloise!--It's good to have you with us, and, as Joan suggested, we have just begun so you are just in time. At present, we seem to be discussing Chapter 3, "Women of Faith."

    The scene with Zosima and Natasia who has lost the last of her four children, Alexei, at just three months short of three years old, touches me deeply. (Dostoevsky's own little son, Alexei, was exactly three months short of three years old when he died.)

    Let's not be too hard on the father, Nikitushka, since Natasia says that he was crying himself at the same time he was trying to get her to stop crying.

    I think Zosima handles the situation beautifully. He accepts Natasia's tears and knows that she will weep for some time to come, but he urges her to go home to her husband so that when their little son looks down at his home, he will see his parents together.

    Zosima also tells Natasia, "He's alive, surely he's alive, for the soul lives forever, and though he's not at home, he is invisibly near you. How, then, can he come to his home if you say you now hate your home? To whom will he go if he does not find you, his father and mother, together? You see him now in your dreams and are tormented, but at home he will send you quiet dreams. Go to your husband, mother, go this very day."

    Dostoevsky has been called a psychological writer of depth. I think we can see it here as Zosima plants a suggestion in Anatasia that, after she returns home, her son will send her quiet dreams.

    Maryal

    Deems
    April 16, 2001 - 02:09 pm
    What do you all think of Zosima's treatment of the woman who has come three hundred miles to see him and tell him that she killed her husband?

    Maryal

    EloElose De Pelteau
    April 16, 2001 - 02:19 pm
    Thanks Joan and Maryal for the warm welcome. I looked into my used book store today. He did not have it. I will try somewhere else. My library has only a small section on Russian authors.

    See ya. Eloïse

    Hats
    April 16, 2001 - 02:23 pm
    Hi Eloise, I hope you will find a copy of the book or bring us your past memories of the book.

    Maryal, Zosima is very kind to the woman with the cruel husband. Zosima speaks of love and forgiveness. Zosima says that God's love is infinite. Nothing that we can do, no sin, can make God forget us or stop loving us. He gives the woman a great deal of comfort. After traveling three hundred miles, I think she left greatly relieved.

    HATS

    Henry Misbach
    April 16, 2001 - 08:22 pm
    In answer to some of the questions posed:

    Fr. Zossima's advice to the women is much of it practical, or applied, Christianity. It's obvious that the peasant women tend to ail as a group, so he tends to treat them as a group, turning only one or two apparent "miracles" that are stock-in-trade for the group and the Church. Of course, he does this in the awareness that he comes under corporate disapproval for apparently letting the peasants get away with their little system of faked illnesses and miracle cures.

    I see not much understanding between the peasant women and the upperclass women except in one area: motherhood. The anguish of a mother over the death of her son or the illness of her daughter weighs the same.

    However, before I go any further along these lines, I have to hazard a theory about what this entire novel is really about. (Yeah, I know, no grand designs.) What this book primarily examines is institutionalized versus personal religion, more especially Christianity. On the personal level, it would be difficult to find major exception to Fr. Zossima's comments. Had he lived 100 years later, D. might have invented the word, "proactive," especially where he suggests that by actively loving one's neighbors one may simply leave no room for doubt to enter, thus staving off sundry crises of faith.

    In other places, D. scores some bullseyes that still have clout today. I haven't thought for many years about the occasion when it dawned on me, still early in the Anti-war movement of the '60's, that an almost exclusively Christian version had arisen. This came as a shock to some of my contemporaries, who thought their particular "take" on war and peace was the only valid one. When Miusov is reminiscing about his travels in Paris of the '48 uprising, he paraphrases a man he knew there as saying: "The socialist who is a Christian is more to be dreaded than a socialist who is an atheist." This passage, by the way caps a discussion of Church and State that presupposes each as an autonomous abstraction (not just walled buildings). Any time Ivan opens his mouth in this book, you have to go on special alert, because not a word of his is wasted in the novel's thematic content.

    That's why I found the book so interesting then, because it explored issues in a way that is hard to match anywhere.

    ALF
    April 16, 2001 - 09:16 pm
    Eloise" Check out the link that has been provided above, in purple, for the electronic link. At least that will keep you reading right along with us until your book arrives. It is quite well done.

    Traude
    April 16, 2001 - 09:36 pm
    Henry, your comments are lucid and greatly appreciated.

    Indeed, Dostoevsky asks the "eternal questions" in this book : Does God exist ? Why does he allow so much suffering ?

    The specific reference by old Karamazov to Friedrich Schiller's Robbers ("Die Raeuber") and spec. the feuding sons Karl and Franz Moor, are of some relevance here. As is the mention of Denis Diderot. (Old Karamazov is insufferable, but he is not altogether ignorant !)

    As for an earlier question, yes there was an enormous class difference in Russian society between the titled, the educated, and the unfortunate poor, forever destined to servitude, even after the emancipation of the serfs in 1861. (That is apparent from Tolstoy's novels as well.) The power structure and distribution of wealth shifted after the collapse of the Soviet system, but poverty is more widespread than ever.

    I receive periodic newsletters from the Teleios Foundation in Shrewsbury, NJ. Its president, The Rev. James C. McReynolds, who has taken people on pilgrimages to Russia for almost two decades, has established concrete financial assistance for "babushkas" (elderly women), children from poor families, orphans, seminary students and faculty (of the St. Petersburg Theological academy). His newest endeavor is the establishment of the St. Nicholas Home Care Servie to serve the elderly women in the St. Petersburg Babushka Program.

    The latest newsletter (received last month) features one seminary student, Mikhail Vasilievich Shatalov born in 1961, and his family. Let me quote one paragraph :

    "...Married to Olga Petrovna for 13 years, they have four children and another on the way. They live in a tyical St. Petersburg communal apartment, sharing the two rooms of the apartment with Olga's sister, Natalya. They have just the basic furnishings - a table, chairs, sofa, beds, cabinet, armoire and small refrigerator, but no sink or running water in their own rooms. They share the tiny kitchen and limited bath facilities with their neighbors in the communal apartment, one woman and an elderly babushka."

    ...." Mikhail Vasilievich hopes to graduate from the Academy in the spring of 2002."

    Joan Pearson
    April 17, 2001 - 03:25 am
    Good morning, all! Such a dreary rain, but your welcome exhiliarating posts are a sunny wake-up for the day!

    Henry, your post is a call to step back and look for a few minutes at the big picture before we get into a discussion of what this novel is about, and then the specifics of how Dostoevsky is beginning to lay this out for us in Book two...

    The Church and the State in Russia...where does Dostoevsky fit into the political upheaval that is has been going on in Russia since the emancipation of the serfs in 1861? He had played a big part, influenced by the "radical ideas" entering Russia from the West (we have Miusov voicing these ideas in Brothers K). Dostoevsky became affiliated with those who wanted to revolutionize Russia with reforms. He became known as the rebel-writer. He was a champion of the poor and considered Socialism the way of uniting and overcoming the oppressive circumstances in which they had been living.

    He was arrested and convicted of treason for his articles, condemned to death by the firing squad...at the last second, was granted a reprieve by the Tsar, who had only meant to teach him a lesson. He was banished to a hard life of poverty in Siberia for many years...and it was there his entire outlook changed when he came into contact with the very poor.

    He had his first epileptic seizure and underwent spiritual changes. He began to reject the new ideas on the socialism of which he had written. He came out of Siberia with the conviction that Russia's future was in the hands of the common people, the poor, believing that their suffering would purify them.

    Henry's theory..."this book is really about institutionalized versus personal religion"...gets to where we are now. The institutionalized Church is not as concerned with the purification of the suffering poor, it appears...but rather maintaining its lands and political position in the face of the growing popularity of Socialism. So institutionalized religion does not fit into Dostoevsky's view of Russia's future. The new religion must appeal to the socialist..."The socialist who is a Christian is more to be dreaded than a socialist who is an atheist." Why? We can talk more about this in the next chapter. But it seems obvious that a personal religion that reaches right into the cares and concerns of the would-be atheist is more effective than anything else...Christ in the midst of these people...that's the role Zosima is playing here. Let's spend one more day looking at the poor, the poor who have the faith as championed by Dostoevsky and then the rich, the landowner, who has little faith.

    Traude you write of the enormous class difference in Russian society and the eternal questions Dostoevsky asks in this book..."Does God exist? Why does he allow so much suffering?" This will be the theme. Dostoevsky comes out of Siberia a believer, and a believer in the cleansing, the purification of suffering that will be the salvation of the poor and therefore the salvation of Russia. In other words, the future of Russia depends on what happens to the poor and the poor will survive only through there suffering.

    Please excuse me...I'm thinking out loud...blame yourselves, your inspiring posts are to blame!

    ps. Traudee, the Teleios newsletter is such a window directly into the real world of the recently emancipated Russian people. My husband has had dealings with the Ukraine bureacracy in Kiev...and the conditions are so bad right now it is a question of survival. These people were so accustommed to having the state care for them, they have no means of support since the break-up of the empire. The corruption! I found it interesting that Mikhail Vasilievich, who is living with so little for his family, is a seminary student!

    The salvation of Russia today? Will democracy work? Is her salvation the people of Russia? Eventually?

    Joan Pearson
    April 17, 2001 - 03:59 am
    Alf, isn't that the truth! I like the fact that Zosima doesn't pooh pooh the grief factor...doesn't say "dry your tears...trust in God. Your babies are happy now." He recognizes the pain of the loss, but provides with such confidence the certainty that there is an afterlife, that the child is not only among the angels, can see her tears, but needs to see her with her husband, his father. In other words, needs to see her carry on. All is not hopeless.As Maryal notes, this loss of Natasha's three-year old Alexei is particularly touching as Doestoevsky has just lost his own little Alexei who was also three. He knows the grief of which he writes.

    A little biographical note: Dostoevski married his 22 year old stenographer in 1867 when he was 46, their little Alexei died in 1878, three years before Dostoeveski died at the age of 60. Here's a letter he wrote to his brother at the death of Alexei...
    My very dear brother Nikolay Mikhaylovich, today our Alyosha died from a sudden attack of epilepsy, which he had never had before, Yesterday, he was till merry, sang, ran around, and today he is laid out for burial. The attack startd at 9:30 in the morning and at 2:30 Lyoshechka died. He will be buried Thursday........I have never felt so sad. We all grieve.
    Your brother, F. Dostoevsky


    Dostovesky seems to speak through Zosima when he consels these poor suffering women...you will find relief in your faith. God's love is infinite...no sin can take away God's love, he tells the woman who murdered her husband as Hats reminds us....Hats, isn't this what Zosoma was saying inside his cell to Karamazov? Be yourself, stop lying, stop acting, be your natural self, don't be ashamed. You are loved. God's love is infinite.

    You will find relief in your faith!

    So Henry, we are back to the common thread that holds both the poor and the wealthy together...their concern for their children. But the gentlewoman, Mme. Khokhlakov, does not share the faith that the poor women have shown. She confesses to Zosima that she has little faith. Why is she here to see Zosima if this is the case?

    Can we listen more closely and then talk about what she has to say today ~ and Zosima'a advice to her...We'd better keep an eye on Alyosha and Mme. K's daughter, Lise too, while we're at it.

    Then tomorrow we can try to decipher what Ivan is saying about the relationship between Church and State.~ and finally meet the tardy Dmitri!

    EloElose De Pelteau
    April 17, 2001 - 04:42 am
    HATS, ALF. Thanks for the advice. I will read from the link for now.

    What I remember of Br. Kamarazov was that it was passionate, violent, loving and destructive all at once. I started reading Russian authors after that. Some of it I remember vaguely.

    I am not an analytical woman by nature. I let my gut feeling guide me when I get engrossed in a book. A famous French author, Henri Troyat was born in Russia, but came early to France, now is a member of the Académie Française, he wrote Henri Troyat's biography in such a compelling way that you can almost say that you knew Tolstoy intimately.

    The Russian language is constructed somewhat like the French language. Ex: English "My blue dress, in French "Ma robe bleue" with the adjective after the noun. Puchkine was the first writer who wrote in Russian, it was felt that it was a peasant's language, the aristocracy only spoke and wrote French.

    So little time in one short day. Have to go. Love Eloïse

    Hats
    April 17, 2001 - 05:30 am
    Thinking about Zosima this morning, I feel that he gives emotional healing, healing of the heart, more than healing of the body. For such pain, the loss of a child or a murdered husband, Zosima's "healing words" will last longer in their minds. He gives them something they can not buy to carry home with them.

    HATS

    Hats
    April 17, 2001 - 06:02 am
    Mrs. Khokhlakov seems to hold herself apart from the poorer class of women. She acts as though they are a separate species, and she must take time to observe them under a microscope. She calls them "ordinary people." She looks at the women and admits she "wants" to love them. That sentence hints that she finds it difficult to love them, but she is striving to love them.

    Although her words sound kind, I detect a note of superiority in her words.

    Joan, may I call her Mrs. K?

    HATS

    Hats
    April 17, 2001 - 09:03 am
    Barbara, my translation does not mention murder. Isn't that interesting? I received that information from everyone else who posted. Did she just imagine committing the murder or did she carry out the deed? In my book, the woman speaks of being beaten and then,

    "So when he lay sick, I looked at him and I said to myself: 'If he gets better, he'll get up and then what?; And that is when the thought came to me...."

    So, the reader is left to wonder or imagine what great "sin" did she confess to the elder, Zosima. I wonder does it add, in some way, to the story to know what exact crime the woman committed. How did Dostoevsky wish the lines to be read? I guess different translations make reading far more interesting.

    HATS

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    April 17, 2001 - 09:04 am
    I haven't got this yet - when there are arrows pointing to a philosophy but I'm not sure I have the philosophy nailed. Something, was it Hats that asked, about the woman that murdered her husband and what did we think - followed by the personal and state religion that Henry brought up got my head in a whirl.

    First - Zossima the mystic, seems to comfort out of love, a love that emanates from his faith that is unleashed by acting in love. My question when I read of the woman that walked 300 miles because of the newly felt quilt over killing her husband was 'What crime?' Was the crime hers for protecting herself from what I saw as serious a crime, physically abusing - which trains someone to give up their soul in favor of pleasing their perpetrator. Is life or ones soul of more value?

    Than I looked at the chapter and it is all about administering the love of God to women, women in pain. Some seem less serious a problem than others. Was this woman the scapegoat for an act that many women feel. Did many women feel the unspoken, that they would like to murder their husband and seeing this on paper supported their feelings. Now that this feeling was acknowledged the act of murder was no longer a secret unspoken fantasy. The act is no longer needed since a man, Dostoevsky, acknowledges the brutality that prompts this act of self-defense and in a book absolves women of this feeling. While absolving the woman he is also acknowledging and absolving the slave/serfs who had similar feeling to murder their abusive owners, so called protectors.

    What is amazing in the space of these two chapters, Women of Faith and A Lady of Little Faith we go from anguish to the "comic." This back and forth seems to be a devise Dostoevsky used to highlight Fyodor versus, the staid, more traditional in manner Miusov.

    Something about all this says that the old way is being ridiculed by allowing those (both the cousin, lady landowner and Fyodor) owners of Russian land and therefore, the past owners of serfs, to act childlike and comical. The woman that walked 300 miles is representing murdering the old acceptable behavior of wife beating, and brings to a reader's mind the landowner's culture where serfs where beaten.

    So that this bit - these chapters centered around Zossima, is showing the change in Russia from the Medieval thinking that goes with serfdom and the newer freedom of personal independence that will mean a change in a relationship with God.

    Now the people had "rights," against which authorities could not assert their supremacy.- Blind obedience ceased to be a virtue (as the woman murdered the one that expected slave like blind obedience)

    In someways even Zossima represents the old ways. His quarters are free from the material comforts that the new thinking was assimilating and seeing as a responsible individual goal rather than just achieving spiritual wealth. Miusov the "Parisian, such a progressive-minded gentleman...glanced at all this "officialism,"..."Not that you're the King." suggesting that the king, not the representative of the church, is the power to honor and university life rather than, study in the monastery devoted to simple Faith and love, are the prefered way.

    With the freedom of the serfs and the change from Medieval thinking the material world was no longer seen as the province of the devil. In the story we have mixed, waiting for Zossima, equally the peasant women and the land class women. And yet, those women that would free themselves from their traditional role, to enter the convent or stay on their pilgrimage, are urged to give up their freedom and return to their traditional role. At least these woman were not being accused of the "sin" of pride that Medieval society used to ridicule anyone that acted from their own creativity.

    Hats
    April 17, 2001 - 09:16 am
    I found these lines interesting. "Their is among peasants a dumb and long-suffering grief that is bottled up inside them and stifled. But there is also a grief that bursts out, first in sobs, then in wailing-fits of wailing. This happens mostly to women. But it is no easier to bear than the silent grief. The wailing only assuages by further lacerating and exasperating the heart....The wailing simply satisfies the constant need to irritate the wound."

    This thinking seems so different from our way of thinking in the western world, at this time. Don't we think or are we taught that it is better to release our pain as a sort of catharsis? Aren't we taught to "bottle" up our pain only causes physical illnesses? I think these women were "dying" of unreleased stress. Are part of these lines saying that the women wail only to get some sort of attention? I feel that the Russian woman was not understood. Her only satisfaction or understanding came from the church, from Zosima. How did the rest of society feel about the Russian woman?

    HATS

    Joan Pearson
    April 17, 2001 - 01:39 pm
    Hats, are you saying you'd rather not spell out Mme. Khuhlakhov each time? hahaha...sure call her Mrs. K if you like...there is no Mrs. Karamazov at this time, so we'll know who you are talking about.

    Her biggest problem in life...she lacks faith. She says she believes there is a God, that God gives Zosima the power to heal Lise, but that she does not believe there is an after life. What's more, and I thought this was interesting, when she looks around, she sees that nobody worries about it anymore. Hmmmm...Is she referring to the elite, the wealthy landowners?

    Zosima tells her that she fill find faith in the hereafter if she loves her neighbor,selflessly. That's how he describes "active love"! She finds that hard. It is, isn't it? She wants to love the people, the beautiful Russian people, but worries if she gets close to them to help them and they aren't grateful she will no longer love them. She requires gratitude and she requires public applause.

    Mrs. K does hold herself apart from the shrieking, weeping women. She simply does not suffer as they do. She doesn't understand their pain. How can she love them? What would you advise you do?

    If I were Mme. K, I'd start a conversation with just one of them...quietly, withoug claiming center stage and see if there was anything I could do to help...even a meal and some conversation about children might help. Her own problems with Lise seem so trivial in comparison, don't they? What's going on with Lise anyway?

    Joan Pearson
    April 17, 2001 - 01:50 pm
    Barbara, as we continue to ponder the meaning of Zosima's ministry, I find something that you said very interesting..."In some ways even Zossima represents the old ways."

    I waiver between looking upon him as Dostoevsky's ideal of what the new Christian church ministry should be...so then he would represent the future. But then we are told he is part of a dying breed...that elders were once prevalent, and now he is one of the last. And he is sick (have we learned what his illness is yet?) and his days are said to be numbered. There is concern within the monastery because they have no relics...nothing to attract the pilgrims except the elder! Does he represent the new or the old??? I have a feeling he regards Alyosha as his successor, that Alyosha represents the future, and yet in this chapter, Zosima seems prepared to let him go...

    betty gregory
    April 17, 2001 - 03:05 pm
    Zossima, on whether he represents the new or old ways.

    Maybe it is his exclusivity that is the old way, that only a limited number of people are able to receive his help. Or...is it the old way because people look to him and not to God directly? I wonder if there were many Rasputin types, if some elders were disruptive influences? I'm keeping in mind, too, that distinction mentioned, the difference between a church-run (traditional) State (not good) and the church coming first in people's lives...don't know how this would affect elders.

    Deems
    April 17, 2001 - 03:25 pm
    Is it possible that Zosima represents the Old Ways and the New Ways that Dostoevsky hopes for? Surely he lives his religion, showing love and concern for the people, including the peasants. Zosima, seems to me, represents the best of the church. He lives in the monastery, but apart from it and is not integrated into the Institutionalized Church, represented by The Abbot.

    For reasons that I cannot explain, Zosima reminds me a little of brother Cadfael (played by Derek Jacobi)--anyone remember him from Mystery?

    Of course, the comparison is not perfect. Brother Cadfael is far more worldly and less aescetic than Zosima. But there are enough brothers on that series for us to see how very different they can be from each other. Some are genuinely committed and others seem to be after power and even worldly goods.

    Maryal

    Traude
    April 17, 2001 - 03:32 pm
    Apparently I just did it again --- jumped too far ahead !

    My only defense is my extreme irritation at the English translation I have before me, which I find wanting - to put it charitably. So I decided to plunge head-on into the rest of Book Two. Total immersion, don't you see ! It was that or dropping out of the discussion altogether.

    Indeed, we might all fearlessly WADE into the text, take in as much as we are being told, take notes- or not, and THEN come back with an enhanced understanding and broader deliberation. Always at the discretion of the Dls, of course.

    But until all of the Karamazovs at least have been heard from, directly !, any evaluation of meanings, political or religious, remains tentative and incomplete.



    In my translation, Book Two ends at page 80. And there are 729 pages in all.



    The French encyclopedist Denis Diderot is mentioned in Book Two Chapter 1. Schiller's Robbers is referred to in Chapter 6 of Book Two. Dostoevsky was much taken with Schiller's plays and read "Die Raeuber" (Robbers) aloud to his children -- who did not understand it, says the biographer Leonid Grossman.



    Several strands are woven together in the narrative of the BK; the time frame is important : The novel was serialized beginning in 1878 and the author placed the action 13 years earlier : 1865.

    At that time, the Russian Populists ( narodniki ) still consisted of the 'enlightened' gentry who tried (without success) to forge a political bond with the 'common people' in order to bring about a social reorganization, a restructuring if you will. University unrest emerged as a political force --- in fact, it has been used numerous times since elsewhere as a political force. But the movement, contemptuous of the 1840's liberal activities of "all talk, no action", was headed by idealists who had little practical knowledge. That is the historical time frame.

    Traude
    April 17, 2001 - 03:43 pm
    Sorry the italicizing did not stop when I had wanted it to.



    As for question 5 : the people - mostly women it seems, had come to the monastery to seek help from and pay homage to the elder, a clairvoyant saint of renown. Some may have waited a long time, some had been there before.

    I can see nervous excitement, subsequent relief and rapt attention to every detail that could be overheard. But I see no humor.

    As for Mrs. K., we could call her Lise's mother ...

    Traude
    April 17, 2001 - 03:48 pm
    Pleae note words missing from my post # 471 :

    "historical TIME FRAME."

    I still do not understand why editing typos e.g. results in the loss of words the second time around.

    Joan Pearson
    April 17, 2001 - 05:46 pm
    Traude, I'll put the words into your post for you...do you use Explorer or Netscape? Sometimes Explorer gobbles up bits of my sentences when I'm editing too. It drives me crazy. I'm not sure what you mean by italicizing though.

    Yes, I do remember talking about Diderot last week...Karamazov made up the silly story about his christening. But what of Schiller? Please share what you know of him and the influence that he had on Dostoevsky and this novel?

    I saw a play not long ago, Don Carlos, written by Schiller. Wasn't he an 18th - very early 19th century German writer?

    Betty, you think the elders were loose canons, and pardon the mixed metaphors, thorns in the side of the institutional Church? I do too. Not really answering to anyone! Perhaps a tradition of the past. But why are they dying out now? Perhaps because religious fervor is dying due to the wave of Liberal socialiast reforms?

    Now Maryal, isn't it just like you to come up with a perfect analogy...Brother Cadfael! Of course I remember him...and I think that in so many ways the Elder is as earthly in his understanding and acceptance of human nature and failings! Tell me, are elders free to wander, or are they cloistered in the monastery?

    I didn't see humor in the any of the tales of the peasant women, but couldn't help but remember uncontrollable laughter when I was 14 ~ when Lise couldn't help herself even in the presence of the great personnage her mother brought her to see. Do you remember a laughing episode like this?

    Even Zosima had to smile and playfully call her a "naughty girl." Lise chides Alyosha about the old days when he used to carry her around, teach her to read...I wonder where that was? Does anyone know? Surely not in the town where his father lives...Alyosha hasn't been there that long, has he?

    Why do you suppose Zosima decides to let Alyosha go? Surely not because of this giggling adolescent! Was it because of the letter she brought from Katharina who wanted to him to visit her? Or was it because Alyosha was blushing when talking to the little girl? Were they flirting? He's 20, she's 14? Hmmmmmmmmmmmm

    Henry Misbach
    April 17, 2001 - 06:32 pm
    I think all of you will find that Dostoevsky's novels do not fit any single political or religious grand design, nor any narrowly circumscribed one either. His characters have a way of wringing out the possibilities of a given line of thought--and nothing is too hot for them to consider--then drop exasperatingly into type. The important thing is that he does entertain the "unacceptable" line of thought.

    Alyosha? Playing around or even thinking about it? Gimme a break.

    As an example of unacceptable theories, look at the discussion between Ivan and the churchmen. At first, they can't see anything in his notions of a truly Christian society except the most outrageous form of Popery. This is because they cannot see beyond the institutional framework they harbor in their minds as a lifelong commitment. Then Miusov, from a somewhat more modernist point of view, can't see how any of Ivan's theory can take place until and short of the Second Coming. He scoffs at it as Utopian. Yet, I suspect that if we scoff at it, we scoff at Dostoevsky. And Miusov comes around to the extent that he admits that Christian socialism could be a strong combination.

    But the issues aren't really settled--and they won't be.

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    April 17, 2001 - 07:55 pm
    I guess what struck me was the whole time this serious discussion with help that was so profound from Zosima was offered, he was aware that Lisa was acting childish, flirting and laughing at an embarrassed Alyosha - this seemed to me to be a repeat of Zosima offering again some serious and profound thoughts to Fyodor.
    A man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point where he does not discern any truth in himself or anywhere around him, and thus falls into disrespect towards himself and others. Not respecting anyone, he ceases to love, and having no love, he gives himself up to passions and coarse pleasures, on order to occupy and amuse himself, and in his vices reaches complete bestiality, and it all comes from lying continually to others and to himself. A man who lies to himself is often the first to take offense. It sometimes feels very good to take offense, doesn't it? ...etc. page 44
    It may be because we already had been offered a view of Fyodor as the clown that we did not see Zosima's position as similar to his position with Lisa. But again we have someone acting childish and silly to the embarrassment of others as these great kind pearls of wisdom flow from the mouth of Zosima.

    To me what Dostoevsky is showing is that a faith based religion expressed in love has little room for the intellect grounded in European education. Both Alyosha and Miusov are embarrassed. We know that Miusov is French educated, a man of scientific learning. And the peasant women that Zosima does affect seem to represent 'wo/man's' sinful acts based in the old thinking centered in the Medieval concept of blind obedience.

    With freedom comes the necessity of confidence in one's own ability to create something entirely new and significant in the world. Therefore, faith in an elder who heals, allows you to "feel better," but is not offering individuals the tools or the blessings to question God, nor the beliefs of the church therefore, is asking for blind obedience to God, the elder, the church.

    Another clue to me That Zosima represents a old way is, in the corner of the reception room, or living room, was an Icon from before the schism. As I understand the schism was about the nature and adoration of Icons.

    I'm seeing this not as a prelude to socialism but as the change from the Medieval thinking that incorporated the use of serfs and slaves to a time of individual responsibility for actions, beliefs, and contributions to society. A new time when investigation of the world is valued; the world, nature and human worldly needs are no longer seen as the province of Satan. With any changed system, questions are asked - what is bad and what is good.

    During the Renaissance, materialism, anti-authoritarianism, human rights, the idea of the individual, the emergence of the body, all of these burst on the scene almost all of a piece. The Great Chain of Being was never the same again.

    Russia during the nineteenth century is having their belated Renaissance. Music, ballet, literature, poetry, science, all express a theme other than the concepts of a people isolated from each other, that was romanticized because of such a strict class system that the writers and creators of art could only imagine what the other classes where feeling and doing. In addition a nation, isolated, with little contact to the thinking of west only came into its own with a western recognized theme of everyman during the nineteenth century.

    Russia could finally read a Dostoevsky, who immediatly received great acclaim, with his existentialist views where individuals accept all responsibility for their actions and do not beg forgiveness.

    Joan Pearson
    April 18, 2001 - 07:46 am
    Oh ho, cool green Henry , leave it to you to keep us on track!
    "Alyosha? Playing around or even thinking about it? Gimme a break."


    hahaha...okay, he probably was flirting with silly Lise, but he was blushing and stammering and giggling a bit himself, wasn't he? In other words, he is drawn to her, and is responding to this young girl in a manner that a future cleric would not?

    Barb, that's an interesting comparison you make between F.Karamazov and Lise's behavior in the Elder's presence, as he gives them words of counsel ~ neither appear to be listening, so taken with their own performances! Until the truth bursts forth in response to his words, "Im silly and good for nothing...and perhaps Alyosha is right, in not wanting to come and see such a ridiculous girl."

    This seems to convince the Elder to send Alyosha to her..."I will certainly send him." Why? What does he see in Alyosha's future?

    I'm interested to hear more about this "Renaissance" taking place in Russia in the 1870's too.

    Joan Pearson
    April 18, 2001 - 08:48 am
    But Henry, there was something else in your post that leaves brings much relief...and for this I am really grateful! After struggling through, and rereading Ivan's argument for the State becoming incorporated into the Church and trying to figure the logic of how this would be accomplished, your post made me step back and realize that Ivan is just talking!!! He's not seriously proposing such a Church-State at all! In fact, we still don't know where he really stands by the end of Chapter V. Nor does he, I'll venture. Miusov can't understand, neither can Fr. Paissy! Ivan is having a good time talking about how the whole issue of punishment for one's crime would differ if it were up to the Church to take over the matter.

    But there are gems within this chapter, aren't there?...Ivan's words on the whole subject of the immortality of the soul! This seems to be echoing Mrs. K's problem, her lack of faith that there is an after life and the immortality of the soul. What were your reactions to Chapter V, So Be It! So Be It!...is the this title for Chapter V in your translation?

    Traude
    April 18, 2001 - 10:47 am
    Joan,



    the schedule now given in the header for the assigned reading extends only to chapters 5 and 6 of Book Two. (I thought the earlier schedule included chapter 8, i.e. the end of Book Two.) The questions in the header have been changed or updated.



    Yes, the title of chapter 5 is SO BE IT ! SO BE IT ! also in my translation (which does NOT use Roman numerals).

    Re Chapter 3, titled PEASANT WOMEN WHO HAVE FAITH.

    During the "audience" with the holy man (if that term is permissible), the lowly women did demonstrate faith.

    As for the "exhausted, consumptive-looking though young peasant woman" who "besought him" with her "glowing eyes" (but) was "afraid to approach the Elder", she had come for ABSOLUTION OF HER SOUL. The passage is relatively short and bears rereading.

    These are the narrative facts : The woman had been a widow for 3 years; her husband, a cruel man, AN OLD MAN, had regularly beaten her. As he lay ill she wondered what would happen if he were to recover, AND THEN THE THOUGHT CAME TO HER ... (whispered to the Elder, unheard by anyone else and certainly UNread).

    I am with HATS; nowhere is "murder" mentioned. She may have had murder in her heart (and who could blame her ?) but if there had been the slightest doubt in whatever hamlet they lived that she played a role in her husband's death, accusations would have been made long before she undertook the pilgrimage to ask the Elder to absolve her soul.

    A studied, deliberate contrast (to the faithful peasant women!) is presented in Chapter 4 : A Lady of Little Faith.

    Lise's mother, the society woman, had quite obviously a reason OTHER than to see the Elder about Lise. Was it possibly to deliver the message by Katerina Ivanovna (remember that name !!!) to Alyosha ? I think we should keep our reading eyes peeled on Katerina Ivanovna AND on the precocious Lise ...



    Another word of caution : the dialectic discourse in theological matters has only just begun and is far from over.

    Barbara, as for the "rights" of people -- there really weren't any in the Russia of the day !!

    The reference to

    Schiller

    appears in Chapter 6, so it might be permissible to explain it to further the reader's understanding.

    However, I am well aware of the need to restrict all reference points to what is absolutely essential and relevant in this complicated book. I am working on a concise formulation now.

    Traude
    April 18, 2001 - 11:15 am
    Since I have demonstrably little luck with editing, may I simply add a thought here :

    I should have underlined my "word of caution" because the DIALECTIC discourse has really only just begun, we have yet to hear views from other protagonists before getting too exercised ! There is so very much to ponder and I don't know how much more emphatically I can express the thought. By all means, let's keep on reading.

    Deems
    April 18, 2001 - 11:21 am
    I think that it is strongly implied that this peasant woman--who indeed whispers whatever she did to Zosima--hastened her husband's end. It would not have been difficult to do. He was an old man; he was very ill. Poisons were known and suffocation is relatively easy if the victim is very ill. I don't think there would have been any inquiries into the death if it were known in the village that the husband was very ill. Many husbands died.

    What I find interesting is that it appears to be only recently that the wife has felt guilt. She must have felt profound relief that he was gone those first couple of years. And then the guilt set in.

    Maryal

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    April 18, 2001 - 11:46 am
    OK Joan he is my understanding of "The Renaissance of Russia" based on my interest and study of music and remembering what I learned in school and my earlier research that I shared above. -

    Russian music took a leap forward in the nineteenth century. Up until Peter The Great there was church music, (plainchant Hymns, polyphony, one voice and another or others simultaneously decorate and embellish the plainchant. Ars Nova, which manipulated rhythm and melodic intervals in isolation from each other.) We have no Russian equivalent of Bach but go directly to Peter stocking St. Petersburg with western artists, architects and musicians, who brought to aristocratic amateur concerts; Italian light Opera, and light Viennese and Italian style instrumental music.

    After the defeat of Napoleon, Russian writers and musicians decide to cultivate a Russian expression of art. Russian Composers 19c. In the nineteenth century we have the conservatory training musicians in Germanic music with all the leading musicians producing orchestral works.

    Prior to the nineteenth century there was several problems inhibiting the writer. The language of writing was different than the language spoken by even the educated and therefore, not suitable for fine literature. Those works produced were about the history, wars and especially the lives of the Saints and Church Literature. Until Peter the Great the Church was the power of Russia. Literature until the early nineteenth century was written as poetry.

    Pushkin is the first writer that embraces the common language as well as he shares the influence of European education with other Russians. Pushkin's most important work during the 1820s was Eugene Onegin, which is widely regarded as his masterpiece and Russia's first important novel.

    Mikhail Yurievich Lermontov, a poet and novelist, was born in 1814 is considered Russia's answer to Romanticism. Romanticism explains art as an unexplainable phenomenon, produced by a person who enjoys some mysterious gift or talent. The art is therefore unique and is therefore thought of as a reflection of the highest level of human culture and is a means to expressing wisdom.

    We also have Pushkin and Lermontov's contemporary, Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol. He brings humor and irony to the Russian reader. Gogol had exposed the corruption of the provincial land-holding class. As a satirist, Gogol portrays with exaggeration, the theme of the disadvantaged average man as the victim of an uncaring, offensive and power-crazy Russian official society.

    By the middle of the 1840s, encouraged by Pushkin and the achievements of Gogol and Lermontov, prose fiction enjoys the success held by poetry as a medium of literary expression in Russia.

    Than we have Vissarion Grigorievich Belinsky pushing for a more democratic society followed by "THE" realist, Fyodor Dostoevsky, who wrote with an interest in characters as social types, learned by his life experiences in prison, Siberia, traveling and living abroad and his personal painful life experiences.

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    April 18, 2001 - 11:57 am
    How much "rights" the peasant exercized is one thing but the freedom of the serfs, in 1861 created the peasent community. The system changed, from that which accompanied the philosophy of the Middle Ages to a time of individual responsiblity. How much freedom the peasant adapted to me is not the issue - to me the issue is what is Dostoevsky saying about the behavior of his characters. We know that Dostoevsky is an Existentialist and especially his later writings is filled with this philosophy.

    Hats
    April 18, 2001 - 12:23 pm
    About crime, Ivan and the elder seem to agree that without a spiritual change of heart a criminal can not change. Criminality will appear over and over again in the state if only capital punishment is enforced or some physical punishment. In other words, the state can not control crime, only the church can restrain crime. Therefore, without the church, man is hopeless.

    Removing crime goes farther than intellectual understanding or new political reforms. It takes the heart of Christ.

    "As to Rome, they proclaimed a state instead of a church a full thousand years ago. Hence, a criminal there cannot consider himself a member of the Church. He is excommuicated and sinks into despair. And if he does return to society, he is so full of hatred that it is he, as it were, who excommunicates society from himself."

    HATS

    Deems
    April 18, 2001 - 02:16 pm
    The whole issue about excommunication has me thinking. What a difference between this time period in Russia and our own.

    I wonder what percentage of criminals would be bothered by excommunication today---or would even have heard of it, for that matter!

    I think that Ivan is an intellectual who loves to punt ideas around. I do not take his arguments seriously because I suspect they are academic exercizes for him. He is ranging around in the realm of ideas, but his ideas do not seem to have practical consequences. They float around in the ether.

    Maryal

    betty gregory
    April 18, 2001 - 02:31 pm
    Barbara, could you or anyone else speak to your description of Dostoevsky as "THE realist," and as an existentialist. Are these well accepted views of him?

    Isn't it interesting that writers of his time were so political, that the "great" Russian writers, as we think of them today, captured in stories the monumental political thoughts/shifts of their times. Maybe the same is just as true of today's writers, everywhere, and I'm too close in time to see it.

    Traude, the discussion schedule is too slow for me, too, but, hey, I get antsy after two weeks into a month-long (complete) discussion!! So, I'm afraid I'm not a good judge of anything longer by design. What I'm doing, strictly as a test, is being part lurker, part poster...just to see if I can't enjoy, enjoy with no expectations on speed, etc. Also, though I shouldn't speak for Maryal and Joan, this first very slow part seems about right to let several get acclimated to a more serious and longer work. If I were reading Brothers K for the first time, it might seem just right.

    Or, maybe you weren't commenting on speed, but too-soon summing? Speaking just for myself, I love first guesses, then revisions as we go. For me, wondering about context can't be put off, even if my first thoughts are premature. Some of our early conceptions are awfully interesting (for any book), I think, sometimes telling us as much about ourselves as the author/book. I'm thinking about the House of Sand and Fog and House of Mirth discussions, where our views of characters and authors changed drastically and often.

    betty

    Joan Pearson
    April 18, 2001 - 02:36 pm
    Barbara! You will never cease to amaze! I have been wondering about the reception, the impact Brothers K had on the readers of The Russian Messenger ...and voila, you have just presented the society in a nutshell. It would appear the public was ready for BK...and this wasn't the first time they had heard from Dostoevsky on his views! Still, this is a hot topic, isn't it?

    He seems to have simmered down the society in which he lives into two general categories...well, maybe three! The believers, those who have faith ("faith" seems to mean those who believe in the immortality of the soul); those who do not; those who are struggling to make up their minds!

    The peasant women are definitely the believers...their fears all center on death and whether they will be saved. The woman who came hundreds of miles to confess her sin and receive absolution tells the elder, "I have saved sinned. I am afraid of my sin." She has done something terrible to this husband, so terrible that she has already confessed twice before, already received absolution and still doesn't believe she deserves forgiveness. What does the Elder say to her that quiets her, as she bows to the ground at his words? Was it enough for her, do you think?

    Then there's Lise's mother, Mme. Khokhlakov, who speaks to the elder about her lack of faith in immortality. She tells him no one seems to be concerned with this any more. Is she sincere? If so, she falls into the third category of those who are struggling with the issue.

    This leads us to Ivan's discourse on crime and punishment that Hats brings up...the whole idea of belief in immortality forms the basis of punishment. His argument seems to go something like this:

    If you don't believe in the immortality of the soul, then love for fellow man dies, nothing at all is immoral (even cannibalism!), and anything is permissable."


    What are YOUR thoughts on this logic?

    Joan Pearson
    April 18, 2001 - 02:53 pm
    Geeee Betty, we are typing along together! I'd like to address this "slow start"! We began this discussion two weeks ago yesterday. In between we've had "spring break" and many people writing and saying they can't keep up! I do think we will be able to finish Book II right on schedule, but am not in a hurry to do so. Once we get all the groundwork formed, and the story begins in earnest, we will be able to speed things up...maybe! There is no need to rush. If folks wish to return to make a point or an observation or a connection to what we have talked about last week, we can surely stop and listen and learn. Keep in mind that Maryal and I both work...and keeping up with the fine minds here is a full time job too! Your method of lurking/posting sounds a good one for those who have already gone ahead!

    I have found a few sites with more background information for those who like this sort of thing...I like to get into the period as much as possible in these adventures...here's one from this source,


    The reign of Nicholas I (1825-1855) was a period of conservatism. He emphasized Orthodoxy and nationalism while the middle class called for reforms. Fearing a revolution, the Tsar formed a separate political secret police squad known as the Third Department to root out subversives. This forced the radicals, such as those in The Devils,(a play by Dostoevsky) to meet in small underground groups. The Tsar's paranoia soon became so great that he enforced censorship of books, kept enrollment at the country's six universities down to a mere 4000 students, and forbid foreign travel. All in an effort to stop the influx of radical ideas from the newly liberated Europe.

    The call for reforms intensified after the crushing defeat of the Russian army during the Crimean War (1854-55). With Alexander II now on the throne, the Emancipation of the Serfs finally took place in 1861, but there was still extreme poverty and no legal or social equality. University students who had already adopted Nihilism, which forecasted a new social order constructed on the ruins of the old, began to spread these doctrines across the countryside. Revolutionary movements occurred throughout the 1860s and 70s, resulting in several attempts on the Tsar's life. One group succeeded on March 1, 1881 with a bombing at the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, fatally wounding Alexander II. The edges of the Russian Empire were beginning to crumble. (This is the year Dostoevsky died>)

    Dostoevsky's times were a dramatic turning point for Russia. Although the Imperial system continued to rule society, religion and education, the tide of revolution could not be stopped. Ironically, the political unrest that began as early as 1813 would come to fruition just over a hundred years later, ultimately leading to the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. Nicholas II, grandson of Alexander II, would be the last Tsar to wear the crown.


    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Joan Pearson
    April 18, 2001 - 02:54 pm
    Geeee Betty, we are typing along together! I'd like to address this "slow start"! We began this discussion two weeks ago yesterday. In between we've had "spring break" and many people writing and saying they can't keep up! I do think we will be able to finish Book II right on schedule by Monday, but am not in a hurry to do so. Once we get all the groundwork, and the story begins in earnest, we will be able to speed things up...maybe! There is no need to rush. If folks wish to return to make a point or an observation or a connection to what we have talked about last week, we can surely stop and listen and learn. Keep in mind that Maryal and I both work...and keeping up with the fine minds here is a full time job too! Your method of lurking/posting sounds a good one for all who have already gone ahead!

    I have found a few sites with more background information for those who like this sort of thing...to add to Barbara's detailed post! I like to get into the period as much as possible in these adventures...here's one from this source, Dostoevsky's Russia


    The reign of Nicholas I (1825-1855) was a period of conservatism. He emphasized Orthodoxy and nationalism while the middle class called for reforms. Fearing a revolution, the Tsar formed a separate political secret police squad known as the Third Department to root out subversives. This forced the radicals, such as those in The Devils,(a play by Dostoevsky) to meet in small underground groups. The Tsar's paranoia soon became so great that he enforced censorship of books, kept enrollment at the country's six universities down to a mere 4000 students, and forbid foreign travel. All in an effort to stop the influx of radical ideas from the newly liberated Europe.

    The call for reforms intensified after the crushing defeat of the Russian army during the Crimean War (1854-55). With Alexander II now on the throne, the Emancipation of the Serfs finally took place in 1861, but there was still extreme poverty and no legal or social equality. University students who had already adopted Nihilism, which forecasted a new social order constructed on the ruins of the old, began to spread these doctrines across the countryside. Revolutionary movements occurred throughout the 1860s and 70s, resulting in several attempts on the Tsar's life. One group succeeded on March 1, 1881 with a bombing at the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, fatally wounding Alexander II. The edges of the Russian Empire were beginning to crumble. (This is the year Dostoevsky died>)

    Dostoevsky's times were a dramatic turning point for Russia. Although the Imperial system continued to rule society, religion and education, the tide of revolution could not be stopped. Ironically, the political unrest that began as early as 1813 would come to fruition just over a hundred years later, ultimately leading to the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. Nicholas II, grandson of Alexander II, would be the last Tsar to wear the crown.


    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Hats
    April 18, 2001 - 02:55 pm
    Betty, I had the same idea. For this book, I am thinking about being a part poster, part lurker might work just fine. I am wondering when will we get to the exciting part? Will the whole book be so political in thought? Is this just the beginning background? Are all Russian writers so political?

    HATS

    Joan Pearson
    April 18, 2001 - 03:02 pm
    Hats, I've surged ahead. The good part is coming! As soon as Alyosha...well, I won't go ahead and say that. Yes, the good part is coming. Hang on. Lurk for the next few days until we work out the various positions so we know what's going on. Actually, I think we just about have the political and religious climate figured out. Don't go far! We are about ready to come up for air! HHAHAHA! Thanks for speaking up! We need to feel your pain!!!

    Skip to Chapter VI! Dmitri makes his entry, he's plays an important role in the "good part"...what did you think of him? Where does he fit in..a believer or no?

    Hats
    April 18, 2001 - 03:11 pm
    Thank you, Joan. I did not want anyone to get angry with me. I will stick around because I know this is going to turn out to be one more of the "GREAT BOOKS." At least I can brag about reading my first Russian writer.

    I have looked at your link, and I am getting into this Russian history. If I post a wrong notion, just be sure and correct me. My understanding is slim.

    HATS

    Traude
    April 18, 2001 - 04:15 pm
    The subject of excommunication alone could generate weeks of discussions, and I have reason to believe that passions would run high. (I am almost tempted to mention the Holy Roman Emperor Heinrich IV. doing penance at Canossa in 1077-------- but this would lead us even farther afield.)



    Like Betty and HATS I would like to get on with the story, billed as a murder mystery in the header. But we haven't even met all of the protagonists yet !!

    With all due respect, does it really matter in the context of this story whether that poor woman murdered her husband and, if so, how ? Or whether Dostoevsky was a realist ? The novelist has addressed crime and punishment before, notably in the book of the same title. Here, we haven't even gotten to the crime yet !

    Joan Pearson
    April 18, 2001 - 04:26 pm
    Ah Hats, no one could ever get angry at you! Your "tone" is just right! We only have two requests here. #1. .. that you don't go beyond the discussion schedule in your comments, because others may not have read the chapters yet and #2... that all are treated with respect. What strikes someone as funny, important or relevent may not interest you. If I discovered that Dostoevsky loved to read Shakespeare, you'd hear it from me, though you might not be interested in that.

    Each person has every right to make a point, or share information and to be received with courtesy. (even if that just means that you remain silent and come back later.) It is not up to any of us to determine what is important to another poster.

    The "good part" is coming, in fact it is up for discussion. Dmitri Karamazov has entered the stage...let's consider him and his relationship with his father. I find it amusing that they have gathered in Zosima's cell to talk about Dmiti's inheritance. They seem to have forgotten this. And Zosima looks like he is running out of time, doesn't he?

    Deems
    April 18, 2001 - 06:26 pm
    I have to admit that Dmitri Karamazov is my favorite of the brothers. Or he was the first time I read this novel many a year ago. I like his straight-forwardness and his willingness to call a spade a spade. He tells Zosima that he has been deceived and that "My father only wants a scandal." It seems to me that Fyodor's real aim is not to settle the dispute over Dmitri's inheritance but rather to make public the dispute these two men have over the fair Grushenka, a woman of somewhat questionable repute. In one of my translations Grushenka is called a "floozie" and in the other "a woman of bad behavior." Grushenka must have something going for her though since she has managed to ensnare both father and son.

    No wonder their tempers are up!

    Maryal

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    April 18, 2001 - 06:34 pm
    OK Dostoevsky "THE realist" - Regardless that Fyodor Dostoevsky was born into a family of impoverished nobility, he was educated and of a class that did not mix with serfs or peasants well enough to really know their life. As writers that preceded him, all they could do at the time was romanticize about those not-in their social class, regardless noble, wealthy, poor or peasant/serf/slave.

    There was a huge study of the people that many of the writers participated, documenting folk tales, medical practices etc. etc. (I shared this information in an earlier post and there may even be a link in the post to the information) As a result of Dostoevsky's participation in this study, financed by the Tsar, in his first novels, he examined the pathological social types that peopled St. Petersburg. This first work as Poor Folk (1846), is a success. Followed the Double (1846), and "White Nights" (1848).

    In 1849, Dostoevsky was arrested by the Tsar’s police for his participation in the famous Petrashevsky circle, which discussed utopian solutions, with the belief that “the truth is out there” and that truth could solve Russia’s pressing social problems. After being interrogated and sentenced to death, Dostoevsky was reprieved by Tsar at the very last moment before his was to be exacted by a firing squad. Dostoevsky spent the next ten years in prison labor camps or exile, where he mixed with and learned intimately the thinking, values, ways of of Russia’s poorest who he lived with in the labor camps. He became further aware that not all knowledge is derived from experience. That there is an innate knowing that supports survival. That belief and desire are not always as a result of information-processing

    These experiences, his “almost” execution and exile, profoundly affected Dostoevsky. He began to express in writing his spiritual concerns and a profoundly anti-rational belief in Orthodox Christianity’s role in Russia’s destiny. He already held, as many in Russia, an anti-Roman Catholic view.

    Most critiques define Dostoevsky’s most famous works as examples of existentialism. These works include "Notes from Underground" (1863), Crime and Punishment (1866), and his greatest novel, The Brothers Karamazov (1880).
    Dostoevsky, said that the universe does not make sense. There are no underlying patterns that can be perceived by everyone, on the basis of which everyone agrees: "This is what the world is all about." Life, and the world itself, are often unpredictable and capricious.

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    April 18, 2001 - 06:38 pm
    Bits and Pieces about Existentialism; This is a pretty good site to explore and learn a bit more about Existnetialism

    Part of the philosophy of the existentialist is, all attempts to find or impose an order on the world must fail because no single human mind--nor all human minds together--can adequately perceive all possible facts, make sense of them, and put them into an ordered scheme. If there were such an order or scheme, it would mean that everything is determined as it is for the flower and the fish. Humans would not have free choice but would be fated to whatever course their lives take.

    This inability to comprehend the world is compounded by individuals' inability to gain a thorough understanding of other people or even of themselves. The meanings of their own mental processes, emotions, and motivations are never entirely clear to them as they try to make sense of themselves and the larger and smaller worlds in which they live. If there is a standard of truth outside themselves, they must select it and commit themselves to it, though they are unable to prove the certainty of such a truth. (Compton's Encyclopedia)

    Existentialists have held that human beings do not have a fixed nature, or essence, as other animals and plants do; each human being makes choices that create his or her own nature. Choice is therefore central to human existence, and it is inescapable; even the refusal to choose is a choice. Freedom of choice entails commitment and responsibility. Because individuals are free to choose their own path, existentialists have argued, they must accept the risk and responsibility of following their commitment wherever it leads. --Encarta

    Another theme is that of limits. Individuals are thrust into existence for a short time only. They are caught in what existentialist theologian Karl Barth called "the boundary situation." They come into the world at a specific time, and they leave it at another specific time. About this there is no choice. Because the time is limited, there are urgent decisions to be made. People are free to make them on the basis of whatever facts they have available. But the facts themselves are a matter of choice. Individuals select the criteria by which they decide the course of their lives or particular undertakings. (Compton's Encyclopedia)

    All existentialists have followed Kierkegaard in stressing the importance of passionate individual action in deciding questions of both morality and truth. They have insisted, that personal experience and acting on one's own convictions are essential in arriving at the truth. Thus, the understanding of a situation by someone involved in that situation is superior to that of a detached, objective observer. This emphasis on the perspective of the individual has made existentialists suspicious of systematic reasoning. They have held that rational clarity is desirable wherever possible, but that the most important questions in life are not accessible to reason or science. Furthermore, they have argued that even science is not as rational as is commonly supposed. --Encarta

    It is spiritually crucial to recognize that one experiences a feeling of general apprehension, called dread. This is God's way of calling each individual to make a commitment to a personally valid way of life. The word anxiety (German Angst) has a similarly crucial role in the work of the 20th-century German philosopher Martin Heidegger; anxiety leads to the individual's confrontation with nothingness and with the impossibility of finding ultimate justification for the choices he or she must make. In the philosophy of Sartre, the word nausea is used for the individual's recognition of the pure contingency of the universe, and the word anguish is used for the recognition of the total freedom of choice that confronts the individual at every moment. --Encarta

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    April 18, 2001 - 06:50 pm
    Not going to be around for awhile - I will try to post but I'm off the South Carolina at my youngest grands request to see him in his school play, to attend his violin recital and to play and help him blow out his candles at his 7th birthday party. He called in that sweet asking voice that only a little one can do and then to top it off his mother comes into the room asking "who are you talking to?" Shoot, I couldn't get off the phone fast enough to book my flight.

    betty gregory
    April 19, 2001 - 01:29 am
    How sweet, how sweet, how sweet, that little stinker calling you, Barbara. This will be a family story repeated...the mother's "Who are you talking to," the punch line. I just loved it. Of course you have to go. He's only 7 once.

    Thanks for your Encarta quotes on existentialism. I wonder what it must have been like to be alive during the time when those concepts of choice and uncertainty and individual responsibility were brand new thoughts!! Thinking of the geographic and cultural settings, is it any wonder that those ideas were appealing?

    -----------------------------------------------

    Hats, don't worry about being "correct" with your reactions. Your thoughts about the material are just that, your thoughts. Besides, in a discussion, which, for me, means enjoyment and learning, it's expected that we'll all have wrong guesses along the way. I hereby claim my right to 17 whoppers!!!

    Hats
    April 19, 2001 - 05:00 am
    BETTY, I LOVE IT. SEVENTEEN WHOPPERS! I felt tired last night. Really, I am glad to learn much about Russian history along the way, and I love knowing more about Dostoevsky. I am looking forward to getting into chapter 6.

    So far, Dmitry seems as passionate as his father. He does love the women like his dad.

    Today is a new day. I am not as tired. So, my excitement is up. I look forward to Barbara's return.

    HATS

    Hats
    April 19, 2001 - 05:44 am
    Ivan seems to believe that people will not love others unless they are motivated. The motivation is immortality. The elder questions whether Ivan believes what he is saying about love. I think the elder sees Ivan as a very unhappy young man. I think Ivan's bright mind causes him to want to play with new ideas. His playful attitude towards ideas does not mean that he believes or accepts all he says or writes. I think Ivan would make a great conversationalist.

    As I read deeper into the book, I am learning to look closer at my own philosophies of life.

    The elder does say that Ivan should thank God for such an inquiring mind.

    HATS

    Joan Pearson
    April 19, 2001 - 06:49 am
    hahaha! I love it too! Betty is counting! 17? Only 17? Then she knows exactly how many times I have gone off the track about what will happen next! It must drive those of you who have read on absolutely crazy! For that, I'm sorry, really. I deal with just the clues and intimations the author gives in the chapters under discussion. You are all free to tell me when I'm all wet! Like Henry does! hahaha...but don't reveal any details from upcoming chapters! Now that's tricky, a real challenge!

    I read your posts with great interest, Barbara! (what a dear little grandson you have...this is the one you share your Harry Potter discussions? It sounds if he shares his grandma's love for reading and music!)

    I read Ivan's arguments, and sense you all glazing over and can't help but wonder how Chapter V was accepted by the readers of the Russian Messenger at the time. Remember Dickens? His novels were published in weekly increments too ~ his readers rushed for the next installment! I can't help but wonder how Dostoevsky's readers read Chapter V! Do they take issue with being reproached for being non-believers in immortality; therefore outside of the law?

    To understand the impact of his work, it is really necessary to understand this period in Russia ...the historical information helps to understand the impact and popularity of Socialism, the associated tendency to atheism coming in from the west, the struggles to integrate the positive benefits of socialism with the strong Christian beliefs of the Russian people...and the information Barbara provides helps us to understand that the artisitic climate - the "anything" and "nothing" ideas with which the existentialists were experimenting!

    Dostoevsky's Russian readers knew him by this time, and understood better what he was struggling with and where he was coming from than we do!

    As Hats just said, "Ivan's playful attitude towards ideas does not mean that he believes or accepts all he says or writes." You all don't know how long it took poor little me to understand that! I thought he was serious! Proposing the Church take over the state! And I was trying to follow just how he thought this might work. Especially his ideas about punishment for crime if the Church took over sentencing the criminal! (Miusov and I make a pair! He thought he was serious too!) Father Paissy agreed with much of the arguments, though, didn't he? Thus the name of this chaper, "So Be It, So Be It"...Amen! Allllright!

    It wasn't until our wise elder asks him, "is that really your conviction as to the consequences of the disappearance of the faith in immortality? You are blessed in believing that, or else most unhappy. Because, in all probability, you don't believe in the immortality of your soul, nor in what you have written yourself in your article..."

    And then Ivan "suddenly and stangely confessed, flushing quickly, 'Perhaps you are right!...But I wasn't altogether joking.'"

    Ivan is playing with ideas. And along with Hats, I'm starting to play with them too...and my own beliefs - especially on the aspect of punishment...captial!

    Do you think it is strange that the group has been waiting for the tardy Dmitri to discuss the inheritance issue, Dmitri arrives, and the conversation on the immortality of the soul and punishment for crime continues on as if they have all the time in the world? And the Elder's health is failing fast all the while?

    Was the stated purpose for the meeting ever addressed with the Elder? I keep wondering why F. Karamazov ever set up this meeting in the first place? If he is such a businessman, why did he not ever get to the business at hand?

    Jo Meander
    April 19, 2001 - 06:59 am
    I just read 40 posts! Maybe more! Thank you all for all the background and your insights. Barbara and Joan, I really appreciate the Dostoevsky-biographical detail and the establishment of the historical setting. I'm not behind in the book, but I was 'way behind here due to holiday, kid-sitting, and uncooperative technology. It's good to be back!

    Hats
    April 19, 2001 - 09:08 am
    Hi Jo, I missed you. Well, I am in chapter 6. I feel so sorry for the elder. He is very sick, and I think he will suffer more hearing all of the family matters blasted out before him.

    When Dmitry arrives, everything seems to go crazy. All of the family business is aired. I think one monk says, "shame, shame, shame." I had voiced the same words to myself.

    Joan, the mention of "The Robbers" confused me, but I think you or one of the other posters gave good information on this facts. So, I will go back and find the post. This is the line. "He is, I may say, my most dutiful Karl Moor, while this other son of mine, the one who just came in, Dmitry, against whom I am seeking justice from, is my most undutiful Franz Moor--both from Schiller's The Robbers--and in that case I myself as the Regierender Graf von Moor!"

    Boy, all of that lost me. Joan, your speed is just perfect. Please do not speed up. I am beginning to think reading this book is like eating a delicious apple turnover. Who wants to rush? Let's just relish it.

    HATS

    Deems
    April 19, 2001 - 09:58 am
    First of all, welcome back, JO--I figured we had lost some discussees (disgustees?) because of Easter weekend and trips and family. So good to have you back.

    HATS--You gave me a EUREKA! moment when, in post 501, you wrote "Ivan seems to believe that people will not love others unless they are motivated. The motivation is immortality."

    Eureka!!

    Yes, yes, yes. Motivation is the key. If you look back at what Lise's mother said about loving people and her need for GRATITUDE, it's the same idea that Ivan is expressing so abstractly.

    Ivan holds out immortality (reward) as the necessary goal to make people love each other. Lise's mother's personal goal is gratitude--she wants the people she acts lovingly toward to be grateful to her. And it's the same idea of having to be motivated to love!.

    Thank you, HATS, so much for that.

    Maryal

    Henry Misbach
    April 19, 2001 - 11:38 am
    Joan, I apologize. That was kind of a cheap shot about Alyosha, but I just couldn't help it.

    Apparently, you're not the only one who thought of him that way, as I can imagine no other reason to cast William Shatner in his role. Were he available, I would cast as Alyosha Tony Perkins.

    Now this dilemma between loving humanity, yet not being able to abide any of one's neighbors, is one of those universal sophomore's dilemmas. You know, a person who is a sophos (wise) moron (person who doesn't really know much). By the way, I would be my own favorite candidate for the role of permanent sophomore. My father used to say that the more he read, the more surprised he was by how little he knew; but equally was he surprised by how little anyone else knew. I feel the same way and more so with the passage of time.

    This is by no means the only perennial issue Dostoevsky raises. He just does it more artfully than most folks can. And I still enjoy his doing it.

    Hats
    April 19, 2001 - 12:52 pm
    Maryal, thank you for helping me to remember. I had forgotten all about Lise's mother. She did speak of her motivation to love. Her motivating force would be gratefulness. I think it took a great deal of sincerity for Lise's mother to admit this. What are my motivations? Perhaps, I don't want to know. Looking at our inner self is always difficult.

    EUREKA!!! ONE OF MY FAVORITE WORDS, MARYAL. .

    Maryal, Dostoevsky reminds me of Freud. He is very interested in our psychological selves. I find that very interesting.

    HATS

    Hats
    April 19, 2001 - 01:17 pm
    I have been reading the posts again, and Barbara's information about the Renaissance in Russia is very enlightening. Barbara wrote,

    "Russia during the 19th century is having their belated Renaissance. Music, ballet, literature, poetry, science all express a theme other than the concepts of a people isolated from each other..."

    Is this where Schiller comes in?

    HATS

    Deems
    April 19, 2001 - 01:18 pm
    Yes, Dostoevsky is quite the psychoanalyst. Like Freud. (Long before psychiatry existed as an independent study, we had poets and novelists, and the best of them saw into the hearts and souls of men and women.)

    You will be interested to hear that on the back cover of one of my translations, there is a quote from Freud himself about this novel.

    This is, according to Freud, "the most magnificent novel ever written."

    Maryal

    Hats
    April 19, 2001 - 01:40 pm
    Maryal, Freud's quote makes me more excited about Bros. K. I can't believe he wrote that about Dostoevsky's novel. While cooking, I had my mind on Dostoevsky and believe it or not the word "soul" entered my mind. Dos. helps us, through his characters, to see deeper into our souls. I am so excited. I feel like Sleeping Beauty. I have just been awakened from a deep sleep.

    HATS

    FaithP
    April 19, 2001 - 01:56 pm
    Well I am reading right along with the rest of you. And daily read all the posts. The history is facinating and I really thank Barbara for that and all of the wonderful insights. I loved the explaination of sophmore..When I begin to form opinions about these people I may comment on them. Right now I feel as if I am in a long winded conversation with people that are having an exenstential conversation that is way over my head and make me believe it is way over their heads too most of the time. I feel like I am waiting for the action to start. I am only just beginning to form opinions on the participants in the conversations. When I feel like I know something I will comment on it. In the meantime I am enjoying reading this book over again with so much "annodation."fp

    Traude
    April 19, 2001 - 02:16 pm
    In all sincerity let me say, emphatically, that no disrespect was intended in my previous posts. None was expressed. I do plead guilty to impatience. Please accept my apologies.



    Many thanks to Barbara. I wish her joyous days with her grand. We should all be so lucky !!

    It is appropriate to elaborate in some detail on the period of time in which Dostoevsky lived and the perspective from which he wrote, PRECISELY because it is so totally remote , so alien and unfathomable, compared to our own experience and from our own history-- which is very short, as eras go.

    That's why we have to (try to) understand the hopelessness and despair of the average Russians -- before Dostoevsky and after. Is it any wonder people looked toward heaven with such fervor ? What other hope did they have ?

    And yes, I agree with Barbara : the more knowledge we acquire, the better we understand. My earlier suggestion had been, simply, to let these dialectic discourses (which will continue) sort of "wash over us" ("total immersion") first, and then go back. But - nota bene - that was only a humble suggestion.



    Adding to Barbara's information on Existentialism, may I now mention NIHILISM from Lat. nihil = nothing . The term was prominently applied in the 1850's amd 1860's in Russia to young intellectuals who, influenced by Western ideams, repudiated Christianity, considered Russian society backward and oppressive (they did have a point !!!) and advocated revolutionary change. Nihilism expresses a "swearing off" everything, a belief in absolutely nothing, the imminent danger, of course, being anarchy. (This is not a quotation from a reference work, or I would have cited the source.) The best-known FICTIONAL nihilist is perhaps Bazarov in Turgenev's novel FATHERS AND SONS (1862).)

    The radicals who espoused the idea of Nihilism considered it a necessary PHASE in the transformation of Russia. In fact, the Populists ( narodniki ), whom I mentioned in an earlier post, were considered representatives of nihilism. Whether it was one of THEIR number or not, it WAS a revolutionary who assassinated Czar Alexander II in 1881 (in the year of Dostoevsky's death), indeed the very same Czar who had enacted reforms and freed the serfs 20 years earlier.



    The czars (or tsars) were despots, absolute rulers- in other words. They kept a very tight lid on things. The intellectuals in the Petrashevsky Circle - Dostoevsky among them - committed no crime other than reading and discussing the ideas of French Utopian socialist reformers of the time. They had no "rights" to do that.



    The actual time Dostoevsky served in penal servitude was from January 1850 to February 1854. See Leonid Grossman DOSTOEVSKY : HIS LIFE AND WORK, "the First English Translation of the Celebrated Study by a Russian Scholar", from which I have cited previously.



    I will honor my promise and give a (hopefully brief) summary of Schiller's Die Raeuber as soon as I can.

    Again, I did not intend to offend any one.

    Deems
    April 19, 2001 - 03:00 pm
    I look forward to your summary of The Robbers, a work with which I am unfamiliar. I know the title and that's about it.

    Maryal

    Deems
    April 19, 2001 - 03:01 pm
    The action is about to begin. Fear not. (I'm reading ahead, though revealing NOTHING, notice. Hehehehe.)

    Joan Pearson
    April 19, 2001 - 03:37 pm
    Just in and overwhelmed with ideas...just like Hats!..on my way to the kitchen to do some cooking ...and think of my soul as I stir! But I cannot resist a few quick observations as things are moving so quickly in here this afternoon!
    First, YAY! YAY! Hooray! Fai just washed ashore...out there over your head, you say! We ARE getting ready to start, and we are ALL in over our heads. luv! Thanks for that information, Traudee...we are beginning to feel like the poor Russians of the 1870's, confronted with all these foreign ideas which are shattering previously held beliefs. Fai, I think we should be prepared for the existential talkin' whenever we see Ivan coming. The rest of the boys talk just like you and me, kid!


    Ivan again...(why do we allow this kid to get to us?) Hats' observations about our motivations for love...and what we expect in return...reminded me of something that Ivan said early...he stated it as if it were accepted fact and I'd like to have a "sophomoric discussion" with my cool green pal, Henry ~ and the rest of you about it. (Sorry, Fai!)
    Ivan says if there is any love on earth, it is not owing to the natural law, but simply because men have believed in immortality.
    Now that's a biggie! He's saying if you don't believe in immortality, there is no reason on earth to love your neighbor. I need to hear your reaction to that statement. Did that strike you between the eyes? I'd never thought of that before!

    Will think about it as I stir! Thanks for a stimulating afternoon, you all. Will reread your posts more closely apres le diner! Whatever that will be!

    Hats
    April 19, 2001 - 03:52 pm
    Joan, I am thinking of your question. Why did the elder bow to Dmitry? I can't figure it out. I would love to know the answer. It's got me stuck. Maybe Joan or Maryal will give me a hint after dinner or some other poster.

    HATS

    Hats
    April 19, 2001 - 05:27 pm
    I have been thinking of Christ. When He recognized Judas as the betrayer, He kissed him. Is Zosima's bow a way of "pointing a finger" at him or had he seen something in Dmitry that shocked him and made him fall before him? Was his prostrate form a symbol of recognition or acknowlegement of some future deed?

    Anyway, the bow caught the attention of everyone. Noone took it lightly. My book calls Zosima's bow a "complete bow."

    HATS

    Traude
    April 19, 2001 - 05:48 pm
    HATS, in the case of Russia it was, I'm afraid, more an awakening than a rebirth, and a belated awakening at that.

    It was Catherine II, the Great (Ekaterina Alekseyevna), born in 1729 and empress from 1762 till the year of her death in 1796, who initiated increased contact with the West. At that time France was the cultural hub and Catherine, anxious to bring "progress" to Russia, corresponded with Voltaire and Diderot. She also wanted to bring about reforms but "pulled back" sharply after the peasant uprising in 1773-74. She then banned the satirical journals she had encouraged before and exiled one author (his name was Radishchev) for publishing "Puteshestviye iz petersburga v moskvu" (A Journey from Petersburg to Moskow) to Siberia.

    Politically, Catherine managed to acquire land in the Ukraine that had long been held by Poland and established Russia's frontier on the coast of the Black Sea. Domestically, she remained woefully ignorant of just HOW POOR her subjects were. You see, she lent her ear to oneparticular favorite, ten years younger than she, a man named Grigori Aleksandrovich Potemkin (1739-1791), who assured her the muzhiks (Russian for peasant) were doing just fine. One day she decided to go see for herself --- and the inventive Potemkin devised one of the most amazing schemes of trickery recorded in history.

    He had dummy house fronts made and then carefully arranged/timed the journey and the various stopping points. Carriages with those manufactured house fronts were sent ahead and "erected" before the empress came through in her carriage with her entourge and was greeted by cheerful, exuberant subjects... and the process was repeated during the entire journey, conveying in fact a completely false picture, a sham, an illusion.

    In fact, the term "Potemkin's villages" is still applied to date in Europe with reference to a questionable proposition, or anything that is feigned or "simply too good to be true". I kid you not.

    Traude
    April 19, 2001 - 06:07 pm
    It was obeisance : the elder "saw" something the reader has not yet discovered -

    Hats
    April 19, 2001 - 06:17 pm
    Traude, "obeisance," that is the word I could not bring to mind.

    HATS

    FaithP
    April 19, 2001 - 06:33 pm
    Joan when Ivan states that the human belief in an immortal soul is what maintains love and morality no one in the room actually argued with him, the elder asked him a question about his belief in his own soul. Ivan sort of smirked and wandered off as usual after proving what a modern intellectual he is. I sort of laugh at statements like that.That the statement is not true will occur to anyone who has held a baby,raised a garden, lived life instead of just thinking about life: after a little consideration of the actual day to day living and loving in a moral and rational fashion, reasons to love, to be moral ,to be ethical remain valid even if we are "Chemical Wet Batteries" that totally disintegrate at death. fr

    Traude
    April 19, 2001 - 08:39 pm
    It has been difficult to summarize "Die Raeuber" and, before I attempt to do so, let me say a few words about the early Romanticist, poet and eminent playwright Friedrich von Schiller, born 1759, who succumbed to tubersulosis at only 46 in 1805. He had said, "Those whom the Gods love die young ..." He certainly was one of them (and so was Mozart) ...



    Like Dostoevsky, Schiller tasted parental discipline early and, like Dos., was pushed by his father into a military career, a career both abandoned. Also like Dostoevsky, Schiller took after his sensitive mother. Schiller's father was a captain in the service of the duke of Wuerttemberg.

    "Die Raeuber" was Schiller's very first play, "self-produced", we would say today, by the young man himself who ran heavily into debt doing so. The play was first performed in 1782 at the Nationaltheater in MANNHEIM (a town in BADEN, a different city-state NOT under the jurisdiction of the aforementioned duke of Wuerttemberg).

    The effect was sensational. According to an eyewitness report (and I translate) :

    "The theater resembled a madhouse; rolling eyes, clenched fists, hoarse screams ! Strangers fell into each others' arms, sobbing. Women close to fainting staggered toward the exit. It was disintegration as in chaos -- from whose residual mists a new creation is born..."

    Die Raeuber is a play in five acts. And here is a bare-bones summary.

    The main protagonists are Maximilian, reigning Count von Moor, Karl and Franz, his sons, and Amalia von Edelreich, Karl's fiancee.

    The incredibly gullible father believes the lies the bad son, Franz, is telling him about the good but "carefree" son, Karl (the hero), and disowns him forthwith. Karl takes to the forest and bonds with a band of outlaws (the Robbers of the title) whose captain he becomes. Some of them are merely opportunists- as we would call them today, some have legitimate grievances. The action takes place over two years' time.

    In the end Karl returns to the castle where he had left his fiancee whom the treacherous brother had coveted all along and releases his starving father from the dungeon into which the bad son had put him. The bad son, Franz, kills himself.



    Karl on the other hand believes himself totally unworthy of faithful Amalia, stabs her to death and then gives himself up.

    -x-x-x-x-x-x



    I believe Old Karamazov's reference to Schiller's play in chapter 6 cannot be fully understood without knowing what that play is about. I am sorry if I have been too long here.

    Hats
    April 20, 2001 - 03:39 am
    Traude, your information about Schiller's play is very helpful. I think the mention of the play parallels the meaning of Bros. Karamazov. Probably, as I read further into the plot of the novel the reference to the play will be better understood by me.

    In this book, I am learning that it is important not to overlook any underlying messages about history, literature, etc.

    HATS

    Hats
    April 20, 2001 - 03:51 am
    Joan, you asked do we like Dmitry. I feel very ambivalent about Dmitry. More than anything he frightens me. His "bulging eyes." Dos writes in my translation,"His eyes seemed disconected from his inner state." His get in your face attitude makes me a tat uncomfortable. I think he would be quick with his fists. After all, he pulls that guy out of the tavern and beats him.

    His quick temper leaves me questioning what he might do next in a bad situation. In this way, he reminds me of his father who was known to beat his wives. Perhaps, Dmitry will not beat women, I don't know, but his quick hands and quick temper makes me think he is a little like his father. Because of his unpredictability, I think he is complex.

    HATS

    Traude
    April 20, 2001 - 06:41 am
    Henry, your father was a wise man.

    Reminds me of the saying (by Cicero, I believe) :



    scio sed nescio = I know and yet I don't know, which could also be rendered as "I know that I know nothing".

    Joan Pearson
    April 20, 2001 - 06:50 am
    Ah, Fai, we can count on you to tackle the tough questions, and tell it like it is! Thank you!
    "the elder asked him a question about his belief in his own soul. Ivan sort of smirked and wandered off as usual after proving what a modern intellectual he is."


    I'm not 100% sure what his answer really is. It appears to me that it means he is not a believer, and therefore, if he means what he is saying, he does NOT love mankind. And taking into consideration his earlier argument ~ for those who do not believe in immortality, then there is nothing that is immoral, everything is permissable...then Ivan would be in that category too...

    So, as a non-believer in immortality, he is accountable for his actions and every crime is permissable. Sounds like a perfect candidate for a criminal, even for a murderer, doesn't he?

    But, there are indications that he doesn't really believe what he is saying. That he knows, as does Fai, that the logic doesn't hold up under the prism of reality.... I thought that his solemn bow before Zosima to receive his blessing after this discussion said quite a lot about his true feelings, don't you think?

    I think it is interesting to note that Ivan made these comments about belief in immortality and love ~ to a group of women! Miusov is reporting this to the assembled men in the room. We don't hear the women's reaction to his theory. The men in Zosima's room didn't have much to say...or did I miss something?



    Good morning, Hats, Traudee! Your're early this morning! Will be right back!

    Joan Pearson
    April 20, 2001 - 06:56 am
    Traudee, this is fascinating information about Schiller and especially about his play, Die Raeuber! There's a footnote in the Pevear translation:
    "There are references to Schillers plays and poetry and to the notion from The Robbers of "great and beautiful" all through BK


    For this reason, we'll put the information Traudee has provided into the heading for future reference when we meet another reference to Schiller. Thanks again for this, Traude! One little request? When you, any of you, find material like this, we need to cite references? This is a major subject of discussion around SN these days. Especially when quoting someone...the source of the quote? We need a bit of documentation for the Schiller information that just went into the heading, okay, Traudee.

    After reading of the two brothers, Karl and and Franz, feuding over the love of a woman, I have made a note of F.Karamazov's words referring to Schiller's characters:
    "This is my son, the dearest of my flesh (Ivan)...my most dutiful Karl Moor...while Dmitri Fyodorovich, against whom I am seeking justice from you, is the undutiful Franz Moor." This doesn't make much sense, yet. Ivan is hardly dutiful...and the parallel is unclear to me at this point. Let's note it for the future?

    Traude
    April 20, 2001 - 06:57 am
    We have only just met Dmitri. Did you notice that there is mention of Smerdyakov, as the valet (!), who twice told Dmitri that the meeting was at one. That's a first indirect glimpse at the bastard brother.

    At least Dmitry does preserve the socical graces by explaining the reason for his delay and greeting everyone courteously, including his loathsome father. The latter, of course, is hell-bent on confrontation, on airing the dirty linen, and nothing can stop him. The man just runs off at the mouth.

    The question of money has been introduced. As I said earlier, it is a recurrent theme, watch for it. In Dos.'s own life money was a constant problem. Already painfully in debt himself by the time of his brother's death, he took on the additional burden of Mikhail's debts and family obligations. Not until the last years of his life did he attain a modicum of financial stability. He was also, alas, a compulsive gambler.

    Joan Pearson
    April 20, 2001 - 06:57 am
    In Chapter VI, Why is Such a Man Alive, (is that that the title in your translation?), Dmitri "growls" these words referring to his father...to which Fyodor Karamazov asks the monks, "Do you hear this parricide?" Wow! Wow! (Need to look up the meaning of "parricide" and "patricide"...the same meaning?)

    This "ugly" scene is stopped with the elder bowing low to the floor before Dmitri. Everyone is confused, as are WE! We're not going to find the answer in this chapter...but we can talk among ourselves about the meaning, just as the people in the cell conjectured...

    Hats, my first impression was the Judas kiss too...but how does that work here? Judas was the guilty party who betrayed Christ, identifying him to his enemies. So if the Judas kiss was intended here, that would cast Zosima as the one who will ultimately condemn Dmitri! Now that is a very interesting thought!

    The other suggestion is that the bow is an act of "obeissance" ...Zosima recognizing something so remarkable in Dmitri that he bows before him. Dmitri, representing the tormented people of Russia - the people Zosima has sacrificed his life saving? Christ's ultimate sacrifice for the love of mankind?

    What did YOU think of the bow?

    Traude, not ignoring you, we are just posting together this morning! Did you see the post before your last post? Can you provide a source for the information you provided on Schiller?

    Traude
    April 20, 2001 - 07:51 am
    Joan, I fully understand the importance of indicating sources for proper attribution.

    Let me say, however, that nothing I have posted is a direct quote, except for the eyewitness report on the audience reaction to the play "Die Raeuber", which I translated verbatim.

    What I have given is, rather, a distillation of knowledge I acquired during years of study, some of it contained in and gleaned from "Geschichte der deutschen Dichtung" (History of German Literature), 1935, Ninth Revised Enlarged Edition by Hans Roehl. The eyewitness report quoted in translation is found in that reference book on page 163.

    I have also consulted MASTERS OF THE DRAMA, Third Revised Edition, by John Gassner, copyright 1954, specifically part XVII, chapter 3, pp. 323-324, Schiller and the Romantic Afflatus , and

    William Rose Benet, THE READER'S ENCYCLOPEDIA, Second Edition, copyright 1965, Volume Two, p. 863, and p. 903.

    The cumulative information is conveyed in my own terms, couched in contemporary language- you might say <g>, and there are no direct quotes.

    Thank you.

    Traude
    April 20, 2001 - 08:25 am
    Joan,

    I quickly skimmed the original text of "Robbers" again yesterday before posting, and that minimalist description is my own. I have deliberately refrained from any interpretation of the play itself or its meaning, and especially from examining the reasons why Dostoevsky was so taken with this work and with Schiller.

    But because blabbering Old Karamazov clearly threw down a gauntlet in chapter 6, a challenge not only for those present at the elder's residence, all astonished, some crestfallen, but also for the reader, I thought we ought to know just what the play is about; how it applies to the Karamazov family situation, or WHETHER it does. If nothing else, it is a red flag of sorts, and I believe in being prepared for all eventualities. Forgive me, I did not mean to presume.

    Yes, "Why is Such a Man Alive" is the chapter title in my translation also.

    Yes, both parricide and patricide are used; derived from the Lat. pater. Hence, the latter term is perhaps more logical, may I say with my usual linguistic punctiliousness <g>.

    Happy

    Traude
    April 20, 2001 - 08:27 am
    That was meant to say :

    Happy Reading !

    Joan Pearson
    April 20, 2001 - 08:37 am
    The original plan was to finish up discussing Book 2 by Monday and move on to Book 3. Then came the spring break and we slowed a bit. I think we are ready to move on to the last two chapters of Book 2, Chapters 7 and 8 tomorrow, instead of putting them off until Monday, don't you? Will make the changes in the discussion schedule above. Please don't let that interrupt today's discussion of Book VI though...there's plenty to talk about here!

    My American Heritage dictionary clarifies the difference somewhat.
    parricide~ the murdering of one's father, mother or other near relative.

    patricide ~ the act of murdering one's father.



    A nuance of difference, I admit. But I wonder if Karamazov was referring to the murder of one's father alone when he uses parricide...am thinking of Franz and Karl now...

    Traudee, the direct quote in question, , "Those whom the Gods love die young" is the one that needs a citation...as long as it stays in the reference in the heading.

    I need to run errands today, and will be back to visit with you all late this afternoon. TGIF!

    Traude
    April 20, 2001 - 08:47 am
    Joan, I can't see the Schiller info on my screen yet. What am I overlooking now ??? Merciful ...

    I would be happy to complement, supplement - whatever - any information I have given, but you have to give the word first. No more oopses from here !

    Traude
    April 20, 2001 - 08:51 am
    Joan,

    That's what the man himself said. He is the source. There is no other.

    You are making me work hard here !!! I need to get going myself !

    Joan Pearson
    April 20, 2001 - 08:59 am
    Dear Happy,

    The link is found in the heading, easier located from the bottom up...from the electronic text link up to "Characters in BK" up to "Schiller", the last entry in the listing of reference links.

    The man himself may have repeated it, but he did not originate the statement and I would like to read the source that says he did and fails to credit the person who did originate it? It is a very old saying...often quoted, and we need to give credit where credit is due!

    Deems
    April 20, 2001 - 09:22 am
    Joan---The Roman comic dramatist Plautus is the source of this quote which often appears as "He whom the gods love dies young."

    Plautus lived from 254-184, a little before Schiller.

    No doubt the classically educated Schiller would have known the quote.

    Maryal

    Traude
    April 20, 2001 - 10:01 am
    Thank you for that information, Maryal ! Now we can rest easy !

    As for "parricide", I am not so sure the somewhat inclusive definition given in the American Heritage Dictionary is linguistically quite defensible.

    The very first definition of "parricide" would point to the murder of the father "pater" = father.



    The murder of one's mother is matricide ; the murder of one's brother is fratricide ; the murder of one's sister is sororicide ; and

    (the murder of a child is infanticide , the murder of a king regicide et cetera)

    Strictly speaking therefore, and Latin is a very precise language, the type of murder would be defined by the respective prefix, indicating very clearly from the start just what poor soul has really been murdered there.

    How many graduates, I wonder, so blithely sent into the brave new world REALLY know what any of these terms means -- and how many will bother to look it up ? I for one am not hopeful.

    Jo Meander
    April 20, 2001 - 10:23 am
    This week’s posts provide much to be grateful for and respond to, but we seem to be almost out of time! Thank you, Traude, HATS, Maryal, Joan, Barbara, Faith, Henry, and anyone I may have missed! I’ve been gorging on your info and insights all morning, and can’t begin to give all my reactions …so of courses I’ll try, anyway! About the elder’s ministry, I’m thinking that the ailing Zosima provides a foundation of love, acceptance, forgiveness, and TRUTH, and he is dying because he is the first part of a transition. Like Dos. himself who changed his mind about socialism for Russia during his time in Siberia , the world of the Karamazovs is in the midst of change; if they and Dostoevsky were in Russia today, they might say they were still in the midst! (Traude used the word PHASE in a post discussing nihilism; it seems to apply to what is going on here.) Perhaps Z. sees Alyosha as the continuation of a process, bringing the loving Christian sensibility into a new age. I think he will send Alyosha to visit Lise because he wants him to understand his full humanity and make his own enlightened choices about his future. Also, visiting her and amusing her is a compassionate act. Christian Socialism, the issue raised by Miusov, by strictest definition would break down social class barriers, and this may be why the combination raises alarm in the people he encountered in France. None of Zosima’s visitors are ready to embrace such a system. (Ivan???) Neither the Church nor the class represented by Lise’s mother are ready to break down the barriers between the peasants and the aristocracty.. She and the others of her station keep their distance from the peasants they “love,” and Father Zosima doesn’t insist that they change. The church doesn’t give the poor its land, its wealth, or its power, either.

    betty gregory
    April 20, 2001 - 10:25 am
    Zosima bowing before Dmitri. I had an instant intuitive understanding of why he did this, but now that I'm searching for words, I'm beginning to wonder if I did.

    Two thoughts, the first one quite simple. Zosima recognizes needs and knew instantly that it was Dmitri who was in need, therefore, the bow was a form of honoring who was in need of his understanding/empathy/assistance.

    Second thought, a little more complex. Something about a reversal of power...with a serious purpose...to get those who have stopped seeing to look up to see.

    There is something I used to do in couples therapy. Within the first meeting with a couple, if it is clear that one, maybe the wife, fears that the husband is going to leave her...as he keeps threatening, and as she fully expects (and as she tells about at length), I might turn to the husband after a while and say, "So, what will it be like if your wife decides to leave you?" Among other things, there is a power shift in the room. I wonder if Zosima's bow to Dmitri created a power shift in the room.

    Jo Meander
    April 20, 2001 - 10:27 am
    Traude, loved the story about the Potemkin buildings!!! (Is that the right phrase?)

    Jo Meander
    April 20, 2001 - 10:37 am
    Betty, that's interesting about the power shift! I wonder if the empathy Z. has for Dimitri has to do with his recognition of Dimitri's complex and troubled personality: Z. bows because he knows Dimitri is like his father, given to violence womanizing, and heaven knows what else, and that the conflict between these two is based upon their similar drives. It will be resolved only by suffering. Z. feels pity for what he intuititively knows Dimitri is facing, and he is praying that his soul will survive the torment.

    Hats
    April 20, 2001 - 01:47 pm
    I am still thinking about Dmitry. Dmitry says, before everything got out of control, that he came to ask for forgiveness and to give forgiveness to his father. When Zosima bowed before Dmitry, was he honoring Dmitry's noble spirit, his motives of love? Just guessing.

    HATS

    Traude
    April 20, 2001 - 03:18 pm
    Jo, Betty, HATS, everybody,

    thank you all for the wonderful insights. By the end of Book Two we really will have formulated definite likes and dislikes and know who is venerable, who is contemptible - and I am looking forward to that.



    Betty, that is an excellent point. A power struggle, whether realized by the parties involved or not, underlies most (perhaps all ?) human relationships, and there may always be the subconscious desire to achieve a power shift (as in "gaining the upper hand"). Thank you for bringing that up.



    HATS - there is more to this deep bow, and it will reveal itself.

    Jo, thank you for giving me the chance to bring up something I had left out earlier : Potemkin had the rank of Field Marshall. No doubt he was a brilliant strategist ! And his oh-so-convincing, movable "structures" came to be known as Potemkin's "Villages" and still are, as I have said. I have never seen a likeness of him and never tried the web. Portraits of Catherine show her as plain and a little corpulent. But she was an intelligent woman, and quite progressive for her era and especially the place (!) especially in the beginning of her reign. But we won't go into that.

    Joan Pearson
    April 20, 2001 - 03:48 pm
    Just in...where does the time go! I'm two hours later than I anticipated! And now it's time for dinner, again! I feel as if I just typed that...and it was 24 hours ago! Have a really nice shrimp recipe and fresh shrimp! Bruce will be happier than he was last night.

    A few thoughts...Jo, never worry about running out of time. That's one thing we have plenty of. Even if we do go on into the next two chapters tomorrow, you can always make observations or question what has gone on before! Who's to stop you? And we all do it, so ...slow down!

    Here's some news for you...good news, but something to prepare for. Sometime this weekend, we'll be changing to a new server. Yaaaaaaaaaaay! We have really outgrown this one. What this means to you:
    During the transition, all the discussions you see will be a copy of the last discussions before the change begins. That means that all discussions will be READ ONLY and you will not be able to post. So, that will give you all plenty of time to read up on Chapter VII and VIII! And time to reread all the back posts more carefully if you wish! hahaha!

    Joan Pearson
    April 20, 2001 - 04:03 pm
    You made such interesting suggestions about the reason for the "bow"...Jo, Betty and Hats too! I went back to reread the moments leading up to the bow - the angry exchange between father and son.

    Watch Zosima!
    "He sat still, pale, not from excitement but from weakness of illness. An imploring smile played on his lips, from time to time he raised his hand, as though to check the storm...but he seemed to be waiting for something and watched them intently as though trying to make out something which was not perfectly clear to him."


    Then there's the scene..."Why is such a man alive", asks Dmitri. Then there's F. Karamazov's remark on the parricide...

    Traudeee dear, I don't mean to belabor the point, but there is a difference between the term, parricide as used in this chapter and patricide I rarely find my American Heritage dictionary in error, but perhaps you will respect the OED,(the Oxford English Dictionary) ~ our Bible here in Great Books! If anything, the term is even broader than American Heritage, and certainly broader than the term "patricide". Since we will see both terms mentioned in the novel, it seems important that we recognize the difference. I'm not sure Karamazov meant to use the term in a broader sense than parricide - but he might have.

    __________________ PARRICIDE

    [a. F. parricide (15th c. in Littré), ad. L. parricdium: see prec. and -CIDE 2.]

    The murder of a father, parent, near relative, ruler, etc.; the crime of a parricide: see prec.; transf. the crime of treason against one's country.

    Parricda and parricidium had already in Latin a very wide application, including all uses found in English. In Codes in which distinctions are or were made between different kinds of murder, parricide, besides meaning the murder of parents and near relatives, has been variously extended; English Common Law distinguishes 'in no respect between the crime of parricide or that of killing a husband, wife, or master, and the crime of simple murder' (Wharton Law Lex. 1848).


    There is another comment about "the woman who loved much"... and the comment that Christ forgave this sinful woman. It was at that point that Zosima seemed to make up his mind ...suddenly rising from his chair and going to Dmitry's feet. I don't remember...did Christ wash the sinful woman's feet? Could Zossima be forgiving Dmitri in some way with this gesture?

    Of course all this is conjecture...but it makes me feel as if I'm part of the crowd in the room...each had his own explanation for the bow...some were shocked into silence.

    Did you note Dmitri's reaction? Is Dmitri one of the believers?

    He made a comment that made me wonder at him and I'd like to know if it troubled you...it was back during Ivan's discourse on the belief in immortality...
    "Excuse me", Dmitri cried suddenly. "If I've heard aright: crime must not only be permittend but even recognized as the inevitable and the most rational outcome of his position for every atheist! Is that so or not?"

    "Quite so," said Father Paissy.

    "I'll remember it."



    Dinner! Shrimp! Think! Stir!

    Traude
    April 20, 2001 - 04:17 pm




    might it not be a good idea, in the interest of time, to end the linguistic hair-splitting, which began, we recall, over an "r" versus a "t".

    Could we just please go on ?

    Deems
    April 20, 2001 - 05:35 pm
    The story of this woman who wept on Jesus' feet, dried them with her hair, and anointed them with a precious ointment is in Luke. Jesus is eating at the house of a Pharisee who thinks to himself that if Jesus had the powers he is reported to have, he would recognize that this woman is a sinner, a loose woman and that he never would allow her to touch him. Jesus then tells a story about two men who are relieved of their debts, one owing little, the other much. He asks the Pharisee which one loved the most (was the most grateful). The Pharisee says that it must have been the one whose debt was larger.

    Jesus says Exactly so, and then mentions that the Pharisee did not wash his feet or anoint them whereas this woman has. Jesus then says that this woman loved more because more was forgiven her.

    Thus, when Father Karamazov refers to this story, he is completely distorting it. He implies that it means that the more lovers the woman had, the more Jesus forgives her. Not the point at all.

    Fyodor K. is really good at distorting scripture--I catch him at it frequently, and I am not Zosima, whose field it is. But it is another of the brothers who protests that Fyodor is distorting. I guess Zosima is not about to be drawn into Fyodor's little trap.

    Maryal

    Joan Pearson
    April 20, 2001 - 07:07 pm
    Thanks for that, prof! I had remembered vaguely that feet were involved in the Biblical story and "the elder distinctly and deliberately bowed down at Dmitri's feet, as well! We'll count on you to catch Karamazov's Biblical distortions! The woman with the greatest sin was forgiven, her feet washed (blessed) ... do you conclude that Zosima bows at Dmitri's because he is guilty of great sin, but contrite? This feels like the meaning of the bow right now. But I'm easily swayed!

    I've had my eye on Alyosha throughout, trying to understand him better. There were a few things that were not clear to me. During the debate on immortality,
    "Alyosha watched it all with a throbbing heart. The whole converstation stirred him profoundly. He glanced casually at Rakitin (divinity student, future cleric)...from the color in his cheeks Alyosha guessed that Rakitin was probably no less excited, and he knew what caused his excitement."


    Did you understand that? I didn't, until moving on to Chapter VII...A Seminarian Bent on a Career. Is that the same title in your translation for this chapter? Rakitin plays the starring role in this one, but by the end, I still don't understand this title! Depending on you....

    Hats
    April 21, 2001 - 04:44 am
    Rakitan believes Zosima bows because he detects danger, a crime to take place in the home of the Karamazovs. Rakitan says their house literally "stinks" of crime.

    I am sure this must hurt Alyosha deeply. To be told, that your family is so dysfunctional. I can not decide whether Alyosha believes what he hears or thinks his friend, Rakitan, is just imaginative.

    HATS

    Deems
    April 21, 2001 - 07:07 am
    certainly are fun. I have two titles for chap 7: "A Seminarist-Careerist" (Pevear) and "The Careerist-Seminarian" (Avsey). I think both are clearer than the one you gave us, Joan. I like the second one best because it captures Rakitin's determination to HAVE a career. Priesthood, journalism, whatever, but he is bent on success in some field.

    Rakitin does not have a vocation, in other words, no true calling from God. Contrast him with Alyosha who has a vocation.

    Rakitin knows everyone and has spies everywhere, a most interesting character. Rakitin has heard that Ivan has been talking about him, "[Ivan]went so far as to suggest that if I didn't settle for a career as an archimandrite and didn't decide to become a monk soon, then without a doubt I would go to St Petersburg and join the staff of an intelletual journal, where I would almost certainly work for the literary section, write for about ten years, and finally run the journal myself."

    Sounds like Ivan has a pretty good take on Rakitin, a young man bent on success. Rakitin certainly has some dire predictions about the Karamazov family too.

    Maryal

    Lady C
    April 21, 2001 - 08:11 am
    JO: I agree that perhaps Zosima bowed before Dmitri because he sensed suffering in his future. The elder has been said to have the gift of knowing not only the soul of a person but what will happen to him. I could only think of the word "martyr", because I think Zosima would only give such a deep obeisance to such.

    Jo Meander
    April 21, 2001 - 09:07 am
    JOAN asks," ... do you conclude that Zosima bows at Dmitri's because he is guilty of great sin, but contrite? This feels like the meaning of the bow right now. But I'm easily swayed! " I think that's part of it, as is Rakitin's idea that a great crime will take place in the Karamazov family, and I still say Zosima sees the suffering to come for Dimitri! All are--or will be-- true!

    Jo Meander
    April 21, 2001 - 09:22 am
    Ivan’s theory on morality is shaky. It’s certainly true that without immortality, the motivation for “goodness” in one sense disappears, but there are reasons to behave, treat one another with reverence, and be grateful for life. I think it’s FaithI’m agreeing with when I say that experience is enough to make us love each other and our world. Even if “this is it,” it’s wonderful (and awful, of course). Many people are worthy of our admiration, dedication, service, and support. How sterile life would be if we were not capable of this kind of love! On the other hand, we have the eternal question about unexplained suffering, but that’s getting ahead of the discussion

    Hats
    April 21, 2001 - 09:23 am
    Maryal, My chapter 7 translates differently. Here it is. "A Career-Conscious Divinity Student" (MacAndrew). That's pretty clear, isn't it? I like that one, but having different translations is fun.

    HATS

    Joan Pearson
    April 21, 2001 - 10:14 am
    Jo, you just made me think of the "love thy neighbor as thyself" commandment...It's is easy to love those close to us, easy to love those we "like". It is the others...those we cannot abide. What is the motivation to LOVE them, except for the commandment... Ivan seems to be saying that if you don't believe in immortality, then you don't have a reason to follow the commandment, you don't have to love the one you ...hate!

    Ivan's argument, but does he believe it?

    Deems
    April 21, 2001 - 10:20 am
    I like your title also. It certainly does make the meaning clear.

    Henry Misbach
    April 21, 2001 - 11:48 am
    Fine point, Maryal, in interpreting the feet-washing episode. It looms larger the farther out you go on the Ecumenical bridge toward Catholicism. It is replayed annually in some churches as part of Holy Week.

    Joan, it's just about as tough to get straight answers from Ivan as it is from Dostoevsky himself. There is a temptation to wander off into his other works, most notably "Crime and Punishment." My father, a Psychologist, read, re-read, and re-, re-read it. Ivan's principal concern appears to be: how can a criminal be reformed if he does not fully grasp and is not fully convicted by himself. What, he asks, if it was the church and not the state that administered the punishment? Even he admits that only Russian criminals would be much affected by excommunication. Then he turns right around and admits he doesn't himself believe in immortality, which he just declared necessary for any morality!

    What he says about convicts is probably in essence true. It's just that we have no reliable method of proving that a criminal really has reformed.

    If you haven't read C&P, sneak a look at the end. It'll blow your mind.

    Jo Meander
    April 21, 2001 - 02:51 pm
    I can't love everybody, but I can give almost everyone a measure of human respect and hope that they can live unharmed and find love elsewhere, if they haven't already. If somebody loves and needs them, why should I want to hurt them? If no one does, or if they are evil, I don't want to be the one to make things worse for them. I want to control their evil doing for they sake of others, but I don't want to destroy them. If the government decides by due process that they must be destroyed, I guess I have to accept that, especially if I don't have a better answer. To quote a line, "So be it!"

    FaithP
    April 21, 2001 - 08:21 pm
    I have been holding my tongue about Crime and Punishment because I too feel the Ivan character is right out of that book and It gets ahead of our pace/story/.But at this point in Ivans defense I will say he is like a very young philosophy student trying out things in his mouth without thinking them through as to his own beliefs. Probably he is too young and inexperienced at this time to know what he believes.As to the reason for Zosima's bow, I am a cynic at this point and had the feeling that it may simply be the Elder giving Dmitre approval for his standing up to and not forgiving Father K.fp

    Joan Pearson
    April 21, 2001 - 08:40 pm


    Jo, it is a privilege to know you! I nominate you for Elder in chief! Wait, how are elders selected? Does anyone remember? We can all learn from Jo's Post
    "I can't love everybody, but I can give almost everyone a measure of human respect and hope that they can live unharmed and find love elsewhere, if they haven't already. If somebody loves and needs them, why should I want to hurt them? If no one does, or if they are evil, I don't want to be the one to make things worse for them. I want to control their evil doing for they sake of others, but I don't want to destroy them."
    Isn't that fine!

    Fai, I like that...Ivan, "trying out things in his mouth"..."sophomoric, I think Henry called him! He has his sudden moments, though, doesn't he? He seemed to sober some when Zosima blessed him and then after the dinner with Father Superior, the way he punched Maximov, sending him flying off the carriage! No explanation there...there was the talk about how Maximov was von Sohn, risen from the dead.

    The von Sohn reference keeps popping up (remember the earlier note? von Sohn, a prototype for F. Karamazov) And how about Schiller's, Die Raeuber...Karl and Franz Moor? Remember Karl and Franz Moor are feuding over the same girl? Karamazov had called Ivan, Karl and Dmitri, Franz? And here in Chapter VII we learn that Ivan is in love with Katerina, Dmitri's finacee. But they aren't fighting over her, are they?

    Is Dmitri crazy? Giving up the beautiful, rich Katerina for the married (depending on which translation you read) Grushenka? Is Katerina virtuous too? I don't recall? And now papa Karamazov "must have her" too! She must be something else. She can't make up her mind which she prefers! But Ivan! How has Ivan won Katerina?

    Fai, the cynic, let's look closely at what Rakitin, the cynic and Alyosha thought about the significance of the bow?

    Traude
    April 22, 2001 - 07:20 am
    A very busy Sunday is shaping up here and I may not be able to post again until late evening, if then. Just a few comments now.

    On the translations:

    Maryal , your translations sound a lot more sensible to my eyes and ears than mine does, and I bet yours are more recent ! My BN hardcover, alas, does not mention the date of the translation. I am extremely irritated by some words and phrases that are clumsy and unfortunate and, in some instances, plain wrong.

    Rakitin is described as saying something "malignantly". I believe MALICIOUSLY was meant. (The same inaccuracy is found elsewhere in the text.)

    In chapter 8, when the group goes - sans Father Karamazov - into the refectory for the meal with the father superior, Miusov begins the formal apology "simpering affably" And "As he uttered the last word of his "TIRADE" (!), Miusov completely recovered his "self-complacency" (sic)

    This was a formal apology by a courteous man, embarrassed by the coarseness of Old Karamazov, trying to make amends, as it were. It was clearly NOT a tirade ! Also, the word "self-complacency" is all wrong here, but I won't belabor the point any further.

    As for Ivan, we may need to reread the information we were first given of him in Book One, chapter 3. We read there that he had just finished at university and meant to go abroad "upon his two thousand roubles" (sic) (which should be RUBLES, but never mind) "and then published in one of the more important journals a strange (!) article, which attracted general notice, on a subject of which he might have been supposed to know nothing, as he was a student of natural science." The article concerned a subject much in debate, it seems, and specifically "the position of the ecclesiastical courts." The reader is told nothing further at that point, except that "many of the Church party considered him as unquestionably on THEIR side"... "And yet not only the secularists but even atheists joined them in their applause."

    The quoted sentences are from my translation, please consider all of this indented --- I haven't mastered that technique yet.



    Questions. The bow had great significance, obviously. The prescient elder perceived great suffering (perhaps martyrdom) for Dmitri in the future and the very deep bow was a sign of respect. As we get further into the narrative, things will become clearer.

    2. and 6. No matter how the title of this chapter is rendered, we get the idea, loud and clear. Rakitin is an opportunist, we might even say a status seeker, he has is eyes and ears everywhere, makes it HIS business to know everything about everyone, his curiosity is insatiable and is also envious.

    Rakitin is, we read, "not important enough" to have been invited to the meal, but he knew precisely what would be served. He says at one point "I am (only) a priest's son", and that surely galls him because he has great ambitions, not necessarily in the religious field. He has no vocation. He is a man on the make, after all.

    Some of is observations are scathing and it is astonishing to see Alyosha's mild reaction; how could he possibly have developed a friendship with this cynic ? For I believe Rakitin was a cynic.

    Why does Rakitin display such an interest for the Karamazov family (and it is more interest than "concern", I believe) ? He is envious and curious and we get the feeling he wouldn't mind seeing the mighty Karamazovs brought low !

    4. We will learn more about Grushenka in Book Three. Obviously we can't go there yet.

    Katerina Ivanova was first mentioned in the chapter 4 of Book Two, I said then "Hold the name".By the end of Book Two we do know that there is potent connection to Old Karamazov, to Dmitry and to Ivan, not necessarily in that order. Some questions cannot be answered at this point - because we cannot go beyond the assigned reading.

    But something should be pointed out : by the end of Book Two there is NO FEUDING beween brothers, no rivalry quite yet. There IS however a bitter rivalry between Old Karamazov and Dmitri over the alluring, desirable Grushenka. It would be interesting to see how this develops and how Katerina Ivanovna (also called Katenka, Katya) figures in all of this - but those questions are for the moment unanswerable.

    Lastly, question 10. Ivan did not actually STRIKE Maximov. At the end of the last disgraceful performance, Old Karamazov and Ivan finally get to their carriage. You will recall that the silent Maximov had been taunted (as a resurrected Von Sohn) and tempted by the buffoon to give up the simple monastery life, to join him. Very much a satanic temptation.

    From the carriage Old Karamazov called again "Jump in, jump in, let him pass, Ivan !" but as Maximov ran out and tried to put his foot up, "But Ivan, who had by now taken his seat, without a word gave Maximov violent punch in the breast and sent him flying. It was quite by chance he did not fall." Ivan was disgusted and silent for the rest of the drive home.

    I am writing this in great haste and have to run now.

    Traude
    April 22, 2001 - 08:02 am
    Old Karamazov was a scoundrel, a man driven by instinct and devoid of feelings, a despicable human specimen. He had the means to indulge his every whim and considered no one but himself. If the terms self-discipline and self-control existed in his time, they would have been beyond his grasp. We can plainly see that the more he got "into" salacious subjects, the more compulsively eloquent and self-convinced he became - poor deluded man - and yet still seeking approval (! Betty will have to explain this paradox to us.

    He came back because this was is chance, the culmination. He had meant to bring things to a head before, but things didn't quite work out that way because of the courtesy and general attitude of those present at the elder's residence. So he was hell-bent on finishing the job this time, by golly, shocking everyone, and who cares ! Let the chips fall whee they may. As for his "word", it counts for nothing.

    Deems
    April 22, 2001 - 08:24 am
    Ah yes, translations. One of mine, Avsey, was published in 1994 and is therefore quite recent. For the sections you pointed out in Chapter 8, I have quite different words:

    "We must offer you our most sincere apologies, Your Reverence," Pyotr Aleksandrovich began with a broad grin.........

    I think "broad grin" is way more neutral than "simpering affably"---does anyone really simper anymore?

    Where your translation has "tirade," Avsey has "speech":

    Miusov fell silent. As he uttered the closing words of his speech, he experienced a feeling of complete self-satisfaction....

    The Pevear translation is 1990 and has "grinning affably," but it retains "tirade" where you have it. I wonder if there isn't something in the Russian word that indicates something a little more didactic than "speech."

    I will go on no longer lest I lapse into areas too obscure even for me.

    Please don't learn how to indent, Traude. Then I will feel that I must learn it too. Alas.

    Maryal

    Hats
    April 22, 2001 - 08:36 am
    Rakitan knows so much about the family. I wonder where he gets his information, and I wonder why he is so interested in the Karamazovs. Is it because they lead such exciting lives?

    I find Pushkin, the poet is interesting. In my book, he is described as the bard who liked to write about "legs." How funny!! "Pushkin was a bard of women's legs. He celebrated women's legs in his poems..."

    HATS

    Deems
    April 22, 2001 - 08:42 am
    I guess we can assume that Pushkin was a LEG man as opposed to a..............-----ooops, never mind.

    Hats
    April 22, 2001 - 09:25 am
    Maryal, your a nut!!! On another subject, father K. insults all of the monks and monastery. Isn't the monastery a holy place? Has he no regard for this place? Why is he so desperate for attention? If God appeared, I think he would insult him too.

    Poor Alyosha! father K. drags him out of the monastery. He's despicable. Is it possible to be totally despicable? I don't think so. So, I must be overlooking some redeeming character trait hidden inside of father K.

    In a way, he is saying the monasteries are corrupt, at times, just wanting his rubles for their own benefit. Were the monasteries corrupt, or is he just saying whatever comes into his head?

    HATS

    Jo Meander
    April 22, 2001 - 10:24 am
    "Why is he so desperate for attention? If God appeared, I think he would insult him too." Good one, HATS! Father K. is not only a lascivious old buffoon, he's childish! He grandstands to get attention, can't stand to be left out of the dinner party with the Superior, would rather be flogged, knocked silly and locked up than be ignored! Now we know about the rivalry over Grushenka, and also, note that Alyosha suggests that Ratikin may have his eye on Katarina Ivanova and her money for himself. Considering Alyosha's innocence and candor, I think we can honor that possibility. Rakitin is a needy soul himself, having a bit in common with Father K. in that respect. Don't ignore me! Don't overlook me!


    Joan, I just new one day I'd be an ELDER, and after last night's attack of arthritis, I think I've officially arrrived!

    Henry Misbach
    April 22, 2001 - 10:53 am
    Hats, I think it is made fairly clear by the narrator that Papa K. just got carried away with his own rhetoric. If the monastery had depended on his support, it would have disbanded long ago.

    Dostoevsky, being ahead of his time, probably saw in the monasteries considerable social merit, but only as a stop-gap for the inadequacies of Russian development. Could they be capable of corruption? I think Dostoevsky would admit that they certainly could. But, in context, they were still necessary.

    FaithP
    April 22, 2001 - 11:34 am
    Aloysha thinks of the bow as symbolic of something awful, or perhaps not symbolic but prophetic.

    Says Rakitin ""It'll be in your family, this crime. Between your brothers and your rich old father. So Father Zossima flopped down to be ready for what may turn up. If something happens later on, it'll be: 'Ah, the holy man foresaw it, prophesied it!' though it's a poor sort of prophecy, flopping like that. 'Ah, but it was symbolic,' they'll say, 'an allegory,' and the devil knows what all! It'll be remembered to his glory: 'He predicted the crime and marked the criminal!' That's always the way with these crazy fanatics; they cross themselves at the tavern and throw stones at the temple. Like your elder, he takes a stick to a just man and falls at the feet of a murderer."

    "What crime? What do you mean?"

    And so Murder enters the book through the bow.

    And the horrible scene at dinner with F.K.returning , telling wild tales of the Sohn murder and referring to The Robbers story sets up The Tale for us. Now I am on to a new chapter. I am "reining myself in" to stay with the group. I seem to learn more that way. FP

    Hats
    April 22, 2001 - 12:01 pm
    Jo, I like the word "needy." You are just like me, I get so angry with father K. His attitude makes me want to scream to high heaven. It's almost a blessing that his sons did not spend all of their lives with him. He would have driven them completely crazy, leaving them with all sorts of social problems.

    Faith, does your book describe Zosima's bow with the word "flop?" My book describes Zosima as bowing soooo low that he "bumped" his forehead on the floor. I know that was a serious moment, but the description of his bow made me laugh. Perhaps, I just felt starved for some humor.

    Henry, I agree with you. I did feel that father K. got carried away with his own rhetoric, but reading that part peaked my interest to know more about the monasteries.

    I became a little confused with the Von Sohn situation. I will have to reread that part again. Is Maximov Von Sohn? Oh, I need help.

    My book gives Grushenka the disreputable name of "prostitute." That surprised me. I knew she liked men, and probably had more men around than needed, but I did not think she was a prostitute. Ugh!

    Alyosha is good. He seems to be taking everything in stride. No oubursts from him. What a guy!!

    HATS

    FaithP
    April 22, 2001 - 12:13 pm
    Hats my book is the electronic one here on site. The word "flop" is in the quote I posted from Ratkin while he is walking to the dinner.

    At this time I don't think we have anything but gossip concerning Grushenka who is at the least acquainted with everyone Male in the book, or so it seems. fp

    Deems
    April 22, 2001 - 12:31 pm
    Papa Karamazov (who ought to be ashamed of himself, but that's not gonna happen, not ever) calls Maximov "von Sohn." He thinks he looks like vonSohn. But vonSohn---a real historical fellow who was murdered-- is already dead.

    Hats
    April 22, 2001 - 12:35 pm
    Maryal, now, I understand. I remember a link that Joan gave us, at the very beginning, about Von Sohn.

    HATS

    Deems
    April 22, 2001 - 12:43 pm
    I have "loose woman" as Rakitin's description of Grushenka in both my translations. Of course, loose woman is just a euphemism for prostitute, isn't it?

    I am suspicious of Rakitin. He overheard what Dmitri said at Grushenka's and Rakitin was hiding in her bedroom until Dmitri left. Obviously, he did not want Dmitri to see him there. Rakitin goes to see Grushenka with some degree of regularity because Alyosha thinks, until Rakitin corrects him, that Rakitin and Grushenka were relatives!

    My theory--Two possibilities for Rakitin hanging out at Grushenka's--sex and information. Rakitin seems to have spies everywhere. I'm sure we will find out later on, but I enjoy speculating.

    Maryal

    Traude
    April 22, 2001 - 02:52 pm
    Maryal -- how DOES Rakitin have the inside information on so many things ? Why WAS he in Grushenka's bedroom ? He turns "crimson" when innocent Alyosha assumes he, R., is a relative of Grushenka's (--- he had said to Alyosha before that he did not have amorous intentions !!!) So he must have been there to spy, as you said, but under what guise ? Why did Grushenka even allow it ?



    Re translations -- I just knew it, Maryal ! Your translations are definitely more recent than mine seems to be (as I said, no date given, drats). Thank you for quoting the phrases. I have not checked the electronic version : old-fashioned as I am I prefer the have and hold-in-hand variety, magic marker at the ready !



    It is my belief that translators of works of fiction are often more conversant with ONE language, and less so with the other. It is one thing to UNDERSTAND the ORIGINAL text, but to PRESENT it in a different language, with which the translator may be less familiar and less comfortable, is another matter altogether. That's why we have to struggle as best we can to get the meaning here-- whatever translation is before us.



    I have known people like Rakitin - intensely, even intrusively preoccupied with every aspect, every last personal detail of another person's life and circumstances - God only knows why. Just morbid curiosity ? To experience cheap power knowing of skeletons hidden in others' closets ? To further their own cause ?

    In the case of Rakitin, a man clearly on the make, an opportunist if ever there was one, we already have an inkling that no matter WHAT happens, he will be there, if only to record it. Ivan seems to have pegged him all right ! Of course, let's not forget envy. That is old as man

    ALF
    April 23, 2001 - 09:36 am
    Tada, Faith has led me to understanding, as she so aptly states,And so Murder enters the book through the bow. I grappled with this question for some time .

    Joan Pearson
    April 23, 2001 - 10:05 am
    Mercy! Maryal and I are supposed to be LEADING this discussion, and we have all we can do just to KEEP up with YOU! Step away for a weekend, and the discussion takes such wild and wonderful turns! Will try to be brief - but I am bursting with reactions to your posts!

    First an announcement that is of interest to all of us!...NO, WE HAVE NOT YET ACCOMPLISHED THE MOVE TO THE NEW SERVER! If we read the small print, we were not told that it was necessarily going to take place over the weekend. It is still imminent and could take place at any time now. Here is the exact wording of the announcement.
    If all goes as planned we will be moving our web site to a new server this weekend or early in this week. At some point we will have to "freeze" our discussions (make them read only) while we move a current copy of them over to the new server. You might want to spend the time to catch up on your "reading" in our discussions .

    We'll notify you with as much lead time as we can.

    After we move our whole site to the new server, for a period of time (up to 24 hours) some regions of the Internet may have problems locating the new IP address for our server (our urls, www.seniornet.org, etc. will remain the same). We will try to keep any confusion to a minimum and we will try to keep you posted of our progress. I hope that you will all be patient with us. Thanks!

    ALF
    April 23, 2001 - 10:30 am
    Great, Joan. Being fully aware that you and Maryal are our fearless leaders , in this discussion, we await further word from you when it is best to proceed .

    Joan Pearson
    April 23, 2001 - 11:25 am
    hahaha! Fearless! There is lots we haven't touched on in Chapter VIII and I think we can continue with that. If we do stay on schedule, we will probably begin discussing Book III tomorrow. Let's see how today goes...and the move? I will have mercy on you, and react to your latest posts in dribs...and drabs. As opposed to buckets!

    Drib #1: Traudee's description of Rakitin and then Alyosha's innocent response concerning Rakitin's relationship with Grushenka, reminded me of something earlier in the chapter about Aly's understanding of Rakitin... This made me look twice at each of Alyosha's questions to Rakitin...and conclude that he is not as naive and innocent as he might at first appear.
    " He (Rakitan) had a footing everywhere, and got information about everything. He was of an uneasy and envious temper. He was well aware of his own considerable abilities, and nervously exaggerated them in his self-conceit. He knew he would play a prominent part of some sort, but Alyosha, who was attached to him, was distressed to see that his friend Rakitin was dishonorable, and quite unconscious of being so himslef, considering on the contrary, that because he would not steal money left on the table he was a man of highest integrity."


    It seems to me that with his seemingly innocent questions and comments, Alyosha is causing Rakitin to reveal much - in ways quite similar to the ways in which the elder's questions caused people to respond, reveal, confess.

    Rakitin is intimately familiar with the Karamazovs, has had some sort of social contact with Grushenka...and is also acquainted with (and interested in?) the lovely Katerina! You know what he reminds me of? The omniscient narrator!

    Joan Pearson
    April 23, 2001 - 12:31 pm
    Hmmm...I think that question posed by Hats can be answered in two ways. First, this may be Dostoevsky's outlet for venting criticism even frustration with the institution of the Church in Russia...but he quickly adds that the monastery never had played any great part in Karamazov's life...that he had no legitimate gripe here.

    I didn't read it as such general criticism, but rather as a description of Karamazov's psyche, his tendency to hate one on whom he had played a dirty trick...the one who made him look small and foolish...and his desire for revenge on his victim.

    This desire for revenge brings him back to the dinner to vent his accusations agains the monks and the monasteries. I am going to go back and reread these wild rantings to see if Dostoevsky has embedded his own real criticism of the Church within...

    I found it very interesting that within the same chapter, we hear Zosima tell Alyosha that he wants him to go out into the world at his death...(and marry!) and then papa Karamazov demand that Alyosha pack up his stuff and come home! It sounds as if our boy's time is up at the monastery, doesn't it?

    Joan Pearson
    April 23, 2001 - 12:47 pm
    Hats, here's the van Sohn link I meant to insert in the heading ...von Sohn, the prototype for Karamazov.

    For the life of me, I can't figure out what Maximov has to do with the von Sohn reference. In this chapter we learn even more...about the story.
    "He was killed and robbed, and in spite of his venerable age, he was nailed up in a box and sent home from Persburg to Moscow in the luggage van, and while they were nailing him up, the harlots sang songs and played the harp...the piano."


    I guess we are just going to see how this plays out...but the link between Maximov and Karamazov/von Sohn is bedevilling me! Maximov is said to be the resurrected von Sohn, his spitting image!???

    Joan Pearson
    April 23, 2001 - 01:03 pm
    Fai, I think your wisdom puts you in line for the next nomination for elder, along with the ailing Jo! Your defense of poor Grushenka who has not yet appeared to defend herself is admirable! Let he who is innocent cast the first stone...(how does that go, Maryal? ) We have heard in the varying translations (isn't this a splendid resource, comparing the different ones?)...Grushenka has been described as a married woman (who is fooling around), a "kept woman"...(who is also fooling around); a harlot; a loose woman; and a prostitute, depending on whom you talk to, or who is doing the translation. You do get the impression though that she is not interested in either Dmitri OR his father, but what she might stand to gain financially...which puts her more in the prostitute category, doesn't it? Oops! I'll never make Elder! As Fae counsels...it's all just gossip at this point. I do think that Dmitri is making a big mistake, and that there may be time for him to decide that he really wants to keep his little fiancee, Katerina, after all...

    Fae, I agree the bow is the first real direct indication that a murder will take place, but there have been other references to murder in previous chapters...references to the von Sohn murder for instance.

    OK, there are my weekend posts...a few other observations, but you have all put forth such articulate comments, that there remains nothing to do but THANK YOU!

    Deems
    April 23, 2001 - 02:23 pm
    I think Fyodor's reference to von Sohn is simply more of his fooling around. He has mentioned before that Maximov LOOKS like vonSohn. Now that he is in full dinner-disturbing mode, he simply runs his previous observation into the ground by calling Maximov vonSohn even after Maximov gives his proper name. Maximov seems to enjoy the attention since he decides to take Fyodor up on his invitation to his house. (Ivan cannot take any more of the buffoonery though so Maximov doesn't get to come.)

    On the level of irony, of course, Dostoevsky gets a lot of mileage out of having Fyodor call Maximov, repeatedly, "vonSohn." At the time, the name would have had the resonance that "JonBenet" does now. Everyone who read the novel would have heard of this famous murder. So there's some more foreshadowing going on here.

    I have a semi-broken k key, so if there are any extra K's in here, I apologize. I'm going to work on it as soon as I get up the nerve.

    Maryal

    Jo Meander
    April 23, 2001 - 05:34 pm
    Rakitin turns crimson when Alyosha asks him why he was visiting Grushenka, and if he is related to her. Why couldn’t Rakitin have been visiting Grushenka for sex and information? Why couldn’t he have been interested in Katerina Ivanova and her money, another suggestion that he refuses to address directly, declaring that he doesn’t have to share his business. He is the one who scrutinizes the behavior, beliefs and motives of the Karamazovs, but he refuses to answer Alyosha’s questions about himself. Evidently he can’t bear to have his own motives, needs, or weaknesses scrutinized.
    Ironically, both he and Alyosha are right about Ivan. Ivan’s theory on morality based upon believing in immortality is ridiculous because it doesn’t allow for other motives for loving and protecting one’s fellow man. The motives that Rakitin suggests have a political ring that is also inadequate: “freedom, equality, fraternity” sounds like a speech, not a conviction that one needs to protect all of humankind out of compassion, empathy, and love. Alyosha knows that Ivan is struggling to find answers to the great questions, that he “needs” to suffer in the process of finding answers, an observation that the cynic Rakitin mocks.
    JOAN, re omniscient narrator: what about the “we” voice that inserts itself to let us know that Fyodor is blowing smoke about the Elder’s abuse of confession and the trouble the monks have caused in his life? That’s the voice we heard in an earlier chapter, the voice of one who knows all about what has been going on in this village and the monastery. The voice is letting us know that Fyodor's accusations are specious.

    Joan Pearson
    April 23, 2001 - 06:25 pm
    hahahaha, Maryal - the "k" key is broken??? This is really serious in a story about all the Karamzovs and then of course there's Mme. Khokhlakov! Of all the keys to go on the fritz! I'm wondering what you plan to do to "fix" it? Does the "fix" include a bobby pin...or a coat hanger? We're holding our collective breath waiting to find out!!!

    So you say, ignore Karamazov's rantings about von Sohn, the same way we are ignoring Ivan's theories??? Well, okayyyyyyyy...but Dostoevsky is making such a point of repeating the name and Maximav's similarities...okay! I'd better knock it off before Henry comes in here and gives me the what for about this too! hahaha...

    Jo, I think we have Rakitin's number now! He sure doesn't seem young, does he? Twenty two, I think? He seems so much older than that, cynical and world-weary? How can he possibly be considered Alyosha's friend? What is he doing at the monastery? He's supposed to be a seminarian...but we are told for some inexplicable reason he has attached himself to this monastery. He doesn't inspire much confidence in the future of the Church, does he - as a seminarian? Is that what Dostovsky is trying to portray?...the need for reform and the return to the true meaning of Christianity in the Church?

    Joan Pearson
    April 23, 2001 - 06:36 pm
    This came in my mail and too good not to share with you all. (I did write for permission to post it first!) Some of you might know Marvelle from other discussions. She follows Brothers K, but is up to her ears in real life so that she is unable to actively participate here. This really deserves your attention!
    I've been dying to see someone pick up on pater K's disease and so far no one has. Readers were warned by Dos at the end of chapter 1, book 1 "as a general rule, people, even the wicked, are much more naive and simple-hearted than we suppose. AND WE OURSELVES ARE TOO."

    Dos couldn't have warned us any clearer that things will be happening in the novel and we may not even notice them.

    Anyway -- the disease. Of course pater K has been a womanizer all his life, then comes the shocking description of his decay on pages 16-17 of my book (Garnett translation, Norton critical edition). In summary, pater K left his village for a period of 3 years and when he returned "hs former acquaintances found him looking terribly aged, although he was by no means an old man. He behaved not exactly with more dignity but with more effrontery...his depravity with women...was even more revolting. ...Of late, he looked somehow BLOATED and seemed more irresponsible, more UNEVEN, had sunk into a sort of INCOHERENCE, used to begin one thing and go on with another."

    This continues from page 16 to 17, such as "his countenance at this time BORE TRACES OF SOMETHING THAT TESTIFIED UNMISTAKABLY TO THE LIFE HE HAD LED. Besides the long fleshy bgs under his...eyes; besides the multitude of deep wrinkles in his little fat face; the Adam's apple hung below his sharp chin like a great, fleshy goiter...(his mouth full of) stumps of black dcayed teeth. He SLOBBERED every time he began to speak."

    The physical and mental decay points to the sexual disease syphilis, I think. And there are indications that this was transmitted to Dimitri through the mother. Once I reached page 16-17 and got on further to Dimitri on page 58-59, I went back to the beginning of the book and reread about Dimitri's mother -- now I think that she may have received the disease from pater K and that is why she acted as she did. Her situation was hopeless, she wouldn't be taken in by her family in that condition, she hadn't the means to care for her son who in any case would have been infected as well.

    This is speculation based on what is now the final stages of syphilis seen in the father but I think it makes sense. Even when novels or plays of that time talked of the wasting disease or consumption people knew that was a code for syphilis.

    Now at 28 Dimitri shows beginning signs of bad health (pages 58-59 - "there was something not healthy in his face. It was rather thin, his cheeks were hollow, and there was an unhealthy sallowness in their color." His eyes had a determined but vague look to them and he was 'of an unstable and unbalanced mind'. Dimitri recently started to live a dissipated life -- had he seen signs of the disease and known that a good woman and good life could not be in his future? Anyway, pater K and Dimitri are both associated with the body. Just as Ivan is with the mind and Aloysha with the soul.

    Typical of Dos to give a disease to pater K and son Dimitri. I think that Dos was using his own terrible trouble in seeing his child die of epilepsy -- Dos' own disease. He felt great guilt over 'giving' it to his little child. How like a writer to take his feelings of guilt and transpose them into something even larger and more heinous. How like a writer to TRY to work out the problem on paper, both intellectually and emotionally, as to whether he was guilty or not, what the judgment should be against him, to attempt to solve the unsolvable.

    Now the question to me -- since I am fairly sure of pater K and Dimitri's disease -- is whether that was transmitted to the other sons. Aloysha the youngest? I think not. Ivan - probably not. Smerdyakov I haven't gotten to yet but I have my suspicions about him. Remember how Rakitin says to Aloysha that "in your family sensuality is carried to a disease" (page 70 of A Seminarian Bent on a Career).

    It is interesting that pater K believes in immortality and is trying to buy himself a more comfortable spot in hell (1000 rubles to the monastery; visiting the elder for a twisted sort of confession -- for it was a confession of himself, Ivan, and Dimitri; and using Aloysha as his heavenly mediator, literally his angel). Dimitri at this point doesn't belive in immortality and I see bad things ahead for him. Ivan isn't sure about immortality. Only Aloysha has a strong faith. Funny how the "wicked and sentimental" peasant father also has faith of a kind and definitely not an abstract vision of heaven/hell.

    Well, take my theory or not, as you like. I just couldn't keep it bottled up anymore!

    I am reading and printing the discussion each day, however, so at least I keep abreast of everyone's thoughts. Thanks so much for all the art and history. it has helped a lot with understanding the culture of the Brothers K and the mood of the times.

    My own grandparents in Eastern Europe were serfs and it was a life of starvation and back-breaking work and and it certainly didn't breed love for their so-called 'masters'. I don't blame the aristocrats for tiptoing around their former serfs! Talk about major guilt and fear of retribution -- having done unto them what they did unto others! (I know I've twisted the biblical meaning here but the feudal system itself was twisted.)

    I enjoy reading along with everyone even though I am just a lurker.

    Happy reading,

    Marvelle

    Deems
    April 23, 2001 - 06:40 pm
    is now functional. And I fixed it with tweezers, a steady hand and persistence. Oh, and a small screwdriver (for fixing glasses) in order to lift the key off. In fixing the k key, I misaligned the j key, and had to fix it as well.

    Anyway, all my keys are back up now and I find myself with nothing to say about the Karamazovs! But I am so glad that the repeating K key is no longer repeating. It would type a K if my finger just brushed against it, yes really. No one knows how many kkkkkkkk's I deleted just to save your eyes!

    Tomorrow, no doubt, an idea will come to me.

    Oh, just thought of one. JO--Hey, why not, sex and information may be the answer.

    Maryal

    Joan Pearson
    April 23, 2001 - 06:45 pm
    Well, I'll file that away...use tweezers to fix my next broken key! I'm sure you'll find opportunity to type out KKKKARAMAZOV again, maybe even Madame KKKKhokkkkhlakkkov...

    We were posting at the same time earlier...did you see Marvelle's theory, right before you reported the successful tweezer surgery?

    Deems
    April 23, 2001 - 06:46 pm
    What an interesting email from Marvelle, but I beg to differ. I think that Fyodor K's disease is alcoholism. It will also explain the symptoms--the bloating, the look of ill health, the mental confusion. Once the liver is affected, it ceases to be able to perform its very necessary function of cleansing the blood of poisons, such as ammonia, which then go to the brain. The condition causes confusion and ultimately madness. It is called "hepatic encephalapathy."

    I do not mean to take away from the fact that Fyodor Karamazov is also an avid womanizer. He is that as well.

    Maryal

    FaithP
    April 23, 2001 - 06:55 pm
    I appreciate Marvelle's communication. When I was reading about Father K's disease the thought crossed my mind of syphilis. However I had not extended the thought to include Dmetri and only occasionally recalled that I had had this impression. I am now trying to remember the first time I read the book through which was a very long time ago. This is enlightning. However on page 70, "sensuality is carried to a disease" I simply took to mean a mental disorder, like being addicted to sex, and the more degraded the better re: The bastard child raised by the servents:Smerdyakov.

    FaithP
    April 23, 2001 - 06:59 pm
    Maryal and I were posting at the same time. I also thought of alcohol as a cause of Father K's deterioration but I also saw the authors use of illness/disease an allogory to point up the vile nature of the man. fp

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    April 24, 2001 - 12:07 am
    I need to catch up - I am still at my daughters and I took time to read a little today - Chapter five to me was fascinating - the argument brought about by the Judicial Reform Act of 1864 seemed as simple as the argument of the day between courts exercising canon law rather than civil law. But, by taking the thoughts or argument one step farther, in a metaphysical sense, it was profound.

    If we are all spiritual beings and the church is not the building or the officials of an organized group or members that bind themselves together and identified by their choise of a certain dogma but rather, simply the body of people that share in the spiritual nature of God, than it would be impossible for any government to be Godless, since to be Godless is to be void of humanity. If we believe we are the "Body of Christ," than God is at the core of all humanity and an automatic part of any social assemply therefore, the seperation of God and State is impossible. Now the seperation of any or all organized religions and the State is possible. But are we saying than that our spirituality is dependent on our accepting an organized groups interpretaion of God? How do we than further theology and our deepening understanding of God through man and the universe if we only depend on dogma? I want to sort out that chapter again when I return home and look up all the Biblical references alluded to in the chapter.

    The next bit about the law of nature and mankind's loving and living would dry up makes sense to me - If the law of nature is Darwin's Law than the continuation of the species is the further scientific explanation for the church's decree to "go out and multiply." The concept of a loving God that further translates to "loving each other as we love ourselves," is based on the concepts that began with the shift in the year 71AD, we call the beginning of Christianity, that we live and love in order to enter heaven. Judaism is not about living to pile up brownie points toward death and God's judgment. Without a belief in God, that Ivan is saying is best defined and expressed by the Russian Orthodox Church, humanity would only be continuing ourselves as a species and morality would no longer be an issue even to the extent of permitting cannibalism.

    On page 71 in my 1990 translation with Annotations, Dmitri "keeps visiting one of the local seductresses. But although this seductress has lived, so to speak, in a civil marriage with a respected man, yet she is of independent character, an impregnable fortress to all, the same as a lawful wife, for she is virtuous..." On page 73 my book refers to the Lady as "the father is jealous of his son over a woman of bad behavior, and himself arranges with this creature to lock the son up in prison..."

    The bow is quite the conversation piece isn't it?

    I've only read to the middle of chapter seven - I have to play catch up on the flight home late Wednesday night.

    Malryn (Mal)
    April 24, 2001 - 06:37 am
    Hi, everyone

    I subscribe to a Russian Cuisine newsletter sent out by Olga Timohina, who owns the Russian Cuisine website. Generally, Olga sends out Russian recipes, but sometimes she writes about Russian life and lore. This is the letter I received today, which I thought you might find interesting.



    Dear Friends,

    Today is another religious holiday Radonitsa.

    According to canon law, visits to the cemetery at Easter day were forbidden. For this, there is a special holiday Radonitsa. Radonitsa is celebrated on the 9th day after Easter. Easter commemoration of the diseased takes place on Tuesday of Thomas week. People come to the cemetery to "exchange a triple kiss" and share the holiday meal with their dead relatives and friends. Orthodoxy brought in a new meaning to the ancient rite of spring funeral feasts. Jesus, having died for sinners and arisen, has given a new life to everyone – dead and alive.



    The name of the holiday comes from the word "radost" (joy), that was brought by Jesus Resurrection. This day is meant to share joy and hope for the universal forgiveness and resurrection.



    The ceremonial dishes such as fast funeral kutia, painted eggs, kulichi, pancakes, dracheni, honey prianiki and cookies are a must on the holiday table. The funeral table is decorated with a fir twig to the memory of a dead person there is an empty place, a setting and a candle. After the funerals feast an egg, a piece of kulich and cookies are left on the grave. The beggars are endowed with handouts.



    In the Rus the youth waited for Krasnaya Gorka (folk name of Radonitsa) with impatience. People sang and danced in a ring on beautiful green hillocks.



    Radonitsa days were considered the best marriage time. It was believed that people, got married at that period, would live well and happily. That is why young women accepted the proposals from men with optimism and enthusiasm.



    There was another beautiful tradition of this time – daughters-in-laws and sons-in-law endowed their relatives given by God with different gifts.Radonitsa comes to every house, bringing joy to the hearts and rewarding everyone with spring merry communication with each other and dead relatives. The time of rejoicing unites the hearts of believers and the hope for the best times is born.



    Bon Appetit!
    Olga.

    Joan Pearson
    April 24, 2001 - 11:14 am
    Well, the train started rollin' and then came to an abrupt halt! No new server yet! Just picture all the behind-the scenes-scrambling to find the glitch! The wait goes on!

    We won't mind any of the chaos around us, but will move on to Book III, okay? Feel free to backtrack at any point though!

    Barbara, we are so happy you managed to find some time to drop in with your thoughtful posts on Ivan's arguments. Not many of us had the patience, although he did have his moments, I must admit! We'll look forward to hearing from you on Thursday?

    Hmmm...both Fai and Maryal see Fyodor's illness, weight loss, and unhealthy demeaner as alcoholism, while Marvelle sees his affliction as the dreaded disease of syphillis! A good point, Fai - "the authors use of illness/disease an allegory to point up the vile nature of the man." One or the other? Both work for me.

    By the way, does anyone care to venture a guess as to the disease that is taking the elder's life? He's not an old man...did we read 65? He must have contracted something!

    In these chapters, Dmitri is also demonstrating an alcohol problem, but there is another curious line in Chapter V that could indicate the disease Marvelle suggests...

    "I went to give her a beating (Grushenka), and stayed. A thunderstorm sturck, a plague broke out, I got infected and am infected even now, and I know that everything is over and there will never be anything else."


    He was engaged, had gone through all the formalities and suddenly he knows he cannot marry Katerina??? Knowing he had this disease would be enough to change the plans, wouldn't it?

    Mal, thanks for the letter from Olga. I was particularly interested in the dancing on the village green! It fits right into our discussion of Chapter I here. Perhaps it was part of the Easter festival when young Marfa and the other serf girls were called upon to dance on the green...to the tune of In the Green Meadow! But her young husband Grigory was not happy with her performance...took her home, pulled her hair and she never danced again after that! How did her dance differ from the rest of the girls', I'm wondering...

    Hats
    April 24, 2001 - 01:48 pm
    I think Martha's dance does not differ from the dance of the other girls. It is my feeling that Gregory's reply squelched her spirit. Dancing makes us feel free, spontaneous, in love with life and a little out of control. Perhaps, she showed more freedom and beauty because she had been professionally trained by a "Moscow dancing master."

    I think Gregory saw Margaret's free spirit and felt threatened. Maybe jealous? Once she experienced his disdain for her dance Martha decides she does not want to experience his negativity again.So, she never dances again.

    He is able to influence her. After the death of their baby, she never speaks "above a whisper" about her baby and never in his presence. He feels pain and turns to religions. It does not say what Margaret does with her grief.

    Gregory, at times, seems so compassionate. On one side, he loves his wife, he loves children, and he is able to be a very good friend to father K and he took care of Ivan and Alyosha and their mother.

    Yet, when his baby is born with six fingers, he calls the baby a dragon and says, "There is no need to christen him at all." He seems to treat his wife as a serf, and he is the master of their destiny.Is their whole relationship symbolic of master and slave? Part of that serf situation?

    Poor Martha, she can not dance, and she can not speak about what must give her the most pain, the lost of her baby.

    "Since that time he had never mentioned his son, nor had Martha done so in his presence. Indeed, whenever she happened to talk about her "little baby" to someone or other, she did so in a whisper, even though Gregory was out of earshot."

    Gregory is an enigma. I want to love him, but.....

    HATS

    Deems
    April 24, 2001 - 02:51 pm
    Joan---I believe that the storm that struck Dmitri so quickly was a metaphorical storm of lust/love/passion, after which he cannot marry Katerina. Having encountered Grushenka, he belongs only to her.

    In the times of Courtly Love, passion was frequently treated as a violent event of nature--a storm, a disease. The love-sick man would neither eat not sleep, so driven to distraction by his love was he. The only hope he had was that the lady on whom he had cast his devotion would acknowledge his presence.

    Dmitri, like his father Fyodor K, is a most passionate and lustful man. In fact his two brothers share in this kind of passion. Ivan is passionately intellectual and Alyosha is passionately spiritual.

    Anyway, Dostoevsky give his characters many dramatic speeches. I think Book 3, Chap. 4 "Confessions: Free Fall" shows Dmitri going on at some length to tell Alyosha his recent life history. Dostoevsky is a dramatic novelist more than anything else. He reminds me of Shakespeare.

    Notice the dramatic overstatement here, for example. Dmitri is speaking of Grushenka:

    "I'll be her husband, I'll prove my worth, and if a lover comes I'll go into another room. I'll clean the muddy boots of her admirers, I'll fan the embers under the samovar, I'll run errands...."

    Maryal

    Deems
    April 24, 2001 - 02:57 pm
    of the same passage I just quoted from Avsey"

    "I'll be her husband, I'll have the honor of being her spouse, and if a lover comes, I'll go to another room. I'll clean her friends' dirty galoshes, I'll heat up the samovar, I'll run errands. . ."

    Most interesting. I wonder if the Russian has that double statement about being Grushenka's husband?

    Maryal

    Henry Misbach
    April 24, 2001 - 04:55 pm
    Maryal, I couldn't agree more. As I may have said before, the first reading of the Brothers K.,was, for me, the replacement of a course which I had ill-advisedly taken, then dropped. I well remember that, after reading several chapters of this book I found it exhausting. The dramatic character of it is the reason for that.

    Since it's April 24, I'd like to take a shot at the questions.

    Fyodor K. found that the rats at least let him know that he was not altogether alone. There is maybe a shared sense of the struggle for existence of which both men and rats partake.

    When Marfa did the dance, she was following the method prescribed by theatre people from Moscow (the Big City). Clearly Grigory thought it a little risque for a village girl.

    Grigory's attitude toward his son (who dies)can only be described as one who believes a child's deformation is God's wrath upon its parents, especially its father. His absorption into the Lives of the Saints and the Book of Job bespeaks an attitude we should almost have to call superstitious. An extra finger might even come in handy (excuse the pun).

    I'd say the supposition that Marfa cared for the Karamazov sons is a fair one.

    Grigory is submissive to Fyodor K. and even backs him up when he doesn't deserve it. Alyosha takes his Pop with a grain of salt.

    Question 7 is put in terms that associate differently now than they would have in the 19th century. Reminds me of a friend here in town who says his grandma said she was sure that he would be Gay. Obviously Granny wasn't thinking of that term the way we do now. Of course the human male predicament is to begin with the ideal of the Madonna and end up in bed. Is there beauty in it? If there isn't, why are there so many people? Probably only guys like Dante Alighieri saw it as a predicament. And Alyosha. It does seem to bother Dmitri momentarily, but times are tough.

    Hats
    April 25, 2001 - 04:50 am
    Oh-Oh Henry, I made a boo-boo. I thought yesterday was the twenty fourth. Boy! I've been sick with the flu so all my days have been melding together. Your thoughts on Gregory have given me a better understanding of him.

    HATS

    Joan Pearson
    April 25, 2001 - 05:22 am
    HATS??????...yesterday WAS the 24th! Yes? I'm going to go check my calendar...hahaha! I'm glad you are feeling better! We lost a wee bit of time here yesterday, but are back to normal today!

    We are ON THE NEW SERVER, folks! Wasn't that accomplished..seemingly effortlessly? You don't have any idea how much went into the preparation for this and how much we have to thank those who worked behind-the-scenes to pull that off!

    Grigory ~ (my Garnett translation calls him "Grigory"...his wife, Martha. But the Pevear calls her "Marfa". I like that! Sounds so much more Russian. Have decided to refer to them myself as Grigory and Marfa!) Not only is Grigory much clearer now...but I thought this opening chapter portrayed Fyodor in a somewhat sympathetic light, did you think? Henry writes:
    "Fyodor K. found that the rats at least let him know that he was not altogether alone. There is maybe a shared sense of the struggle for existence of which both men and rats partake."


    I think that his relationship with Grigory is also very telling...and the reason why Grigory has such influence on him!

    Deems
    April 25, 2001 - 05:31 am
    So, Henry and Joan, you both seem to be saying that rats, Grigory, and Smerdyakov are better company than no company. Hmmmmmmmmmmm.

    And now that Poppa K. has his sons gathered around him, he has his sons, the rats, Grigory and Smerdyakov. All of whom MAY be rats except of course for the "almost too good to be true" Alyosha.

    Whew! That was about the easiest move I've ever made!

    Maryal

    Joan Pearson
    April 25, 2001 - 05:40 am
    Maryal, a "metaphysical storm of list, love, passion"...maybe that's why I didn't get it, literalist that I am. I let the words plague and infect influence me...plus the fact that I don't see Dmitri falling in love with Grushenka...even into a passionate relationship with her. His relationship with her seems to me more of a weakness, a surrender to lust, a betrayal of his finacee that will now prevent him from marrying Katerina. I get the feeling that though a sensualist, Dmitri is an honorable man.

    While we are comparing translations, I think the Garnett/Matlaw version is interesting, and reveals something of Grushenka's part in the piece ...
    "I'll be her husband if she deigns to have me, and when lovers come, I'll go into the next room. I'll clean her friend's galoshes, heat up their samovar, run their errands."


    How about Alyosha's response to the dramatic description of Dmitri's marriage plans?..."Katerina Ivanovna will understand it all."

    Isn't it interesting that he speaks with such certainty? Alyosha hasn't even met the lady yet!

    Joan Pearson
    April 25, 2001 - 05:48 am
    Maryal, I agree with you, Alyosha is too good to be true...not almost! There was one line describing Alyosha that I read over and over, thinking what a wonderful way to live one's life, until it struck me that it we're not talking about a real person here...we're describing an angel, too good to be true. Will look for it! Aha!
    "Alyosha was sure that no one in the whole world would ever want to offend him, not only would not want to, but would not be able to."

    Joan Pearson
    April 25, 2001 - 06:00 am
    This is a snug one-story house, and it is full of rats! Yet Fyodor did not "altogether dislike them"...doesn't this suggest that he feels completely alone and the rats assure him that he is ? How pathetic is that?

    Grigory is a more understandable...not only is he loyal, but he is a man of integrity, 'incorruptible'. Moreover, he has seen Fyodor at his worst..."has seen his debauchery, knows his secrets but has remained devoted , does not reproach him with anything."

    That is so important to Fyodor, that is the reason he keeps him, the reason Grigory has influence over him. He serves as his conscience. This description of Grigory brings to mind the Elder...and Alyosha...

    I was surprised to learn in this chapter that Grigory has a wife. I thought he was trying to care for these little boys himself. Especially when he received the slap for their unkempt appearance! What did you make of Marfa? I sense she represents more than merely a submissive wife, because Dosotevsky devotes so much time to this "peripheral character."

    Hats
    April 25, 2001 - 06:37 am
    JOAN, golly, I have been lost somewhere. Thank you. I thought it was the twenty third, then, the twenty fourth.....Oh my, too much father K. Like good wine, too much is not good. (smile)

    HATS

    Hats
    April 25, 2001 - 07:19 am
    Does anyone see another side to Grigory? He is a good guy, but I see him "smothering" his wife. She is not allowed to speak of her baby's death. He seems able to give outside of his home but not as much inside. Plus, if he is so wonderful, why can't he accept his baby? And, he pulls his wife's hair. OUCH!!!!!

    I like Grigory, but I don't like Grigory. Oh my! Of course, I am still not feeling wells.

    HATS

    Deems
    April 25, 2001 - 10:30 am
    HATS---I don't care for Grigory myself. Yes, he is loyal; I'll give him that. BUT he is threatened by anything new, such as his wife Marfa's idea of moving to the city. He says they will stay with Karamazov. Period. He is rigid. Heaven only knows where all that Old Retainer loyalty came from especially given--as Joan points out--that he knows Fyodor K. at his worst.

    But my major criticism of Grigory is his treatment of Smerdykov. We are told that Smerdyakov never forgave Grigory for calling him the offspring of slime. I don't forgive him for his treatment of Smerdyakov. We are told he "loves" children, but I wonder if he really does or if he is simply drawn to children because they are small and can be intimidated. When Smerdyakov comes up with the problem of where was the source of Light--the first thing, according to Genesis, that God created--all Grigory can do in response is beat him. What kind of way is that to TEACH?

    His wife gave up long ago trying to reason with him. And she is "smarter" than he is, again according to the text.

    What kind of marriage is this between Grigory and Marfa? We are told that they never discuss anything of importance, nothing beyond the day-to-day activities. I assume that this is because Grigory does not want to talk with his wife and discover that she has a mind, a mind which he fears may be better than his.

    Anyway, I don't like Grigory.

    Maryal

    FaithP
    April 25, 2001 - 10:54 am
    "Alyosha was sure that no one in the whole world would ever want to offend him, not only would not want to, but would not be able to."

    This sounds more like a megleomaniac than an angel. Alyosha does seem to good to be true and as Joan says he isnt true.. he is a character representing the soul in this trinity of sons, Ivan, mind..and Dmitri the body. So outside of all this stands Smerdykov and I am anxious to begin forming an opinion of him.

    I already do not like Grigor in the way he totally dominates his wife, and has no sympathy for her loss when their baby dies. Some one suggested his fondness for little ones was that they were easier to dominate. Marfa is smarter and does not see any reason to be loyal to Father K as he is in effect a Master to Grigor and Marfa, though I take it they are free to leave him as she tried to make plans to go to the "City" and start a business. I am sure Grigor has to ignore or beat(pull her hair) her as he isnt smart enough to argue with her.

    Father K excites no sympathy from me as his motives are always suspect. fp

    Hats
    April 25, 2001 - 01:59 pm
    Boy, I have been thinking about Alyosha for a long time. He is too sweet, too kind, too gentle. He is just unreal. He is so good that I feel guilty for not accepting his whole loving spirit. He is the kind of boy in the class or brother whom you just want to beat up. Who wants too much sugar?

    It must be a day for "rats." Lo and behold, I pick up "The Handmaid's Tale" by Atwood, and there is a quote about "rats." YUCK!!!!!

    "In reduced circumstances the desire to live attaches itself to strange objects. I would like a pet: a bird, say, or a cat. A familiar. Anything at all familiar. A rat would do, in a pinch, but there's no chance of that. This house is too clean."

    There you are. It's a "rat" day. I will have nightmares tonight.

    HATS

    Deems
    April 25, 2001 - 02:38 pm
    No, no NO! You will not have nightmares tonight about RATS. You will, instead, dream of my little Jack Russell Terrier, Kemper Elizabeth, who is among the world's great ratters. With Kemper in your dreams, there will be no RATS.

    I guarantee her performance. I have seen her kill. Swiftly and deftly.

    Joan---Do you know how to make a link so that HATS can see the great ratter Kemper? She is the doggie in my photo.

    Maryal

    Hats
    April 25, 2001 - 02:45 pm
    Maryal, I bet she is so adorable! I have a picture of her in my head. I am already experiencing sweet dreams. Ahhhhhh! Of course, I remember her from your trip to the beach.

    HATS

    Deems
    April 25, 2001 - 02:49 pm
    I'll bet Joan can figure out how to link the photo. Maybe.

    Anyway, Kemper Elizabeth is Boo-full!

    Joan Pearson
    April 25, 2001 - 03:28 pm
    Hats! That's an amazing coincidence! It sounds as if our lonely Karamazov is not alone in his need for such company!

    I'm just in and see a message here that a hungry hubby is on his way and wants to eat early so he can watch a soccer game...

    Yes, Maryal, I can link to your ratter...We do have a photo uploaded already ~ the one in Bookfest? I can put it in during the soccer game...unless you have another photo in mind?

    Will be back soon to see what is needed and more on Smerd....

    Deems
    April 25, 2001 - 03:31 pm
    Joan---Oooo good. Yes, the one that is/was in Bookfest. That's it. Soccer game?

    Maryal

    Lady C
    April 25, 2001 - 04:29 pm
    Alyosha is not as naive as people sometimes think, or a fool as is thought by others. I think he has hidden depths, is perhaps repressing some aspects of himself in trying to live up to his idea of good. His "hero" is the elder, a truly good man and an ideal to try to live up to. Are there any idealists who are more so than the young? And Alyosha is just beginning to discover himself. We can't overlook his youth in attempting to understand his character.

    Hats
    April 25, 2001 - 04:56 pm
    Yes, Lady C I agree with you. Alyosha is young, and that can not be taken for granted. Perhaps, it is his idealism which makes him likable, lovable. Alyosha can not be blamed for wanting to be a good person or to do rightfully towards others. I like him as a person and wish I had such lofty goals.

    HATS

    Joan Pearson
    April 25, 2001 - 06:04 pm
    Okay, folks, you asked for it, you've got it...Maryal and her little rat...er...ratter. Kemper. Observed killing..."swiftly and deftly". Fits right in here, no?
    Killer ratter


    Bruce is watching USA v. Costa Rico...if you follow soccer, this is a big game, a qualifying game for the World Cup in Japan. As we speak, the score is 0-0. Pretty tense in our house!

    Okay, you all seem to agree that you don't like Grigory, although he must have some saving qualities. His silent wife, we are told, respected him for his "moral superiority." It occurs to me that he represents the old Russia, sticking to the old customs in the face of change. I agree with those of you who looked at Marfa's dance on the village green as something scandalous that she had learned in the big city, in Moscow. Did you notice that she worked for the Miusovs in Moscow? Isn't it a small world how everyone knows everyone from other towns???

    Remember Pyotr Miusov spends lots of time in Paris too...and brings back lots of new ways with him. I'm thinking that the dance is another of those new ideas from the West that is threatening the undermining of the Russian identity. I think Grigory pulled Marfa's hair that time to keep her from straying.

    So, we don't like Grigory, although he is 'morally superior', and does not reproach, judge Fyodor...but rather acts as his conscience, reads Lives of the Saints and cares for the forgotten children cluttering Fyodor's life...

    How about Smerdyakov? We still haven't met him, but we did meet his mother, Stinking Lizaveta. I have a footnote that explains that she is also categorized as a "holy fool."
    "a holy fool" (or "fool of God" or "fool of Christ"...yurodivyi in Russian) could be a harmless village idiot, but there are also saintly persons or ascetics whose saintliness is expressed as "folly". Holy fools were known early in Orthodox tradition. The term reappears several time in B.K., notabley in reference to Alyosha.


    He doesn't stand much of a chance growing up in the Karamazov household, does he? Is it clear who is father is? Does the fact that he is a servant in the house indicate anything? I wonder if or how we will learn that he really is a blood brother? His sensuality?

    Hats
    April 25, 2001 - 06:09 pm
    OH, OH, OH, DMITRY IS THE LOVE OF MY HEART! I have fallen in love with Dmitry. I know he has drunk a bit of brandy, but he is speaking poetry, and it is sooooo beautiful. He cries a little too. What a guy!

    Is it possible before this book is finished that we will love all of the brothers? After all, each brother is a part of what is a part of us: emotion, intellect and spirit. Does that make sense?

    Well, back to Dmitry, the poet.

    HATS

    Hats
    April 25, 2001 - 06:14 pm
    Joan, thank you for the link. Maryal, Kemper Elizabeth is adorable. May I have her? Now, If I can stop reading, I will go to bed. POETRY AND KEMPER ELIZABETH WHO CAN BEAT THAT?

    HATS

    betty gregory
    April 25, 2001 - 09:40 pm
    I'll bet Grigory's loyalty to and determination to stick by pappa K, when compared to his awful treatment of his wife Marfa, has to do with the importance of his position. In all this caretaking Grigory does (which Karamazov allows), the payoff is his valued position. Grigory acts almost as a father, sometimes, but I wonder if he feels like a son. In some ways, Karamazov allowed a closeness that he has rarely offered his sons.

    I'm not sure I'd connect the word "moral" with Grigory. I know that the treatment of wives didn't add up to much...given the era...but I'm not willing to ignore it.

    I'm curious if Grigory expected to be taken care of by Karamazov, or if he did not worry about the future. I'm sure he was completely caught up in an identity of...being indispensable to Karamazov and the implied importance.

    Hats
    April 26, 2001 - 03:56 am
    Well, in the morning hours, Dmitry looks slightly less romantic. As he explains himself to Alyosha, he says "And I enjoyed cruelty." That bothers me. Then, if my memory serves me, hasn't he treated women unkindly? Oh well, he sure is great at quoting poetry. But still....his love of "debauchery" and "cruelty" leaves me very uncomfortable.

    "I liked debauchery and I liked the shame it brought down on me. And I enjoyed cruelty."

    Joan Pearson
    April 26, 2001 - 04:30 am
    Hmmmm...Betty, Fai, I do agree with you about Grigory. He may be religiously "correct", strictly speaking. Though Dostoevsky is telling us that Marfa regards her husband as "morally superior", though not as bright as she is, and Fyodor regards him as his conscience ~ sort of a moral yardstick, he does bear watching.

    But it feels like Dostoevsky is making some sort of statement about the old Orthodox Fathers ...who operate on and cling to the letter of Church law, rather than the true spirit of Christianity. I have a feeling that we will hear more from Grigory.

    Joan Pearson
    April 26, 2001 - 05:04 am
    hahahaha! Hats! I'll bet all the girls say that about Dmitri in the morning! He looked sooooooo much better last night! There's much about Dmitri to like, and much to confuse. To me, he is the most fascinating character we have yet to meet! Maybe together, we can get to know him better. I too have a real love/hate attitude towards him. But mostly am confounded! As you mentioned...he "loves debauchery"...not only that, he finds "beauty" in it! ..."Beauty in Sodom"! Dostoevsky goes to great lengths explaining this to us. I hope we can talk about his complex nature and at least come to understand where he's coming from.

    Compare him to the saintly Alyosha... who "was sure that no one in the whole world would ever want to offend him, not only would not want to, but would not be able to..." Why does he so fear this meeting with "his terrible lady", Katerina then?

    Faith, I think that quite often Alyosha is not believable, but he has his moments...as Lady C, he seems to have "hidden depths", and is "perhaps repressing some aspects of himself in trying to live up to his idea of good."(Lady C). I like his seemingly innocent, though penetrating questions. He reminds me of the elder (who isn't quite believable to me either). And his funny smiles when he recognizes that his true nature has been discerned...

    Isn't it funny the way the brothers just happen to meet?

    Hats
    April 26, 2001 - 06:04 am
    Joan, "BEAUTY IN SODOM," I refuse to touch that one. I am still thinking about it. I did have a question. On the way to Katerina's house, Alyosha is met by Dmitry. Dmitry has a lot to tell Alyosha, but Dmitry says to Alyosha,

    "You just keep quiet and I'll do all the talking, because the time has come for me to say what I have to say. But I've decided that we really should talk quietly because...you never know, there may be some....some indiscreet ears around,"

    Who has "indiscreet ears?" I thought he might be talking about Rakitan. Then, I thought Dmitry might be a little paranoid. Then, I thought it might be the brandy. Or is it just a snoopy neighbor?

    Hats
    April 26, 2001 - 07:35 am
    Joan, I am so dense. You gave the answer to "BEAUTY IN SODOM." Now, I understand it. The way Dostoevsky writes certain lines will remain with me long after I finish the book. "BEAUTY IN SODOM," that is unforgettable. To me, another line is "All we Karamazovs are such insects and one lives in you too, my angel brother, and it will stir up storms in your blood too."

    Dostoevsky has me looking inside myself. I am looking for "the insect" that resides there. I think everyone has one. It's the flaw or flaws of our human nature which we would rather not see.

    HATS

    Lady C
    April 26, 2001 - 07:54 am
    HATS: I agree that the brothers all represent a human characteristic that resides in all of us. But I think we have to include all the other characters in the book as well--at least the main ones. We all have the negative aspects of Karamazov, Dmitri, and even Smyerdakov, though thankfully we don't act on them--or at least most of us don't. We are all capable of murder, too, though we may not think so. Again aren't we fortunate that we don't act on it???

    I can see why Alyosha fears meeting with Katarina. After all he has to deliver Dmitri's message, and on a first meeting too. He has no idea how she will react, and I imagine, he isn't too certain of how capable he is of handling this situation. I return to his being so young and lacking in experience of relationships and the world. Don't forget, he has kept himself chaste, and probably avoided contact with women. Also, he believes his brother Ivan is in love with Katarina which leaves him somewhat in the middle, doesn't it?

    Hats
    April 26, 2001 - 08:15 am
    Lady C, Yes, I believe we are capable of murder and other horrible deeds. I think that is "the insect" within us. When Dmitry speaks of "the insect" within us, I think he is speaking very wisely. "The insect" is the bad part of ourselves that we would like to deny. It is so easy to speak of our supposedly "angelic" parts. Then, I wonder as the human specie are we more buglike, or are we more like angels?

    As for myself, I see the insect in myself who is striving to be more like an angel. Perhaps, it's like the silk worm turning into a butterfly, but it takes so long to become a butterfly, if ever.

    This is why I like Dmitry. He is so real. He can face his demons and not turn in fear.

    Deems
    April 26, 2001 - 09:48 am
    For posting the picture of Kemper Elizabeth. She looks harmless enough in the photo. But she is a KILLER. Excellent huntress. And she will keep us ALL safe from RATS.

    I like Dmitri myself, but I certainly can see his shortcomings. I loved what HATS said about maybe he is thinking that a snoopy neighbor is listening, maybe it's paranoia, maybe it's the brandy. Yes, indeed. It could be any or all.

    And then too, we already know that Rakitin has "ears" everywhere, so perhaps Dmitri has good reason to be cautious.

    I'm leaving the "Beauty in Sodom" question alone at the moment, but will have some thoughts on that one later, I hope. Isn't it interesting that TWO cities were destroyed because of sin--Sodom and Gomorrah--and yet it is always Sodom that we hear of when Evil is being personified. Maybe that's because Lot happened to live in Sodom. And that's where the angels were sent and nearly molested. Anyway, it is interesting to me that "Sodom" has become synonymous with Sin.

    Maryal

    FaithP
    April 26, 2001 - 09:49 am
    Maryal I had a little Rat Terrier in the 40's and I named him Kayo.He kept my area mouse free that is for sure. He looked like your Kemper, sort of.fp

    Deems
    April 26, 2001 - 09:56 am
    Ah, Faith, then you know what I mean. Kayo, the long gone terrier, must have been quite a dog. And what a great name.

    Traude
    April 26, 2001 - 04:48 pm
    Money plays a large role in this novel--- and did in Dostoevsky's own life, as has been mentioned. The persistent reference to precisely 3 thousand rubles is of great importance, even symbolic, I think.



    Chapter 1 of Book 3 refers to the Karamazov residence(s), located at the edge of town. One "was a pleasant-looking old house of two storeys" ..." It was roomy and snug (really a contradiction in terms ! blame the translator)..." with "all sorts of unexpected little cupboards and closets and staircases ...". The house had a kitchen but old Karamazov disliked the smell of food cooking and had the food prepared and the dishes brought across the courtyard from the second house, the separate "lodge", described as a "roomy and solid building". That one might possibly have had only one floor.



    As for the "Russian Dance" Marfa spontaneously performed one evening in the company of (then) other serfs: What upset Grigori, her young husband, seems to have been not so much THAT she danced, but HOW (the way) she did, to wit " not in the village fashion, but as she had danced it when she was a servant in the service of the rich Miusov family, in their private theatre where the actors were taught to dance by a dancing master from Moscow."

    That must have occurred before 1861, i.e. before the slaves were freed. And that was, the reader is told, the only time Grigori laid a hand on Marfa.

    Of course he stifled her, that is what many husbands did in the late 18 hundreds------- and what untold numbers of husbands have done since, and are still doing - depending on the respective culture. We have no reason to believe that Marfa was unhappy, she certainly was not mistreated. We must assume she simply "made the best of things", the things that could not be legally changed at that time.



    She adjusted to the imposed silence and buried her grief about the lost baby by raising (up to a point) old Karamasov's sons. And then Smerdyakov.

    Grigori sought solace in reading about the saints -- but just consider the time, the solitude and the relative isolation, and the level of education (or the lack thereof) ! What else could the poor man have been expected to do ? He too coped as best he could.

    By the end of chapter 5 we still don't know whether Smerdyakov is in fact the bastard son. By that time the reader is primed NOT to like him. Fear not, we get to actually meet him (!) at long last in chapter 6. Until then we have no choice but to process-- and base our speculation solely on -- the information we have gleaned from reading the assigned chapters.



    Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Ostensibly, someone who knows about Sodom might find beauty there. And since Dmitri has "been there", it is he who should supply the answer.

    I like Dmitri's sense of the poetic, the passionately expressed feelings -hugely, overwhelmingly effusive as they are. As for his being "infected" by a "plague-like" condition, I do not believe that was an actual physical infection as if from an illness, especially an infectious disease (though it is not unreasonable for us to think of a veneral disease. Syphilis was prevalent at that time.)

    It was rather, I believe, his boundless, uncontrollable passion for Grushenka that had affected him in that way and altered his life for good. Joan, perhaps you could give us that quote again and the chapter in which it appears so we could check.



    Grigori sought to calm old Karamazov--- out of extreme loyalty and compassion= simple goodness. I don't think he had any influence over the old man, any more than Alyosha did. Old Karamazov was beyond help and beyond redemption.

    As for why Alyosha was afraid of the beautiful Katerina Ivanovna, we have to read on for a few more chapters, I think.

    P.S. The picture of Kemper is absolutely wonderful !!! Bless our faithful canine companions ! I have one too. Thank you for that photo.

    Hats
    April 26, 2001 - 11:14 pm
    When Smerdeyakov is born, I am prepared to feel sympathy for him. This is because I have already come to know his mother, a little bit, and I feel sorry for her. She roams around the neighborhood. She never knows whether she will find love or hate. She is not in her right mind. Just her name makes me feel that she is a forgotten person. I feel sure her body has been taken advantage of by someone.

    So, when Lizavetta dies, outdoors and alone, after giving birth, my heart cries for the child who will be an orphan. Already, I feel love for this baby, and I am glad when he is given to Marfia by Grigory. It is my hope that the baby will be a comfort for her. After all, she lost her only baby, and also, perhaps, the baby can bring comfort to Grigory who must miss his baby too (even though he was uncomfortable with the baby's six fingered hand).

    It is as though Lizavetta left a "gift" to this family, Grigory and Marfia. They needed someone other than each other to love.

    Maryal, NO NIGHTMARES. THANK YOU, KEMPER ELIZABETH.

    HATS

    Joan Pearson
    April 27, 2001 - 06:01 am
    Hats!, no nightmares...we must be doing something right! Glad if Kemper's photo kept you sleeping peacefully! I think Fyodor needs a ratter in his snug, roomy house! (Traude, my mind wrapped around the contradictory terms too...but I won't blame the translator on this one. So far three different translations come up with the same description of this house. I think we must blame Dostoevesky for this one. I can't help but think he is describing the house in Staraya Russia where he lived while writing this book. Maybe it has a number of small snug rooms?)



    Now there's a thought! Smerdy ~ a gift, an answer to Grigory's prayers and Marfa's quiet grief! Somehow, I don't see this child standing much of a chance in life, given his parentage. . I do remember the inadequate care the other Karamazov babies received from Marfa/Grigory. Merited a slap one time, as I recall...Ivan and Alyosha were so unkempt. I wonder where Marfa was while Grigory scrubbed the two wee ones... Maybe they treat Smerdy better.

    (Is Karamazov his father? Why is he employed as a menial servant, a cook? I can't believe that Karamazov ever bedded stinking Liza....my bet is that he can't remember for sure whether he did or not, so he lets him stay on. Besides, everyone else in town thinks he's a Karamazov too. I think old F. doesn't know for sure, doesn't remember! What an insect!

    I loved your little exchange yesterday with Lady C, Hats...on the insect. Capable of anything, even murder...we're more bug-like than angels. I'm not sure I agree with that, but it certainly meshes with what Dmitri says about insects and sensuality! The Karamazovs are frequently referred to as "sensualists"...sometimes with a capital "S", have you noticed? What exactly does this mean?

    Right off the bat, Dmitri starts explaining this to Alyosha, who sits patiently, sometimes blushing, or smiling, probably wondering where this is all leading. It does take Dmitri a while to get to the point, doesn't it?

    Hats
    April 27, 2001 - 06:16 am
    Joan, "quiet grief." Ohhhhh, that's so poignant. You know, I had forgotten about how Grigory and Marfia treated the boys. Now I remember, they were wearing dirty shirts. Poor care. I have not read beyond chapter five yet.

    Smerdy, thanks for the nickname. I could not figure out how to shorten his name, but the spelling drove me crazy.

    HATS

    Joan Pearson
    April 27, 2001 - 06:37 am
    Well, there's a whole lot more in Chapters III, IV and V to ruminate over first , don't you think? I'm looking at the titles of these three, Confession of an Ardent Heart:In Verse, Confession:In Anecdotes, Confession:Heels UP

    I think Dosto is trying to tell us that Dmitri is working up to a confession, what do you think? hahaha... I think he's doing it in stages, in layers, because he realizes, even in his drunken state, that Alyosha is naive and uniformed about the drama, and about the kind of life he's been leading too. He'll have to take it slooow. He quotes poetry to make some points (for a man who bemoans the fact that he has not had an education, he certainly is well-read...Pushkin, Goethe, Schiller...)

    Chapter III is the one where Dmitri explains generally to the patient Alyosha that man is, as you put it, more like an insect, than an angel. He includes Alyosha in this description of insects...Insects - Sensualists? Karamazovs-Sensualists. He's trying to excuse his behavior still, I think, by making Alyosha understand that he can't help himself for what he has done. That he is merely man, merely an insect...moreso than an angel.

    . And it torments him ~
    "I can't bear it that some men shold start from the ideal of a Madonna and end with an ideal of Sodom", he says.


    BUT he's not describing himself in this category, I don't think. He did not start with the Madonna, Katerina, and give her up for the likes of Grushenka. Because he goes on to say...
    "More fearful when someone who already has the ideal of Sodom does not deny the ideal of the Madonna either."


    So this is not only a confession to Alyosha of his "fall", but rather a plea to be understood...is he telling Alyosha that he is an insect, but yearns to be an angel? Can one be an insect, a pure sensualist if he has a conscience?

    I think that Dmitri is expressing our condition..all of ours, man in general. Dostoevsky at his best! Wow!

    Deems
    April 27, 2001 - 07:30 am
    certainly seems to have benefitted from reading, Joan! And he holds forth. It really takes him quite a long time to get to the point. But he seems affable enough to me, and believable as a person, despite his tendency to inflate the language somewhat as Traude indicates.

    On the 3 brothers--or 4 brothers--I had a stray thought a few minutes ago. Do any of you remember reading The Three Musketeers? It used to be fairly normal assigned high school reading. Turned out that there were actually FOUR musketeers. D'Artangon (someone else can fix the spelling) was the fourth, the musketeer-in-training.

    Maryal

    Hats
    April 27, 2001 - 07:57 am
    It's difficult for me to be objective about Dmitry. I am like Katerina. I like that "bad boy" image. ha, ha, ha. For now, he's got me bamboozled.

    I think Dmitry is pretty smart, as far as human nature goes. I think he has Katerina's number. Dmitry says, "What she loves is not me but her own virtue," I think Dmitry is right (of course, he's got me hoodwinked). Katerina is one of those women who must "save" someone from themselves. Does this make her feel more superior? I wonder.

    Dmitry. I like that name. It's real macho, don't you think? I agree with Maryal. Dmitry seems soooo believable. Perhaps, I'm smitten. Is that how you put it?

    Hats
    April 27, 2001 - 08:10 am
    With all my love of Dmitry, I have to admit his confession is too long. A poor priest in a confessional would fall asleep!

    Hats
    April 27, 2001 - 11:46 pm
    I think Dmitry is afraid of Katerina because she has money and education and moral character. All of this makes him feel outside of her realm. Also, he has stolen her money. Dmitry took Katerina's money and used it for Grushenka's pleasures. Katerina asked him to mail the money to Agafia, and he never did mail it. This has been his secret.

    Yet, he calls himself an honourable man. No way. He is so dishonest. Now, he wants to jilt Katerina for Grushenka, and he treatens to kill his father if.......

    Anyway, Dmitry wants to break his engagement with Katerina because he wants Grushenka. He is a confused person, and I can not imagine what Alyosha is thinking as he hears his brother's confession. At this point, Dmitry does seem selfish, out to do anything to give himself pleasure, and his pleasure can come from anywhere, even Sodom.

    Mitya can be disappointing. You never know what he will say or do next, but Alyosha remains steadfast, loyal an unjudgmental.

    Joan Pearson
    April 28, 2001 - 08:42 am
    I've been thinking about Dmitri's lengthy confession and imagining a less patient confessor than brother Alyosha, who is not yawning, but listening with eyes poppping out of his head, I imagine! What an education!

    Do you get the feeling that Dostoevsky is using the l "Confession in Verse", (as he used Ivan's long monologues on the Church and State, and the immortality of the soul) - to expound on a controversial view of man's nature and salvation? That man can be honorable in dishonor, and achieve salvation even while breaking with the teachings, the laws of the Church? I had the feeling that Dos. was using Dmitri's position as an excuse to put forth a message of some sort. Any thoughts on this?

    He does bring up some important points in this chapter, I think. I conclude that he is saying that man is more than an insect, though not an angel. More is expected of this "bedbug"! He seems to be continuing an argument that Ivan addressed earlier...immortality. But it wasn't clear to me whether Dmitri is saying that if a man leads a dissolute life, but is honorable in his dealings with people, he will achieve salvation. Is this going too far? He seems a bit defensive in this "confession", it seems to me. He is not confessing to be absolved and counselled, but rather to explain himself, to defend...

    He says, "to fall in love does not mean to love." Does that mean he has fallen in love with Katerina, but does not love her? Or does he love Katerina, but has "fallen" for Grushenka. He did say he loves "only Alyosha and and another low woman." That sounds as if he is saying that he loves, Grushenka as he loves, Alyosha, but I have a hard time seeing any love there....

    It isn't until the Confession in Anecdotes in Chapter IV that we get to see what actually went on between Katerina and Dmitri. Even that isn't too clear to me. He does tell us that from the start he hated Katerina and wanted revenge on her because "I was a fine fellow and she did not recognize it." That reminds me of Fyodor's hatred and desire for revenge agains the Fathers at the monastery because he himself had acted badly...

    Maryal ~ the Three Mousketeers...and then there were Four. Are you suggesting that Smerdy is a Karamazov in training? Or does he come by it naturally? And if it is naturally, perhaps that is an indication that Fyodor is his biological father!!!

    Hats, I'll agree, Dmitri is a complex personality, one you love/hate at the same time. Like the snug/roomy house!

    Deems
    April 28, 2001 - 08:49 am
    I think Dostoevsky delighted in paradox. A house that is both sung and roomy. He enjoyed cobbling together material that normally would never come into the same sentence. He is playing with language, as Shakespeare did, and loves it. Even in translation, I can hear the playing going on here.

    Joan---yes, three, four, who knows? At least Dostoevsky does not mislead with his title. There could be 3,4,6, 10 Karamazov brothers.

    Your point about the Karamazov in Smerdyakov emerging is wonderful.

    Maryal

    Jo Meander
    April 28, 2001 - 09:06 am
    I see Fyodor clearly in Dimitri. He rants and raves and rationalizes (albeit with frequent poetic charm) about his own weaknesses and follies, painting an elaborate picture of his character for Alyosha and for us. It is the picture of a noble sinner who sometimes hates those who make him look morally bad by contrast, of a dashing, popular officer who swaggers his way through his days and his nights of debauchery, of a penitent who decides that the only recourse is more sin, of a brother and son who will take advantage of family to ease the anguish of having stolen from the good woman who loves him and would save him. He had me eating out of his hand, so to speak, until he told Alyosha to go and get money from Fyodor to pay his debt. My delight in his complexity and his purple bombast faded at that point. Even though Fyodor should probably give him more money, why did he choose to be such a bounder where Katerina was concerned in the first place, and why is he using Alyosha in this way? Maybe his love (passion?) for Grushenka is that overwhelming, but he reminds me of an addict (sex adict, maybe) who embraces his weakness because it's easier that trying to conquer it and lead a productive, honest life. I think he went off with the gypsies and Grushenka because the effort it would take to "be good" was too much to face. If he says he's no good, then acts that way, he sort of lets himself off the hook!

    Joan Pearson
    April 28, 2001 - 09:55 am
    Why is it this important for Dmitri to get that money to give to Katerina? Because he wants to look good? I don't understand why Katerina fell for him in the first place. First she had nothing but contempt towards him and then Dmitri offered the money to save the colonel's good name...only if Katerina came to his quarters to collect it herself. Knowing what kind of a man he was, she was willing to sacrifice herself for her father!

    And when she came to him..."she was beautiful because she was noble." Was this why he couldn't have her? Because he would have looked bad, even to himself if he did what he thought he wanted to do? Instead, because she made him feel bad about himself and his base motives, he "hated her ( a hair's breath from love)"...there's that Karamazov trait again...to hate the one who makes you feel badly about your own bad behaviour.

    Is this a Karamazov family trait, or more universal? I don't think I "hate" people in front of whom I disgrace myself. I'll have to think about that some more. Maybe I don't like to be around such people out of embarassment! But these Karamazov's hate...

    And then his contempt! You're not worth 4,000 roubles ~ 200 maybe. Is that the going rate for the low ladies of the night? When he hands the 4000 to her, I can understand her relief...and even the bow! Touching her forehead to the ground...just as the elder did before Dmitri! hmmmmm...

    But why, oh, why, oh why does she then feel such an obligation to marry him...or are we to believe that she has fallen in love with this side of his nature?

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    April 28, 2001 - 10:25 am
    I think her relief of keeping her father’s good name was so great and the realization that, because of his superior bargaining ability, she could have easily lost it all, she sees in him some goodness that she can depend on. Her life as a woman isn’t worth much anyhow and he points that out, hitting her shame button and in-spite of that he still honors her by fully helping her. Her value in society is only in the good name of her father and so that was her life that she saw possibly going down in flames if her father couldn’t replace the money.

    Dimitri's confession sounds to me like the typical sharing of a sex addict. A sex addict typically is into the use of power to assure that they get their wants met by someone that will more easily comply. They use their power over someone that is already in a weak position to strengthen their view of their own value. At this time in history we didn’t know about obsessive behavior being used to cover the pain of childhood traumas not faced. All there was to measure behavior was morals defined by either cannon law or civil law.

    Jo Meander
    April 28, 2001 - 11:32 am
    I think he cannot face the image of himself as a thief, especially as a thief of Katerina.

    Joan Pearson
    April 28, 2001 - 03:23 pm
    Well, look who's here! Barbara's home! Welcome back, Barb. Hmmmm that's a new idea to me - Katerina has no sense of self-worth...everything she has and is comes from her father's name? I just noticed the number of times she was described as "haughty". You feel she's covering up? SHe does have something of an education, which is more than most at the time. I've wondered about the "institute" she attended. First I thought of it as sort of finishing school for the rich, but there seemed to be substance in the education she received......I forget the details at the moment. Would be interested to hear your thoughts about her position and her education.

    Jo, that would explain it...Dmitri does have some standards, which make him an honorable man..and not being a thief is one of them. As Traude has written, money is an important theme here and the 3000 roubles is symbolic. I've stored that number away in my mind to see where that goes.

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    April 28, 2001 - 05:44 pm
    A wife must consult her husband on all questions of conduct: how to save her soul, how to please God and her husband, and how to manage the household properly.
    -- The Domostroi, quoted in A Source Book for Russian History from Early Times to 1917, George Vernadsky, senior editor, Yale University Press, 1972.
    There's an old Russian joke that still makes the rounds. A foreigner returns to his own country after visiting Russia and starts telling a friend what he saw.

    "And the most amazing thing is, Russians practice polygamy," says the traveler.
    "I never heard that," says his friend, "How do you know?"
    "Well, when I visited a Russian apartment, I was amazed at how luxurious it was. So I asked the man, 'Surely you can't live like this on one salary?'
    'No,' said the Russian, 'My wife works.'
    Then I noticed how clean the apartment was. I said to him, 'But you must have a housekeeper?'
    'No,' said the Russian, 'My wife cleans the house.'
    'And all these nice things? Surely you have a driver to comb the shops for them?'
    'My wife does that,' said the Russian.
    'And this delicious food? You must have a cook.'
    'My wife does that,' said the Russian.
    'And such well-behaved children! Surely you have a nanny for them?'
    'My wife does that,' said the Russian.
    'Then I figured it out," concludes the traveler, "That man had at least five wives!"
    Excerpts and in the name of brevity I summerized some of the text.
    "From the lowliest serf dwelling to the richest household, Russian women have always managed the house. Although their duties varied with their social status, historically women's activities almost never strayed beyond the confines of home and hearth. Until the Regent Sofia (half-sister of Peter the Great) emancipated them at the close of the 17th century, wealthy Russian women lived secluded in the terem, closed off from the outside world."
    In contrast, around this time Russian women helped launch and keep alive the Old Believers movement, which sought to preserve the religious civilization of medieval Russia from modern practices.
    "In the 18th century, Peter the Great worked hard to bring women into Russian civil society, explicitly requiring their presence at various court functions as part of his drive to 'westernize' Russia. Later, Catherine the Great tried to adapt European Enlightenment to Russia's realities. Women's formal education became a reality when the "Smolny Institute for Noble Girls" began educating young women for their future duties as wives and mothers of men serving the Russian state."
    The mid-19th century there is a revolution in women's lives. Higher education finally became available in the 1860s. Most women recieving a higher education did so in Switzerland. In Russia well-educated women, especially those that met each other in the Swiss schools, joined and helped direct the "People's Will" and other socially progressive movements during the second half of the century. Some where hung because of their efforts and some were sent to prisons in Siberia.
    "Young children were cared for exclusively by women. In the 1820s, Russian poet Alexander Pushkin celebrated his peasant nanny in his verse. But it was Pushkin's heroine Tatyana Larina, scorned and then hopelessly adored by Eugene Onegin, who remains for many the paragon of Russian womanhood. Devoted to good works, faithful to a husband whom she honors but does not love, an ornament to society, Tatyana is the infinite moral superior of the profligate Onegin."

    Although Dostoeyvsky writes about the changes in women's lives, he idealizes the redemptive power of even the most sinful woman, he continues to write about the strong peasant women. His Katerina is not depicted as joining either the phylosophical discussions or as joining any socially progressive movement. She is mearly about the business of saving her father's good name.

    Just as the three brothers are an acceptable part of society with a future in their manhood because they share a father's name, so too Katerina is acceptable because she has a father's name. The brothers must question themselves and their place in society because with their father's name comes a reputation. Are they truly their fathers's sons in spirit?

    The inheritance represents more than the money but the son's legal relationship to their father, thus their aceptable name in society. Almost like a father's blessings. Dmitri squanders everything, the legal value of his father's name, he risks his place in society by being freed from any legal connnection to the inheritance, all for his desire for women. Ivan hoards his and all the brother's are at risk of being no more than a Smerdyashchaya meaning "stinking Russian" or a Smedyakov which means the "son of a stinking one." An orphan with no father's inheritance that would mark their place in society but they would be instead, subject to the life of a serf.

    This is the story of Hester's mark - today the story is explained as her improper sexual behavior - during the time it was written and up till the twentieth century the issue was, that neither man would give the child their name dooming the child to live on the outskirts of society. In past centuries a father's name was more valuable than the love of a good mother.

    Katerina is continueing Pushkins moral as a devoted daughter and prepared to be a devoted wife to a man she honors but probably does not love. She is being morally superior to Dmitri.

    Joan Pearson
    April 28, 2001 - 07:26 pm
    I just received an email from Marvelle that I want to share with you. I hope she gets through packing soon...she finds such interesting information.

    In Chapter III - Confessions:In Verse ~ where Dmitri goes on about beauty in the depths of degradation, he quotes Schiller's Ode to Joy (An die Freude), which ends with the lines,
    To angels-vision of God's throne,
    To insects-sensual lust.

    Some translations...She gave lust for life to the lowliest,
    And the Cherub stands before God.


    Some even mention "worm" instead of "insect"...but you get the idea...

    I failed to connect Schiller's Ode to Joy Beethoven's Ninth! Did you?

    This is what Marvelle sent!

    "One of these sites talks about Schiller's Ode to Joy being set to music by Beethoven in what is known as the Ninth Symphony.
    The description of the music, how it was composted to fit the emotions and ideas of Schiller's poem, is breathtaking. It will be enlightening to listen to the Ninth while reading Schiller. (I hope you can receive the sound...it plays in the background at this site!)

    Ode to Joy/Beethoven

    The whole site is great but I especially enjoyed "An Article of the 9th Symphony" by Henri Feldner which takes you through the musical emotions of Schiller's Ode. Simply incredible.

    The other site which is strictly about Schiller is Schiller - Biographical


    Thanks Marvelle...hurry and unpack!

    Joan Pearson
    April 28, 2001 - 08:22 pm
    Barbara...Funny! Though a joke it sure tells a lot about the Russian woman of this period (before and after too!

    I did read the information on the education of women in the 19th century though, and I still have a slightly different picture of Katerina in my mind. I agree with you, her father did have some money, and although she did not go away to school in Switzerland, it was possible for her to get an education in Russian during this period.

    "The new tsar in 1855, Alexander II, inaugurated a period of liberal reforms. The serfs were emancipated in 1861, and thus all social restrictions were removed. A new system of local government in rural areas (zemstvo) was enacted with a right to found schools for the peasantry, now free. Combined efforts of the government, zemstva, and peasant communities produced a growth of schools in the rural areas. The utilitarian trend was evident in the establishment of technical schools with vocational differentiation. The education of women was promoted, and the first higher courses for women were founded in main cities." ~ Britannica


    Dostoevsky in Brothers K:
    "...we were about to have a visitor from the capital (Katerina)...who had just finished one of the institutes for well-born young ladies there.

    Mainly I (Dmitri) felt that 'Katenka' was ...above all intelligent and educated, while I was neither."


    I'm not saying that 'Katenka' had any marketable skills for this time, just that she was educated, more so than girls of her social position would have been in the past. I will agree with you that her prospects weren't great. Her father, the colonel was short on cash. She does have the aunt's estate which she is due to inherit. Combined with this and her education, to say nothing of her beauty and virtue, she wasn't exactly hard up for such as Dmitri, I don't think.

    Welcome home, Barb!

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    April 29, 2001 - 01:37 am
    Thanks Joan - I had such a wonderful visit and wished I could have stayed longer. But duty calls. Running over to College Station this afternoon - it is Cody and Cooper's eleventh Birthday. These boys are growing up so fast - I have determined to get in shape this summer if I am going to keep up, so that I can have fun doing things with them.

    I wish I knew someone in the Russian department at UT - I have so many questions about mostly the lives of the woman. This is a time when the Russian Ballet is an avenue of expression for some women and yet it appears most information says she is the ultimate Home Maker.

    This is a good site with several pages about the Tradition Women of Russia. The current Traditional Women could only be called traditional if she values the traditions of old. I liked this first page as well as the pages on, "Formation of the Russian Character " and "This Mysterious Russian Soul and Character."

    This is from the first page on "Tradition."

    Traditional Women tend to be very strong, well educated, and self-reliant. They are able to live independently, but they can't imagine their lives without a family. Happiness for them means being connected to a stable, happy family life and children. They take deep satisfaction in the fact that they are women. They don't want to look or act like men or compete with men in all spheres of life. These women are generally old-fashioned about life and morality. They don't understand and don't accept many of the modern, liberal moral concepts. They maintain very high moral standards for themselves and the members of their families. Such women, regardless of their education, are the moral and spiritual backbone of their families. They are the "keepers of the family fireplace," as they are sometimes called in Russia."

    And from this site, PBS Masterpiece theatre Anna Karenina The Woman Question which includes a photo of a young Russian woman dressed for winter sometime in the years 1867 -1880.

    "Like the majority of her European counterparts, a Russian woman's father and husband controlled most aspects of her life. Even noblewomen, as portrayed by Anna Karenina, could not vote, hold their own passports, or attend high schools or universities -- secondary education was unavailable to women until the 1850s, and higher education was unavailable until the 1870s. What little education high-born women received was largely vocational, amounting to skills in marriage, housekeeping, and motherhood. Noble Russian women did enjoy one legal right not held by most other European women: they could hold property.

    Marriage was the career goal of the Russian woman, though she would find it ultimately a restrictive, confining institution. Among nobility, matches were often arranged through parents, who chose husbands from the same class or better, seeking aristocratic backgrounds that would add to a family's social and financial status. Character was of lesser importance, if considered at all."

    Lady C
    April 29, 2001 - 10:51 am
    Dmitri says that Karerina is "morally superior" to himself, but I'm not so sure. She feels that he made a truly noble gesture by refusing to take advantage of her offer of herself to discharge the debt of the money, and her decision to marry him even though she does not love him seems to me to be a case of one-up-manship--anything noble you do I can do better. I don't believe she is acting from a sense of honour (her own, or her father's), but ego and pride.

    Also, I think like other Russian women mentioned earlier in the book, she tends to romanticize situations and believe them to be as she mistakenly perceives them rather than as they really are, then rashly acts on these feelings.

    Lady C
    April 29, 2001 - 02:15 pm
    Some years ago, not long after Marylin Monroe married Arthur Miller, I saw a TV interview with her where she was trying to be taken more seriously as an actress. She said she had always wanted to play the role of Grishenka. When you read FD's description of this character, see if you think she could have done it????

    Hats
    April 29, 2001 - 03:18 pm
    Lady C, yes, I can see Marilyn Monroe as Grushenka. How interesting. She would have been perfect. I will think of Marilyn Monroe everytime I see Grushenka's name. You, Barbara and Joan and Marvelle are making the book come alive with the historical facts and trivia. I am learning so much about Russia.

    THANKS TO EVERYONE HERE,

    HATS

    ALF
    April 29, 2001 - 03:24 pm
    Insect in this guy's soul, indeedy!  What vermin he is.  Alexi blushes and says he does so because "he is the same as Demitiri."
     . I'm at the bottom step, and you're above, somewhere about the thirteenth. That's how I see it. But
    it's all the same. Absolutely the same in kind. Anyone on the bottom step is bound to go up to the top
    one."  What am I missing here?  I don't get it.  The 13th step?  Is this indicative of something?  How does he consider himself on the bottom step?  Is this addressed somewhere else and I've missed it?
     

    Hats
    April 30, 2001 - 03:08 am
    I think Fyodor Karamazov is Smerdeyakov's father. After all, Fyodor K. says he finds no woman too repulsive. So, Stinking Lizavetta's lack of speech, slowness in thought or bad hygiene would not have bothered him. Plus, he's always in his "cups" so he can't be too picky.

    HATS

    Joan Pearson
    April 30, 2001 - 05:02 am
    A good Monday morning, Hats! You are up really early! So many plans for the week get me up early on Mondays too!

    Your comment - about no woman being too repulsive for F. Karamazov makes me think of Dmitri. We are certain he is a Karamazov, but unlike his father, don't you find him more discrimating in his womanizing? He says somewhere in these chapters that his father thinks he throws away all his money on women, but he "confesses" to Alyosha that this is not true. He doesn't bed every woman either...I'm not sure what his friendship with Katerina's sister is about...Agafya? Do you think we will hear more from her as we get further into the story? Dmitri seems to have some standards, some friendships with women, where his father does not. Yes, I can see Fyodor with stinking Lizaveta and that is so repulsive. Not the filth, the stench, but the fact that he would use this "idiot", retarded girl to satisfy his own lust, even if she had been clean!!! To be fair, we don't know if he really did do this terrible thing for sure.

    We'll find out in the next chapter if Smerdyakov exhibits the same base tendencies - if he is in deed a Karamazov!

    Alf, you ask such difficult, though interesting questions!!! I have no clue, no footnotes, nothing that would indicate the meaning of these thirteen steps. Am counting on Maryal for enlightenment there. I'd like to know too if these 13 steps are referenced in any Church teaching or scripture, but the Pevear translation is usually pretty good about documenting such references and there is nothing.

    To me, these are 13 steps to heaven...UP to heaven, and Dmitri casts himself on the bottom rung. (I think I'd put his father down there!)

    Dmitri tells Alyosha that all humankind are on this ladder, all torn between the angel and the insect, lofty ideals and base instincts. And Karamazovs tend to be on the bottom of the ladder. suppose that if Alyosha is on the 13th rung and he is a Karamazov, there are more than 13 to heaven? Maybe the number 13 is not significant?

    I am even more fascinated with the quote you selected - "But it's all the same. Absolutely the same in kind. Anyone on the bottom step is bound to go up to the top one." Dmitri sounds confident that he will be saved, as he is lowest??? I'd LOVE to hear comments on this one!

    The Chapter VI Confession describes Dmitri's "fall"...but it's entitled "Heels Up"! I usually associate falling heels up more with a dive. Did Dmitri deliberately dive into a life with Grushenka just to avoid a life with Katerina?

    Hats
    April 30, 2001 - 05:22 am
    Joan, yes, I would like to know more about Agafia. So far, she is in the shadows. I have been thinking about Dmitry too. At first, I thought Dmitry was exactly like his father, but I have begun to see him with some differences. I agree. I think Dmitry is more choosy about his women. I don't think he goes to bed with every woman who comes his way as opposed to his father.

    My translation is so different (MacAndrew). The thirteen steps are not mentioned, not in those words, but the concept sounds interesting.

    ALF
    April 30, 2001 - 05:51 am
    I don't know why but Dmitri's troubled soul reaches out to me.  Perhaps it is because of his over whelming feelings of rejection!  He felt that Katerina loved "her own virtue" rather than him and became malignant, striking the table as his eyes gleamed and his face flushed. He is distraught.  I have the sense that he truly has a dichotomy of spirit.  He believes himself sincere and honest and yet -- he continues to persecute his own soul for his short comings.  Is it a camouflage to obscure his feelings of rejection?  Does he involve his life in debachery to merely veil his wounded psyche?  I have so many questions about him and I can't help but feel empathy for this man.

    He says" But destiny will be accomplished, and the best man will hold his ground while the undeserving one will vanish into his back-alley for ever- his filthy back-alley, his beloved back-alley, where he is at home and where he will sink in filth and stench at his own free will and with enjoyment."  He has lost his way and seems to be comfortable in this pathway.   Is this why he links himself to Greshenka, whom he believes to be a "merciless cheat and a swindler?"

    He says "the cycle of the ages is accomplished!"  Does this mean he is on the same course as his father?  What goes around..?

    He was so pleased when it was he that was blessed by the general's wife while Ivan went unnoticed.  Sibling rivalry here??

    I'm rambling and must go back and reread this part, Dmitri  is  calling me.

    Deems
    April 30, 2001 - 09:37 am
    I think the number is random. In one translation I have "somewhere near the 13th step."

    Alyosha makes the comment, responding to Dmitri. Alyosha claims to have climbed onto the first step, and he imagines Dmitri somewhere near the 13th step. The ladder, it seems to me, represents worldly experience. Alyosha has just begun; he has stepped on the ladder. Dmitri has been climbing for a while. Alyosha apparently would have liked to avoid this particular ladder, but Zosima has sent him out into the world.

    Dmitri says, "So the best thing is not to step on it [the ladder] in the first place?"

    "Not if you can help it." (Alyosha)

    "Can you?" (Dmitri)

    "I don't think I can." (Alyosha)

    ___________________

    As for the whole problem with Dmitri and his feelings for Katerina and Grushenka--seems to me that Dmitri was annoyed because Katerina snubbed him. He decides to get back at her, arranges to have her come pick up the money. She does; he gives her the money and doesn't take advantage of her. THEN she says she loves him. Dmitri never loved her near as I can tell.

    Meanwhile, he meets and falls wildly for Grushenka. He wants her; he wants to be with her under any circumstances. But there is an obstacle; he is officially engaged to Katerina. Therefore, he must free himself from this obligation.

    Maryal

    Jo Meander
    April 30, 2001 - 09:46 am
    Two statements made today go together remarkably well! Joan says, “ The Chapter VI Confession describes Dmitri's "fall"...but it's entitled "Heels Up"! I usually associate falling heels up more with a dive. Did Dmitri deliberately dive into a life with Grushenka just to avoid a life with Katerina? “ and ALF says, “ Does he involve his life in debauchery to merely veil his wounded psyche?”
    I think he is “diving” to escape those wounded feelings, believing that debauchery will act as an anesthetic, at least temporarily. He does seem to be expecting redemption, as his words about the bottom step inevitably leading to the top one suggest. He seems to think he doesn’t deserve Katerina’s regard, but he still believes (youthful optimism, maybe) that he will come out into the light from the dark tunnel.
    Maybe he really loves Grushenka, but is troubled by the fact he can love someone like her! He is proud, and her life style indicates that one who thinks of himself as “noble” would find her an embarrassment! Maybe his real sin is pride!
    I echo HATS' thanks to Barbara and everyone whose contributions contain so much enlightening detail!

    Jo Meander
    April 30, 2001 - 09:58 am
    Maryal what does that say for Alyosha -- he can't escape his Karamznov-ness, poor thing! He has to struggle and suffer with his nature just like the rest of them. Zosima must ralize something important about individual destiny.

    Deems
    April 30, 2001 - 10:23 am
    Yup, Alyosha cannot escape. He is a Karamazov after all.

    On a more general level, I wonder if anyone can live a fully spiritual live without having experienced the world.

    Just a thought.

    betty gregory
    April 30, 2001 - 10:55 am
    Maryal agrees that Alyosha cannot escape in response to Jo saying that Alyosha cannot escape his Karamazov-ness and that maybe Zosima realizes something about individual destiny.

    These thoughts made me think that Zosima, after meeting other members of the family, possibly thinks that each of them are busy in their individual attempts to escape. Pappa Karamazov's behavior is elaborate escapism, a cover-up, so to speak. Then, there are Ivan's offbeat intellectual ramblings. Then, there is the convoluted mess of who lusts after whom and who loves whom....affairs are often associated with escape. I'm not sure if Zosima believes Alyosha is escaping into a spiritual life, but if he does, there is a sure fire way to fine out....send him out into the world.

    Hats
    April 30, 2001 - 11:05 am
    Does Ivan seem more of a mystery than Alyosha or Dmitry? I know he is an intellectual, he writes, he is an atheist and he has feelings for Katerina. It just seems to me that it is taking longer to get to know him. Is this because he is neither totally "worldly" or totally "spiritual?" Perhaps, I need to pay more attention to him.

    HATS

    Deems
    April 30, 2001 - 01:57 pm
    I think it's just where we are in the book. As we keep reading, we will gain much information about Ivan. One brother at a time!

    Hats
    April 30, 2001 - 02:25 pm
    O.K.

    Henry Misbach
    April 30, 2001 - 02:32 pm
    I think, if there's a lesson to be learned from the additional title, "heels up," if you plan to write a timeless novel, don't use slang current in your own time. What has come back to me repeatedly is a line from a song by the '60's rock group, Jefferson Airplane, which states, "Her heels rise for me!" Of course, there's always the distinct possibility that I may be perceiving correctly a connection, but that it may have been a misreading of Dostoevski. There were literate folk in those groups. As far as what he really meant, your guesses are as good as mine. We've sort of forgotten slang current in his day.

    Marilyn Monroe would have way--way too much class to cast as Grushenka, in my opinion.

    I would have to go with Maryal and say that the 13th step is an arbitrarily chosen one.

    I have no real problem with Papa K as the real father of Smerdyakov. He's got a streak in him much like Ivan, and reveals it when Grigory tries to teach him Scripture. He points out the obvious inconsistency in Genesis in which the sun doesn't appear until the fourth day, though light happens right away. Where did it come from, he asks. For his questioning, he gets smacked, then soon after, he gets the onset of his epilepsy. The whole story--including the part where Papa K was getting tanked and taunted into it--makes no sense unless he did, disgusting as it sounds, have sex with Lizaveta and beget S.

    Jo Meander
    April 30, 2001 - 02:33 pm
    Maybe Alyosha is afraid of the part of his own nature that Katerina represents. Should we wait until the next section to discuss Smerdyakov? The next chapter, I think, deals with him in detail. Still toying with the Sodom question.

    Deems
    April 30, 2001 - 02:58 pm
    Since I am at school, I cornered my colleague who has taught this novel to ask him what He thought of the 13th step, the significance of the number, that is.

    David said that he thought it could have been another number, 14 or 15, that it was not significant. He DID agree with my interpretation of the ladder as the ladder of Life Experience--or Worldly Experience. I am so pleased about that.

    And one last small tidbit. While we were talking, David pronounced the name of Rakitin. Remember him? The seminarian who has eyes and ears everywhere? I've been pronouncing this name wrong all along. It is Ra KEE tin, with the accent on the middle syllable and with long E sound. I do so like to know what to call the characters as I read "outloud inside my head."

    Maryal

    Joan Pearson
    April 30, 2001 - 04:03 pm
    `hahahaaha, Maryal, thanks for that - I'm still trying to pronounce Karamazov! I never pronounce it the same way twice. Have taken the chicken's way out and refer to it as "Brothers K". Would love a pronunciation of that please!

    Before anything else, thank you Barb for your thoughtful post yesterday and also for the link on mid 19th century Russian women. ( the link is up in the heading too in case you missed it. It is an essay on Anna Karenina, but I think it reveals a lot about both Katerina and Dmitri and their reasons for being "interested" in one another.

    "Decency" was the key word: women were seen as either chaste or impure, and impure women were worthless. Russian society dictated that men marry well-behaved virgins. Once married, women were viewed as child-bearers living under a patriarch's rule; obedience replaced chastity as the utmost requirement. Those who strayed outside the rules were seen as "unnatural" and were treated harshly, whether with violence or social casting-out. This attitude prevailed in most European societies, and had some roots in organized religion."


    Lady C, is it clear that Katerina does not love Dmitri? She writes to him that she "loves him madly." Do you think she does not mean what she says? What do you all think? Does she love him? He is that tantalizing "bad boy" that every woman falls for, wants to save...change! Come on, there was one in your life, wasn't there? Admit it! But did you marry him?



    Maryal, or was it you, Jo who thinks that Dmitri never loved Katerina. I would agree with that. I think she represents the kind of woman he should marry...beautiful and virtuous! But that passion is missing, isn't it? I don't see that he ever loved her, he does respect her; he wants Grushenka, but does he love her???? Do these people know the meaning of the word "love"? Do any of us???

    Husband needs dinner...will go heat up some leftover London Broil but this is just too good to miss. You have brought so many ideas to the table. I don't see how we can get to Smerdy tomorrow...but we will. We can always go back and talk about this odd triangle too. Actually, it gets better, the triangle. I've read ahead for this week. But we do have this evening to sort some of these questions and Dmitri's "heels up" fall...

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    April 30, 2001 - 05:28 pm
    Last night I was on my research kick again and spent at least 3 hours finding all this wonderful stuff - well what ever site it was it froze my computer and I had to reboot which means everything I had on the notepad was wiped clean. I thought if I could search again but I do not remember what words I used and couldn't recreate my paths.

    Two pieces of information blew me away though - Yes, Joan picked up on one, bringing to our attention the Masterpiece Theater information about the pure good girl theory - well add to this and what shocked me was learning that up until the early 1950s women in parts of Russia, especially those areas that live the Moslem lifestyle, were excited if they were raped. Not the perpetrator - the victim.

    And the other - all those serfs that later become the peasants - they are the direct descendants of those that lost their homes and land during the Mongol Raids between 1300 and 1500.

    Alf I especially like the way you described Dmitri -

    I hesitate to look things up in my book of tradition symbols. Somehow I think Russian Literature is based in a different mythology than our western Literature. More and more I see evidence that Russia is as much eastern as western with its own interpretation of the combination. Another site that I had found and is now lost in cyber space, talked about the Myths and fairytales of Russia which they said did not include fairies but that there were more wise women stories than other European communities held dear.

    As to the love or not of Katerina and Dmitri - I wonder how much it was a one up-man-ship to the Colonel in the form of attracting the relationship with his daughter rather than any love he felt for Katerina. As to his attachment to Grushenka - I think Dmitri is in heat and has no clue about love.

    The man didn't experience a childhood based in love so how would he conjure up that capacity. Also, as I understand it, a boy needs a fathers blessings launching him as a man - giving him emotional permission to live a life free of continuing to please a father.

    Fydor does not seem to give his sons that needed boost into manhood. All three Brothers are still attached emotionally, if not in other ways, to their father. Until that relationship can be resolved, I do not think any of them are even capable of developing an adult loving relationship with another. Heck even the colonial was the butt of Dmitri unresolved issues with his father - Dmitri would like to better his father so he did it to the Colonel.

    Dmitri uses his meager inheritance to bail out the Colonel, gives the great sum with only hope of it being returned. Fydor manipulates and does not give Dmitri his money strait out and now Dmitri needs more money that the father will not help him out. Dmitri goes after the Colonel's daughter who is "pure" and close to being a noblewomen which is not the kind of women that the father has bedded. Boys set free with a father's blessing do not have to compete with their father nor seek a father's approval.

    I think Dmitri and Ivan are symbols of the head and heart separate and in excess. Somehow I think Dostoevsky is trying to combine Head and Heart issues. I say that only because this time in history a theme in Literature seemed to be about just that issue. Than I think Aloyisha is supposed to represent the spiritual side of man that is supposed to be the instrument of combining head and heart but something tells me the Dostoévsky has a different consideration to explore.

    Traude
    April 30, 2001 - 05:49 pm
    Even after only one weekend away, I am still trying to catch up.

    The proposition of Marilyn Monroe as representative of Grushenka is -well, interesting. I believe Grushenka had more depth than Marilyn and I will explain further, if you like.

    Now a few words on the Russian language and its pronunciation.

    Maryal's question surprised me; I am sorry for having taken that for granted !

    The Russian alphabet consists of 32 symbols (the symbol Ë is not counted.) Each symbol stands for ONE basic sound, and Russian is thus essentially a phonetic language. ENGLISH IS NOT, and that may well be our problem.

    Perhaps the greatest challenge to one studying Russian are the Cyrillic letters, but we won't go there. The pronunciation, on the other hand, does not present nearly as many hurdles and can definitely be learned-- once certain elements/differences are understood, such as "hard" (= guttural) and "soft" ("swooshy") sounds. For "hard", think of the Scottish "Loch". An approximation of the "soft" sound is not quite as easy, nor is that necessary in this context.



    What is equally difficult for us, who are so used to SHORT words, which we then abbreviate even further whenever possible and tend to compress with astonishing inventiveness into capitalized letters at every opportunity, are the multisyllabic words. The puzzled American reader looks at them in utter amazement and asks "And how do you pronounce THAT ?"



    Well, multisyllabic Russian words are pronounced clearly and distinctly, one syllable at a time , as in Ka ra MA zov, or Ka RE ni na. In shorter words, each syllable has equal value, e.g. Ras pu tin; and that "u" sounds as in "look", NOT as in "you".

    Also, there are peculiar (to us) combinations of Russian consonants, take the "shch" for example = as in -- "rash-choice".

    In a previous post I had mentioned the word " karamazovshchina " which could be rendered as "Karamazovism" defined as "lust for life -regardless". The Russian word is pronounced "ka ra ma zovsh china", all syllables being equal.

    End of language lesson.

    Joan Pearson
    April 30, 2001 - 06:05 pm
    Ivan will be an interesting character to explore...I agree with you Hats, he is a mystery. What did Dmitri mean when he said "Ivan is a grave"? Alyosha puzzled over that one and listened attentively, but I don't think there was ever an answer to that. Alyosha had said earlier in the first chapters that he sensed Ivan was still trtying to figure out something. I have a feeling we will hear more about this as we go on...as Maryal says...

    Alyosha is the one I find most mysterious! At times he appears most naive, and others he seems to have supernatural understanding...ESP. He makes remarks that make you read them twice. When Dmitri tells him that Ivan is in love with Katerina, Alyosha, without hesitation: "But I'm convinced that she does love a man like you, and not a man like him." And another time we tells Dmitri that "Katerina will understand all...and forgive." Where does he get this from? He's never met her. But isn't it just like something that Zosima would say? Almost like a psychic???

    Betty, I had almost forgotten Zosima until you brought him up! Zosima thinks that Alyosha needs time out in the world...he even needs to marry, before he can come back to the spiritual life. He needs to experience the sensual side of his nature before he can understand people and be of any use in the ministry. I get the feeling that Zosima has identified Alyosha as a future elder. Did you sense that?

    Traude
    April 30, 2001 - 06:08 pm
    Barbara,

    On rereading this book so many many years later (and still preferring CRIME AND PUNISHMENT over this one, I boldly confess), I tend to feel strongly that Dmitri's passion for Grushenka was much, much deeper than "heat". It went way beyond his physical needs; for those he had never lacked willing bed companions.

    I believe what he felt was truly elemental, volcanic, irresistible, inevitable- perhaps purifying in a way; and, if I may speculate here, I believe Grushenka felt the same way. We shall have to explore that together.

    What I am talking about is the DEPTH of passion, of emotion, that is quite separate from "lust", and that is precisely the way I feel about Grushenka vs. Marilyn Monroe. The latter was insecure, quivering, needy, emotional, essentially sexually-oriented. Was there any deep-felt passion ? For or against ? Anything ?

    We are far removed, of course, from those times, but I do think we should transport ourselves back to those times, rather than try to have the characters conform to our modern understanding.

    Joan Pearson
    April 30, 2001 - 06:54 pm
    Hello Traudee...we were posting together! Thanks for the Ka-ra-MA-zov pronunciation. I've heard it pronounced so many ways that I finally gave up! Again, thanks. I liked your noun..'Karamazovism" defined as "lust for life"

    I think we need to wait for the next chapters before we make up our minds on Grushenka. Some have not read them yet. Be prepared for a real shock! She isn't anything you'd expect from what you've read about her so far. We'll talk about her manana!

    Barbara said something about Dmitri not having love in his life, specifically a father's love. I wondered whether he loved anyone at all, forgetting Alyosha!!! He says, especially when drunk that Alyosha is the only one in the world that he loves. Papa K. says the same. What is it about him that inspires this reaction? People seem to love the Elder in the same way. There is some sort of charisma, and some response to his understanding, to his willingness to listen without judging...

    I wonder about Katerina too. Was it Lady C. who mentioned earlier that she has no one in her corner either...her father has died, and he's the powerful one who would be arranging the marriage, or at least, approving her choice...taking care of the details. Where is her mother? I have forgetten. But she is left with little when her father died. Some of you were in on the discussion of House of Mirth ~ Lily Bart seemed to be in much the same situation. (Lily Bart took part in the Tableaux Vivants just like those put on for Katerina when she came to town, did you notice?) They each had an aunt who took them in. Katerina was luckier than Lily when the general's wife took interest in her and left her her estate. Katerina didn't have to work as hard as Lily did...she was just luckier.

    So Katerina became engaged to Dmitri some three months after her father died and she inherited the estate and the dowry. I noticed the exact words Barbara used..."her fortune changed with the unexpectedness of an Arabian Fairy Tale...the betrothal sounds like quite a solemn binding ceremony before icons, etc. It sounds so ...public. They are quite engaged as far as society is concerned... At what point does Dmitri start feeling the urge to go off with Grushenka? Is he feeling "caged"? Does he yearn for the good times he was used to?

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    April 30, 2001 - 11:52 pm
    Oh my, OK a good thing I started to read back the last few days of posts and reread my own post - hehehe, I can't believe - I actually used Word to correct my spelling and however I spelled it must of been incorrect and I just hit ok when the change was suggested. Unfortunatily the whole thing was changed with the corrected spelling to the rediculous, except the issues is so non funny but, to see what I spelled out is - oh what can I say...

    ...up until the early 1950s women in parts of Russia, especially those areas that live the Moslem lifestyle, were excited if they were raped. Not the perpetrator - the victim.

    should read

    ...up until the early 1950s women in parts of Russia, especially those areas that live the Moslem lifestyle, were executed if they were raped. Not the perpetrator - the victim.

    Joan Pearson
    May 1, 2001 - 04:44 am
    hahaahaha...Barbara! Your spellcheck is a godsend, but sometimes it will substitute the funniest words... this has got to be a classic! There was much puzzlement and some handwringing about the ladies "excited" by being raped, but decided not to touch that one with a pole! When I came in this morning, I see that spellcheck had substituted "excited" for your spelling of "executed"...oh! oh! oh! hahahahaha...thank you for rereading and for, well, for just being YOU! hahahaha... An important point too by the way...an emphasis on revenge against the victim of a crime, so foreign to us!

    I'm also still laughing too at Henry's comment on the Jefferson Airplane song ~ "she raises her heels for me"! Oh my! Maybe it was inspired by a reading of Brothers Ka-ra-MA-zov, Henry!

    I thought it interesting that Dostovesky did not mention the "heels up" image in the chapter by that name, but did so back in the Confession in Verse in the same context as beauty in Sodom! He describes 'heels up' as a pleasant fall in that degrading attitude or humiliating position, depending on what translation you are reading. He fully recognizes that this dive represents a descent, both degrading and pleasurable at the same time!

    "Beauty in Sodom", Jo? There are clues in Dmitri/Dostoevsky's answer. First you need a definition of beauty to understand how there can be beauty in the city of Sodom, the state of sin, evil, depravity, degradation.

    Beauty is a terrible and awful thing! It is terrible because it has not been defined and is undefinable...

    It is terrible what mysteries there are...God sets us nothing but riddles. What is awful is that a man with the ideal of Sodom in his soul does not renounce the ideal of the Madonna. The devil only knows what to make of it. What to the mind is shameful is beauty to the heart. Can there be beauty in Sodom? For the immense mass of mankind there is. Did you know that secret? The awful thing is that beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and the devil are fighting there and the battlefield is the heart of man."


    For all of his weaknesses, excesses, I am left with the sense that Dmitri is a man of deep faith, fully believing that in the battle raging between God and the devil for his soul, God will win eventually. In the meantime, he can enjoy himself...that's the beauty of it. But at the same time he is wracked with guilt and second thoughts. That's the battlefield. Terrible, awful beauty!

    I think we need to tuck away in our minds the description of the bows that are described here. Katerina, we will never forget, got down on her knees before him, as Zosima had done, on her knees and then forehead to the ground. Now that is more than a bow in my book! Dmitri sends Alyosha to Katerina with instructions that he tell Katerina, that Dmitri bows to her, not just a curtsey we are told, 'but a true Russian bow'...and he repeats this twice for emphasis. Now I'm not sure what a true Russian bow is, but it seems to have far more significance than than a quick form of greeting. It will be interesting to see how Katerina receives him.

    I think that this bow signifies Dmitri's recognition that Katerina represents the side of virtue waging the terrible, beautiful battle for his soul. Her bow to him might represent recognition of the battle that she knows he will face...and in that way it is similar to the bow Zosima gave to him. This all indicates to me that God/virtue/Katerina will eventually win this battle. We'll see.

    ONward, we are to meet yet another mystery man, quite possibly another Karazov. SMERDY, let us take a long look at you!

    ALF
    May 1, 2001 - 05:33 am
    Oh Joan: I love that comment:  " In the meantime, he can enjoy himself...that's the beauty of it. But at the same time he
    is wracked with guilt and second thoughts. That's the battlefield. Terrible, awful beauty! "
    Battlefield indeed!    It is his theatre of war, his combat zone.  Well said!

    Leave it to me!  I was so sure that that 13th step was truly significant.  One does not argue with a Dost. scholar, now, does one?

    Jo Meander
    May 1, 2001 - 07:32 am
    Barbara, thanks for the laugh!!! When I read the "spell-checked" version, I paused, thought about it ...hmmmmmmmmmm! Could such a reaction to a brutal attack be the result of ignorance and a repressed existence? I was feeling sorry for the peasant woman whose only excitement in life was the possibility of rape! Omygosh!!! It was Spell check! Glad to know they weren't that bored!!! (Sorry they were so ill used and powerless!)

    Jo Meander
    May 1, 2001 - 07:42 am
    A libertine would say of Sodom, Yes, yes, it's all beautiful! But Dostoevsky and his characters are engaged on that battlefield of good and evil, recognizing the conflict between the beauty of carnal indulgence and the pull of the spirit. The war that Dimitri is experiencing is a natural one, one that is harder for some natures than others. And the love question Joan, I think is a mystery. I don't think we can dismiss his feeling for Grushenka as merely lust, not yet. Someone .. Traude? has suggested this already today (wish I had a note!)

    Joan Pearson
    May 1, 2001 - 08:15 am
    Oh Jo, I agree with you...we are all pretty much engaged in the same struggle within...but as you say, it is harder for some natures than others. Different steps for different folks, Alf, no matter the number! hahaha... The Karamazov men seem to be included in that category, sensualists as they have been described!

    I don't see it so much in Ivan yet, or Alyosha...and today we meet Smerdy! I don't see it all all there, but I do see something quite disturbing in him. Any kid who would hang cats to watch them suffer, and then hold little funeral services for them...I'd worry about. He is scarey! And Dostoevsky indicates that among the peasants in Russia, there are many like him!

    Does Dmitri love Grushenka? Maybe we need a definition of LOVE here? She is certainly easier to get along with, although Dmitri understands that she represents the base side of his nature and he does understand that his society considers such loose women "worthless". Does he LOVE her, that's a good question! Have you met her yet? Does she surprise you? Is she anything like what you expected? Does she seem to LOVE Dmitri?

    betty gregory
    May 1, 2001 - 03:30 pm
    hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah

    Ok, Barb, you're off the hook. I was deliberately cooling off for a day before unleashing my.....cooled off fury. The mistake is an old, old myth, you know, fantasies of....

    But, thank goodness, not going there.

    hahahahahah, a lesson in here somewhere.

    Betty

    betty gregory
    May 1, 2001 - 03:53 pm
    We need to know more about "Russian bows." I've been looking, but without success. Has anyone run across the significance and variations of Russian bows? At the meeting with Zosima, we learned some about the ritual and tradition in bowing to religious elders at the first of the meeting, but we knew there was added significance to the final bow from Zosima. Now, we're running into requested and specific bows as part of a greeting. So, what is the significance?

    Did Europe have something similar at the time? Was bowing still a part of greeting and leaving?

    And is all this connected to the bowed heads in prayer?

    Deems
    May 1, 2001 - 03:59 pm
    I automatically corrected Barbara's typo as I read the post. I am so used to student papers and the errors that occur because they too quickly allow SpellCheck to change a spelling of theirs and get a word that makes NO sense in the context of their paper, that I simply read "executed" where you had "excited."

    Much as I love the ease of word-processing and the multiple drafts which are possible with it, I notice the downside as well. I wish all of you could read some of my students' papers so that you would appreciate what SpellCheck (and worse, Grammatik) can do to a perfectly sane idea!

    Maryal

    Lady C
    May 1, 2001 - 04:58 pm
    It strikes me as odd that Alyosha so quickly agrees with Dmitri's view of him as subject to debauchery because he is after all a Karamazov. Alyosha has kept himself chaste, chosen to adopt the morals of Zosima who seems to have accurately read the young man's character. But look how quickly he agrees with his brother, almost as if he wants to identify with Dmitri, whom he loves, just as he appears to have wanted to identify with the elder. I think he is easily influenced by those he loves, and it will be interesting to see if he is equally influenced by others as we read on.

    FaithP
    May 1, 2001 - 07:25 pm
    Smerdy is a most unusual "Ass" as shown in his argument regarding The faith of a christian and the test thereof. I laughed outloud when I read that Smerdy considered there might be two somewhere in the desert of great enugh faith to actually move mountains . And Father K laughed too "Oh great this is Russian" and even Aloysha agreed.

    This whole Book 3, intrigues me. I was thinking Smerdy was actually some kind of retarded person with obsessive compulsive disorder. now I think he may not be retarded at all and in fact may have a very high intelligence but a low social and emotional IQ.These sons of Father K all have some of him in them, showing a very complicated man is Father K and as evil as we call him still he is all the things his sons are including searching spiritually for a way to salvation without losing his sensual pleasures. We may all recognize some of that in ourselves eh? Of course as a drunkard he begins demanding his sons tell him what he wants to hear and in return begins his tirade about Aloysha and Ivans mother bringing on an attack of something or other in Aloysha .

    Imagine the old man running to grab Ivan as his savior after this terrible dinner and behavior. I must say I do get tired of these How many angels can dance on the head of a pin type conversations in this book.So when I began chapter nine I was filled with joy and read with my usual speed and imagination through the violent scenes that broke my bordom but good. I always thought I hated violence and here I am relishing it and the scene of these men rushing around hitting each other yelling and generally brawling. heheheh Just look what a little boredom can do to a nice girl.Faith

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    May 1, 2001 - 11:23 pm
    Northern folk clothes of the Archangel Wooden Architecture Museum

    Folk Holidays and Traditions

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    May 2, 2001 - 12:21 am
    Ok we have bowing in Japan, Korea, Finland, nineteenth century USA (especially considered as a "must," manners at a ball) bowing to Royalty, bowing Muslems, bowing to Buddha (considered an act of humility), priests bowing to Russian Icons but, no site explaining bowing in Russia - this is a very discriptive site about bowing in Japan that would prøbably be as close as we could get to better understanding the significance of a very low bow. Bowing Manners in Japan

    betty gregory
    May 2, 2001 - 12:57 am
    Maryal, any chance your colleague has a thought on Russian bowing?

    Good links, Barbara.

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    May 2, 2001 - 01:17 am
    aha - this reminds me of the construction of the oscar winning movie "Moonstruck" with Cher and Nicolas Cage - you really miss so much if you are not familiar with the opera "La Boheme." Where the movie doesn't follow the libretto of "La Boheme" most of the ingredients of the opera are in the movie.

    All that to say I found this story in this site that has many similarities to Dostoevsky's Dmitri - rather than a father it is the tsar that he overwhelms and this Dmitri or one of the Dmitri's has money problems - just so many similarities I can't help but think that a Russian reading The Brothers Karamozov may have read more into the introduction øf Dmitri in the book.

    Here is what I found -
    False Dmitri is described in "GURPS Russia" which presents the Russian world from the 10th century to its new beginnings in the early 18th.

    Answering the cry of the Russian people, their "savior" returned. Known to history only as False Dmitri, a young man claiming to be the son of Ivan Grozny appeared in Russia, ready to take the throne that was "rightfully" his. Many believe that he was a man named Grigory Otrepiev, a former member of the service gentry who had become a monk. It seems likely that False Dmitri truly believed himself to be the heir. It is a possibility that he was informed of his "heritage" and built up to power by Muscovite boyars who needed a "true heir" if they were to have any real hope of toppling Godunov. (we have a Dmitri and an Ivan - oh yes and even a monk)

    After a short time in Moscow in 1601, False Dmitri fled to Poland to plan his return. In Poland, the pretender became Catholic and promised the Jesuits to Catholicize Russia upon seizing power, in exchange for their aid in his one-man invasion. In 1604, False Dmitri headed eastward to Kiev, joined along the way by bands of Cossacks, eager to topple Godunov's position. Pushed back once by the defending armies of the tsar, he eventually arrived at Moscow with a force of 1,500 Cossacks, adventurers, Polish mercenaries and others eager to march into the city. (our Dmitri is a soldier)

    There was little hope of the gambit succeeding, even though the belief in "Dmitri's" legitimacy had taken root in the countryside; the tsar's army was simply too large. However, in April 1605, Tsar Boris suddenly sickened and died. His military commander joined the ranks of False Dmitri's supporters, Godunov's wife and his son, the short-lived Tsar Feodor II, were deposed and murdered, and False Dmitri entered Moscow amid cheers. ( we have legitimacy issues with Smerdyakov)

    Prince Vasili Shuisky, the investigator who had declared the real Dmitri's death a suicide, reversed his claim and backed the new ruler. The real Dmitri's mother was brought into Moscow for a reunion in which she publicly declared False Dmitri to be her son, and Ignatius, a priest who had supported the pretender from the outset, replaced Job as patriarch of the Russian Church.

    Tsar "Dmitri" had immediate problems. Shuisky and others began spreading rumors that he was an impostor, after supporting him as the real lost prince. "Dmitri" shocked Muscovites with his foreign mannerisms, his refusal to attend Orthodox Church services and his habit of wandering the streets dressed as a Pole. The Poles who accompanied him were also a cause of stress; Russians and Poles did not get along, and the city was filled with bitter tension. When Tsar "Dmitri" announced that he was to marry a Polish aristocrat, Marina Mniszech, many were furious, even more so after the wedding brought more Poles into Moscow. (we have Dostoevsky's Dmitri shocking folks and involved in a marriage plan that is ill mannered and shocking)

    Vasili Shuisky proceeded to play his hand well. Less than three weeks after the wedding, he assembled a force of soldiers near Moscow, announcing that it was to "save the tsar from the Poles." After getting closer, he boldly announced that the False Dmitri was, in fact, a false Dmitri. The force overwhelmed the palace guard at the Kremlin.

    False Dmitri would have escaped if not for his "mother." While the soldiers attacked from the outside, she convinced the streltsy that her "son" was an impostor. The streltsy, who had intended to help the tsar escape, grabbed him and handed him over to the attackers. After death, his body was displayed publicly in Red Square, and then cremated. The ashes were loaded into a cannon, and fired in the direction of Poland. Later that year, the original Dmitri was canonized, providing a solution to the Dmitri problem; Dmitri had to be recognized as dead in order to become a saint - anyone who later claimed to be Dmitri would be a heretic in the eyes of the Church.

    Within 14 months, Russia knew four tsars: Boris Godunov, Feodor Godunov, False Dmitri and finally Vasili Shuisky. (four tsars and we have 3 brothers and a father or 3 brothers and an orphan secret brother?)

    Shuisky's reign was perhaps the most complicated period of early Russian history. Rebellion and civil war were its hallmarks. The rebel armies suffered inevitable quarrels and schisms, and the tsar remained the master of a sea of bickering factions. Many rebels fought not only against Tsar Vasili, who was viewed (possibly validly) as a backstabbing usurper, but against the entire social structure of ownership and nobility. Throughout the period, minor uprisings of slaves and peasants against their lords were also commonplace. (lots of rebellion and quarrels against Fydor and does Shuisky seem a bit like Smerdyakov. Maybe its just that both begin with S. )

    A second False Dmitri appeared, claiming to be both the original Dmitri and the Dmitri who had defeated the Godunovs despite his lack of resemblance to either. False Dmitri II (known to historians as the Felon of Tushino) set up a government mimicking the one in Moscow, to which much of Russia swore its allegiance. For a while, Tsar Vasili and this "Tsar Dmitri" ran Russia together. ( we have our Dmitri in allegiance with his brother Alyosha)

    Shuisky, growing desperate, formed an alliance with Sweden, which sent its army into Russia and shattered the Felon's troops, ending his 13-month siege of the St. Sergius monastery. The years that immediately followed saw Tsar Vasili deposed, the death of the escaped Felon (who later was killed in a quarrel over personal financial accounts), and several foreign claims to the throne, including one from Poland and two from Sweden. Poland occupied and controlled Moscow, and Russia, already in chaos, was disintegrating.

    Joan Pearson
    May 2, 2001 - 03:56 am
    Barbara, your ability to search the net for relevent information is remarkable! Thank you so much!

    I loved the Russian peasant costumes of the 19th century...weren't they colorful! They appear to be of a much earlier era, don't they? The passage of time did not affect the dress of the recently freed serfs!

    And the site describing the Japanese bowing is really helpful here. The Western handshake is still not the customary greeting. The Eastern bow seems to have been the accepted form of greeting the varying degrees of the bow represent different levels of reverence or humility. I think the Japanese bow sheds light on the meaning behind some of the bows we've been encountering in Brothers K, don't you?
  • Bowing represents humility. You elevate, honour, and respect the other person by humbling yourself or lowering yourself. The lower you bow, the more you are honouring or respecting the other party.

  • The most frequent bow is a rather informal bow of about 15 degrees and is held for one or two seconds.
  • A deeper bow is used for a superior or for a formal occasion such as a first meeting.
  • The person of lower status usually initiates the bow, bows the lowest, and is the last one to rise.


  • Sooo Zosima's bow to Dmitri meant what...that he regarded himself lower in status to Dmitri, is humbled in his presence, is elevating, honoring or respecting him by his humbling of himself before him?

    What of the Russian bow that Dmitri sends to Katerina through Alyosha?

    Joan Pearson
    May 2, 2001 - 04:13 am
    hahahaha Faith!...our "nice" little Faith, finding JOY in violence as a release from boredom! I'll admit to a certain "fatigue" following Smerdyakov's "Jesuit" casuist arguments, (How many angels on the head of a pin - How many Russians out in the desert praying to move that mountain.) But all through his excited, contemptuous monologue, I'm trying to figure out where he got all this information. He doesn't read, or so it seems, nor does he have an education. What is Dostoevsky saying through this character, about this character? Does he represent the uneducated peasant? He is without faith, without belief in immortality, or anything else it would appear. Does this describe the recently-freed Russian peasant? OR does he represent the "false prophet" ...trying to influence the peasantry?

    There is constant reference to Balaam's ass and the heathen, who can't be punished, not to blame as he "came into the world an unclean heathen from heathen parents."

    Is this a description of Smerdyakov? Must he be held blameless because of his birth, as are heathens...or peasants?

    Are the Russian peasants 'heathens'?

    Joan Pearson
    May 2, 2001 - 04:31 am
    Lady C, what is it about Karamazov sensuality? Is it simply a strong sex drive, or is it more? A passion for life itself? If it is a passion for life, is that necessarily bad? The sons seem to recognize that they share a common gene pool, and look at the excesses of the father and accept the fact that they must take after him. Perhaps that is why Alyosha so readily accepts what Dmitri tells him of his nature. I think that all of these boys are searching for some sort of familial identity having been deprived of that as children.

    None of these family traits seem to be present in Smerdyakov. Do you see any signs at all that the three brothers recognize Smerdy as a brother? He seems to be their polar opposite. I don't see F.Karamazov recognizing him as a son either, until....

    Deems
    May 2, 2001 - 07:31 am
    Good morning all. I can't reach my colleague until later in the week when I shall try to nab him, but for the nonce, I think Joan's post above, quoting from Barbara's Japanese bow section will do just fine for our definition.

    To bow is to show humility; how low one bows indicates how much above one the other person stands.

    I have an example from the doggy-dog kingdom in which I live. There are two Jack Russell terriers here, Kemper Elizabeth (mine) and Benjamin Douglas (my daughter's). Kemper is one year older and also Top Dog. Whenever Ben gets out of hand, she mounts him to show her TopDoghood. Ben eventually lowers his body and rolls on his back. This is called submission in the animal kingdom. Ben is, in a sense, "bowing" to Kemper, admitting that she is superior.

    Joan, I love the question about Balaam's Ass above. I'll answer it later if no one else jumps in.

    Maryal

    Joan Pearson
    May 3, 2001 - 03:44 am
    Disease: I think Smerdy has the disease too. By the way, that's what Schiller died of, if you read new bios of him. Old ones still use the euphemism of a wasting disease or consumption. Now I wonder about disease in context of The Robbers?

    I found some things on the web that lead me to believe that there was an epidemic of syphilis in the 19th Century partly due to the social upheavel and loosening of restraints. I think the poster who said that Dos was using physical symptoms symbolically to show the disease of the soul (? I have to paraphrase) was partly right. But Dos is describing a real disease of the body to accompany the disease of the soul. Syphilis was very prevalent in the 19th Century, and although doctors tried to treat the disease with mercury that was more a poison and not an aid. A cure wasn't found until 1928. ________________________________ Per: www.botany.duke.edu/microbe/chrono.html "1494-95 Syphilis first appeared in Europe, beginning among Spanish soldiers in Naples. Historians differ on whether it was brought back by explorers retruning from America...The Russians called it the Polish disease....Smallpox, which had existed previously in Europe, also got its modern name at this time, to distinguish it from syphilis which was also known as 'the pox'."

    _______________________________ www.cas.muchio.edu/~stevenjr/mb | III/impactIII.html

    Dr. John R. Stevenson, Associate Professor wrote an essay, "Impact of Infectious Disease on Development of Human Societies." In the essay, he says "The ensuing 16th Century pandemic influenced sexual mores because its transmission allowed clergy to explain syphilis as a punishment for 'sins of the flesh' (even lepers refused to accept syphilites into their colonies)."

    Well, no wonder people would rather have a disease called consumption! At least that is not so sinful! I remember too that Ibsen wrote a play "Ghosts" about hereditary syphilis. But it was a disease that could not be named, just described discreetly and hinted at.

    _____________________________

    A quote from the book "The Cambridge Illustrated History of Medicine" edited by Roy Porter, (sorry I forgot the page) says:

    "The spread of the veneral disease (cleansed and cultivated by 19th Century artists) led to the quip -- an hour with Venus might require a lifetime of Mercury."

    _______________________________

    Anyway, when Smerdy "had his first attack of the disease of which he was subject all the rest of his life --epilepsy" pater K became kinder to him. Wouldn't he of all people know the beginning signs of syphilis? Pater K sends Smerdy to cooking school and he is gone for a few years and when he comes back -- (Book 3 Chap 6) "He looked extraordinarily old for his age. His face had grown wrinkled, yellow, and strangely emasculate." He had the same character -- silent, insociable, and not noticing his surroundings. But he was very, very clean and "he seemed to have as much contempt for the female sex as for men; he was aloof, almost unapproachable, with them. "

    ___________________________ While they couldn't cure syphilis in Dos day, I bet everyone (Dmitri, Ivan, etc) knew the beginning signs. It was like the plague! Some symptoms of syphilis I found described on the web:

    -- the lymph nodes swell up (see pater K and the description of his adam's apple, a universal symbol of male sexuality. But the description is SICKLY, Book 1 Chap 4 "the Adam's apple hung below his sharp chin like a great, fleshy goiter, which gave him a peculiar, repulsive, sensual appearance....")

    -- the skin and eyes turn yellow as a result of liver damage (Smerdy).

    -- Late hereditary syphilis, commonest between the ages of 7 and 15, manifested by deafness, partial blindness, and/or notched teeth. No one matches that?

    -- Initial and secondary manifestations of syphilis are highly contagious. Secondary features can include a rash all over the body.

    -- Dementia paralytica in late or tertiary syphilis, affects the brain and appears 10-20 years after the primary infection. (Okay, so let's start counting the boys ages!)

    -- Late syphilis of the brain has intermittent problems with speech, concentration, depression, and more frequent outbursts of violent temper. (well that's about everyone except Aloysha!)

    -- Untreated syphilis, particularly dementia paralytica, manifests itself in many ways and may be confused with other diseases without careful diagnoses.


    My ultimate conclusion is that syphilis is the physical disease in the Brothers K -- common in its day -- and it represents the chaos of the country and the illness of the souls. But I also believe that most Readers would rather not think about a sexual disease and so dismiss it ~ out of hand.

    Hats
    May 3, 2001 - 04:03 am
    In a way, Smerdeyakov does represent the Russian peasant. When he hangs the cats, he is displaying hidden anger, anger he does not know how to release. I think the peasants must have felt very angry about their poverty. Surely, they must feel depression too, but depression is hidden anger.

    In a way, Grigory and Marfia represent or symbolize the upper classes. Smerdeyakov does not feel close to them, and he does not feel any gratitude for the home his guardians have given him.

    Joan Pearson
    May 3, 2001 - 04:13 am
    Good morning, Hats! Now that is something to think about today!
    "Depression is hidden anger."

    I think I'll agree with you about Smerdy representing the peasant, the poor heathen who came from nowhere. But here's a question, a question du jour? Were the masses of peasants heathens or Christians? And were they generally an angry mass?

    I did notice that Fyodor began to express interest in Smerdy once he had his first seizures, but I never did connect his recognition of the disease as a reason for this interest. Marvelle has given us something to consider...I certainly had that thought when Smerdy's appearance upon return from Moscow was described. There was no further explanation for this sickly change in his appearance, was there?

    I assumed that for these seizures to be noticed by Fyodor, they had to be the Grand Mal seizures associated with epilepsy. But I noticed all through the descriptions of Smerdy's behaviour, or lack thereof, many instances that might be described as the Petit Mal seizure. Here's a description of this type:

    A brain disorder involving temporary disturbance of brain function caused by abnormal electrical activity in the brain nerve cells, characterized by abrupt, short-term lack of conscious activity.

    Causes, incidence, and risk factors: Petit mal seizures occur in 2 out of 1,000 people. They are most common under age 20, usually in children ages 6 to 12. They may occur in combination with other types of seizures.

    Typical petit mal seizures last only a few seconds, with full recovery and no confusion. They manifest themselves as staring episodes or "absence spells" during which the child's activity or speech ceases. The child may stop talking in mid sentence or cease walking. One to several seconds later speech or activity resume. If standing or walking a child seldom falls during one of these episodes. "Spells" can be infrequent or very frequent occurring many times per hour. They can interfere with school function and learning. Teachers may interpret these seizures as lack of attention or other misbehavior. Petit Mal Seizures



    and then here's a description of Smerdy's behaviour from Chapter VI:
    Yet he used sometimes to stop suddenly in the house, or even in the yard or street, and would stand still for ten minutes, lost in thought. A physiognomist studying his face would have said that there was not thought in it, no reflection, but only a sort of contemplation."

    Traude
    May 3, 2001 - 05:40 am
    To this detailed information by Marvelle one might add that the illness is also known as Lues , and that its secondary stage may be followed by a latent stage (asymptomatic) that may last indefinitely, OR by the late or tertiary stage (symptomatic; not contagious).



    It rather rsurprised me that the all-important Wassermann test was not mentioned.

    Since we have gone this far, it would be interesting to know more about the "cure" found in 1928. Who found it ? What does it consist of ? Precise identification of source material is urgently needed here, in fact indispensable.

    While syphillis was indeed wide-spread in Europe, the allegation that it was "epidemic" in a plague-like sense is over-reaching, in my opinion.

    We also should not lose sight of the fact that there were and are other, less insidious forms of veneral disease, including genital herpes; syphillis remains by far the worst and is most feared, even though treatment is now possible.

    Lastly, re Schiller and syphillis (?). I find myself totally blown away by this astonishing off-hand allegation. If the proof is in "new bios", who authored them ? When ? Where ?

    Precise information on the respective source(s) should be given.

    Traude
    May 3, 2001 - 06:22 am
    Was unable to access the www.botany.duke.edu etc. site.

    BTW, it has long been rumored in Europe that Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and quite possibly Franz Schubert were syphillitic.

    As for Schiller, I remain unconvinced. Here is what John Gassner says on page 326 in MASTERS OF THE DRAMA (1954) :

    Beginning of quote :

    On the ninth of May, 1805, Schiller succumbed to his tuberculosis in the forty-sixth year of his life. Racing against time, he wrote at night, immersing his feet in cold water in order to stay awake. He died, mourned by anyone who knew him, for he was one of those lovable poets who win every heart with their unassuming spirituality. Madame de Stael's impression, when she visited Weimar, of "his sweet and gentle character," his tall slender figure, and his "exquisitely chiseled" mouth and Roman nose is the picture of a matinee idol and makes a suitably romantic symbol. His idealizing imagination and dream of the good and the beautiful, combined with a showman's instinctive feel for theatre, kept him the favorite playwright of the German people for more than a century. end of quote

    Deems
    May 3, 2001 - 06:23 am
    Smerdyakov is epileptic; he has the "falling sickness" as Julius Caesar and others did. Fyodor Dostoevsky also suffered from epilepsy; his first seizure occurred when he was still a young man.

    Dostoevsky's little son, Alexie, who died when he was "three months short of three years," died of epilepsy (his FIRST epileptic seizure) and his father felt very guilty for passing the disease along to his son.

    I think that Fyodor Karamazov believes that he is Smerdyakov's father since he knows he slept with his mother and it is highly unlikely that anyone else did because of her retardation and appaling body odor.

    The views of the ordinary horny young men when it comes to Lizaveta are expressed by one of their number, " Could anyone--anyone at all--regard such an animal as a woman . . . .They all declared with disdainful loathing that it was impossible" (III.2). Only Fyodor steps forward and says that it is indeed possible to regard her as a woman.

    When Smerdyakov begins to suffer seizures, Karamazov takes more responsibility for him because he feels guilty.

    Maryal

    Deems
    May 3, 2001 - 06:28 am
    Hi Traude--We seem to be posting at the same time. I agree with you about syphillis. Although there were no doubt many cases, tuberculosis was also rampant until recently. TB was called "the wasting disease" and "consumption" among other things. It also was contagious. John Keats, who nursed his brother during his final illness with TB, contracted the disease and died of it himself. AT TWENTY-FIVE!! I still find this hard to believe.

    Maryal

    Hats
    May 3, 2001 - 08:56 am
    For the masses of peasants, maybe they were divided in their feelings toward their new freedom. In Grigory and Marfia's home, there is a difference of opinion. Marfia feels that she and Grigory should leave the home of father K. but Grigory feels he and Marfia should remain at the Karamazovs.

    "After the emancipation of the serfs, she tried to persuade Gregory to leave Mr. Karamazov, move to Moscow...but Gregory decided then and there that his wife was talking nonsense...whether that master was a good or a bad man, that it was their duty to stay with him now."

    I think the masses of peasants were Christian. Vaguely, I remember the masses flowing to the elder for healing. "But when the elder appeared in the gallery, he didn't stop but went straight down to the peasant women crowded around the three steps by the entrance. The elder stood on the top step, put on his stole, and began blessing the women as they pressed close to him."

    Then, Grigory and Marfia read the Bible to Smeredyakov. "Gregory taught him to read, and when Smerdyakov was twelve he began to teach him the Scriptures..." When Smerdyakov debates a passage of the Scriptures, Grigory becomes very angry. I think Grigory feels that Smerdyakov is mocking the Scriptures.

    Is it possible that the peasants believe their newly won freedom happens because they believe in a Higher Power, and His ability to bring miracles into their lives?

    Deems
    May 3, 2001 - 10:09 am
    I agree. The masses of peasants were Catholic, however little they understood of their religion. Sometimes ignorance is an advantage to a religion.

    I think that Grigory gets so angry with Smerdyakov because he is treatened by Smerdyakov's argument. He cannot answer it, probably cannot even understand it, and therefore, he strikes out physically.

    Maryal

    Henry Misbach
    May 3, 2001 - 01:13 pm
    I think that Grigory's refusal to entertain seriously Marfa's ideas for an independent livelihood for themselves is rooted in his certainty that no such opportunity really exists, and that they would surely fail in the attempt.

    Without going too far afield (sorry about the awful pun), there is another contrast besides Christian vs heathen which, if I may say so, would seem a side issue here. Just in reading some dusty old notes, I've rediscovered the history of a major movement in the West that could not affect Russia because of the Mongol domination at the same period. Western peasants were not the least bashful about engaging in armed revolt from about 1300-1500. In Northern Europe, this was the time when we shall see the preliminaries to the Protestant Reformation. It is, to my mind, and I can't prove it, this historic gap that Dos has in mind.

    Furthermore, in connection with John Wycliff (fl. 1330-84), some historians find in his outlook a kind of Christian socialism (word for word in notes I wrote at least two decades ago), to wit: His doctrine of Contingent Dominion argued that, insofar as the ownership of the land must be God's, then only those who hold the personal Grace of God to do so may hold dominion over land which they cause others to work for them. Already, by this time, the Pope fell under presumptive disqualification. As the movement gained steam under John Hus (1370-1416), it becomes easily apparent the huge gulf that resides between Western Europe's free-swinging peasantry and the repressed one Dos tries to picture here.

    Guarantee you, Dostoevsky knew of this contrast full well, and shows you as much of it as he dares.

    Joan Pearson
    May 3, 2001 - 02:51 pm
    Thanks for your dusty notes, Henry! I think that Russia's diverse population, with the Mongols (heathens) as well as the stronghold of Orthodox Chrristianity ... might indicate that this is not a wholly Christian, Catholic population of serfs that we might expect in the peasant population in the West at the same time.

    I don't think there's any indication that Smerdy is Christian, is there? He is definitely angry. It was Hats this morning who wrote that depression is repressed anger. Is Smerdy depressed? Are the masses of peasants depressed and angry? Henry describes them as "repressed". That sounds dangerous! That sound as if a rebellion might occur, doesn't it?

    In chapter VI when describing Smerdy's seizures, well, his lapses in which he appears to have no reflection, but only a sort of contemplation, Dos. describes and comments on "a remarkable picture by the painter Kramskoy (Dos. knew Kramskoy...he painted Dos.'s portrait). Here is the very painting Dos. describes:

    Contemplation.



    Dos. describes the subject as a peasant lost in thought...listen to the description of the peasant and see if he doesn't sound like Smerdy.

    "He stands, as it were, lost in thought. Yet he is not thinking, he is contemplating. If anyone touched him, he would start and look at one as though awakening and bewildered...if he were asked what he had been thinking about he would remember nothing.

    Yet probably he has hidden within himself the impression which had domintated him during the period of contemplation. He hoards them (the impressions) imperceptibly, and even unconsciously.

    He may suddenly after hoarding impressions for many years, abandon everything and go off to Jerusalem on a pilgrimage for his soul's salvation, or perhaps he will suddenly set fire to his native village, or perhaps do both.

    "There are a good many 'contemplatives' among the peasantry. Well, Smerdyakov was probably one of them, and he probably was greedily hoarding up his impressions, hardly knowing why."


    I think our Smerdy is a time bomb! Scarey!

    Traude
    May 3, 2001 - 03:39 pm
    Thankyou for your posts, HATS, Maryal and Henry.

    Yes, I do think Smerdyakov is representative of the peasantry.



    We must take into consideration the proven fact that the peasants knew no other life, had never known anything but serfdom. How COULD they embrace their unexpected freedom right away ? They had not clamored for it; they had suffered in silence for generations. Is it any wonder they did not immediately comprehend the extent of this sudden freedom and had no earthly idea of what their life would be like0- free from the control of a master ?

    Just think of the vastness of that country especially beyond the Caucasus mountains, the steppes, the isolation, the insularity, the hostile environment of remote Siberia to which disgruntled naysayers were banned even under Katherine the Great and into modern times !!

    ... Of course the newly freed were uncertain about the future and wondered just what to DO with that newly granted freedom ! And Grigory was a cautious man who did not want to give up the security he had known.

    As for Henry's post # 705, we will have to get eventually into Christian socialism. That is what Dos. had in mind. Of course with special regard to the RUSSIAN Orthodox Church and in marked contrast to the ROMAN Catholic Church. But we will get to that later.

    As to whether old Karamazov sired Smerdyakov, we only need to reread the Lizaveta chapter.

    One clear warm moonlit night in September, we read, a group of drunken revelers returning home (Karamazov among them) happened on poor homeless Lizaveta who had camped out in the open as usual. Some of them, possibly still capable of some degree of (impaired) reason, speculated whether this "animal" was still "a woman". Karamazov then came forward and declared "that it was by no means impossible and that indeed there was a certain piquancy about it and so on ..."

    There was no "lust" involved, no "bedding down", it was really like a "dare", totally conceivable in our time, unfortunately, and Feodor unmistakeably rose to the challenge.

    This much is clear and despicable and I will not comment on this any further.



    Eventually we must indeed get into Christian "socialism", for that was on Dos.'s mind; however, from the point of view of the Russian Orthodox Church -- in marked contrast to the ROMAN Catholic Church. Remember the reference to ultramondanism and Pope Gregory the Seventh in the chapter titled "So be it ..." and the implications of the term ?

    Well, we had better be prepared for what is coming up !



    Yes, I agree : Smerdyakov's disease was epilespy. The only way he could have contracted a venereal disease would have been through a prostitute, and those were freely available. But we are told that he was not interested in women !

    Since we have speculated on the Karamazov brothers' nature and propensities, I would now like to quote from the Introduction (1995) by Jon Surgal to my BN translation by Constance Garnett. I still find it an extreme pain to read -- actually I may quit in despair.

    Here is the quote from the Introduction now : "...That each brother exerts a highly personal appeal reader is due in large part to the fact that Dos. invested each with highly personal elements drawn from his own life. To Dmitri he gave his own compulsiveness. To Ivan he gave his own rebellious intellect. To Alyosha he gave his own faith and kindness. And to Smerdyakov he gave his own greatest vulnerability, his epilsepsy. It should also be noted that to their father - who shares with Dostoevsky the role of their progenitor - he gave the name Fyodor." " end of quote

    Hats
    May 3, 2001 - 05:14 pm
    Traude, that is fascinating and leaves me understanding my interest in the Karamazov brothers. While I come to understand them, I am also learning about Dostoevsky because he has placed a part of himself in each boy. WOW!! Is this why this is a psychological novel? Brothers Karamazov is a psychological study of personalities.

    Joan Pearson
    May 4, 2001 - 03:47 am
    Thanks for that Traudee...poor Smerdy. Not much of a legacy, is it? Here's a question...is epilepsy hereditary? Maryal thinks that Fyodor shows interest in Smerdy's epilepsy because he recognizes his own malady and takes it as proof that Smerdy is his son. His interest comes from guilt.

    Traudee, I think there is a major difference between speculating that Lisavetta is a woman and actual rape. Fyodor was on the scene, but I don't think his Smerdy's parentage would be confirmed in a court of law based on that alone. Of course today with the DNA tests, we'd know right away, wouldn't we? I think it is something else that we need to watch, and speculate on, just as the Karamazovs are doing at this point.

    The question of syphilis arises again in this chapter. Exactly what is Smerdy suffering from when he returns from Moscow. The description of his demeanor is the same as Feodor's had been described earlier. We do know that syphilis was rampant in Russia at the time. Whether Schiller had it has been unsubstaniated, but many did. We need Marvelle to complete her move and get to her computer again! Her links take us to the site referenced but not the specific paper. Did you know there is another huge syphilis epidemic in Russia right now? There are characters in other of Dostoevsky's works who had the disease, and an indication, (unsubstantiated) that at least one of the Karamazov brothers (not Smerdy) will contract the disease before we finish the book. Something else to keep in mind as we move forward.

    We do seem to agree that Smerdy represents the peasant. A Karamazov, but not recognized as such, a menial, the family cook. Like the recently freed serf, a Russian with no rights or position.

    We are not quite agreed that the masses of peasants are Christian...or heathen, but DO recognize that they are angry, quietly angry, storing up resentment and ready to explode at any point. And so it Smerdyakov.

    The link to the portrait of Kramskoy's peasant referred to in Chapter VI is in the heading. I'd like to share with you another portrait by the same artist. I know I've seen it before, although the artist's name was unfamiliar to me. Now I will never forget him. Have you ever seen her?

    Sophia Kramskaya Reading

    Hats
    May 4, 2001 - 04:17 am
    Joan, what am I doing wrong? I can not find any mention of the painting "CONTEMPLATION" in my chapter six. I must be overlooking it, but I find what you wrote about it so interesting.

    Joan, I just clicked onto the link to "Contemplation." It makes the book come alive, or should I say Smerdy come alive. I am going to look at it again and reread what you wrote. This is down my alley. I love artist renditions.

    Joan Pearson
    May 4, 2001 - 04:21 am
    Good morning, Hats!. Perhaps in your translation the painting is called Meditation? Look in the last paragraph of Chapter VI? Tell me what you see there? I would be amazed if it's not there!

    Hats
    May 4, 2001 - 04:28 am
    Oh Joan, I have found "CONTEMPLATION" in my chapter. I don't know how I missed it. Now, I am rereading that part of the chapter. There is more than one mention of art and books in that chapter. For some reason, I paid more attention to the name of the books.

    Smerdeyakov does remind me of the peasant shown in the painting.

    betty gregory
    May 4, 2001 - 04:28 am
    Thanks for the two paintings, Joan. Their contrast tells so much. His clothes look heavy, utilitarian, old, worn. Hers look lighter, meant for beauty, not warmth, look comfortable (well, as much as women's clothes of the time COULD be comfortable)....one noticed the pretty pin, ruffles, sheer and gathered sleeves. The clothes are chosen for style.

    More importantly, however, is the relaxed position of her body. She is sitting, after all, has a place to sit, has part of her fringed scarf placed under her elbow for comfort. Her face and especially her hand look relaxed....his whole body looks frozen in place, not relaxed. He stares. She looks with intent upon her book...her face is alive, his less so.

    He is in the wilderness. She is in a garden with a book, her elbow cushioned.

    Amazing that the same artist captures the peasant and the woman who has time to read.

    Hats
    May 4, 2001 - 04:49 am
    Joan, it's me again. My painting is called "CONTEMPLATION." I just missed the title, a boo-boo!! But the woman in the painting reminds me of Katerina because she seems to be a part of the upper class. I can see Katerina taking time to read a book. I picture her as being very serene like the woman in the painting.

    The pin she is wearing, do you think it is a cameo? Of course, that might not matter. It does not seem to be the focus of the artist.

    Joan Pearson
    May 4, 2001 - 04:52 am
    Betty, how perceptive! I had missed the contrast of the two and the implications...the divide between the peasantry and the upper classes. Hats, it could be a cameo...but it looks to me as if it might have a little scene painted on it. She is well-dressed, isn't she? The young lady is the daughter of the artist, who was a friend of Dostoevsky.

    Here is a portrait of Christ in the desert, to show Kramskoy's range ~ and his reliosity. The face, the human face, yes, but look at the hands too! I love the hands. This to me is painted by a man with the heart of a man who feels the humanity of Christ. And I bet he must have shared many a conversation along these lines with the author...

    Christ in the Desert

    And here's one more portrait of a peasant. Kramskoy spends time on these faces...which indicates that he did not hold these people at arms' length...he knew and understood their condition. I marvel at the picture of this peasant...we are looking at a careful artist's portrayal of an actual peasant. We are looking into his face, his eyes, as we read and discuss his plight in Brothers K ~ The magic of the INTERNET!!!

    An Old Peasant

    Joan Pearson
    May 4, 2001 - 05:19 am
    In Chapter VII, Smerdyakov sounds totally different from the rather wild youth we first met in Grigory's kitchen in Chapter VI, doesn't he? He no longer sounds like the "peasant"...or does he? Something has changed him in Moscow...you'd think he had been to the university, as he argues with "the logic of a Jesuit." He'd been to culinary school, for heaven's sake! If anything, his condescending arguments remind me more of Ivan now than anyone!

    What is the significance of this argument about renouncing faith, I keep asking myself? I can follow him, with some effort, but come away wondering how it impacts the story, or what it reveals about Smerdyakov and more broadly, what does it say about Russian thought at the time.

    Did you notice that all while they are speaking, Smerdy only addresses Grigory. Even when Fyodor asks him a direct question, his response is always addressed to "Grigory Vasilyevich."

    Maryal, please tell about the reference to "Balaam's ass", as Fyodor continues to address Smerdy (but Smerdy continues to ignore)?

    Hats
    May 4, 2001 - 06:09 am
    Yes, Joan, I had the same thought, a landscape of some sort.

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    May 4, 2001 - 11:13 am
    I think these arguments are Dostoevsky examining the heart head conflict raging at time in the debate over cannon law versus civil law but taken to the next level of, Church or God's law versus, Faith based in the heart or Love and in Hope as the unseen and unknown.

    Loved the links to the paintings - this is almost now like we are making the Brother's Karamazov into a picture book - I love it. Couldn't help notice the difference in the peasent you found Joan and the one in the heading. The one in the heading the peasent still has that vacant look of the uneducated but looks capable, strong and self-possessed where as the one you shared Joan almost looks like he blows with the winds of what ever or where ever a master directed him.

    Deems
    May 4, 2001 - 11:39 am
    Thank you, Joan, for those paintings, especially the one that has the peasant in the woods, "The Contemplator." It is an ominous painting to me. This is a tired and poorly clothed man. And such a contrast to the upperclass Reading Lady! as others have pointed out.

    HATS--You think Katia is "serene"? Like the upperclass Reading Lady? Keep reading......you may change your mind!

    Balaam's donkey--from Numbers 22:

    Balaam was a famous priest-diviner from Mesopotamia. King Balak of Moab feared the Israelites as they camped outside his city. He sent for Balaam and offered him a reward if he put a curse on the Israelites (who at this stage are not yet in the process of conquering the Promised Land).

    Anyway, Balaam is instructed not to put a curse on the Israelites by God. He tells Balak's messengers he cannot go against the word of Yahweh, his God. Then God comes to Balaam again and tells him to go with the messengers who have come to take him to Balak, but to do only as God instructs him to do. So..........and this is the confusing part of the story........

    The next morning Balaam gets up to go with the messengers. But something happens (it's not in the text, and Yahweh's anger is kindled, so the angel of Yahweh stands in Balaam's path to block his way. But Balaam cannot see the angel. Only the donkey (ass) can see the angel. The donkey refuses to move. The donkey lies down. Balaam beats the donkey who continues to refuse to move forward.

    Finally the donkey SPEAKS, saying "What harm have I done you for you to strike me three times like this?" After a little more conversation between Balaam and the donkey, the angel allows Balaam to see him. The angel tells Balaam that he is lucky the donkey refused to budge because if Balaam had gone any further on the path, the angel would have had to kill him. Then the angel tells Balaam to go on his way to Balak, but to say only what God tells him to say.

    When Balak shows Balaam the Israelites in their large encampment, Balaam blesses them instead of cursing them as Balak has asked him to do.

    There are just two talking animals in the Bible, the serpent in the Garden of Eden and Balaam's donkey.

    Maryal

    Henry Misbach
    May 4, 2001 - 01:46 pm
    The sequence of discussion in chs. VI-VII is quite remarkable. Its uniqueness is brought home by Maryal's timely explanation of the reference to Balaam's ass, together with the fact that Balaam's donkey is one of only two animals that speak in the entire Bible.

    First, we can pretty well exclude the possibility that Smerdyakov has become, in the conventional sense, erudite. His disdain back in ch. VI shown for the likes of Smaragdov's "Universal History," presumably continues. But his argument in ch. VII is worthy of what we might consider, if not profound philosophy, at least a challenging syllogism only a little less refined than the latter-day Schoolmen or Jesuits whose example he is accused of following.

    The strongest argument against a God simultaneously omnipotent and good is to make a liar of him. That is precisely what Smerdyakov claims to do. Since he is a Tatar who has been christened into Christianity, but remains effectively a heathen, God cannot consign him to eternal punishment for denying what he does not have. This would make God a liar, which God cannot be "even in one word."

    I'll put forward here a conjecture: throughout the discussion, Smerdyakov persistently ignores Fyodor who, unlike both him and Grigory, has never been a Russian peasant. And, as the others discuss what S. has said, they can't easily escape from the possibility that he is telling things "the way they are (in the '60's sense)." He doesn't engage in any obvious ungodliness, either through theft or lying or gossip. But I think the link between S. and Grigory is the commonality of experience among peasants (even if they are freed serfs). S. drives it home by ignoring Fyodor, who has not "been there, done that."

    The concern none of these people will give voice to is that the contemplative peasant resembles nothing so much as a volcano that will someday erupt in the most savage, murderous, and bloody insurrection this planet has ever seen. It may have still seemed that way in the mid-late 19th century.

    One might argue that something even worse happened. Communist theory posited an industrial proletariat. It tended to overlook and even ignore the peasantry, both in Europe where it failed to take root and in Russia where it did. Few historians would take exception to the view that the most problematical part of the Soviet system and what finally sank it was the agrarian sector.

    Deems
    May 4, 2001 - 02:01 pm
    Most interesting, Henry! Yes, Smerdyakov does address his remarks only to Grigory, and as you suggest they are both Russian peasants. I think that another reason to consider is that Smerdyakov is showing deference to Father Karamazov by not addressing him directly. He would be speaking outside his station in life to have a theological argument with Karamazov. Not that old drunk Fyodor would have any response.

    Maryal

    Joan Pearson
    May 4, 2001 - 06:49 pm
    Barbara, you Maryal and Henry don't seem to be having as much trouble as I am seeing the Balaam's Ass parallel here! Perhaps I'm trying too hard? //////////

    Balaam's Ass of course is Smerdy, silent up to this point He rarely talks. He holds all men, and especially women in contempt. (We are told also that he despises Alyosha! Is this a first? Everyone loves Alyosha!

    Smerdy is, as Dos. describes him, the Contemplator, the peasant, quietly gathering impressions, which finally will erupt in one of two ways, or both.

    So the Balsaam's ass, the contemplator too, finally utters his words, (in a loud voice we are told), mocking those who feel the Russian soldier followed the only course of action by dying, rather than renouncing his faith.

    We know that Fyodor listens to Smerdyakov, because he considers him absolutely honest and trustworthy in all things. Why? Because ONCE Smerdy had returned some rubles he had dropped. Fyodor continues to ask him questions, but we are told that Smerdy is "deliberately pretending that Grigory had asked the questions." He seems not to want to address or argue with Fyodor, and Fyodor continues to address him, to ask him questions, and then to coax Ivan and then Alyosha into debating him, proving him wrong, Did they?

    I noted Smerdy's words, which seem to ressonate through these chapters:

    "And so I'm persuaded that though I once have doubted, I shall be forgiven IF I shed tears of repentance."


    Doesn't this sound like Dmitri's attitude?

    Now, pray tell, what the story of the donkey and Balaam have in common with this "controversy", as the chapter is titled? IS Smerdy to be identified with faith, with the believers, seeing the good angel just in time? The donkey was responsible for saving Balaam's life. What do you see as Smerdy's role here? Will he see the angel, see the light?

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    May 4, 2001 - 08:24 pm
    Seems to me it takes reading to Chapter 8 to get the significance of Smerdyakov as Ballaam's ass when like the ass that stops Ballaam he will stop all the Ballaams or those not not the serfs/peasents of Russia, the men of intelligence but not the men of wit. Alyosha says, "...he is a lacky and a boor. Prime cannon fodder, however, when the time comes...The rockets will go off..."

    I also think that using the analagy is Dostoevsky forshadowing the doom that Fyodor will experience - while the ass Smerdyakov speaks of philosophy no one is acting against Fyodor. His arguments furthers more questions and diologue between father and sons. Smerdyakov's diologue also keeps Alyosha from pleading Dmitri's cause.

    It is the arguments, debates that have me facinated. I know this is a time when cannon law versus civil law is being debated but what is the difference between the two and why is the Church held in such esteem regardless that we know the church monisteriers are run by leaders appointed by the tzar. What is the disgrace of argueing as a Jesuit.

    I have not read ahead but have read in so many papers on this book that the chapter The Grand Inquisitor is a cornerstone to the book and the philosophy of Dostoevsky. So again we have this religious connection. What is so almighty important out being a Rus and beliving in the Orthodox version of Christianity, which Dostoevsky seems to be questioning through his characters - what is the basis of all these soliloquies examining the minut logic of the church often versus faith.

    Well I found so many sites that furthered my understanding and it soon became apparent that to understand the Russian attachement to the Eastern Orthodox Religion that the understanding of both the Religion, and its belief, needed to be looked at in relationship to the cultural history of Russia.

    I'm including most of the URL links but going ahead and giving a synopsis of what I found since wading through took me all afternoon and evening. I found it daunting to read it all -

    First the strong, strong belief of the rightious, justification for Orhodoxy followed by how did Russia accept the religion backed by not only how that came about but who are the peasents/serfs that they are considered heathen. These heathens, did they have a religion that was different, yes and seeing the conflict between the two is a facinating look at the fear of the Europeans and their belief that anything not Orthodox was heathen. To this day we seem to have a frightening view of Ganagus Kahn as the ultimate heathen.

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    May 4, 2001 - 08:33 pm
    This powerful belief is taken from this site and is not my belief -
    The development or the belief in Orthodoxy as the only and first interpretation of Chritianity


    AS FAR BACK AS the earliest Apostolic times, Christ’s disciples were known as those who “call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (I Corinthians 1:2; cf. Acts 9:14, 21). From the very beginning, the Holy Apostles were persecuted as those who “teach in the name of Jesus” (Acts 4:18; cf. 5:28).

    In consequence of this, by the end of the first decade after the foundation of Christ’s Church, “the disciples were called Christians” (Acts 11:26). This appellation was given to them first at Antioch, and probably by the local Gentiles, which implies that Christianity was no longer recognized as a Judaic sect, but as a distinct religious teaching.

    Along with the external enemies of Christianity—Jews and pagans—various internal enemies—false teachers and heretics—appeared as early as the Apostolic times. They considered themselves Christians and surreptitiously replaced the Truth of Christ with an heretical fallacy. St. Paul refers to these people as “having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof” (II St. Timothy 3:5), and advises his disciple Timothy to turn away from such people. Likewise, St. John the Theologian writes: “They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us: for if they had belonged to us, they would no doubt have remained with us” (I St. John 2:19). He explicitly calls these people “antichrists” (2:18) and commands True Christians not to greet them or to receive them in their houses (II St. John 10-11).

    During subsequent centuries, (Timeline as observed by the Eastern Orthodox Church) we observe the same clear-cut line of demarcation between authentic Christianity and false Christianity.

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    May 4, 2001 - 08:35 pm
    In this way, the Church of Christ that struggled for the triumph of Orthodoxy against heresy came to be called the Orthodox Church, both in letter and in spirit— as the true teachings of Christ and the Apostles of the Orthodox faith, elucidated by the Holy Fathers and confirmed by the Seven Ecumenical Synods.

    Since the truth is only one, just as only one straight line connects two points—man and God—, all other religious communities, which have deviated from the Orthodox Church of Christ, must not be called “Orthodox,” but should be characterized as “heterodox” (“thinking differently”), by virtue of having distorted the Gospel of Christ and joined to it “another gospel” (see Galatians 1:6).

    Such is the confession of the Roman Catholics, who fell away from Orthodoxy, initially, because of the arbitrary act of adding the expression “and from the Son” (Filioque) to the eighth article of the Nicæan-Constantinopolitan Symbol of Faith (Creed) and, later, on account of a number of innovations of more or less importance, introduced throughout the centuries and even up to our own time.

    By the same token, the Protestant confession, encompassing all of its innumerable denominations, also betrayed Orthodoxy, following still a different path. It denies, in principle, the authority of Holy Tradition, of the & Ecumionical Synods, and of the Holy Fathers, acknowledging, instead, the ascendency of the human mind and personal interpretation.

    Attempts to minimize the apostasies of the heretics by dismissing them as deviations motivated by human ambition, or “mistakes on both sides,” are entirely irrelevant. In fact, there may well have been some practical and tactical mistakes on both sides, caused by human pride and a craving for power. However, such human weaknesses and acts neither justify false teachings nor obfuscate the objective truth of Orthodoxy.

    From historical review, it logically follows that Orthodoxy is not just one of the many forms of Christianity, along with the legitimate existence of other, non-Orthodox forms of Christianity; our Orthodox Faith is Christianity itself, in its most pure and only authentic form. When juxtaposed to Orthodoxy, all of the rest of the so-called Christian denominations are essentially alien to true Christian—that is, Orthodox—spirituality and the essence of the Faith.

    Until this very day, the Orthodox Church has remained the only lawful inheritor, protector, and confessor of the true teachings of Christ, the Apostles, and the Holy Fathers, as they are confirmed by the Seven Ecumenical Synods and sealed by the celebration of the Feast of Orthodoxy.

    The Patriarchs of the East in 1723 wrote: “The dogmas and the doctrines of our Eastern Church, examined already in ancient times, were correctly and piously set forth and confirmed by the Holy and & Ecumionical Synods; we are not permitted to add or remove anything from them. Thus, those who wish to be in concord with us on the Divine dogmas of the Orthodox Faith need simply follow and humbly obey, without further examination or inquiry, what is set forth and decreed by the ancient tradition of the Fathers and confirmed by the Holy and & Ecumionical Synods, since the time of the Apostles and their successors, the Divine Fathers of our Church.”

    That great Saint of our Bulgarian Orthodox Church, the venerable Metropolitan Clement (Drumev) of Tirnovo—Confessor, champion, and Martyr for Orthodoxy—, during the time of Stambolov’s dictatorship, said, in a famous sermon delivered on the Sunday of Orthodoxy in 1893: “The true Faith of Christ is not, and cannot be, anything else but our pure, ... Our Orthodox Faith is the true word of God, the pure truth of God, the great power of God—power that is both invincible and beneficial to all true believers... Orthodoxy is the mystical "Body of Christ," the Head of which is Christ Himself." ( Eph. 1:22-23 and Col. 1:18, 24 et seq.)

    True Orthodoxy, on the other hand, is alien to blind adherence to the "letter of the law," for it is "spirit and life." Where, from an external and purely formal point of view, everything seems quite correct and strictly legal, this does not mean that it is so in reality. In Orthodoxy there can be no place for Jesuitical casuistry; the favorite dictum of worldly jurists cannot be applied: "One may not trample upon the law—one must go around it."

    Deems
    May 4, 2001 - 08:42 pm
    And even at this very moment, the Pope is in Greece attempting to apologize for the sins of "omission and commision" centuries ago with the Greek Orthodox Church.

    The Pope in Athens

    Thanks for all the research, Barbara.

    Maryal

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    May 4, 2001 - 08:56 pm
    They sure have a powerful belief in why they are the one and only religion don't they and yes, thanks Maryal for your link - I understand the Roman Catholic church not only veried from the Orthodox agreemet to understanding but the sacked (sp) Constantinople in the eleventh century as well as used the area miserably when the various Crusades plundered through on their way to Jerusalem.

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    May 4, 2001 - 09:10 pm
    Here is how Russia becomes Christian - again I am witing out a summery - lots to read here - some of the words though are too perfect therefore I am going to copy those -
    Christianisation of Russia
    987 (6495): Vladimir summoned together his vassals and the city elders, and said to them: "Behold, the Bulgars came before me urging me to accept their religion. Then came the Germans and praised their own faith; and after them came the Jews. Finally the Greeks appeared, criticising all other faiths but commanding their own, and they spoke at length, telling the history of the whole world from its beginning...whosoever embraces another faith, shall be consumed with fire in the next world...What is your opinion on this subject, and what do you answer?" The vassals and the elders replied: "You know, O Prince, that no man condemns his own possessions, but praises them instead. If you desire to make certain, you have servants at your disposal. Send them to inquire about the ritual of each and how he worships God. " Their counsel pleased the prince and all the people, so that they chose good and wise men to the number of ten...The emissaries went their way, and when they arrived at their destination they beheld the disgraceful actions of the Bulgars and their worship in the mosque; then they returned to their own country. Vladimir then instructed them to go likewise among the Germans, and examine their faith, and finally to visit the Greeks. They ...proceeded to Constantinople where they appeared before the emperor.

    ...the emperor sent a message to the patriarch to inform him that a Russian delegation had arrived to examine the Greek faith... When the patriarch received these commands, he bade the clergy assemble, and they performed the customary rites. They burned incense, and the choirs sang hymns. The emperor accompanied the Russians to the church, and placed them in a wide space, calling their attention to the beauty of the edifice, the chanting, and the offices of the archpriest and the ministry of the deacons, while he explained to them the worship of his God.

    The Russians were astonished, and in their wonder praised the Greek ceremonial. Then the Emperors Basil and Constantine invited the envoys to their presence, and said, "Go hence to your native country," and thus dismissed them with valuable presents and great honour...

    Vladimir announced the return of the envoys...The envoys report: "When we journeyed among the Bulgars, we beheld how they worship in their temple, called a mosque, while they stand ungirt. The Bulgarian bows, sits down, looks hither and thither like one possessed, and there is no happiness among them, but instead only sorrow and a dreadful stench. Their religion is not good. Then we went among the Germans, and saw them performing many ceremonies in their temples; but we beheld no glory there. Then we went on to Greece, and the Greeks led us to the edifices where they worship their God, and we knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth. For on earth there is no such splendour or such beauty, and we are at a loss how to describe it. We know only that God dwells there among men, and their service is fairer than the ceremonies of other nations. For we cannot forget that beauty. Every man, after tasting something sweet, is afterward unwilling to accept that which is bitter, and therefore we cannot dwell longer here." Then the vassals spoke and said, "If the Greek faith were evil, it would not have been adopted by your grandmother Olga, who was wiser than all other men." Vladimir then inquired where they should all accept baptism, and they replied that the decision rested with him.

    After a year had passed, in 988 (6496), Vladimir marched with an armed force against Kherson, a Greek city, and the people of Kherson barricaded themselves therein. "

    With the help of an insider Vladimir entered the city after vowing he would become a Christian if his hope was realized. He sent messages to the Emperors Basil and Constantine saying he captured the city and want the Emperors unwed sister as his wife. The Emperior says she cannot marry uless he accepts baptism. Vladimir says he will only accept baptism from Anna and so she with the priests reluctently sail for Kherson. Vlladimir is suffering form an eye ailment. He is baptized and voilà he can see.

    Vladimir was baptised in the Church of St. Basil, which stands at Kherson upon a square in the centre of the city, where the Khersonians trade. The palace of Vladimir stands beside this church to this day, and the palace of the princess is behind the altar. After his baptism, Vladimir took the princess in marriage.

    After the wedding he gives Kherson back to the Greeks, takes the "priests of Kherson, together with the relics of St. Clement and of Phoebus his disciple, and selected also sacred vessels and images for the service...He thus founded the Church of St. Basil on the hill where the idol of Perun and the other images had been set, and where the prince and the people had offered their sacrifices. He began to found churches and to assign priests throughout the cities, and to invite the people to accept baptism in all the cities and towns. He took the children of the best families, and sent them to schools for instruction in book learning. "

    Looks like from the beginning there was a mixture of Church and State.

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    May 4, 2001 - 10:34 pm
    These are the sites to the big issues of the Dostoevsky's day should the Code of Canon Law take precedence over Ruskaia Pravda

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    May 5, 2001 - 03:05 am
    I know this is a ton of information with many great links that I have a hard time rating them - I had to get a handle on what the differences were between Orthodoxy versus the arguments for the intellect as well as, where the peasents fit into this. I especially loved learning this information. Now I see my schooling was based on myth. I've begun to learn the real identity of the Tartar and Ghangus Kahn - but let me start by connecting the dots.

    The above posts explained how the Eastern Orthodox Church considers itself "Christanity itself." The Orthodox Church adopted by Russia in 988, is protecting the purity of Orthodoxy over the false teaching prevelant in early church as well as, the Roman Catholic and Protestant versions of Christianity. The Tartars or Mongols were certainly considered heathens. I'm understanding the place in society for a "Smerdyakov" is more than a lack of education, but they are the descendants of terrifying Mongolian heathens.

    I wonder if in the 19th C. the need to believe in the Birch rod hid a masters age old fear of their servants regardless and in addition to the possiblity that these descendeants of the Mongolian Hordes could be expoliding into a future uprising. Seems to me there would be an emotional protection believing in a Church that says the "heart is better than the head," the intellect - a Church that says, one only need to "simply follow and humbly obey, without further examination or inquiry, what is set forth and decreed by the ancient tradition of ... Orthodoxy" which is alien to blind adherence to the "letter of the law, for it is spirit and life."


    Grigory was not only the decendents of those displaced by the Tartar raids, but his heritage, as was Lizaveta's son, Smerdyakov, was Mongolian. The Mongols conquered Russia during the winter bettering both Napoleon and Hitler. Frozen rivers and marshes meant that they could ride right over barriers that in the spring or summer would have slowed them down. Their tough Central Asian ponies knew how to dig down through the snow to eat the frozen grass beneath. A Mongol Archer on one of those tough ponies.

    "This all made for a terror unknown to the Russians before or since. What the Russians then called their Mongol conquers was the "Tartars" -- invaders come from Tartarus, the deepest part of Hell. However, this was a deliberate modification of the Persian word tâtâr, which just meant a kind of Turk (Turkic)."

    Lizaveta is described as short and could run around shoeless in a shift winter and summer. Sounds like the physical attributes of the Mongol.

    "As the Mongols Horde (Horde means army) appeared out of nowhere from the Steppe, arriving from origins far beyond the knowledge of Russians or Persians, no one really knew who they were or where they were from. To Europeans, they seemed like the Scourge of God. This is a great site, with maps showing the great land grabs of Russia until they reach the Pacific, Our perceptions of the Mongol impact may reflect as much modern concerns as they do any realities faced by the contemporaries of Chingis Khan's successors. Russian attitudes, shaped by invasion but inflamed by the concerns of modern times, lament Russia's authoritarian political system or economic "backwardness" and continue to blame the Mongols half a millenium after their empire had disintegrated." I also learned that contrary to most Christian interpretation of the raiders the Mongols were Buddhist as well as members of the Nestorian Church.


    Bar Sauma, born in Tai-tu (Northern China ) about 1260, was a descendant of the Onggud (Önggüd) Turks (Turkic) who joined the Mongols early in the reign of Chinggis Khan (Genghis - Chingiz - Guyuk or Chinngis, Khân or Khagan).

    Genghis accomplished the absorbtion of kingdoms in Central Asia that most people would not have heard of anyway, but his sons and grandsons accomplished the conquests of China, Russia, Korea, Iran, and Iraq, Poland, Hungary, and Turkey --

    Like other Onggud Turks, (Önggüd Turkic) the family of Bar Sauma, were members of the Nestorian church.

    Rabban Bar Sauma and Markos were Nestorian monks who traveled from Tai-tu, (Qubilai Khan's (Khubilai, Cublai, Kublai), son of Tuli, and grandson of Genghis, northern capital,) to the Middle East, via the southern branch of the Silk Road (through Khotan and Kashgar). Although on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem (which they never reached), they seem to have had official sponsorship from the Khan. Once in the Mongol Ilkhanid realms, they became involved in Nestorian church politics.

    Markos eventually was elected head of the church as Patriarch Mar Yaballaha III. Bar Sauma was sent to the West as an emissary of the Ilkhanid ruler Arghun in 1287, with the goal of concluding an alliance against the Mamluks. Bar Sauma's writings were preserved in an abridged translation into Syriac.


    Nestorius (the Bishop of Constantinople), condemned in 434 for heretical Christian doctrines. In 486 the bishops of the East declared that they were Nestorian and that Christ was "one divine nature only, in three perfect persons." The great period of expansion of the Nestorian church was from the 7th to the 10th C., with missions to China and India. By 497, Nestorianism had become the official doctrine of Christian Asia.

    From their base in the Sassanian empire, Nestorian merchant-missionaries carried their doctrine and their art, to China where they were heard with receptive ears (having a rather heaven and earth, yin-yang sound). The first Nestorian church was consecrated at Xian in 638. (Rubbing from Xian) It reached there via the northern branch of the Silk Road. Numerous Nestorian manuscripts were discovered in Turfan and Dunhuang showing a strong presence of this sect in these areas. Nestorians were merchants as well as missionaries, this religion spread along the caravan routes of Chinese Central Asia and reached as far south as Tibet.


    Marco Polo records coming into contact with many Nestorians at Kashgar and Khotan at the end of the 13th century. A 10th C. ruin in Goachan, China was constructed by Chinese Nestorians. The church was reduced through persecution by the Chinese, the Hindus, and the Muslims. In the 19th and early 20th C., there were terrible massacres of Nestorians and Chaldaeans by Kurds and Turks.


    This revelation knocked me over Early Unitarian Churches in Malabar, Abyssinia and Ireland

    Joan Pearson
    May 5, 2001 - 04:23 am
    Well, I don't know why I am exhausted ~ Barbara did all the work! When you want to get to the heart of a matter, you go to extraordinary lengths, Barbara! Not only to you get to the issues themselves, but you think enough of us that you go through the next major undertaking ~ you share with us! I have no idea how we can adequately thank you!

    It is so important that we understand the issues that Dostoevsky's characters are struggling with...that reach right to one of man's most basic questions. Is there a heaven? Immorality?

    I must attend a funeral for a six year old boy this morning. The same question has come up in sorrowful exchanges with his poor, distraught mother. "Where is my baby? I'm not sure there is such a place as heaven. All I know is that my baby is gone, gone to a strange place without me, OR he is NOWHERE. Either way, I'm supposed to be with him because I'm his mother."



    There aren't words with which to console her, to respond. There are people whose faith is stronger, who seem, at least on the surface, to have no doubt whatsoever that there is a heaven, that little Thomas lives on, happily, and will be waiting to be reunited with his mother. Those with this unquestioning faith have it a whole lot easier than those who doubt, don't they?

    No wonder following the "controversial argument", Fyodor is agitated and upset. Chapter VIII continues the discussion after Smerdy has been dismissed, with Ivan's assertion that there is nothing after death...Nothing. "COMPLETE ZERO." And of course, Alyosha asserts there is both God and Immortality.

    Fyodor is agreeing with Ivan. I think that's why he is so upset. Of course he is drinking and now he is drinking heavily.

    "More likely Ivan is right. Lord, just think how much faith, how much energy of all kins man has spent on this dream, and for so many thousands of years. Who could be laughing at man like that?"

    "Must be the devil", Ivan smirked.
    "And is there a devil?"
    "No, there is no devil either."


    I am smiling at Fyodor's great dejection! As if he has spent his life steadily preparing for the hereafter!

    Well, thanks to Barbara, we have a better idea who Smerdy is, who his mother was, who these peasants are...I'll spend some time this morning before the funeral getting Barbara's information into some links for the heading so that we can refer them for quick reference as we go on.

    I think it is interesting that women seem to play such a subserviant role, none of the mothers are alive, none are in the room during this discussion, and yet their influence prevails...

    Since it is nearly Mother's Day...shall we focus on them?

    What emphasis is put on the MOTHERS of these four sons, (assuming that Smerdyakov is a son.) in this chapter ~ and in the novel?

    Nellie Vrolyk
    May 5, 2001 - 04:22 pm
    Hello all! I have finally managed to catch up with the reading. Whew! On the mothers of the sons: they all seem to have some sort of character fault, if not an outright mental illness. Dmitri's mother abandons her young son and runs off with another man. Ivan and Alyosha's mother is hysterical, and Smerdy's mother seems to be little more than an animal or at least she lives like one. But considering what Fyodor Karamazov is like, no truly sane woman would want to marry him or have anything to do with him. Although he is very good at hiding his true nature when he wants to - I don't think that either Dmitri's mother or Ivan and Alyosha's mother would have married him, had they seen what he was really like.

    This leads me to a remark made by the Elder Zossima to F.K. that he (F.K.) is lying to himself and to everyone around him. I think that all the Karamazov's lie to themselves and to others.

    A few random thoughts: Based on the previous thought about lying, I think Zossima sends Alyosha out into the world so that he can learn the truth about himself; that he may not be the spiritual person he believes himself to be. Dmitri believes himself to be an honourable man but his actions belie him. Certainly no honourable person would kick his own father in the face, no matter how bad the provocation.

    Grushenka: after reading the interaction between her and Katerina, I find that Grushenka is as nasty in her way as F.K. is in his. They both will first promise to do one thing and then turn around and do the opposite. What a woman she is with her sugary, simpering voice; her ample voluptuous body and her face with its childlike expression with that pouting lip. Her whole appearance belies her true character, doesn't it?

    Katerina: Alyosha was afraid to go to her and yet when he sees her and talks to her, he seems to be falling in love with her too. Do we have all three brothers in love with her? Dmitri pretends that he is not because he believes himself to be unworthy of her -I think that he is in love with her. I know Ivan loves her.

    I loved the action in the chapter in which Dmitri attacks Fyodor K. There is a certain frantic and almost comedic aspect to all that is going on.

    I think this is enough rambling for now...

    Traude
    May 5, 2001 - 04:44 pm
    To answer the last question first :

    So far NO emphasis has been placed on the mothers of those four males. They were characterized in broad strokes, and we will have to see what develops.

    The lustful old man, clearly enfeebled from the intake of all that alcohol, prejudiced and having only half-baked knowledge, even forgot that the woman who bore him Alyosha likewise was Ivan's mother. Can we take anything that man says under earnest observation ? I sincerely doubt it.

    On question 1 : were the large masses of peasants mostly heathen or Christian ?

    I would say no to "heathen"; "pagan" sure : there were (and are!) Muslims since the time of the Mongol Invasion.

    Perhaps we could have come to this discussion with a general, broad idea of Russian history and geography -it might have given us a greater understanding right off and saved time.

    Historically, to consider Russia from pre-historic times, to the House of Rurik, that Mongol Invasion in the early 13th century and the ethnic changes it brought, to Ivan the Terrible, to the beginning of the Russian Empire with Peter the Greatand later Catherine the Great etc. etc. etc., would have been of immense help, I think.

    Similarly helpful even now is a study of the map. The country is quite simply so enormous as to defy comprehension. Russia was always the most "civilized in the so-called "European" part. What became known as the Soviet republics (now known under a different generic name) were the huge areas to the EAST of the Caucasus stretching far into Asia and encompassing the Mongol tribes, about whom more could and should be said.



    If we are to truly understand Dostoevsky and this book, we should be armed with the historical and geographic foreknowledge to make it possible- that homework would have been of great benefit.

    A great big thankyou to Barbara for all the research; to Joan for making visible to us the paintings (a picture is still worth a thousand words !) and Maryal for mentioning the pope's visit to Greece.

    We should realize the separate existence of the RUSSIAN Orthodox Church and the GREEK Orthodox Church, and the latter is by far the most conservative. Greece has unsuccessfully tried to prevent the visit of Pope John Paul II, who is somewhat irreverently referred to in secular Europe as either the "Traveling Pope" or the "Polish Pope". He has also set back the cause of ecumenism beyond belief. Which is rather sad.

    And no, from all the evidence available, there was no question in Dos.'s mind that the Russian O. Church was superior and would indeed be the "salvation". If any "conflict" appears in those drawn-out dialectic discussions in the BK, it could not have been the author's own; it may have been a reflection of the spirit of his times.



    The description of both Grushenka and Katerina in the Garnett translation is unfortunate and (I think) terrible. I am on the verge of giving up to rely on my memory.

    No, Dmitri is not in love with Katerina. She is too ethereal for him. She pursues him; he wants to get away from her. But I must not anticipate things or I'll be scolded.

    Deems
    May 5, 2001 - 05:35 pm
    Nellie--I think the scene with Dmitri attacking his father IS comedy. At least it made me laugh. Father K. is very drunk and most likely Dmitri is also, and poor Alyosha just can't control either one of them.

    Traude--Good girl for not anticipating too far ahead. Some readers just aren't as fast as you are! You said nothing much had been said about the mothers. Take a look at the end of Chap 8 where Father K. tells Alyosha about the time that he spit on Alyosha's mother's icon. I think that scene is significant.

    Both Katia and Grushenka come off badly in BOTH the translations I have. Katia is all sweetsy-weetsy until Grushenka crosses her, and then she turns into a shrew. Mud-wrestling, anyone???

    Maryal

    Joan Pearson
    May 5, 2001 - 07:35 pm
    Nellie! We are so happy you were able to clear your busy schedule and to have you with us again! You always provide a slightly different way of looking at things! (Nellie's really into Sci Fi and notices things the rest of us usually overlook.)

    "Zosima sends Alyosha out into the world so that he can learn the truth about himself; that he may not be the spiritual person he believes himself to be."


    I never thought of this as the reason Zosima sends him out...although I did think that Zosima thought he needed to know more of the world before he returns to the monastery. (IF he is to be cloistered away from the world to fast and pray as a monk, I don't know why this would be necessary. But IF he is to become the next Elder, counselling and advising, then such knowledge of the human condition would be necessary.)

    I never considered that Zosima might think he is not cut out enter religious life at all...did you?

    Weren't you shocked at his reaction to his father's comments on his mother? Wasn't that a rather extreme reaction? Even fainting would have been extreme, but look at him!

    "He flushed crimsom, his eyes glowed, his lips quivered.

    ...He jumped up from the table exactly as his mother was said to have done, wrung his hands, hid his face in them, and fell back in his chair, shaking all over in an hysterical paroxysm of sudden violent, silent weeping."


    This is extraordinary! And for the first time, I begin to think that Alyosha is not well-balanced as he first appeared to be. Come to think of it, he entered the monastery shortly after locating his mother's grave, remember that? So now, we have Alyosha, the one they all loved (save Smerdy), the one they count upon to listen with wisdom and understanding...showing his weakness. I find him harder to understand than ALL the others.

    Dos. mentioned through his narrator, that there were a great many of these shriekers in Russia at the time. I somehow associated this condition with the women. His mother's hysteria made quite an impression on the baby Alyosha. It will be interesting to see if it is repeated or explained.

    Isn't it strange that it happened as he was listening to his father talk about her? And look at what he was saying! He used to bring a rich handsome fellow to hang around her...she became hysterical, saying he was trying to sell her to him. From what we know of this man, I believe it! HE took her to the monastery to knock the mysticism out of her. He spits on her icons...

    Why does our Alyosha faint dead away into an identical hysterical fit when he hears this?

    Ivan had been older and would have remembered all of this much more clearly. What was his reaction hearing his father relate these dreadful incidents? Is it because there is NO resemblance between Ivan and his mother that Feodor forgets that she was his mother too?

    Joan Pearson
    May 5, 2001 - 08:32 pm
    I've just spent an hour pouring through Barbara's research on the Christianization of Russia and the Orthodox Church...while scooping it all together and putting into an html page...you should see it with all the other links in the heading now.

    I got to thinking of Smerdy and his mother, Lisaveta. I wonder what he was told of her? And who told him? Grigory? And I thought of Alyosha and Ivan and their hysterical mother and Dimitri's mother, Adelaida. I got caught up with the whole idea that the sons and father are together in the house, not a mother alive, and yet they are very much a presence, in fact a MAJOR INFLUENCE on the course of their lives, even though they died when the boys were just babies. I think we should consider each one individually.

    And I can't help after Alyosha's experience but wonder if they will develop into their mothers' personality...

    Thanks for not going on without us, Traude...we are all not ready yet.

    Hats
    May 6, 2001 - 03:15 am
    At one point, we were asked about the parentage of Smerdeyazov. I have always thought of Fyodor as his father. I gave one reason earlier, but another reason is because father K shows concern about his falling sickness, and also, because father K gives the key to his bookcase to Smerde.

    In that one moment, father K acts like a father (HOW SHOCKING). He shows the books to Smerde and helps him choose one to read. When Smerde dislikes one, father K picks another one for him. I can not see him doing this with any servant, but Smerde is special. Smerde is his unrecognized son.

    "But then one day, when Smerde was fifteen, Karamazov noticed that he was reading the titles of the books through the glass of the bookcase...He at once gave Smerdyakov the key to the bookcase, telling him: "....You'll be the librarian."

    It also surprised me that father K would have a bookcase in his home. Did he read? Was the bookcase just decorative? Father K has a key to the bookcase. He keeps it locked. When Smerde finishes with the books, father K locks the bookcase again. To me, he seems to care about books.

    Well no person is totally bad. Could it be possible that these two instances show the good side of the father K? He can't be totally dark, can he?

    Traude
    May 6, 2001 - 08:29 am
    Maryal, I quite understand.

    I really did not mean to anticipate things but rather make us draw some conclusions from what we HAVE gathered in the reading so far.

    Now, Joan's question in # 731 had been

    " What emphasis is put on the MOTHERS of thse 4 sons ..."

    and I replied that I couldn't see any special "emphasis"..

    We did get broad strokes, highlights and a few striking details :

    Dmitri's mother was physically stronger than her husband, and by golly in other respects too, because this (almost modern) woman "got going" and away from her private hell while the going was good.

    The mother of Ivan and Alyosha, on the other hand, was young, innocent, sheltered by a general's widow who was both benefactress and tormentor; and there she was, with a tormentor of a different sort, the crude and lascivious Karamasov, a practiced seducer. He must have appeared satanic to her. Perhaps he was. Is it any wonder that she may have become unbalanced, temporarily ? That she turned to the church (the monatsery) for help ?.

    And we know of course about Lizaveta.



    Hence, bold broad strokes and background, absolutely. But "emphasis" - no. I guess my problem was with the question.



    HATS- it is not inconceivable that old Karamazov would have had a bookcase, and the fact that he kept it locked gives us another clue (or two). When he tried to introduce Smerdyakov to books, he certainly had good intentions. We must give him that ! Perhaps we can "go there" later.

    In Europe, books have always been displayed with special pride in the homes. Actually, the level of one's education could be gauged from the number of books in a home. Books were a kind of status symbol then ! And people were COUNTED because of their education, not their money -- but thanks to the splendid American example, things have changed to a certain degree ...

    If that sounds "elitist", it may well be, and I can offer no apologies.

    I will never forget my father's library and the feel of those leather-bound classics. Some venerable volumes actually survived the fateful bombing.



    When we decided 50 years ago to come to these shores, we left a great deal behind -- but I did bring along a footlocker full of books. You should know that immigrants can bring in only so many pounds (can't remember exactly), and books are heavy !



    So we made book shelves with bricks and stained boards from the lumber store; the effect was quite lovely, I assure you, and it made the strangeness bearable.

    Two reactions are indelibly etched in my memory :

    one was by a plain-spoken, simple woman, an immigrant herself, who said, "And you wasted all that weight allowance on BOOKS ? You should have brought pots and pans !"

    Actually, I had brought pots and pans along also, and some survive to this day.

    The other reaction came from the mother of my daugher's classmate in a private school in Northern Virginia. She had come to recruit me for the mothers' bridge club and never before beheld anyone who did NOT play bridge !

    Then she glanced discreetly past my bookcase and remarked, a bit too casually, " My dear, you might consider displaying a lovely big book on that cocktail table ... That's where we show books off HERE !"

    I believe this woman intended to be helpful.

    No, I have never felt the slightest inclination to learn how to play bridge, thank you.

    Deems
    May 6, 2001 - 09:04 am
    I understand the feeling about books. If it is any comfort to you, until recently in this country, or at least in parts of this country, there was certainly a tendency to evaluate people on their books, how many, what kind and so forth. My grandfather (who lived in Baltimore) had a huge library in his home--never saw it, only heard about it. With nameplates in the books and all.

    My father had just a few of these books, being a bookie and a professor himself. When he retired (for the third, or was it fourth?) time, Dad gave many of his books to the Bangor Theological Seminary. He told my sister and me what he was doing, and that we could go and look at the books and take what we wanted. He saved books like Shakespeare, Browning and Tennyson, and I took these instead.

    By this point, I had so many books myself that I just couldn't take on any more, and his field was different from mine. Books have been, and continue to be, a really weighty problem in this family. My daughter is an artist, and you wouldn't believe the books she has--hardcover yet, and you know how big ART books are.

    At any rate, to bring this long off-the-topic post to a conclusion, I believe it was the fairly rapid growth of public libraries in this country that made home libraries unnecessary. Or at least smaller.

    But even unto the time of The Great Gatsby (1925), one of the furnishings that Jay Gatsby was careful to supply his home with were the books in the library. There is an especially revealing scene where one of the guests at the party, "Owl Eyes"--drunk out of his mind, of course--winds up in Gatsby's library and is astonished that the books in Gatsby's library are real. I gotta go find it.

    Here it is: This fella's a regular Belasco. It's a triumph. What thoroughness! What realism! Knew when to stop too--didn't cut the pages. But what do you want? What do you expect?

    I remember the rough edges of pages that had been cut.

    I had to look up Belasco. He was a Broadway producer known for the realism of his sets. Thus, Jay Gatsby's library is just a set, a library to impress. But he doesn't read, obviously.

    Maryal

    Joan Pearson
    May 6, 2001 - 09:08 am
    Traude, that is fascinating and moving! The leather-bound books, the fateful bombing. Where did your parents come from? You did mention it once, was it Germany? And if so, were you there during the war?

    Hats, the books, the bookcase! Fyodor reads!

    How low can he be! You're right, no one is all bad...not even the revolting character depicted here is all bad. Remember an earlier quote from Brothers K

    "In most cases, people, even wicked people, are far more naive and simple-hearted than one generally assumes. And so are we."

    Not only the incongruity of books in his house, this house where so much "entertaining", drinking, carousing, "debauchery" takes place, but I was struck by the "several icons, before which candles were lit!" Of course we are told "not so much for devotional purposes as to light the room."...but there they were! And he used to sit up at night by himself before these icons...thinking. Meditating. See, not altogether a one dimensional character, is he?

    Deems
    May 6, 2001 - 09:09 am

    Joan Pearson
    May 6, 2001 - 09:24 am
    Good morning, Maryal! We were posting together. That's something to think about. You and Traude both suggest the possibility that Fyodor's books may be just part of the set? Maybe they were Adelaida's books? Maybe he doesn't read them???

    And maybe he doesn't really meditate before the lighted icons...they are simply wall ornaments? There were other portraits described in his room that are of some interest in our discussion of the influence of Church and State ...one of "some prince who had been governor thrity years before, and the other of some bishopm also long since dead."

    I think all of this emphasizes the struggle within...within each Russian at the time.

    Speaking of Russia and struggles, Traude mentioned Russia, the geography and its significance in understanding the influences that we have at work during this time. In today's Washington Post, there is a long article on the modern day struggle ...Russia under Putin, attempting to regain some of her lost empire. Maps too. I read with new interest. You can read it here if you are interested, but I'll pull out a relevant paragraph in case you are pressed for time...

    Georgia, Russia Share More Than a Border
    Georgia and Russia share more than a border; they share an Orthodox religion, a culture and a long history. Overrun for centuries by Mongols, Persians and Turks, Georgia drifted into the Russian orbit in the late 1700s, placing itself under the protection of the Russian crown, only to watch as one czar after another snatched up pieces of its territory; the entire country was absorbed into the empire by the late 19th century."


    It doesn't end, does it? The Mongol invasion has an impact on our story, and on Smerdy directly...

    Hats
    May 6, 2001 - 09:26 am
    Oooooooh, it's so exciting talking about books, bookshelves and what they mean to us. Who would have ever thought that father K could bring us to such a discussion. Joan, I do remember father K MEDITATING. I read that part over again because I found it unbelievable.

    Traude, "Books were kind of a status symbol then." My aunt had a small bookcase in her home. I remember looking longingly at those books. For some reason, no one was allowed to touch them. I think her oldest son had read all of them. I always read the titles, and felt that one of the books needed to go home with me.

    Maryal, Art books!! They are so heavy in weight and expensive too. When I worked in the library at the circulation desk, scanning the art books could be more than difficult. You could break a arm! Patrons who damaged them or lost them had to pay a mint. Art books are so wonderful to relax and enjoy.

    Oh, "The Great Gatsby." Those lines are memorable.

    Smerde is very odd. He did not appreciate any of the books. I think a whole book could be written about Smerde, but it would not be a happy one.

    Joan Pearson
    May 6, 2001 - 09:48 am
    hahaha, Hats!, maybe that's why it's taking Marvelle so long to move! Books! So much trouble to pack...all those heavy, little boxes!

    I have something to say about Smerdy, but it will wait. You're right, Hats, we could spend a whole book on him, but it would be depressing. Today, let's talk about his depressing mother and the fact that she was one of the "heathens", which has quite an effect on Smerdy.

    Back later.

    Hats
    May 6, 2001 - 10:39 am
    Since the whole town knew Stinking Lizavetta, is it possible that Smerdeyazov heard rumors about his mother? Perhaps, knowing about her tragic life led to his sullen spirit, and maybe he heard rumors that father K had been one of the men who misused her. This might lead Smerde to never want to speak directly to father K. He knows this man is his father, but his father never acknowledges him as a son, and he took advantage of his mother.

    I can only feel sorry for Stinking Lizavetta. She just seemed like a lost soul.

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    May 6, 2001 - 01:10 pm
    Hmmmm just had a thought - once you taste freedomn, regardless that you are brave enough to fully revel in it since freedom does give one pause and reconstructing your cage is comfortably familiar, it must be very difficult to have another lock you back in your cage and essentially throw the key away. Smerdyakov, the servant, would be angry don't you think, with no affective way to express the anger as well as, being in a position where if his life is going to have any comfort he better figure out how to please the master he hates. The fact that this master gave him temporary freedom would only inflame his anger more so - now he knows the master has control over his destiny and he now knows what freedom is rather than a fantasy of the inexperienced.

    If he does know his mother to be Lizaveta he may have no good thoughts to her either - it takes a lot of soul searching and coming to peace with the circumstances of parents before many can understand, forgive the parents in their heart. Many children do blame their parents for their adult circumstances or at least their childhood misery. Sleeping on the hall bench does not bode too well for Smerdyakov enjoying a pleasent childhood, slave or not, Grigories kindness or not.

    Joan Pearson
    May 6, 2001 - 01:19 pm
    A lost soul is a good description, Hats a homeless begger, who slept on the church porch, but didn't go inside. Couldn't speak.

    Her description...very short, ruddy...Barefoot, wearing only a hempen shift, "an offense to public decency", said one official.

    Fyodor had just received word of the death of Dmitri's mother, Adelaida, got drunk when he met up with her ...made the statement that he thought she was very much a woman, when the others did not regarded her as more of an amimal.

    Later F. swore he went on with everyone else...no one knows if this was true, but when she became pregnant, the rumor went around that it was Feodor. Only one of the men in that group is still alive, a respectable state councillor, a family man, who wouldn't have spread such a rumor, (??????Oh?) Karp, the convict had been lurking around the town those nights and had robbed people. It could have been him too.

    Lizaveta couldn't have climbed over that garden wall by herself...There was a rumor that she'd been lifted over. There in Fyodor's garden she gave birth and died towards morning.

    Grigory and Marfa had Smeryakov baptised and raised him.

    Our Smerdy calls himself a heathen. Traude, you seem to resist the term, but that is what the unbaptized into the Christian religion were called ...in all the translations. Smerdyakov might suspect that Karamazov is his father, but he doesn't know that for a fact. He does know his mother was a heathen. From every indication, she was a Mongol...her stature, her clothes, and the fact that she ran barefoot even in winter.

    Later in these Chapters, Karamazov tries to talk his Ivan into going with him to visit a young wench he's had his own eye on for a long time. "She's still barefoot. Don't be afraid of the barefoot ones, don't despise them, they're pearls."

    Disgusting, his own son! The barefoot one is probably one of the heathen Mongols too. He goes on to say, "In my whole life, there has never been an ugly woman. The barefoot or ugly ones have to be taken by surprise...

    Alyosha, I always used to take your mother by surprise..."


    Smerdy is revolted by this man who may or may not be his father...for his low regard for his poor mother! He reacts with anger and contempt. Alyosha collapses and weeps.

    Ivan appears incredulous that his father has forgotten that Aly's mother is also his, Ivan's mother. What is the significance of this lapse? Ivan shows contempt, but I'm not sure if it is because F. has forgotten this, or because he is angry at what F. has to say about his mother?

    Joan Pearson
    May 6, 2001 - 01:33 pm
    Barbara, posting together again...

    That's a thought ~ Smerdy may hold his mother in contempt as well. Does he know Lizaveta was his mother? I'll guess Grigory probably told him.

    I wonder if his appearance belies the fact that he is a Mongolian or other than the Karamazov Russian. Lizaveta was very short and ruddy, we are told.

    When Smerdy came back from Moscow, he had the appearance of a eunuch. What does a eunuch look like? He seemed to despise the female sex, but took to perfumes, pomades and powders... He was as clean and fastidious as Lizaveta was filthy...

    Did you read anything that describes his physical appearance to link him with the Karamazovs? The Kramskoy painting of the rough peasant was introduced in Smerdy's description..

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    May 6, 2001 - 01:37 pm
    No but now that you mention the perfuming etc. that would be typical wouldn't it of a child saying willfully "I'll never look like or be like my mother." Weren't eunuchs clean shaven with often the head shaved?

    Henry Misbach
    May 6, 2001 - 08:35 pm
    I think it fair to say that Dos will never come under criticism for excessive emphasis on women or their concerns. Most of his female characters are rather stereotyped. His treatment of Lise mirrors his idealizing of Alyosha. Of course, Alyosha's mother has to loom large in his character formation, but the spotlight is really on him. He disposes quickly of Adelaide, who abandons Mitya at 3. Some mother.

    But women are, I would say, invariably described here from the male point of view. But that's how the mid- to late-19th century was.

    Joan Pearson
    May 7, 2001 - 03:53 am
    Henry, I'll agree that the women were not much of a presence in the mid-nineteenth century drawing room or literature, but wouldn't you agree that the psychological influence of these mothers on their sons is particularly expressed by Dostoevesky in these chapters?

    Adelaida couldn't take Fyodor's womanizing and abandoned her baby son, 25+ years before, and now the only reason Dmitri is back is to reclaim what was hers. Only to find himself enraged at his father's lust for Grushenka! (here again is the female at the heart of the controversy, not even present in the room, but both men believing that she is hiding there somewhere!)

    How many references to murder are there in Chapter IX!!! Do you really think that Dmitri is furious enough to actually MURDER his father? Is there a clear motive established?

    Are the brothers concerned that Dmitri will kill Fyodor?

    Hats
    May 7, 2001 - 04:59 am
    I think Dmitry is very furious, and I think he would commit murder. His violence seemed very real and frightening to me. If Alyosha and Ivan had not been present, I think there would have been a tragedy. I feel Dmitry was completely out of control.

    Traude
    May 7, 2001 - 05:10 am
    Joan, re # 742. I have always been fascinated by words, I do pay attention to them and to their meanings.



    Smerdyakov is a self-described heathen - DESPITE THE FACT that he had been baptized (!) and brought up as a Christian by Grigory and Marfa. There is great significance in that.



    I think he meant to define himself as an irreligious person, a non-believer.

    On the other hand, you had earlier asked "whether the masses of peasants were heathens or Christians".



    I am not resisting "heathen", I have a problem with the question. But before we get lost in semantics, perhaps you could define the term in the context of your own question.

    I very much believe that old Karamazov DID read some of his own books - how else would he have known about Schiller and the "Robbers" ?

    He kept the books under lock and key (1) because he knew of their intrinsic value and (2) quite possibly also to prevent theft. We know he has a low opinion of his servants, thinks of them as potential thieves, but is appreciative that Smerdyakov is honest.



    Several French phrases have appeared here and there in the text so far, some uttered by old Karamazov. Unless I have missed something, no one has made any reference to them.

    Deems
    May 7, 2001 - 06:49 am
    The French phrases are in my translations as well, at least in one of them. Sometimes I get confused between the two texts. I read French, but there are also notes translating. I wonder if French represented a certain degree of Culture to Father K and thus he enjoyed sprinkling his conversation with certain oft-used phrases?

    Re HEATHEN. Personal experience with word: My father was a minister; we all went to church. I checked the box marked "Protestant" on forms in school. As I remember, the choices were Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, and Other (though I am not sure there was an "Other").

    Anyway, I was somewhat of a Tomboy, always climbing trees, bouncing balls with friends. You get the picture. Sometimes, in the summer, I was difficult to "call in for dinner." And more often than not I had a skinned knee of two from falling with my bike.

    On many many occasions, when I returned home somewhat disheveled and dirty, my mother would greet me with, "Why, MaryAlice, what have you been doing? You look just like a heathen."

    She meant that I looked uncivilized. It was not a comment about my religion.

    And I think that it how the word is used in our text.

    And now I am off to give an exam. Peace to all.

    Maryal

    Hats
    May 7, 2001 - 08:45 am
    After the bloody fight with Dmitry, father K tells Alyosha that Ivan is the brother who really frightens him. "What did Ivan say, Alyosha? You know, you're my only true son: I'm afraid of Ivan, even more than of the other one. You're the only one I'm not afraid of." Can anyone help me to understand that statement? Why is father K more afraid of Ivan? I would think he would be more afraid of Dmitry. Dmitry puts the heel of his boot in father K's face until his face is bloodied and swollen.

    Then, Dmitry says, "And if I haven't killed him this time, I'll come back. You won't stop me!"

    There is a bit of comedy here. I laughed at Dmitry and father K . How silly! Neither one could believe that Grushenka was not hiding in the house. There is a constant echo, "Where is she?" "Did she go that way?" On and on and on they go. Looking for a woman who is not there. Both Father and son seem delusional for a moment.

    ALF
    May 7, 2001 - 11:31 am
     

    I have just had a chance to review all of the URL's and discussion from the past few days.  I have read, also,  up to Chapter 10.  I cracked up!  I love the little scenes we witness here with all of the tangled , familial webs being woven.  My favorite is " one reptile will devour the other."  The boys (including the father) certainly are devouring one another.  They are all more consumed with the other guy than they are "feeding on"  their own lives.  They "gobble" up (devour) and "feast on" one another as prey. What a great play on words.
    The other is: "why lie to oneself since all men live so and perhpas cannot help living so."  And  as for rights who has not the right to wish?   That question alone could lead to a lengthy discussion here.

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    May 7, 2001 - 12:28 pm
    Did y'all pick-up that Alyosha vists Katerina seven in the evening at dusk. And so the dinner was a noon dinner rather than lunch and would probably be followed by a light supper in the evening. That and the brawl like two Elks in rut, happen by two drunks - remember Dimitri had the cognac in the gazebo. They were both drinking heavily in mid-day and neither appeared to be doing something unusual.

    All this had me counting - counting years - first or all, it all seemed too familiar - some guy out of control from drink and I can see my father and one or two uncles being pitched down stairs or rolling in fields as they try to wrestle with swearing and strength like bulls, as they try to physically control the one that was over the top, as it was called, to the ground. Than I am remembering how there was often men drunk in the streets holding the pants up wearing nothing else and their suspenders or belt gone - and how my mother had to warn me about walking up the avenue and not to go near any of the men that were drunk - and how it was just a matter of course that you would see men emptying themselves in the gutter in full view of everyone.

    All this behavior changed after the war. All of a sudden we hit a new level of community behavior and the last spontanious group neighborly thing I remember doing was, standing, silent like the dead, in front of a store window watching a 9 inch screen TV. No drunks or chatter but only some snide comment as those that had their fill would leave. I'm sure there were still drunks but you didn't see them in the streets nor any of the other crude behavior that accompanied that life.

    And so I am counting - this book was published in 1880 only 53 years before I was born. My memory is pretty sharp from a young age but lets say my memory for behavior starts at, give it to age 7; and so using that same addion and counting from today that would be like remembering what life was like 60 years ago, back in 1941. How much of what everyday life was like in the 40s could we today remember and relate. Unless you are a war baby, I would say preety much. And where there are some big differences, we can probably even name most of those differences. What I am getting at here is that for those of us that have memory before the end of WW2 we can probably imagine some of the behavior and some of the way of life in this book.

    Back when I was young AA was not heard of and drinking seemed to be a taken for granted part of life. With the drinking came all kinds of behavior that everyone saw as dramatic and yet part of the fabric that franchised those present to further manipulate events and to be the appointed bearers and broadcasters of the happening, which included the cause, both apparent and the inagined hidden emotional cause. The behavior of the drunk, his wife and any other friend, neighbor or family member affected or present was embrodered into a tale that swept the neighborhood as the story of the week - as good as any 20/20 exposé, and it had more tongues clucking, men and women, than today's headlines. Of course we kids wanted to hang around the adults, it was a raucous conversation or happening all the time.

    Now there were a few families that I remember not part of our mostly German tumultuous community. Those family's drunks seemed to weigh more heavely on the family members. I guess the fact that all the women in our community could openly share their frustrations and the behavior of the drunk was the property of all, even I as an adult, living with an alcoholic, I didn't realize what was the matter. I was as isolated as these few families in my childhood community. From that experience, I can see the women in this story being more isolated and being affected by the drinking that was making them crazy. We are already seeing that Katerina wants to take care of Dmitri, a typical characteristic of someone related to a drunk.

    Pulled out my books to see how these characteristics could have fit Dostoevsky's women and sure enough their behavior follow the pattern. Here are some of the characteristics that seem to fit these characters in the book.

    Traude
    May 7, 2001 - 02:04 pm
    Barbara, thank you for sharing. And how true the behavior of those whom we would now call "enablers"!

    -------

    There is a very interesting article in the TRAVEL Section of the NYT of April 29 by John Varoli titled A CRUISE TO THE SOUL OF RUSSIA, subtitled The island monastery of Valaam, in vast Lake Ladoga, symbolizes the rebirth of religion since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

    May I quote the first paragraph :

    "The artistic and architectural heritage of Russia's Imperial capital, St. Petersburg, is so rich and overwhelming that visitors often don't venture off the main tourist trail, missing other splendid locations in the region. One of these, not far to the north of St. Petersburg's classical facades and ornate palaces, is the island monastery of Valaam, an ancient font of the nation, if not its very soul.

    Valaam is actually an archipelago of some 50 islands, fought over for centuries between the Swedes and the Russians and, in this century between Finland and the former Soviet Union, and situated at the northern end of Lake Lagoda in the Gulf of Finland, about 120 north of St. Petersburg. (The name "Valaam" is derived from the old Finnish word for 'high ground'.)

    another quote : "... More than a decade after the Soviet Union collapsed, ending its persecution of religion, the Russian Orthodox Church has again become an important force in Russian society. In 1980, there were 18 Orthodox monasteries open in all the Soviet Union. Today, there are about 400, and include both male and female societies."



    The fact that visitors are allowed a rare glimpse into Russian monastic life is noteworthy because, the author tells us, church-run Russian monasteries are usually closed to tourists. Valaam is also a national park. Even more remarkable is the fact that (and I quote again) "The Valaam monastery, closed since its conquest by Soviet troops during the war with Finland in 1939, reopened in 1989 during celebrations of the 1,000th anniversary of Russia's conversion to Christianity in 988...."

    The article gives a web site : www.valaam.karelia.ru

    May I take this opportunity to (briefly) mention a 1998 book by Andrei Makine (a moving autobiographical, contemporary story, beautifully translated from the French), titled DREAMS OF MY RUSSIAN SUMMERS.

    The author made it out of the Soviet Union when travel abroad was not allowed and escape the only way; he lives and writes from France. "Dreams ... " was his first book and has won an award. This book would make a nice "companion" read to the BK and I recommend it.

    Joan Pearson
    May 7, 2001 - 03:56 pm
    Alf, so glad to hear that you have caught up with us! You even read the URLs provided??? That merits a gold star!!! I loved the stream of the Karamazovs' "devouring", "gobbling", "feeding" upon one another! Somehow it makes a stronger impressing lumping them together to get the picture...Pigs! Fyodor refers to his children as "my little suckling pigs." ~ which sort of indicates that they are feeding on him, doesn't it?

    Traude, that's interesting, the French phrases, the references that Dostoevsky sprinkles throughout these chapters. I have a feeling he is not attempting to impress us with the fact that Karamazov has a background in French, or even reads Camus, or other French works...as he mutters with disgust, "Tout cela c'est de la cochonnerie" (All that is "swinishness") when describing the behavior of Russia's peasants... the real irony is that all these French references ...Piron, a poet, "often licencious", Marquis de Sade, his story about the thrashing of young girls who then marry their tormentors...all of the references are to moral weaknesses, licenciousness... the same things that Fyodor relishes!

    I think, this is Dostoevsky speaking, as the omniscient narrator when he slips in these French references. Now HE had an avid interest in French literature, thought, history. His first published work was a translation of Balzac's Eugenie Grandet. He was also a great admirer of Camus; had very real interest in the human rights fought for in the French Revolution. Remember Miusov and his near-experience in the French Revolution? We'll be seeing a lot more references to things French, I'll bet!

    Barbara, you have these awful memories that most of us do not. I'm so sorry that these will stay with you. Would you say that the behavior of these men was due to alcoholism, or was alcoholism as symtom of something else?

    The Karamazov men do a lot of drinking...expecially Papa and Dmitri. What is this kvass they drink so much of?



    Traude, would you share with us some of the ideas from Maline's autobiography which may help us to understand the Russian temperament of our characters a bit more?

    Joan Pearson
    May 7, 2001 - 04:03 pm
    Tomorrow we turn to Chapters X and XI as we head off to Katerina's house with Alyosha, who carries yet another message from Dmitri:
    "He bows to you. Bows! Bows! Expressly bows and bows and bows out!


    Is this because he doesn't want her any longer, because he feels unworthy after attacking his father or because he has made his choice and must have Grushenka?

    Have your read these two chapters yet? Wait till you meet Grushenka! Not anything like I expected. Actually, I didn't expect to meet her yet at all...

    Lady C
    May 7, 2001 - 04:33 pm
    I have the book and have read it more than once. Makine is an ex-patriate, living in France. He wrote the book in French and could not get it published until he pretended to have translated it from the Russian. The time-frame of those Russian summers spent with his grandmother is vague--before during and after a war which is not specified. At times I thought it was one of the revolutions, and at other times got the impression it was the second world war. Maybe I missed something, but will go back and try to glean more info. Perhaps Traude can shed more light on this book. I second Traude's suggestion that you read it and enjoy. It has for me a subtle flavor that I cant define.

    Nellie Vrolyk
    May 7, 2001 - 04:45 pm
    Joan, you asked a bit back what Ivan's reaction was to what his father was saying about his mother Sophya. He is angry and contemtuous of his father, but not so much because of what father K says about his mother as the fact that FK has totally forgotten that Alyosha's mother is Ivan's mother too.

    What FK says about being more afraid of Ivan than of Dmitri: Ivan seems to me cold and calculating, he hides his emotions unlike his brothers who both give free reign to theirs.

    And Alyosha's reaction to FK's telling that he took Sophya to the monestary to knock the mysticism out of her: could it be caused by the thought that FK has allowed him (A) to go to the monestary for the same reason? Our narrator has told us that Alyosha is not a mystic, but that may not be something FK knows.

    Or does Alyosha react the way he does to all that FK says about his mother because it hurts him? It says on page 121 of my copy "Alyosha was certain that no one in the whole world ever would want to hurt him, and what is more, he knew that no one could hurt him." Someone can hurt him, no physically, with words and that someone is his own father.

    I'm also wondering if the Elder Zossima is a father substitute for Alyosha.

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    May 7, 2001 - 05:56 pm
    Oh dear my childhood memories aren't so awful to me - the talk was filled with bravado of how strong this one was and does that one have a women on the side and this one sure has a houseful of kids and that one sleeps in the hammock strung in the back, and another you always know is drinking because he is at that piano - we kids ran around hither and there having a grand time and listening in to the best gossip - now my adult life was a mess but like all messes - nothing is all bad so that at times, just as these characters in The Brothers Karamazov seem to redeem themselves with behavior we would like to imagine is possuible all the time, so to the same happens in life - and yes, now we know, that any obsessive behavior, drinking, druging, womamizing, over-eating, any addiction, is simply a way to cover some unresolved pain, usually from childhood.

    My sharing was simply to say that I understood some of the crazy fights that take place and in my experience they were more alcoholic induced than the fearful outbursts of a killer. Those fights created Drama in real life as much as in this story. Also, we all had something to say about the rough behavoir of the women and we noticed the abandonment these boys must have felt as each in turn had their mother leave them by leaving or by dying. Again, I see the behavior of the women as the predictable behavior of family members, especially the wives of those that live with alcoholics.

    As Truade says 'enablers' and yet, there are other groups of behavior in an alcoholic family that are being played out in this story.

    There is the child that needs to make the family look good publicaly and another that rebels against all the family holds valuable and another that plays the cute one or the clown making everyone feel good and one that is very, very good so that they are the easist to love. I can see some of these characteristics in the brothers as well as in some of the other characters.

    We must remember, a big part of this is - with every so called "enabling" characteristics are the strengths that the average person does not need to develop and those strengths are the characteristics of some of our most successful 'Icons' in sports, government, business, show business, science, philosophy etc. Often the children of alcoholics have strengths and achieve success many can only imagine for themselves.

    With so many addicted to some behavior or other in this country I just think that it would be easy to compare the interaction among those family members as they protect, love, are exasperated and angry in turn, simnilar to the behavior of this family in this story.

    In this story the women are treated shabbily. Then I look at the circumstances and yes, as Henry says, the nineteenth century is a time when women are still background noise but also, I see, if I were looking on the behavior straight out, and not as an allegory to the forces in Russia being played out in this family, I see a lot of drinking and drunkedness that would then logically put the women in positions to only react to the men's behavior.

    Joan I know you were being conserened but, for me - some of us are tall and some of us are short - we may even bemoan at times our plight - but we see the world from our height or experiences in life, which is often seeing things diffently then those that enjoy an average height or different experiences. And no, everything wasn't roses but we all have our pain that we can identify the signals in a story and therefore, understand the story on a different level.

    So many of my friends are those in recovery that I forget that there are many that are not as familiar with the behavior nor take the experience as ordinary.

    Deems
    May 7, 2001 - 06:40 pm
    Nellie---I think that Zosima is definitely a father-substitute for Alyosha. All the sons really need a father, and they don't have one.

    Fyodor Karamazov is all life-energy in its rawest form. He doesn't seem to have any idea of what being a father might be. This is true from the very beginning when he appears to forget Dmitri's existence, and he pays no more attention to Ivan and Alyosha.

    Maryal

    Joan Pearson
    May 7, 2001 - 07:51 pm
    Maryal, I guess it's better to forget whose mother Ivan's was, than to forget Dmitri's very existance. Look at this man! He has four sons: forgets he has the first, (and would like to continue to forget him now that he has returned), forgets the second son's mother and doesn't know if he has really sired the fourth. The only one he remembers (and says he loves) is Alyosha. I keep wondering if it is significant that he hesitates so about Ivan's mother. Do you think that maybe Sonja is not his mother after all?

    I think that Adelaida's cousin, Pyotr Miusov, Dmitri's guardian might be considered as something of a father figure for him...Smerdy has had Grigory all his life.(!?) Only Ivan seems to have had no father-substitute, and now there's a shadow on the identity of his mother. I don't know why Fyodor fears him, but I'd worry about any little boy growing up without relating to anyone...we're going to hear more from Ivan I'm sure.

    Barbara, I had a very sheltered protected childhood, so that when you matter-of-factly tell of yours, my eyes get as big as saucers and my heart goes out to that little girl. Thanks for explaining that you managed to take it all in stride and were no worse off than I was in my quiet, unremarkable little corner of the world.

    Traude
    May 7, 2001 - 07:56 pm
    My printer has given me headaches over the weekend, then miraculously recovered. My computer has crashed several times today alone. The printer is once again inoperative, and I am not sure what other problems loom. So I will be brief.

    Joan,

    The French phrases are not translated in my book, which is good in a way, I think. It goes to show that they really are only casual conversational utterances and NOT relevant to the story. Merely an indication that at that time it was "de rigueur" among the Russian intelligentsia to understand and be conversant in French. There are many, many French exclamations in Tolstoy's WAR AND PEACE, all mercifully left alone-- at least in my translation.



    DREAMS OF MY RUSSIAN SUMMERS was awarded le Prix Goncourt , which is as coveted and prestigious as the Booker Prize.

    This is not an autobiography, Joan , but an autobiographical novel. Since I didn't want to set us off on a different tangent, and was hesitant to even bring this up, I deliberately did not go into detail. Therefore I am truly grateful to Lady C for mentioning not only the rather unusual history of the book's publication but also the singularly alluring effect this book exerts on the reader - which is akin to a magnetic pull.

    Andrei Makine grew up in the 60's and 70's in the Soviet Union and is now thirty-something, approaching forty. The dreams he so longingly describes in his first book are his memories of the summers he and his sister spent with his French-born grandmother Charlotte in a remote Siberian village. And as Lady C said, the narrative is not linear or chronological, and that may deter or distract a reader.



    I could of course go on and on. But let me stop right here and now. At last I brought up the subject of this book, and I am glad I did. Thank you for allowing me to do so.

    Traude
    May 7, 2001 - 08:11 pm
    re # 759.

    Joan As you said, Dos. made his first decisive mark with his translation into Russian of Balzac's EUGENIE GRANDET.

    However, did you mean DUMAS perhaps in post # 759 ? Because Albert CAMUS was born 2 decades after Dos. died.

    Traude
    May 7, 2001 - 08:35 pm
    That should have been three decades.



    Dos. died in 1881. And Albert Camus was born in 1913 .

    Alexandre Dumas = 1802-1870.

    Joan Pearson
    May 8, 2001 - 04:58 am
    Good morning! It is a simply scrumptious morning here in Arlington, following the most gorgeous full moon in memory! Huge and silvery! Is it closer to the earth in Spring; is that why it appears so large? What a treat!

    I think Dumas' Three Musketeers...(and then there were four), provide a super parallel between our Brothers K...sensualites all! Though, not sure about Ivan yet. I think it was Maryal who brought up that association earlier and it's a good one. I think it's safe to say that the well-read Dostoevsky may have read Dumas, ~ his dates that Traude provides make it a real possibility.

    I did mean to say Camus in tossing out names of French writers that had an influence on Dostoevsky, but mentally juxtaposed the influence in a Senior-moment. It was Camus who was affected by the despair, the nihilism in Dostoevsky - Ivan's "everything is permitted" if there is not virtue > no virtue without immortality > no immortality then no reward or punishment. Camus contended that man created God in his belief that he was a created being.

    , those are interesting insights into Ivan's mindset. Do you sense in him a certain underlying envy, even dismay, at Fyodor's attention and interest in Alyosha ~ which does not include himself, Sonja's first son? Unlike his brothers, as you say and unlike his own hysterical, mystic mother, he hides his emotions. He is inscrutable and frightening for this very reason.

    And thanks for the reminder ~ Alyosha was certain that no one could hurt him...but it turns out that his own father has done just that! Will this be the issue that separates them, that aligns even Alsyosha with his brothers against his father.


    I find it so amazing that we are discussing the psychological aspects of these characters as if they are real people! If this isn't testimony to Dostoevsky's abilities and power, I don't know what is. I thought I'd mention that this morning because I can't wait to hear your reactions to the next scene in Chapter X!

    I find myself standing beside the puzzled Alyosha, mouth agape witnessing the interaction between these two women ...and the art of Dostoevsky. Can't wait to hear what you thought of all this!

    Deems
    May 8, 2001 - 10:29 am
    Joan---That's exactly it. Not only do these sons represents parts of an individual--mind, heart, soul--but they ARE individuals. You don't have to see anything of the mind, heart, soul business to relate to these characters and accept them as living beings.

    The truly great writers create characters who live and breathe, have thoughts, eat, make love and die, and they are ALIVE. In an alternate universe, perhaps, but often more fully alive than people we know.

    Traude--Sorry to hear that modern technology is rebelling against you. I'm sure it is nothing you did.

    Joan--I saw that moon last night and it was something else. All I know about the size of the moon as that when it first rises, and is closest to the horizon, it appears larger.

    Maryal

    FaithP
    May 8, 2001 - 01:16 pm
    I have been reading Joyce Carol Oates Thesis re Brothers Karmazov and she has a wonderful explaination of the reason Father K gets mixed up about Ivan and his maternal parent. Here Joan is a url Joyce Carol Oates thesis fp

    Henry Misbach
    May 8, 2001 - 01:46 pm
    I've had problems with telephone lines, of all things. If you've never lived in Cruso, NC, it's hard to explain.

    Barbara, even I couldn't be cold enough to describe women as "background noise," so thanks for saying it. This is especially true, I think, when Dos has someone working a dialogue-syllogism, like some of the material we are fast approaching. Women are quite out of the main path of anything from Plato or Aristotle. I thought Dos gave an unconscious preview (it could only be that) of recent events starting with the words "that woman," or ending that way.

    Oates' review reminds us how much thought in our times finds its roots in Dos, and especially in this novel.

    Joan Pearson
    May 8, 2001 - 02:51 pm
    Hello, Faith, Henry! Isn't Joyce Carol Oates something? She writes on such a range of subjects, her own personal highly autobiographical novels. Didn't she write the biography of Marilyn Monroe? Blonde? It's easy to forget that she is a college professor (at least I think she is - Princeton?) who comes up with such a comprehensive piece on Dostoevsky! Thank you for bringing this to us, Faith!

    From the thesis:
    "And there is a peculiar scene in "The Sensualists," in which old Fyodor, reminiscing drunkenly upon the exquisite tortures to which he subjected Alyosha's mother, is suddenly told by Ivan that this woman was his mother, too. The father says:

    "Your mother? . . . What do you mean? What mother are you talking about? Was she? . . . Why, damn it! of course she was yours too! . . . Excuse me, why, I was thinking Ivan . . . He, he, he!" He stopped. A broad, drunken, half senseless grin overspread his face. (p. 164)

    The father is either thinking that Ivan had no mother, being inhuman, or that he is the son of Lizaveta and, therefore, is identical with Smerdyakov. They are both the same age, twenty-four, and are momentarily confused in their father's mind.


    To me, that explains his forgetfullness and stresses the inscrutable nature of Ivan's character...verging on the inhuman.

    I liked too the observations on that maddening narrator:
    "Whenever the anonymous narrator speaks as a person, the novel sinks to a simplistic moral level that clearly seems the level Dostoevski wants, since he feels the necessity of bringing his novel back again and again to this level, no matter how far it has soared from it. When the narrator disappears, and the characters come alive—in long, rambling, and often hysterical speeches—the novel attains a vitality that wrenches its parts out of relationship to the whole."

    The narrator of the novel seems at times to be speaking directly for the author; at other times he is refined out of individual existence, simply an omniscient point of view."



    So watch out for that narrator!

    FaithP
    May 8, 2001 - 03:40 pm
    I have been so caught up in Ms. Oates interrpretations that I dont want to make too many comments on them as it is so great to read them and form your own opinions along with the group discussion. I could never express like she did it but I did feel that we had an omnicient Author at times and at others it was like FK's best buddie or neighbor was speaking to us of his experiences, what she calls the annonomous author. I like that and it really helps me understand this novel. And makes me more tolerant of these long winded characters. I know that I am learning more about the individual characters .Fp

    Marvelle
    May 8, 2001 - 07:24 pm


    I just finished moving and reconnected my WebTV! I feel like I'm back in the World again. Now I have to unpack my books (40 boxes jam packed with the staff of life). I know I'm not up to date with the posts and will have to revert to lurker status for a while but I did want to forward info about Russian icons and the related bows. Betty brought up the question of bows and it interested me too. From the different links that I've read, it seems bowing is a recognition of god in an object or person.

    SUFFERING TOWARDS GOD: Now Schiller says in his Ode to Joy (and other writings like his essay On the Sublime) it is only through suffering that a person can recognize and achieve joy (the sublime, the divine -- however you wish to say it). That seems to be Dos' thesis as well. Certainly it seems to be Zosima's -- he told Aloysha to go out into the world and live. And if anyone lives in this world don't they also suffer at times?   Can it be because Zosima did the same thing, and only after living in the outside world, was he able to find joy/god?

    I also believe that Dos/Zosima/Schiller are saying that to be a complete individual you must accept your dual nature. Isn't Jesus Christ identified as "God become flesh" -- a duality of nature, truly God and truly Man. Therefore, isn't Dmitri just one aspect of Jesus Christ and isn't he striving and suffering towards the other aspect? And isn't Aloysha only half as well? He is one aspect and must live and suffer to reach the other aspect of the flesh to become complete?

    BOWING AS TRADITIONAL RECOGNITION OF THE DIVINE: Spiritual Native Americans like my maternal grandmother, stay in touch (literally) with Mother Earth. From Mother Earth we are born and to her one day we shall return. This is one of the fundamental truths of non-Christian spirituality. Call it paganism if you wish. It won't offend me. Although I'm not Christian, I believe that it is necessary to understand Dos' Orthodox Christian beliefs in order to reach a better understanding of his book.

    Wasn't Russia even in Dos' time still close to their pre-Christrian beginnings? Hence I see the bow to the ground (Mother Earth) as a harmonious mingling of pre-Christian and Orthodox beliefs.

    ICONS AND BOWS - THE LINKS: Icons were originally intended as spiritual presences rather than as art objects. A lot of links I looked at used the same beautiful description of icons as "windows to heaven." Here are some sites that talk about icons and bows:

    >

    Russian Orthodox Church Canonization

    Russian Icons



    Sorry to be so late with these links. I know you've moved on to other issues. I need a couple of days just to see where everyone is at in the book!

    Marvelle

    Marvelle
    May 9, 2001 - 12:53 am
    I believe it was Traude who thought the number 13 might have some religious importance, as in Dmitri and Aloysha's conversation about the ladder with thirteen rungs, which I believe is meant to be a spiritual ladder. Thirteen has significance in Christianity from the beginning (7 nights and 6 days of creation = the number 13, for instance, or the Last Supper of 12 apostles and Christ = the number 13, etc.)

    But I think Dos was pointing the way to the Pauline Epistles, the 13 letters of St. Paul. Paul was a major organizer of the church and a great influence.

    I like this link because of the rather humorous physical description of Paul:





    Paul's Missionary Journeys



    Paul's letters also reinforced, alas, the subordination of women, and whie he preached tolerance he wasn't tolerant of what he called 'false teachers' i.e. non-Christians. His 13 letters are the foundations on which later Christian theology is built. He preaches the example of Christ in that a life in Christ is expressed by faith working through love; of pressing on in the hope of the resurrection; and presents the gospel as the power of god for salvation, stressing the universality of sin and god's gracious act of redemption for all. The following is a link if you want to read more about the letters:





    The Pauline Epistles

    I am not endorsing Paul's letters but I do think that the 13 letters hold great importance to Christianity, perhaps more so in Dos' time and place. Paul was a very strong organizer and influence on the Christian Church.



    Marvelle

    betty gregory
    May 9, 2001 - 01:18 am
    The Oates thesis is incredible. Thanks, Faith!! So much to think about. Note her provocative theory that any weakness of the book comes not from the author's inability, but from his glorious, inventive creativity of fiction. A small flaw in a 67 room castle loses significance, I guess.

    A descriptive word Oates used jumped out at me. She wrote "hysterical" to describe many emotional interactions/speeches between characters. That word historically has been reserved to describe women's behavior, as Dos uses for Ivan's and Alyosha's mother (or translated as such). It fits, though, doesn't it, for many of the tirades, explosions from the male characters.

    Yes, Barbara and Henry, I, too, agree with "background noise" for Dos treatment of female characters....but I would add that this peripheral position came after each introduction. The introduction of most female characters sounded extreme but flat. Extreme isn't exactly the word....maybe just fixed. Throughout the book, we have extended time to keep evaluating the mixture of goodness and badness in each of the male characters, but the female characters are matter-of-factly presented as (predominantly) good or bad, period. Complexity was not allowed to women in literature, on the whole, until the last few decades.

    (Note: I'm still wavering on how Grushenka was presented. She may have fit some traditional bad role, but there was never a doubt of the reader liking her...or am I thinking in 2001. Would readers at the time of publication not liked her??)

    ---------------------------------------------------

    Here we are on this now familiar subject again, I thought to myself when reading Barbara's relevent information and personal history on families and drinking. Dos has written drunkenness into almost every chapter so far. So, the familiar questions come up....when an author writes with authority about real life with either conscious or unconscious awareness of some aspect...what do we as informed readers do with it? Even without a Masters degree in Russian literature, we could probably predict this family's disintegration based upon Fyodor Karamazov abuse of alcohol!! That's not the story Dos is telling, though. Nor is his traditional depiction of women. Tough issues.

    Traude
    May 9, 2001 - 06:49 am
    Wonderful contributions all ! Oates' thesis is revealing, thank you for that link, Faith.

    Marvelle, the links and information in posts 775 and 776 are most welcome. Anything that deepens our understanding always is. The info on the signifiance of thirteen is relevant and valuable.

    Betty, re post 777, we will reflect and return to those issues again and again, I predict, as we proceed.

    Women were either "good" or "bad" and depicted as such in literature. Consider e.g. Flaubert's Madame Bovary vs. Daniel Defoe's Moll Flanders. Few women "counted" or were taken "seriously".

    Even so, there were indeed intelligent women like Madame de Stael (1766-1817) , nee Anne Louise Germaine Necker, a Swiss-born (1766) French author. Her father, Jacques Necker, was the French minister of finance, her husband, the Baron de Stael-Holstein, was the Swedish ambassador to France.

    She is known for her celebrated salons , attended by leading literary and political figures; for her charm, conversational talents, vigorous mind, and for her influence on French Romanticism.

    She wrote extensively: political and literatry works essays, and her novels "Delphine" and "Corinne" are considered by some critics as the first "modern" feminist, psychological romantic novels, foreshadowing George Sand. She was an outspoken critic of Napoleon and exiled from Paris several times. Her influence is seen in the works of Lamartine and Victor Hugo.



    Joyce Carol Oates taught (still teaches ?) at the U. of Michigan and has consistently and regularly produced bestsellers and nonfiction pieces. I still remember discussing her novel 'THEM' with my book group back in Virginia more than 3 decades ago . Oates' angelic face on the jacket covers has changed little. But the element of "darkness" in her early books has become much more pronounced in subsequent books, especially the violence perpetrated on women.

    Joan Pearson
    May 9, 2001 - 08:26 am
    MARVELLE! You're back!!! Sort of! Marvelous! (couldn't resist that!) Hurry, hurry, unpack! IT is so good to hear from you....and your links work! Congratulations! What a wealth of information you bring to us!

    Am putting the Oates thesis in the heading for further comment. You might be interested in her BIOGRAPHY . Quite a range of interests! But she is primarily a university professor and researcher. Traude, I don't see the U. of Michigan mentioned, although she did go to school there.

    She has been at Princeton for a looooooooong time. And is still there!!! I just decided to write to her and see if she can find the time to peek in on our group. It can't hurt to ask. Think of what you would ask her if given the opportunity???

    Betty, alcoholism and womens' place seem to be recurring issues in the book and in this discussion too. I've been thinking about the alcoholism in the Karamazov story. The question was asked ...is alcoholism a symptom of other problems, or are happy content folks as likely to suffer from this disease? I can understand those in poverty, or those undergoing serious personal problems looking for a way to escape. The peasants, the homeless, the jobless. But Fyodor Karamazov is not suffering from such hardship. Is his alcoholism a symptom of his moral uncertainty? When he sits up nights meditating before the lighted icons, when he calls on Grigory for discussions on immortality...he definitely is struggling. Have we seen Ivan drinking heavily? Not Alyosha...his drinking seems to be social, keeping the brothers company. Dmitri, yes. Smerdy?

    Now the women, while in the background (background noise!) seem to exert a strong influence on the Karamazov men, even if we don't see or hear from them.

    WE do get to meet Katerina and Grushenka in Chapter X. Do they seem real to you? Does Dostoevsky do the job of making them come alive as he does the men? Did you find them believable? Was Dostoevsky trying to portray actual women or rather types, symbols of virtue and evil? Do you find either one of them believable?

    What did you think of Katerina's physical fondling of Grushenka?

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    May 9, 2001 - 12:17 pm
    Great great link Faith - wow - learned something new - never heard of doubling before - read about two thirds and than stopped - it was beginning to get in the way of my enjoying the book but I know I will get back to that link as we proceed.

    We all seem to have our favorite quote from the Oates link - mine is
    "The sins of old Russia will destroy her and out of this violence a new Russia will be born."
    Maybe only because after reading through chapter 11 I kept thinking what is going on here - what is this all about - this is an author that isn't simply writting a tale to go to bed with.

    I remember the other day someone brought up the use of French in the book and what was that all about - Upon looking back, although presumedly the characters all understood the french when spoken the only ones that speak french are the father, Fyodor; Miusov; and the Landlord.

    hmmmm they are all the older characters and also not the Church characters. Does this mean that the older Russia is tied to the western ways, education, philosophy of life? If this is so we have many a critique commenting on the psychology present in this book but no where am I seeing a discussion about the possible comparison to the political issues of the day. Maybe the fact that the peasants revolted in the early twentieth century was enough that the political issues represented by the heart of Russia versus Orthodoxy versus the intellectuals of the day was a mute point.

    Along this line of thinking the constant suprise (to me) of intent as seen by the characters Dmitri and Katerina is to me an example of chaos. Is this saying the heart of Russia is in chaos or is it saying that those that live lead from their emotions are living a life of chaos. If that is the issue is Dostoevsky saying that the choice is the intellect of an Ivan or the blind obedience to the Church as an Aloysha. Are these the two issues being played out later in the book that the Oates piece speaks?

    Joan I would suggest that we do not know the origination of Fyodor's alcoholism - yes, medically, current knowledge is, there are some that have no ability to tolorate alcohol and it is a disease similar in many ways to diabetes. If we look at Fyodor's inability to care for his babies, after his wives leave or die, I would think his abandoning them is more than a males preoccupation with the socially acceptable behavior expected of the head of a Russian household. Often the pain unresolved of our own childhood we keep trying to get right by inflicting the pain on our family members hoping this time it turns out differently. Maybe Fyodor's childhood was one of abandonment or lack of feeling loved and accepted. Certainly his behavior matches the behavior of one of the typical children in an alcoholic home, the family's need for a comic. This buffon seems to be an angry comic that uses his skill like a weapon.

    An yes, Betty so true this is not the story of the disintegrating alcoholic family. Also, I do not thing as recently as 25 years ago the analagies would be so easy to detect. But there has been so much work and books published within the past 20 years that these issues now are the source of jokes on prime time TV. I just find it an interesting parrallel to the story. It also reaffirms to me how many great "Icons" of literature write unconsciously of familiar behavior to explain their thesis. It is no wonder even educated woman were not sure of the dynamics that kept them in control - their early training was often as an ACOA and reinforced by the glory of Literature.

    Truade please help out - is it Madame de Stael or Anne Louise Germaine Necker that wrote "Delphine" and "Corinne." I'm anxious now to read one of these books and see how literature was handled by one of the first recoginesed women writers.

    Marvelle so glad to see you will be with us - with all your moving and unpacking I wonder if you took time to look in on PBS last evening. Wonderful special on the Islamic religion with Paul being mentioned and of course our Mongol hoards. I didn't realize how much Judaism, Christianity and Paul especially was the basis for the Islamic religion.

    I am trying to remember but I think it was the Golden army or hoard that raided Persia. Evidently these Mongols readily adapted the religion of their advesaries. But what I thought was really interesting is how the Moslems cut the links to tribe and family and at one point took children from Slovakia that became well cared for, well educated and as adults became the highest level participants in the country and religion. I did get the impression, although it wasn't spelled out that the children were not stolen. Something about families lying about the birth family of a child so that as an orphan they would be included in this system.

    Henry where in relationship to Asheville do you live - is it closer to Hendersonville by any chance. My daughter moved to Greenville SC almost three years ago and now they have fallen in love with Saluda. They have purchased some land and will build once the house sells in Greenville, which the way the real estate market is going there may not be for another two years. Just wondered if you are in the mountains. And yes, Henry those of us that have experienced being background noise can say it without thinking it cold or shocking - it just was.

    FaithP
    May 9, 2001 - 12:20 pm
    I looked for the essay by Ms. Oates as it was my oldest sister and mentor who sent me to it the first time I read this book back in the 60's or early 70's. She and I read most of the novels of Joyce Carol Oates and I understood most of them with the help of my sister Dolores who I believe had a coorospondence with Ms. Oates regarding one of her books. I would love her updated comments, perhaps they have not changed at all. Her books did .

    I think the physical fondling of Grushenka by Katya is not unexpected in the age the book is depicting. I have read of such scenes in other novels of that era. It was just a/ok for girls and women to hug kiss and hold hands and at least in the novels I have encounter the intimacy in it has not had sexual connitations as it may in this day and age. As to the alcoholism in this book it is different in a way than the modern alcoholism also. And Russ had a history and does to this day of heavy drinking in all walks of life. Alcoholism is rampant in Russia of today. I mentioned my temporary in law who returned to Petersburg in the mid 90's well he told me that women in Russia beat their husbands up and kick them down stairs, pull their hair, slap their faces and generally handle them very roughly when they come home drunk. He said it has been going on as long as there has been a Russia!! His opinion was that women have a right to slap their husbands around if they are drunk. He had no "modern" attitude regarding drinking at all. He himself put away a bottle of vodka every day and claimed he was not an alcoholic yet.They still seem to have the idea that you must be dying out in the street from alcohol poisoning before you are an alcoholic. This may all just be his point of view however it rang true and when he introduced us to some immigrant families here it appeared they all had these old fashioned opinions.

    The women in F K 's life slapped him and their kids and left him and their kids. Then we have very little information on how these children grew up or who were the main influance on them during formative years.I did not see any feminine nurturing here for these boys.

    Katya is a more rounded out person to me at this point in the novel than Grushenka who seems to be a "cartoon" of a bad girl at this point. Still she starts assuming her own personality and it is so far not very nice.

    Deems
    May 9, 2001 - 12:48 pm
    One of the great advantages to an alcoholic family is that it is almost certain to produce an artist or two. There's so much to wonder about and figure out for children of an alcoholic. I personally know three artists (of the painter type) and more than five writers whose parents, one or the other or both, abused alcohol. I figure that this cannot be pure coincidence.

    Fyodor Dostoevsky's father was a violent alcoholic who got worse as he got older. That's enough of an explanation for me to understand how Dostoevsky could draw Father Karamazov.

    Last night I was reading about Tennyson (for another project), and his father was a alcoholic, a parson who was more or less forced into the ministry by his father. Tennyson was the fourth of twelve children. Those Victorian families were huge sometimes.

    I think the chapter with Grushenka and Katia is something else! Katia is all strokey and nicie-poo as long as she thinks that Grushenka is going to do as she wishes and back out gracefully. When Grushenka says, "Er, I don't think so," Katia, well-bred woman that she is, becomes downright shrewish. And it turns into a cat fight.

    Poor Alyosha is completely unable to DO anything at all. He is the worst brother to be the audience.

    Maryal

    Traude
    May 9, 2001 - 05:00 pm
    Barbara,

    She was born in 1766; Anne Louise Germaine Necker was her maiden name. I had mentioned her father, Jacques Necker, and her husband, Baron de Stael-Holstein, the Swedish Ambassador to France, whom she married in 1786. It was not a happy marriage.



    A child prodigy, she composed "ELOGES" at the tender age of 11 but made her political and literary mark as Mme. (Germaine) de Stael. --Please note that there is a diacritical mark (two dots over the 'e' in StaEl), which influences the pronunciation of the last name.--

    She established a "salon" in the Swedish Embassy in Paris and became virtually "Queen of Paris". Among the regular visitors were le Marquis de Lafayette, Benjamin Constant (with whom she had a liaison for 17 years) , Madame Recamier (the beautiful woman in a famous painting reclining on her armless sofa named after her), Talleyrand, Andre Chenier, Mirabeau and others.

    After the Reign of Terror= the name for the period of anarchy, bloodshed and confiscation immediately following the French Revolution (which had forced many to flee Paris), Mme. de Stael opened another salon, where Chateaubriand and Lord Byron were among her regular guests.

    In 1792 she fled to her chateau Coppet at Lake Geneva, then returned to Paris in 1795 and stayed until she was exiled by Napoleon in 1802.



    Re your specific questions,Barbara :

    DELPHINE , written in 1802, is the earlier of her two novels. It is, in epistolary form, a romantic story of unfulfilled love between Delphine and Leonice. Leonice was inspired by Benjamin Constant de Rebecque; who is shot as a traitor in the end and Delphine takes poison. This is one of the first feminine autobiographies in French literature.



    The publication of the second novel, CORINNE, or ITALY in 1807 made Mme. de Stael literally the toast of Europe. It is a psychological study of two tormented souls and a wonderful description of Italian civilization and mores.

    Both novels are autobiographical, in both de Stael advocates the emancipation of women. In CORINNE she asks that women be given the right to social recognition, individual development, extramarital love and intellectual equity. Now, doesn't that sound like a modern agenda ?

    I am not sure English renditions of these books are available two centuries later, but the internet is bound to have all kinds of references.

    betty gregory
    May 10, 2001 - 12:20 am
    I don't think we can know for sure what meaning (significance?) Dos gave to the heavy drinking, but Faith's comments on Russian history and Maryal's reference to Dos.'s father fit squarely, for me.

    ------------------------------------------------

    Joan, I'm not completely sure what you mean when you refer to the female characters' "influence" on the other characters, but I'm going to guess that you mean that their very existence in the men's lives counted for something, had signifigance. Alyosha's searing memory of his mother, and the fact that she left his life, had an impact (had an influence) on him. That the woman over whom father K and sons are fighting...that this woman is often at the center of things. I agree, if that's what you're saying.

    In case I'm in the ballpark of what you meant by influence, I'll go on to say that I often picture just that...women being right at the center of men's lives. Boy, am I struggling to figure out how to describe what I'm thinking. It is the behavior of the male characters that I'm thinking of when I agree with Barbara's description "background noise" for women. It is the men's behavior that signals how little women as specific people mattered in the scheme of things. It was the behavior of father Karamazov (I think) that forced the departure of the boys' mothers. Also, how K behaved each time when his boys needed love and reassurance----that's a pretty clear example of whose needs came first. The small boys essentially lost both parents at the same time.

    The scene of men arguing over whether Lizaveta is fit to be called woman....they speak about her as if she is a thing. Even Karamazov's declaration that he can call her "woman" has to do with whether he could stand to have sex with her. He's speaking about himself, primarily. That's how "background noise" fits, I think. A female character might be in every scene, figure significantly in what the men are talking about, even obsessing about, but none of them know her. To them, she is either a good woman or a whore.

    However, however, I do keep wondering about Dmitri's mother. Did she break the rules? Is that what her quick death is all about???

    Joan Pearson
    May 10, 2001 - 03:08 am
    Oh yes, Betty, right in the ballpark! I do need you to translate those feelings I have about the influence of these mothers on the lives of her boys. They didn't stick around long...compared to Marfa, quietly complying, bowing to the superiority of her husband. They fled, went mad and died so young, rather than go on as Marfa did.



    ~ An interesting thought about Dmitri'a mother, breaking the rules. What do you suppose was the significance of the fact that Adelaida ran off with a Divinity student though? She was breaking all the rules yes, yes, but she made the choice between remaining in the household of the lusty Karamazov or the DIVINE! Isn't that the choice facing her son now? Will he be influenced by his mother's choice so long ago?

    ~ Alyosha's mother (and Ivan's)..the mystic, the shrieker. Does not Alyosha rush off to the monastery immediately following the visit to her grave? Is it fair to say that Ivan's cold, detached, rejection of the hysterical, the unexplainable has led him to become the man he is today?

    ~ And then there's Smerdy, the fastidious eunuch, all perfumed and powdered...rejecting all connection to a mother who has marked him for like as an unfit, unclean bastard son....through no fault of her own,a Karamazov victim. We read that he holds all women in contempt. What can be this boy's attitude towards this man who destroyed his mother and quite possibly himself?



    I gather from your posts that we are not to point at alcoholism as the main cause for the ruination of this family. That heavy drinking was and is the Russian way...and though it accounts for some of the disjointed ramblings, it isn't necessarily what this story is all about?

    Maryal, I'm walking around trying to figure out the relationship the alcoholic parent and the artistic son. Is ART a form of excape from the harsh reality of one's life? Is ART a means of expressing pent-up impressions and emotions?

    Joan Pearson
    May 10, 2001 - 03:39 am
    Back with a fresh cup of coffee...need to tell Fai how much I enjoyed hearing your 'temporary in-law's' description of the Russian woman...takes some getting used to...the way they physically slap around their husbands for getting drunk. As I recall, Adelaida used to slap Fyodor too. Yet we don't hear about his beating up on the wives. He seemed to drive them mad because of his sexual excesses, rather than his drinking, didn't he?

    I was interested in your observation that physical intimacies among women are not uncommon in the literature of this period. I'll agree...the handholding, the cheek kissing, the embraces...but I sensed that somehow this was different.

    Alyosha became flushed, faint, shivers kept running through him as he witnessed Katerina's fawning over Grushenka. Her lips are becoming swollen from all the kissing.

    Grushenka is described as a voluptuous angel, and we are told that Katerina had no motive in kissing Grushenka's hand, but that she had become fascinated with the lusty Grushenka.

    For whatever reason, she bestowed three kisses on Grushenka's fat hand (which Grushenka appeared to like very much), but then Grushenka would not return those hand kisses. This becomes a rather important point to Dmitri when Alyosha describes the scene to him. What was the significance of this?

    Barbara has described the bigger picture she sees in Chapter XI. Since we have not yet begin to discuss this, or many of the points in Chapter X, we'll simply extend this discussion of these chapters until Monday when we'll turn to Book IV. No need to rush through this!

    My son is getting married on Saturday and the houseguests begin to arrive today. As you can imagine, chaos rules! Will try to steal some moments to look in, but if that's not possible, I'll be back with you all on Monday, a new mother-in-law.

    Traude
    May 10, 2001 - 03:26 pm
    My goodness, you have your hands full, Joan, ! Of course family events always take precedence. And I predict that you will have a super time. Best wishes to everyone.

    Henry Misbach
    May 11, 2001 - 09:23 am
    Outward displays of affection between persons of the same gender have much greater impact on this side of the water than probably anywhere in the world. The prevailing attitude here is that pre-marital sex must be prevented, lest it lead to dancing. And that's between genders.

    I was warned before I went to Italy in my graduate school days not to register too much shock and/or dismay at the sight of young men walking arms-over-shoulders or women walking arm-in-arm or hand-in-hand. The people who warned me were right. Nor would the inference of physical desire between the parties involved be at all on target, in most cases.

    I think Alyosha, as Dos describes him, is absolute putty in Katerina's hands. Although he says, "Yes, yes," on Katerina's suggested interpretation of Dmitri's ambiguous message, my sense is he would have agreed with her favorite idea whatever it was. The modern reverberations are amazing. I especially enjoyed the exchange where both Alyosha and Katerina refer to Groushenka as, "that woman." I tend toward the view that Dmitri's confession of being a scoundrel would indicate either that he a) cannot now say he,"has not had sex with that woman," or b) soon will be unable to say that. Alyosha admits he's smoked. I guess I'm just naive.

    When Dmitri surprises Alyosha at the crossroads, it's hard to believe that Dos cannot have known Jack Benny.

    FaithP
    May 11, 2001 - 09:30 am
    Henry your comment regarding the western point of view re: intimacy between same sex persons was right on. In the United States especially we are really homophobic and read sexual intimacy into very casual affection which is taken for granted in other countries.I have wondered if it is because of a long history of coed K-12 schools here Most of the world that is not so. Or was not so at all until recently. Fp

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    May 11, 2001 - 10:03 am
    It seems to me the lack of touching was not so much of a taboo during my mother's youth as her old photos seem to indicate - and even as a teen my girl friends and I would walk down the street with arms around each other's shoulders. It has really now I think out of hand. Went to my grandson's school while I visted them last month; Cade had his earthday play afterwards my daughter was to help the children with their reading; I was invited to help as well; this was followed by lunch and again my daughter and I had lunch with the class - they were wearing their school T-shirts for the play; the class is in a portable building and they walk out-of-doors to the lunch room; one little girl's T-shirt was much too big for her and like all the students she did not have on a jacket; she was blue with cold; conserned for her I rubbed her back to warm her up saying that when she got back to the classroom to put on her jacket. Well you think I was going to attack the child - the adults let me know that no adult is allowed to touch any child excpet on the hand, that any touching could be misinterpreted by any child.

    I love it - Jack Benny - or a six year old.

    FaithP
    May 11, 2001 - 04:07 pm
    Barbara that antecdote is so familiar as I have even heard grandmothers say they are almost afraid to touch their grandchildren in an affectionate way. I was always a momma that hugged and kissed my kids a lot and when I bathed and dressed them they were so sweet and I felt so loving I often kissed tummys or bottoms.I learned that watching my own mother who was also a great patter and back rubber. I did not treat my baby grandchildren or greats either like that. Life has changed since the 30's and 40's hasn't it.fp

    betty gregory
    May 11, 2001 - 05:57 pm
    As was normal for the time, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, as life-long best friends, wrote letters to each other that would sound today like mushy love letters. Missing the sound of your voice. Couldn't sleep for thinking of our trip together next week. That familiar twinkle in your eyes.

    Many published volumes of letters before, what, the 50s?, 40s?, between male friends or female friends....or relatives, expressed open affection.

    Homophobia, as well as what's socially stylish, has caused us to stop expressing ourselves.

    Hats
    May 12, 2001 - 05:01 am
    You guys, say everything so succinctly. All of my feelings about relationships has been said by everyone else. I think our fear of intimacy has led us to miss true friendships. My father met anyone with a hug, man or woman. He just had an enthusiastic way of showing his appreciation and love for others in his life. When he first met my husband, he hugged and kissed him on the cheek.

    I have been thinking about Alyosha and Katerina. Alyosha has the ability to see the core of human nature. He is very observant and wise for his age.

    He has two takes on Katerina. When he meets her the first time, she seems domineering. "But although he had not said much on that occasion, Alyosha had seen and understood a good deal. He had been struck by Katerina's domineering ways and by her casual, easy, self-assured manner."

    Then, he sees Katerina again. This time she is totally different. This time she is not domineering. "Now, when he saw her coming toward him, he immediately realized that he might have been wrong about her before. This time, she radiated great warmth and kindness,.....Her arrogant, haughty, domieering airs had vanished....

    This left me feeling a little bit uncomfortable with Katerina. If she is so unpredictable, she might be untrustworthy. It might be necessary for Dmitry and Ivan to take a closer look at this woman. Really, who is she?

    It's so easy to distrust Grushenka because of her unsavory reputation. Whereas, Katerina has the appearance of a lady. Hmmmmm. I don't trust Katerina. I don't think Alyosha trusts her either. Alyosha tells Dmitry, "You'll be happy with her, but perhaps not...perhaps you won't find peace with her."

    Boy, everyone needs a brother like Alyosha. His advice is sincere and wise, a quilt all in one piece.

    Hats
    May 12, 2001 - 05:34 am
    I think Katerina is a phoney. When Katerina feels secure that Grushenka loves someone else and not Dmitry, she acts all kissy kissy. When Grushenka tells Katerina that she just might find Dmitry attractive all over again, Katerina shows her "real" self. From this "lady," flies words like, whore and slut, quite readily if you ask me.

    Katerina is two different people. As long as things go her way, she's charming. God forbid, if anyone steps on her toes. She turns into a dragon lady.

    Grushenka is all out there. She admits her fickle nature. She's true to herself and everyone else.

    Deems
    May 12, 2001 - 08:06 am
    HATS--Katerina strikes me as being a little too complicated for Alyosha to figure out when he first meets her. Although he is a very spiritual young man, he seems to have almost no experience with women. He has been so focussed on a spiritual path, following Zosima and learning from him, that there is much of the world that he simply does not know.

    So far, I wonder just how good a judge of character Alyosha is. His friend is Rakitin and we know that he is a shady character.

    I think Alyosha is pretty naieve at the beginning of the novel.

    Joan is at a family wedding today. All good cheer and best wishes to her, the bridal couple, and all the family and friends. She has a lovely day for it, warm and not raining.

    Maryal

    Hats
    May 12, 2001 - 09:07 am
    Yes, Maryal, I hope Joan is having wonderful time. I am hoping to enjoy a wonderful Mother's Day with my husband, sons and daughters in laws and grandchildren.

    I hope everyone has a wonderful Mother's Day.

    Henry Misbach
    May 12, 2001 - 02:43 pm
    Hats, I couldn't agree more with your take on Alyosha. Yeah, I should have had a kid brother like him, but it sure would have been made it tough to have any fun.

    Now that I've called attention to the different standards of physical contact between here and Yirrup, I do think maybe Dos intends to shock a little in that episode between Katya and Grushenka. It's not over the edge, but may be on the ragged edge, even for the time and place. The interruption of it certainly tallies quite directly with the end of friendly discussion, although one would expect that.

    Happy Mother's Day weekend to y'all.

    Marvelle
    May 13, 2001 - 11:59 pm
    Well, I'm going to break down and try to interpret Paul's letters and the meaning of the letters in the Brothers K. I think the meaning has impact throughout the book, not just the current section we're reading, which is why I've done this research. First, about the ladder -- the ladder is one of the symbols for the Passion and is a spiritual connection, the ladder to salvation/Heaven.

    According to "The Oxford Companion to Christian Art and Architecture," the symbol of the ladder refers to "the ladders placed against the cross during the DEPOSITION. In JACOB'S dream he saw a ladder 'set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And the Lord stood beside him' (Gen. 28:12-13)."

    So what about the significance, if any, of the 13 rungs of the ladder?

    I believe that Dos has followed the teachings of Paul in the Brothers K. Paul is known as the THIRTEENTH Apostle who wrote the Pauline Epistles which are THIRTEEN letters in all and which consist of advice, admonishment, and encouragement to the believers of Jesus Christ; and of prime importance to the concept of 13 rungs of the ladder to salvation/Heaven is 1 Corinthian 13 , part of Paul's epistles in the bible. (All 13 letters attributed to Paul are part of the bible.)

    In 1 Corinthian 13, Paul lists THIRTEEN steps of guidance to gain Heaven. The Holy Spirit was sent by Jesus to counsel and guide Humanity and, according to Paul in 1 Corinthian 13, the 13 gifts of the Holy Spirit to Humanity are:

    wisdom, knowledge,faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, discernment, apostleship, teaching, administration, tongues, and intepretation of tongues, and most importantly LOVE.

    For instance, you will find that in 1 Corinthian 13:1, Paul says: "If I make use of the tongues of men and of angels and have not love, I am like sounding brass, or a loud-tongued bell."

    And in 1 Corinthian 13:2, Paul says: "And if I have a prophet's power, and have knowledge of all secret things, and if I have all faith, by which mountains may be moved from their place, but have not love, I am nothing."

    I think that the emphasis on love by Paul (and Zosima) is why Alyosha tells Dmitri that Dmitri is higher up the ladder. Dmitri has shown he has love (among a number of other disagreeable and dangerous emotions).

    Alyosha has faith but is an observer of life, and has not yet stepped into the arena of the world and loved. I don't mean just love of the flesh although that is an important part of being human according to Dos. I see Alyosha -- at this stage -- as keeping himself safe from emotion as much as he can. Later he will travel up the rungs of the ladder.

    Judgment is another important message from Dos, Zosima, and Paul and I will try to tackle that subject in as coherent a way as possible in my next post. I think that the idea of judgment is vital to the Brothers K and Dos has tricked us into making judgments just to trip us up later!

    Marvelle

    Marvelle
    May 14, 2001 - 04:31 am
    Dos, Zosima, and Paul tell us not to judge. I think that is an ideal which is impossible for me to achieve. How can I not judge Timothy McVeigh, or a child abuser, or Hitler? I am just not up to the challenge although I try whenever possible to see other sides to an issue or situation. Still ... how can one not judge completely?



    I'd like to look at judgment, pride and the bow which are parts of one another.




    We all know that the bible says that Pride is the greatest sin. Adam and Eve tasted the forbidden fruit to attain the knowledge that god had, to be like gods, and for this overreaching Pride they were banished from Eden. Pride is the antithesis of the bow.



    This part of the bow is something I didn't go into earlier. To bow before god is an act of humility and a statement against pride. What I get from the bows of various religions and from the Brothers K is that to bow before another person recognizes that divine part of god (through suffering) in each person and says 'I do not judge you. We are all sinners.'



    A dictionary defines judgment (in part) as "to pass a critical judgment by one qualified to judge; to pass sentence on a person; to decide or decree judicially or authoritatively". And a judgment is "the ability to judge, make a decision, or form an opinion objectively, authoritatively, and wisely."



    Paul, in his epistles, says that humanity does not have the capability or right to judge sinners. For example:



    Romans 2:1 "So you have no reason, whoever you are, for judging; for in judging another you are judging yourself, for you do the same things."



    Romans 2:2 "And we are conscious that God is a true judge against those who do such things."



    A bow takes us from pride to humility (defined as a sense of lowliness, meekness, submission -- and I don't know if I like this lowliness!) Only god is all-seeing and all-knowing. Humanity cannot presume to KNOW everything. This is part of what I get from reading the epistles.

    The Brothers K deliberately highlights false humility. As in Book 2, Chapter 2: Zosima and the two monks bow low to the ground at each other. It felt like a theatrical production, a type of one-up-manship of 'I can be more humble then you.' Plus, it also seemed to be a tweak/criticism of their mutual and supposed holiness. This is my impression.



    The original act of humility has social layers too. The divinity student is too lowly to even aspire to a bow to the monks!



    Dos is writing ambiguously. He hides facts, subverts truth, sets his readers onto the wrong path. All with the intention, I believe, of encouraging us to judge. Later we may discover the error of judgment but in any case his point is that we shouldn't judge others at all. (I wonder if he could ever abstain from judging others? It seems such a difficult and even impossible task.)



    Remember Dos' warning at the end of Book 1, Chapter 1: As a general rule, peope, even the wicked, are much more naive and simple-hearted than we suppose. And we ourselves are, too." This is definitely a warning.




    For instance, people assumed pater K's physical symptoms and recent mental lapses are a result of drink. I posited the theory that it could be syphilis since the signs are there in himself and at least two of his sons (this was brought up in earlier posts). I still say it could be syphilis and that would explain Adelaida's behavior (the first wife) when she ran away, abandoning her child. If she was infected by pater K, she was under a death sentence, and she had no money, and probably too much pride for a lingering and debilitating death. Better to die romantically, starving in a garrett or however she did die. In other words, there could be another reason for her actions. We don't KNOW everything about her situation. We cannot say -- one way or the other -- why she left and if she was morally wrong or not. So we cannot judge wisely.




    Another instance is the case of Smerdy's paternity. We don't really know, at least at this point, who his father is. I say that the indications so far are that it is not pater K.



    Stinking Lizaveta (Book 3, Chapter 2) slept in the winter in a passage or cowshed of the house of her father's former employer, a well-to-do tradesman. So now there is already one possible father, the tradesman?



    Five or 6 drunken revelers come upon her asleep under a bridge and someone (who?) asks laughingly if any one could look upon her as a woman. Pater K who is part of the group is used to playing the buffoon and he declares that it is possible. They all, including Fyodor, laugh and go on their way.



    "Later on Fyodor Pavlovich swore that he had gone with them...." Now, we know that this man has no shame, he recommends barefoot girls, etc so there seems no reason to deny something unless the denial itself is true.



    But the girl is found to be pregnant and people wondered who the father was when "suddenly a terrible RUMOR was all over the town that this miscreant was no other then Fyodor Pavlovich. Who set the RUMOR going? Of that drunken band, five had left the town and the ONLY ONE still among us was an elderly and MUCH RESPECTED CIVIL COUNCILOR, the father of grownup daughters, who could hardly have spread the tale, even if there had been any foundation for it."

    The capitallization is mine. A civil councilor is a local politician.



    Grigory, by the way, stood up for Fyodor Pavlovich. "'It's the wench's own fault', he asserted, and the culprit was Karp, a dangerous (escaped) convict...This CONJECTURE sounded pausible." Now a conjecture is an opinion without facts; supposition, theory, surmise. Another RUMOR this time posited by Grigory. Still, this is a second father possibility.

    The child born of Stinking Lizaveta "was christianed Pavel, to which people were not slow in adding Fyodorovich (son of Fyodor). Fyodor Pavlovich did not object to any of this, and thought it amusing, THOUGH HE PERSISTED VIGOROUSLY IN DENYING HIS RESPONSIBILITY."



    Could the civil councilor be the one who is pointing the finger of blame, lest it be pointed at him? He's the only one left of the group besides Fyodor. And a politician would have good reason to lie -- to save his respectability and his career.



    In Chapter 3, Book 3, Dmitri says in conversation "I'm not drinking, I'm only 'indulging,' as that pig, your Rakitin, says. He'll be a CIVIL COUNCILOR one day, but he'll always talk about 'indulging'." So Dmitri links the sanctimonious Rakitin with a civil councilor which indicates that a civil councilor is not as upstanding as we might initially think. He is, after all, a POLITICIAN. A third father possibility then in the civil councilor.



    Finally (since we are starting to read the next section) there is this statement from pater K in Part 2, Book 4, Chapter 2: "...sin is sweet; all abuse it, but all men live in it, only others do it on the sly, and I openly. And so all the other sinners fall upon me for being so simple."



    This could be pater K's statement about people like the civil councilor or another person. Pater K seems to be bitterly resigned to being blamed for everything. So let's add him to the list. The fourth father choice would be pater K himself.



    Dos, Zosima, Paul all say that we should not judge. There are reasons and facts about which we shall never know. How many other places are we led astray by Dos without realizing it? I believe Dos is trying to make us experience our mistakes (if mistakes they be) in judgment; and to show that only god can know and judge.

    Marvelle

    Joan Pearson
    May 14, 2001 - 06:24 am
    Good morning everyone! Our wedding took place after all the usual flurry of glitches, downpours, family 'differences'...all I can say is that God in his wisdom knew what He was doing when he gave me fours sons and no daughters, as much as I would have liked one. I have not the temperament to get through the wedding scenes the mother-of-the-bride must handle. Mothers-of-grooms have it easy....well, much easier. But yes, they are wed ...and I ask your prayers for this marriage.

    I have been away from my computer for the last four days and come back to see the wonderful posts! We still have two more days of houseguests, but I cannot resist sneaking in for a bit while they sleep!

    I plan to go back over your amazing posts more closely on Wednesday, as life returns to some degree of normalcy.

    ~ Some quick observations before we move into Book IV today.

    While I concur with all of you that physical expressions of affection between women vary with time, and place, I agree with Henry, that what is exchanged between Katerina and Grushenka goes beyond what is the norm for that time and place. This is not affection between lady friends. This is the proud, haughty, virtuous Katerina kissing the other woman, who is also a woman of questionable morals, even if she is not actually a prostitute...kissing her so that her lips are sore and swelling. This is Katerina giving to this woman what she thinks will please her...what the woman is used to receiving for her favors. Katerina has lowered herself to kiss this woman for what she hopes the woman will agree to do. I think it is demeaning.

    ~ Marvelle, those are eye-opening posts...where's ALF??? Your explanation of the 13 steps will blow her away! And the association of St. Paul with the number "13" is fascinating!

    We can't thank you enough for taking the time to share your research with us! Breathtaking!

    The explanation of the bows...helps to understand the comments of Father Ferapont in the first chapter of Book IV...when the monk from St. Sylvester's enters, he bows for a blessing and Ferapont responds,

    "Do you want me to bow down to you, monk? Get up."



    Now what does that say of Fr. Ferapont's humility??????????? Does his name fascinate you as it does me? If you pull it apart in French, you get something like, "he will make a bridge." Does that make any sense to you in this context?

    What is the title of Book IV in your translation? I'm finding different titles in the two I have before me. Am looking for signs of the title in Chapter I...

    Hope you all enjoyed a lovely Mother's Day - spent mine remembering what I could of my own dear mother...

    Talk to you later!
    Love,

    Jo Meander
    May 14, 2001 - 04:56 pm
    I'm still reading but keep falling behind in the posts, and missing any of them is a shame. The ones I have read today are all wonderful. HATS, I think your observations about Grushenka and Katerina are actually related to Marvelle's "do not judge" commentary.
    Grushenka finds it sweet vengange to torment Katerina who so badly wants her to abandon Dimitri. Grushenka knows that socially she is considered far beneath Katerina, and making her squirm and fly into a rage must give her quite a sense of power! Perhaps Dos. will surprise us later with the way things turn out for these characters. I read this about 45 years ago, but I really don't remember!
    Joan, I sense you are glad the weekend is over! Hope it was great! Mine was pleasant. I will pray for your newlyweds if you promise to pray for my children! Fair trade?

    CharlieW
    May 14, 2001 - 05:16 pm
    My Book Four is entitled Lacerations - and I have seen it called Heartaches, as well. Lacerations seems more 'Russian', somehow.

    Ferapont seems all about prideful laceration - the ascetic, the monk - and makes quite a contrast to Zossima here: When Zossima says that "Because we have come here and shut ourselves within these walls, we are no holier than those that are outside…" one can't help but think of Ferapont as the High Priest of Holier-than-Thou. By comparison, Zossima's message is that by the very act of cloistering, there is a tacit admission that they are "worse" than other men on the outside. There seems to be a purpose for their life, for their seclusion, which is to attain the knowledge of their own responsibility to all men. Ferapont has burned his bridge, if you will. He's alone with no responsibility for man and has placed himself alone with God. The ultimate hubris. Is this not a pointless existence?


    Charlie

    Deems
    May 14, 2001 - 06:34 pm
    Charlie, welcome back--I do like the title of High Priest Holier Than Thou for Ferapont!! That man is a piece of work.

    I have two translations here. Book Four is titled "Crises" in one of them and "Strains" in the other.

    Joan--good to see that you have survived the wedding.

    marvelle--Your comments about not judging are most intriguing.

    Jo--I read this novel about twenty-five years ago, but it's like a new book to me. The translation(s) I have this time are ever so much better. I say this knowing no Russian whatsoever, but both of them sure move along.

    Maryal

    Marvelle
    May 14, 2001 - 10:51 pm
    My Book Four is Lacerations and seems to suit the cutting edges of emotions in this section. Wow, what intensity!



    Hats, you always hone into the true essence of the characters. One of my weakesses is that I find it difficult, unlike yourself, to not judge.



    Charlie W., Thanks for your wonderful and insightful comments on Father Ferapont. Dos seduces us into laughing along with him at 'the devil's tail'.



    Joan, So Father Ferapont's name means "he will make a bridge"? And Charlie W. says that Ferapont is more likely to be "burning his bridges"? Could this be the same thing, after all? And best wishes to the newlyweds. They've begun their adventure!



    I'd really love to hear insights into Father Ferapont. I am puzzled as well as fascinated by his name and his contrast with the political, sociable Zosima. Somehow this is a bridge. But to what and how? And who uses the bridge?



    Currently, I see Ferapont as the equivalent of the Native American Holy Fool -- someone who teaches by doing everything backwards, whose actions and words challenge the status quo and which makes people think about their own actions and otherwise complacent assumptions. I don't know if this kind of Holy Fool is the same as the Russian Holy Fool. Is it the same concept, anybody?

    I'm sure we'll be meeting Father Ferapont again!

    Marvelle

    Joan Pearson
    May 15, 2001 - 06:41 am
    Good morning! I thank you all on behalf of the newlyweds...for your blessings, as this particular couple will surely need them! Jo, it's a deal, some for some! Thanks again! The last of the houseguests are to leave later this morning and I will begin to reclaim my space and time!



    Lacerations, Heartaches, Strains...all translated from the same Russian term! Fascinating, isn't it? I look forward to hearing from Carolyn who is reading a Norwegian translation...

    I agree, Chas, lacerations does seem more Russian, more dramatic? Where are the lacerations in this Chapter on Father Ferapont? Fr. Zosima's message, as everything about him, seems prophetic, doesn't it? The monk must assume responsibility, guilt, for the sins of all men! Is this how Alyosha will share the guilt or responsibility for his father's death? But Alyosha is not a monk. And it seems he has one foot already out of the door of the monastery.

    Looking closely at what Zosima is saying here,
    The monk is responsible for all and every man, not merely through general sinfulness, but for each individual. This knowledge is the crown of life for the monk and for every man. For monks are not a special sort of man, but only what all men ought to be.


    Perhaps this is part of the "do not judge" theme and Dostoevsky's ideal ~ the new (?) Church, the new Russian society...

    Marvelle, Zosima's sermon is so very familiar, and yet it eludes me. It feels like St. Paul...you brought him up earlier. Is he quoting St. Paul from one of his epistles? Letter to the Corinthians on love perhaps? These letters written to the new Church, exhorting the new Christians to love thine enemy? If I have time later, I'll go look. I did surf the net for a few minutes and only came up with this source which links the orthodox elders with the teachings of Paul. You might find it of some interest...
    Elders/St. Paul


    The elder appeared to be in "ecstasy" and his words at times disjointed...Marvelle, I think the term "holy fool" is broad enough to include, not only Fr. Ferapont, but also, Zosima. Lizaveta too! A footnote in the Pevear translation also included Alyosha in this definition...
    "...a holy fool could be a harmless village idiot but there are also saintly persons or ascetics whose saintliness is experessed as "folly". Holy fools of this sort were known early in Orthodox tradition. The term reppears several time in B.K., notably in reference to Alyosha."


    But is Fr. Ferapont holy? Is he crazy, I have to keep asking myself? Does he represent the bridge between holiness and craziness (irrationality?) in some way that I can't yet explain to myself? Is Dostoevsky saying that he represents the ideal of the holy man at this time, when he says that the monk from St. Stephen's "harbors greater reverence for him than for the saintly Zosima? Is Dos implying that we are at a crossroads, that it is time for a brige between the old and the new? Does Zosima represent the old or the new? Maybe it is time to build a new bridge and burn the old, as Chas suggests...

    Ferapont is surprisingly vigorous and healthy for a man of 75, isn't he? One translation describes his athletic build. The old diet and exercise routine again, isn't it? It sounds as if he's on the cabbage soup diet! Did you ever try that? The carbs in the bread is something to consider too. What was the significance of Ferapont living on bread alone?

    Dos. is clearly preparing us for something to take place at the moment of Zosima's death. But what? What are the monks expecting to happen? Where does the Father Superior stand in all this. Stay tuned!

    Can't wait to get back in here this afternoon...

    Deems
    May 15, 2001 - 07:37 am
    Joan--You have hit the nail on the head for me. YES! Father Ferapont seems to be athletic and in glowing health. He is a decade older than Zosima, who is clearly soon to die. I suggest that the physical states of these two men are the reverse of their spiritual states. Zosima is spiritually healthy and Ferapont is spiritually ill.

    Zosima is the Good Shepherd who looks after the sheep. Ferapont is concerned with his own religiosity. He is the opposite of what a Christian should be (my opinion, of course).

    When we are thinking about Alyosha's later memory of Zosima's final words to the monks, let us keep in mind that Alyosha has brought more order to the thoughts than were there originally:

    "The starets [Zosima], it must be said, spoke less coherently than Alyosha recorded later. Sometimes he would stop speaking altogether, as though pausing to gather his strength, gasping for breath but appearing to be in a state of exultation. His listeners were deeply moved, although many wondered at his words, for they saw no light in them. . .Subsequently, everyone recalled these words" (Avsey: book 4, chap 1).

    "The elder spoke, however, in a more fragmentary way than has been set forth here or in the notes that Alyosha later wrote down. . . .He was listened to with great feeling, though many wondered at his words and saw darkness in them"9 (Pevear).

    Looks like we have some DARKNESS coming, doesn't it?

    Maryal

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    May 15, 2001 - 11:41 am
    'Wha Happen' - here I am pondering Marvelle's fabulous posts and the next thing y'all are talking about Ferapont - I feel like I missed the switch and my train is still on the original rail.

    The essay on Thirteen was fab - and the non-judgement - that is where I ponder - my thoughts for the past year have been along the lines that none of us are perfect and therefore good and bad resides within all of us. Even our understanding of good and bad can be measured by what society considers good and bad which changes with time, place, culture and circumstance. I'm thinking as long as we label behavior bad we dismiss it for ourselves and set up a fear of what is called bad - that to me is saying we are actually fearing ourselves. I'm thinking something along the lines that looking bad in the eye and understanding the basis, the motive, the out-of-control instinct rather then blaming what and who we consider bad is understanding and accepting ourselves. To really accept that 'but for I" in what we see as bad would eliminate judging. I know - all this sounds fine until we are personally wounded by bad, then the struggle begins.

    I know - all that is beside the point as to this book - but I only read these books to better understand myself, my place in society and mankind.

    Since this book is the culmination of Dostoevsky's literary career I can't help thinking it would have been so wonderful to read his works in sequence. I'm thinking, Dostoevsky's works together probably say what is being offered to us as his crowning achievment, this book.

    I can't help dwell, as I read, that this man, Fyodor Dostoevsky faced death - only to be released minutes before the firing squad was to do the Tzar's work. That and the years in hard labor only because he tried to understand better and further his beliefs I would think had left him able to cut to the chase and write from his soul.

    Some quotes from other Dostoevsky books that I found interesting and relative to our read here -


    I must now catch up so I can appreciate The post Charles offered and all the others that followed.

    Henry Misbach
    May 15, 2001 - 01:02 pm
    I stole that line from R.W. Southern's Making of the Middle Ages, as it seems so appropos Fr. Ferapont. He gives us every reason to believe he must be hungry, if half of what he says is true. He claims to be able to see the Holy Spirit, which he can distinguish from the Holy Ghost. The monks could well be a little edgy about this man who can see demons on other persons. What if he comes to power in place of the kindly Zossima? There'll be a lot less eatin' in that monastery!

    There are so many excellent lines in his sermon, especially that they should not hate atheists. Of course, it is consistent with what any good Presbyterian preacher could do. Any preaching by Ferapont will be towards a more ascetic religious experience among the monks. They would not tend to look forward to that.

    Zossima's miracle is worthy of note, less for its marvel than the position from which it came. He says, you cannot properly pray for someone who is just absent and not dead, and to do so is a form of sorcery. But then he went ahead with results even better than he had hoped.

    FaithP
    May 15, 2001 - 04:25 pm
    In the translation posted this book is called A Laceration. I am not familiar enough with Russian language to understand all that this could refer to so I simply take it at its English face value of a Wound and relate it to the wounds described herein..beginning with Alyosha's finger which the school boy bit till it bleed. and therin lies one mystery.

    Speaking of mysteries Father Ferpont is a mystery to me so far.When the monk bows to FF it angers him as it seems to call for a bow in return and he does not want to bow to man, only his god. Father Ferapont : craziness. His craziness is really demonstrated when he sees devils, one with the tip of its tail cought in the crack of the door. This devil dies on the spot when FF signs the cross over him three times. I wondered when I read it if this was after living on mushrooms in the forest,eh? Also, he sees The holy ghost fly down to talk to him or was that the Holy Spirit that talks to him. He does seem to make a difference here. But I notice he wont tell the monk what the Holy Ghost said to him. Probably Father Ferapont is just starving on his bread and water diet.Four pounds of bread a week, works out to about 9 oz a day. That is some bread to keep him robust and healthy.

    Mystery ..why did the school boy attack Aloysha? and run away crying and not identifying himself.Does he have something to do with Lise who is in love with Aloysha. Lise recognizes the mystery too as she cleans and dresses his wound from the school boy. Now Aloysha has actually proposed to Lise and she is giggling and almost hysterical again but I do not actually hear her accepting him. I love this chapter as it is fast moving, this is The Author at his best with the writing full of action and full of information yet not lecturing us and telling us, he is showing us his characters. Including that Ivan is in with Katya and she is in love with him, through what Mrs H. say, we find out Katya is trying to persuade herself she loves Dmitri. It's appalling Mrs. H cries...And now we come to Chapter 5 A laceration in the Drawing Room for which this book four is named A Laceration ...I can't wait. Faith

    CharlieW
    May 15, 2001 - 04:49 pm
    Barbara reminds us of FD's reprieve from the firing squad and his subsequent work. I can't help but think of the parallel to Xao Xingjiang's Soul Mountain (which we'll be discussing in September). The author, diagnosed with incurable cancer, is suddenly given a clean x-ray and a new life as it were - and so he embarked on his journey to understanding.



    I think that maryal takes a nice look at the physical and spiritual states of the two monks. Interesting observation. Maryal gives her opinion that Ferapont represents the opposite of what a Christian should be. I couldn't agree more and I am convinced that FD posits Ferapont as the aberration of religion cut loose from its moorings - the trappings of religion without the essential humanity of Christian ideals. I believe we don't need to look too far in our day to see how destructive some forms of religious rectitude can be. Give me the living saint whose corporeal body rots like the rest of us upon death. As Joan quotes Zossima: "for monks are not a special sort of man..." Isn't that the point? Ferapont just wants to be that special sort of man - that chosen one - and so he embarks upon building his direct bridge to God - leaving man behind.

    [EDIT: This cross-posted with FaithP]


    Charlie

    Marvelle
    May 16, 2001 - 12:13 am
    Joan thanks for the link to "Elders/St Paul" with the description of the monastary of Optina. This has special significance and makes a stronger link to the St Paul influence in the Brothers K, since Dos made a pilgrimage to Optina following the death of his son.



    Barbara, I think questioning our own personal judgments is definitely on target and not a digression from the novel. Dos is obviously asking readers to think about such issues. As for me, I think I need to learn to "love the sinner, and hate the sin." But it is really hard not to judge a person, even when that judgment is positive!



    And thanks for the wonderful quotes from Dos' other works. I particularly found relevant to the Brothers K, "real and true grief has sometimes even made fools more intelligent...."



    Here is a link to a bible site. It's a good research tool for all those books that allude to the bible:



    The Unbound Bible



    Faith, the mystery of the schoolboy's animosity will soon be revealed (I confess I read ahead a little).



    Charlie W, your insight that Father Ferapont "represents the opposite of what a Christian should be," is similar to what I was searching for with the definition of a Holy Fool -- someone who is a CONTRARIAN which leads onlookers to question assumed behaviors and ideas. Certainly some questions he calls to mind with his behavior is "What is a Christian? What is the right way to live and act?" Ferapont pushes us into the state of mindfulness where we can no longer take things for granted.




    I'm not absolutely sure that Zosima created a miracle. I keep wavering in my feelings for this elder. I feel admiration but then again Zosima has caused me some uneasy moments with his pat answers to people seeking help and keeping Rakitin, the gossip monger, in his midst. And in Part 3, Book Nine, Chap IX, just two pages before the miracle, Dos reveals something that is potentially even more unsettling about Zosima.



    Dos' revelation is that Zosima makes all the monks come to him for group confession every day. Now that is a big gabfest, a real gossip session that gives Zosima access to a lot of information and rumors. And Zosima reads everyone's mail before it goes to the intended recipient. That blows me away! No wonder Zosima knows so much and has advance knowledge.



    Zosima's miracle is the prophecy, soon proven to be true, that a woman's son is not dead and will contact her. But WE DON'T KNOW FOR SURE that this is a miracle, a true revelation of the future.



    Zosima could have read the information in someone's personal letter; or the monk (or a monk) from the North could have brought the information to a meeting with Zosima; or someone (in a religious order) traveling with the son could have written in advance or told someone else. Zosima never claimed a miracle with his prophecy. And remember how Dos writes "miracle" in quotes? I think we can't be too sure about the validity of this "miracle". It could be/or not be a true miracle.



    Marvelle

    Marvelle
    May 16, 2001 - 01:30 am
    I searched the Pauline epistles and came up with these quotes about fools. Obviously, Paul is preaching for the most part to a well-to-do crowd. Perhaps from this someone can speculate about who in the Brothers K is a divine fool besides Alyosha and why that term is applied to Alyosha.



    1 Corinthians 1:25-31 "Divine folly is wiser than the wisdom of man and divine weakness stronger than man's strength. My brothers, think what sort of people you are, whom God has called. Few of you are men of wisdom, by any human standard; few are powerful, or highly born. Yet, to shame the wise, God has chosen what the world counts folly, and to shame what is strong, God has chosen what the world counts weakness. He has chosen things low and contemptible, mere nothings, to overthrow the existing order. And so there is no place for human pride in the presence of God. You are in Christ Jesus by God's act, for God has made him our wisdom; he is our righteousness; in him we are consecrated and set free. And so (in the words of Scripture), 'If a man must boast, let him boast of the Lord.'"



    1 Corinthians 2:9-10 "(God's hidden wisdom)...in the words of Scripture, 'Things beyond our seeing, things beyond our hearing, things beyond our imagining, all prepared by God for those who love him', these it is that God has revealed to us through the Spirit."



    1 Corinthians 2:14-15 "A man who is unspiritual refuses what belongs to the Spirit of God; it is folly to him; he cannot grasp it, because it needs to be judged in the light of the Spirit."



    1 Corinthians 3:18-19 "...if there is anyone among you who fancies himself wise -- wise, I mean, by the standards of this passing age -- he must become a fool to gain true wisdom. For the wisdom of the world is folly in God's sight."



    1 Corinthians 3:21-23 "So never make mere men a cause for pride. For though everything belongs to you....the world life, and death, the present and the future, all of them belong to you -- yet you belong to Christ, and Christ to God."



    1 Corinthians 4:9-13 "...God has made us apostles the most abject of manknd. We are like men condemned to death in the arena, a spectacle to the whole universe -- angels as well as men. We are fools for Christ's sake, while you are such sensible Christians. We are weak; you are so powerful. We are in disgrace; you are honoured. To this day we go hungry and thirsty and in rags; we are roughly handled; we wander from place to place; we wear ourselves out working with our own hands. They curse us, and we bless; they persecute us, and we submit to it; they slander us, and we humbly make our appeal. We are treated as the scum of the earth, the dregs of humanity, to this very day."



    2 Corinthians 11:16-20 "...let no one take me for a fool; but if you must, then give me the privilege of a fool, and let me have my little boast like others. I am not speaking here as a Christian, but like a fool, if it comes to bragging....How gladly you bear with fools, being yourselves so wise! If a man tyrannizes over you, exploits you, gets you in his clutches, puts on airs, and hits you in the face, you put up with it."



    Now I have to think of this some more and try to pull the idea of a Holy Fool together. Who are the true Holy Fools in the Brothers K? What is their purpose in society? Is it like the Native American Holy Fool?



    Marvelle

    Hats
    May 16, 2001 - 02:49 am
    Father K. calls himself a wicked old man. Alyosha tells his father he is not wicked, but he is just twisted. I am having a hard time understanding the difference between "wicked" and "twisted."

    ALF
    May 16, 2001 - 11:05 am
    Marvelle (ous):  Thank you, thank you!  I knew when I read that about the 13 steps that there was something tugging at my "memory."  You have listed the 13 steps of guidance to heaven and that is exactly what I was trying to recall.  Whether Dos  meant that or not is irrelevant at this point.  It has driven me crazy since I first pondered it.  thanks again.

    Joan:  Father Ferapont?  Translated to "he will make a bridge?"  I've not read Bros K before and now wonder if this bridge (man) will mean something in the chapters to come, i.e. what does he connect?  or whom?,
    What does he link to or unite?  I'll keep an eye on him. Charlie says"Ferapont has burned his bridge, if you will. (I love that Chas.)  Do you think he
    IS the bridge connecting the holier to the not-so-holy?

    HATS: Wicked denotes evil.  Twisted donotes an abberrant or perverted person.  IMHO of course.

    Excuse my rattle, I've just returned to Bros K and am trying to catch up.

    I will ponder the Laceration and reflect on its meaning.  Is there to be a mutilation, a puncture or a wound   introduced in contrast to Aly's  finger chomp ???

    Louise Licht
    May 16, 2001 - 12:08 pm
    HI there - After a month-long battle with bronchitis I finally caught up with you guys. Bought the "Modern Lib. Version" from Bibliofind and thought my eyes were failing me, the print was so small. Now that the fever's gone and I'm back to "normal" I'll try to catch up with all you distinguished scholars.

    Joan Pearson
    May 16, 2001 - 12:43 pm
    There you are! Louise! WELCOME So glad to hear the fever has abated, but wonder how this makes the tiny print so much easier to read??? Don't want you getting discouraged now that you have finally found your seat among us! Great news! Again, welcome!

    Louise Licht
    May 16, 2001 - 12:53 pm
    What an extraordinary title "Lacerations". What can we expect, the cutting of one's skin, self-inflicted flagellation, mental abuse, physical punishment by one's self, by others, or all of the above?

    The dying Zosima maintains his beatitude and charasmatic modesty, yet others place upon his death great import. Is it a miracle that a son writes his mother or was it coincidence? Happy is any mother who hears from her son, then or now.

    Father Ferapont, who is "so devout in fasting and observing silence", a virtual hermit, eats only four pounds of bread every three days. But he appears to be in excellent health and speaks of wild mushrooms and berries. Feramont is known to speak very sparingly yet when a stranger appears he has a long discourse with him on the rituals and observations of fasting and what he can see and see through.

    Feramont speaks of seeing spirits and the devil. The holy ghost flies down in the form of a dove. Where does this come from?

    Is this this Dostoyevsky's comparison of holy men? One an acclaimed recluse and seer of evil. The other a teacher of love for G-d and G-d's people.

    I look forward to others interpretation of the two priests, their outlooks and messages

    Louise Licht
    May 16, 2001 - 12:57 pm
    Joan - No fever and better light help!

    Joan Pearson
    May 16, 2001 - 01:02 pm
    Henry, I think it is a real possibility that Fr. Ferapont would take over Fr. Zosima's elder position as spiritual guidance director of the monastery in the event that no miracle takes place upon Zosima's death. But, let's say there ARE miracles...better than the soldier's return? Who would take Zosima's place then?

    We will have to keep in mind Zosima's counsel about this miracle...you can't pray to/for someone who is merely absent, but not dead because that's sorcery. Goodness, don't we have lots to tuck away for later chapters?!

    Marvelle, interesting thoughts about Zosima's ability to know the future. I missed the part about his reading mail...except for Alyosha's. Does he read others' mail? The group confessions don't bother me much...I'd rather like to do my confessing to someone as loving, open-minded, understanding as this elder, but yes, it would account for some of his uncanny insight, thus cancelling out the "miracle" which Marvelle points out Dos presents within quotation marks...

    I think these monks are eager to call just about anything a miracle, than to have the likes of Fr. Ferapont become their confessor! This man is still much of a puzzle to me...I'm not sure I can believe that he is so robust, has this athletic build...living only on the bread and cabbage soup...(Henry points out that the monks will be eating even less if he has his way...mushrooms! Berries!

    Faith, do you really think he has become irrational due to this starvation diet? (and the funny mushrooms?) I still don't understand where he gets his healthy condition...shouldn't he be emaciated by now? Something is not right! I'll bet he's got a stash of goodies somewhere! But if he's healthy, he MUST be crazy with this talk of devils and the Holy Ghost...

    You have all provided so much to think about since yesterday!

    EDIT: Louise, we were posting together...will be right back!

    Joan Pearson
    May 16, 2001 - 02:01 pm
    Louise, what I love about these book discussions is the many clues and answers provided by our readers to the difficult questions that come from the work itself.

    The title for this whole Book IV is Lacerations....some lacerations are easier to spot in later chapters, but what of Chapter I? Some of our translations instead refer to the title as Strains, Heartaches I see Strains in Chapter I. Strains between the followers of Father Zosima and those of Father Ferapont. Interesting that the monk from St. Sylvesters comes away from the rantings of Ferapont harbouring feelings of greater reverence towards him than toward Zosima.

    Chas and others have come up with a good answer...they are opposites, one what a Christian should be, the "an aberration cut loose from its moorings." Yet the monk from St. Sylvester's doesn't see it that way at all, does he, Charlie?

    Marvelle has brought to our attention the link between St. Paul's epistles and the elder's sermons. I didn't realize yesterday when posting this link that Dostoevesky had journied here on a pilgrimage following the death of his son. This makes the information within even more important to understanding his sources and intent!!!

    Optima/Elders/St. Paul

    I found in scanning through Paul's epistles ~ this one which helps me a lot to understand what Zosima and Ferapont represent...

    ...and if I should have all faith so that I could remove mountains, but have not charity, I am nothing,
    for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.


    Isn't that the difference between the two? Zosima, the spirit, Ferapont the letter of the law? AS Dos is presenting them, they are polar opposites. I see this same thing in designating the holy fools.. Marvelle the Pauline quotes on the holy fool ...wonderful! Who are the holy fools in Brothers K? I think there are two kinds...Alyosha, Zosima, even Lizaveta as she gave away warm coats and shoes to the poor...these follow the spirit of Christianity... Ferapont the letter. What of Feodor?

    Deems
    May 16, 2001 - 02:07 pm
    Welcome back, Louise--So glad to know you are better. My vision has been affected by fever more than once.

    The Holy Spirit descending in the form of a dove comes from accounts of John's baptism of Jesus in the gospels. (See, for example, Mark 1: 10-11; Matt 3: 16-17).

    Am I the only one who thinks that Father Ferapont is an overly zealous and ostentacious man? Notice that everyone KNOWS how little he eats (actually four pounds of bread for three days isn't that little and there are all those berries too). He makes such a point of fasting. He also makes much of his ability to see devils. I always worry about people who claim to SEE supernatural beings, particularly if this happens on a regular basis.

    When Ferapont distinguishes between the Paraclete and the Holy Spirit though, he is venturing into territory that may be bordering on heresy. I am reasonably certain that the Church Fathers decided that they were one and the same. John is the only gospel that uses the word "paraclete," but modern translations will usually use the term Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost.

    I think Father Ferapont is a cheat and a posseur, perhaps without knowing it. He is interested in the show he puts on. He is vain-glorious.

    Zosima, on the other hand, declares that monks are no better than anyone else. All have fallen short of the glory of God.

    One other point about the elder, Zosima. In his somewhat jumbled "speech," he tells his followers to take care of the people. Jesus, when he appeared to the disciples after his resurrection made exactly the same request.

    This appearance of Jesus occurs at the very end of the Gospel of John (21). The disciples, who have been out fishing, come ashore to find Jesus, who has made a fire and has some fish cooking for them. After they eat, Jesus asks Peter, "Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these others do?" Peter assures Jesus that he does, and then he is told, "Feed my lambs." Jesus asks Peter the same question; same answer given. Then he says, "Feed my sheep." And one more time; same answer. Jesus responds, "Feed my sheep."

    The point of this story is pretty clear. If Peter loves Jesus as he says he does, then he will take care of the sheep, the followers of Jesus.

    Maryal

    FaithP
    May 16, 2001 - 02:13 pm
    Marvella there are 13 steps to recovery in my recovery program from alcoholism. I follow them. I have been sober for 20 years. Just a musing on steps...

    Yes Joan I personally feel FF is crazy as a bedbug and perhaps it is not from his diet though Dos at this point is clearly telling us it is. But we see a health robust stalwart man..no? And on bread and water ok a little cabbage soup. Whew. Still his hallucinations are more like chemical induced. Dehydration and or starvation also produces hallucinations but from what I have read this man is far from that.Maybe he is simply suffering from schizophrenia. Many a Holy Fool was doing exactly that in history. Though there are other reasons for holy fools as has been touched on by many here.

    Deems
    May 16, 2001 - 02:17 pm
    Faith!---You and I were posting at the same time.

    Now I AM confused. There are 12 steps in my Al-Anon program. Hmmmmmm.

    CharlieW
    May 16, 2001 - 02:28 pm
    Garnett translation, B&N Edition (Bk 4, Ch 1, "Father Ferapont"):
    "Do you see this tree?" asked Father Ferapont, after a pause.
    "I do blessed, Father."
    "You think it's an elm, but for me it has another shape."
    "What sort of shape?" inquired the monk, after a pause of vain expectation.
    "It happens at night. You see these two branches? In the night it is Christ holding out His arms to me and seeking me with those arms, I see it clearly and tremble. It's terrible, terrible!"
    "What is there terrible if it's Christ himself?"
    "Why, He'll snatch me up and carry me away."
    "Alive?"
    "In the spirit and glory of Elijah, haven't you heard? He will take me in his arms and bear me away."
    But of course, it would seem that Ferapont's fondest wish is to be beatified in this way. This is the madness of those to whom God speaks directly. So Ferapont is one extreme - religion divorced from man. At the other extreme is the "cruel analysis" of science, which would negate all that is sacred in the world. Paissy say they have "only analysed the parts and overlooked the whole." Ferapont, in some way has done the same. Embraced the parts of religion and overlooked the whole (point).


    Yes, Joan - the monk from St. Sylvester's does have a greater reverence for Ferapont than for Zossima. After all, Zossima is an example that monks should strive for. An example based on love and the realization that all men are resposible for all others. That's a heavy responsibility. Is it not easier to devote oneself to a revered zealot than to devote oneself to mankind as a whole? Isn't it the easy way out?


    Charlie

    Joan Pearson
    May 16, 2001 - 02:32 pm
    We're told by the narrator there were many holy fools in Russia during this time! Hmmmmmmmm...were they starving? Were they simply confused? Surely they weren't wicked. Were they twisted?

    Maryal, you think he's a poseur, I love the word! Really, a poseur, posing on an authority on the Holy Spirit, bordering on heresy. He surely isn't a scholar, is he? The bird thing is interesting. One of the translation has a footnote that says there is only one time in the Bible that the Spirit "appeared like a dove" ~ at Christ's Baptism in the Jordan. Yet that's all it took to set off our poseur...creating two separate deities from this...he just doesn't understand this spirit stuff at all, does he?

    Hats, that was an interesting response Alyosha gave to his father's comment that he is wicked. Actually before that he says more on that:
    Wikedness is sweet and everyone does it on the sly...I do it openly. I say a man falls asleep and doesn't wake up..."


    And Alyosha just smiles, did you notice that, he smiles>, and says "you're just twisted,not evil."

    Alf describes "twisted" as "perverse" or "aberrant"...hmmm aberrant, there's that word again. I think that is what it means too. Alyosha recognizes that his father is struggling with the same athiest/Christian problem the rest of the Russian society is facing at the time...do you just go to sleep when you die? In that case, enjoy your self, do whatever, be wicked. BUT, Alyosha smiles. Is it because he knows his father is struggling, and doesn't really mean what he is saying??????????

    What is Alyosha doing home anyway, with Zosima dying today? He did send him home and promised him that he'd speak his last words to Alyosha. Somehow, I sense that this is not going to happen...

    Joan Pearson
    May 16, 2001 - 02:37 pm
    hahaha! Charlie! I'll never get out of here....keep posting along with one after another and then stop to think about the new thought, and then have to answer. I didn't think about the monk from St. Sylvester's favoring Ferapont's methods because they were easier, but of course it is easier to fast and remove yourself from the world, than to love the enemy, isn't it? I think that the monk is more comfortable following Ferapont...he's following the familiar, teh prescribed letter of the law. Easier to do. Same thing you said. Yes. Time to make dinner...No! Time to tear away from here and go out and buy something for dinner! hahaha! This is addictive and dangerous!

    Marvelle
    May 16, 2001 - 05:08 pm
    Joan, yes, Zosima reads everyone's mail. I had such admiration for Zosima but when I read the following it shook my convictions. Now I know better than to judge so quickly (oh, that word judge again!). The statement is in Book 3, Chapter XI, page 144 in my book and just 2 pages from the end of Part One.



    Alyosha knew that "there were among the monks some who deeply resented the fact that letters from relations were habitually taken to the elder, to be opened and read by him before those to whom they were addressed."



    Dos is unclear -- perhaps deliberately so, perhaps it is the translation (any Russian scholars to help with this?) -- about whether Zosima reads the letters alone, before sending them on to the intended recipient. Or whether he reads in the presence of the recipient. I think I read elsewhere that Zosima reads the letters alone. But I'm not sure and may not have time to follow up on this.



    At this point, I am trying not to decide one way or the other. Maybe there is a good motive for reading other people's mail but, in any case, Zosima does get advance information. I'm also trying to stay my opinions about Ferapont. Since Paul was forced to behave outrageously in order to claim people's attention to his message -- and thus he became what he called a "divine fool" -- could Ferapont be doing the same? Or is Ferapont just plain crazy and not religious at all? Well, I'm sure he'll come up again and maybe then I'll see more clearly.



    Barbara and Joan, you both have such great insight into the art world perhaps you could prod my memory about the visionary artist and poet William Blake. He acted like a Holy Fool, claiming to see and hold conversations with angels and devils, even when he was a child. People said he was crazy.



    In one of his essays, Blake says he gave a dinner for some long dead saints famous for their odd behavior. Blake asks one of the present-dead why he had behaved so strangely in life and the answer was (paraphrased) "So people would listen and understand." I can't remember the title of the essay. Do you?



    Laceration I think is the result of Pride. According to my (beloved) dictionary: to lacerate is to tear roughly or mangle; to distress or torture mentally or emotionally. I think this definition fits well with Katerina et al who behave in such damaging ways. And I think you can hurt yourself as well as others due to Pride.



    Hats thanks for the insight into wicked and twisted and Alyosha's smile. It really says a lot about both men and their relationship.



    Marvelle

    FaithP
    May 16, 2001 - 05:14 pm
    Maryal first off I must say that there are twelve legitimate steps in the AA program. I went to a group with just women and we always made jokes about the regular meetings where as a joke it was said the 13th step was learning to avoid dates with the other participants when you were hit on. It was such a joke and in our all women group it was meant to be a put down of the men in meetings who hit on all the new and vunerable women who attended group. It didn't really belong in here but for some reason I just thought it was funny. Excuse me please, I did not mean to offend anyone.

    I have been reading Lacerations and have one comment about Katya's behavior. She is a Martyr in the Making isnt she. She is wounding herself. She also is begging for wounds from her two admirers. She gets it from both of them too. Such a masochist. fp

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    May 16, 2001 - 05:22 pm
    Just got in and wow oh my what a group of posts - all in one day - my word - in class all day so I must get caught up before I can join you but I have some ideas -

    A quicky -- my sister was a Domincan Nun for over 25 years - it was usual for all her mail to be opened and read by the mother superior - once you take vows nothing is yours - the vow of poverity is more than a poverity of "things." It is a poverty of all that you are and all your attachements.

    Jesus Christ through prayer, good works and your superiors is your direction. In fact letters to family members must be approved before they can be written. You are no longer attached to your birth family - you are in community with the religious group that accepted you, obeying the community rule in communion with God.

    Marvelle
    May 16, 2001 - 05:37 pm
    Ah, I was posting the same time as Faith and Barbara. I think Faith spoke about lacerations much better than myself. Katerina is asking to be hurt but she also hurts others doesn't she? Like keeping Ivan on a tight leash but still continually crying about her love for Dmitri.



    Thanks Joan for the information about your sister's convent. But I get the impression from the monks adverse reactions, and that of the Superiors, that Father Zosima is taking more liberties than he should. Perhaps with monks it is a little different? Would they have more freedom than a nun? In any case, normal behavior or not, Zosima reads all the monks' mail.

    Marvelle

    Lady C
    May 16, 2001 - 05:44 pm
    I suspect that not all the monks were literate and would have had to have their mail read to them???

    CharlieW
    May 16, 2001 - 06:57 pm
    Marvelle- To me Ferapont is just a whack-job who serves a clear purpose for the author. But I've been known to be wrong before. Anyway, I like your connection between laceration and pride very much.

    [Aside to FaithP - Odd that on last nights episode of NYPD Blue, there was a rather insulting reference to one of the characters by making mention of the 13th step in the program]


    Charlie

    CharlieW
    May 16, 2001 - 07:09 pm
    By the way - the whole issue of the letter opening should be seen within the context of the issue of the authority, "voluntary submission and salutary guidance" of the elder. Some undertook it freely and some resented the whole institution.

    Barbara mentions her Dominican Nun sister and the obeisance to "community rules." Dostoevesky writes ("the older and more experienced of the monks" are talking here): "for those who have come within these walls sincerely seeking salvation, such obedience and sacrifice will certainly be salutary and of great benefit; those, on the other hand, who find it irksome, and repine, are no true monks, and have made a mistake in entering the monastery - their proper place is in the world."
    Charlie

    Deems
    May 16, 2001 - 07:23 pm
    Barbara---Thanks for posting about your sister who was a Dominican nun. I thought that mail was routinely opened by a superior when one took on the cloistered life--male or female--and then you came along with some real life evidence.

    Faith--Ah, yes, I have heard "thirteenth step" used in the program also. As in, "Look at him--he's thirteen stepping her!" Forgot about that. Oooops.

    Maryal

    CharlieW
    May 16, 2001 - 07:24 pm
    More on Ferapont's elm tree:
    A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees
    from Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
    Charlie

    Marvelle
    May 16, 2001 - 09:53 pm
    Quote from book: Alyosha knew that "there were among the monks some who deeply resented the fact that letters from relations were habitually taken to the elder, to be opened and read by him...."



    Please remember that the letter reading gives Zosima extra information, along with the confessions, etc. And in his book Dos positions this revelation about the letters just before Zosima displays a "miracle" of knowing the son is alive. This is the important part -- letters give Zosima information. Zosima does not claim to be a prophet or miracle maker. He may very well be, but Dos is telling us not to make any quick judgments.



    I feel like people are taking positions, saying this one is good and this one is bad. I just can't join my voice with any particular opinion right now. I guess, in a way, that is my opinion. Sorry.



    Charlie W,I appreciate the lovely Blake quote. He is really a unique artist, isn't he? Blake was argumentative, rude, and contrary besides being desperately poor. Yet he was able to escape into his imagination to live in a golden world of angels and castles filled with light. Now THAT is a glorious Holy Fool.



    I am still interested in the 'lacerations' which seem to take up most of this section of the book. I admit too that the schoolboy incident and what follows was really the strongest example of laceration -- my heart aches still. Where can we start discussing? I am afraid of revealing too much of the events in case people are at different places in the book. What chapter are we up to? Chap IV? Or earlier?



    Maryal and Joan, I am still pondering the fabulous questions you've posted. Right now I have to call it a night and get ready for work tomorrow. Looking forward to being able to return to this discussion!



    Marvelle

    Hats
    May 17, 2001 - 02:54 am
    "For I want you to know, my beloved ones, that everyone of us is responsible for all men and for everything on earth, not only responsible through the universal responsibility of mankind, but responsible personally--every man for all people and for each individual man who lives on earth."

    I love Zosima's words, and I will never forget them. There might be more crowning moments or words in the book, but for me this is one of them. To live up to such a standard would be, I feel impossible, but to strive for such a standard would make me a far better person. In a nut shell, I think Father Zosima is saying that we should care or have concern for one another and everything on the earth. Is he just simply saying the golden rule?

    Barbara, thank you for sharing your sister's life with us. All of the posts are so interesting. I think far back Maryal wrote that this book would be interesting. She did not lead me down a wrong path. I am learning about character and about Russia.

    Father Ferapoint, I don't want to judge, gives me chills. I don't understand him. I feel that he is so wrapped up in his own world or with his own body that he has forgotten or never knew how to share with others.

    Father Ferapoint wears thirty-pound chains! He is really different. Strange. Then, he is rude to people. "And even when he did, on occasion, talk to them, he was always brief, abrupt, and peculiar, and often Rude." I don't think Father Zosima has the capacity to be impolite to others.

    In my book, Father Ferapoint is called dangerous. "He was dangerous mainly because many monks were in sympathy with him and also because so many lay visitors considered him a great ascetic and a saint..."

    There is a difference of opinion between the monks and the elders, right? Probably, you guys explained it, and I missed it. What is the difference between a monk and an elder? I hope that is not a dumb question.

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    May 17, 2001 - 03:33 am
    OK this is what I am getting from this chapter, which by the way is only in my Book IV called "Strains." - First, I do not see elder Zosima prophesying - It is Madame Khokhlakov who determines he has prophesied. I think he is being stern with her because he is the Elder, the spiritual leader and she did come to him as such, and here she is not following the basic precepts of the Church. He holds her feet to the fire in her terms, that as far as she knows her son is alive etc.

    He is carrying out what Paul said to the Corinthians -
    2:9-10 "(God's hidden wisdom)...in the words of Scripture, 'Things beyond our seeing, things beyond our hearing, things beyond our imagining, all prepared by God for those who love him', these it is that God has revealed to us through the Spirit."
    In other words - faith in God in not built on knowing, or imagining, or worrying about what pictures are in your head that could be. Faith is built on trusting in God, believing in the unknown, accepting that what ever is, will be the best for our spiritual growth, and until you know differently your son is alive.

    When elder Zosima's words are confirmed with reality she decides he is a prophet. Father Paissy has his reasons to further this perception. Many of the monks are "anxious in their anticipation." Like our childhood bible story of Thomas, they also want proof or a show that their elder is really this mystical prophet. Now Father Paissy can satisfy the emotional immaturity of those monks, as the bearer of wondrous news he is assuring his place as their elder.


    Now the next bits fell into place for me only because of my associations with bits and pieces in my life that match what has been said in the book.

    First of all in my book the explanation for a Holy Fool is saying Stinking Lizaveta as a harmless village idiot as well as ascetics whose saintliness is expressed as "folly" are examples of holy fools. Mushrooms or what ever, Father Ferqpont is rather removed from reality. His rambling about devils is like a man detached, as if he could be saying anything because words do not matter. Part of the attributes of a Holy fool seems to be they are hermits that are of another mind or world -
    "Of course, his words were absurd, as it were, but the Lord knew what was hidden in those words, and Father Ferapont's words and even his deeds were no stranger than those of other holy fools."
    so much so was he of another world or mind that he may be thought of as mystics or, as those not familiar with church mysticism would say, clairvoyant or a fool for God.

    I would suggest that of course the monk from the northern monastery would be in awe of Father Ferapont's prowess with fasting. His monastery is named for St. Sylvester "who at Grotto Fucile, built his monastery and in this place his penances were most severe, for he lived on raw herbs and water and slept on the bare ground. Disciples flocked to him seeking his direction, and it became necessary to choose a rule."


    Now the adversarial relationship with elder Zosima - several things hit me about all that - remember when we looked up and learned the reason for Orthodoxy was to pursue and protect the truth based in church Canon Law - The development or the belief in Orthodoxy as the only and first interpretation of Christianity Therefore, one that is not coherent is suspect since the early church experienced false profits.

    Another bit, Father Ferapont is afraid of Elijah - I have no idea if Dostoevsky meant the connection but my High School was with the Carmelites - The Carmelites beseeched the Pope in 10 something with their rule and place their association with Elijah who spent his last years as a hermit on Mount Carmel. The Carmelites are a contemplative order, rather then a meditative order. The concept of contemplation is to empty yourself so that God will fill your emptiness rather than meditate on his word for some experience. BUT the Carmelites are not purely of emptiness.

    The way I can best explain is give examples of other comtemplative orders - the Dominicans consider the intellectual as the most important element in contemplation - the Franciscans place greater importance on the senses, on vision, and on seraphic love. Where as the Carmelites takes the middle course: the heart and intellectual contemplation. The Carmelites combine the most elevated intellectual abstractions with sensible images and very tender love.

    (The most well known of the Carmelite mystics are St. Theresa of Avilon and St. John of the Cross who wrote "the Dark Night of the Soul" in 15 something or other.)

    Important is; where the Carmelites see their prayer, fasting and contemplation as preparations for a mystical experience, the understanding is only a few are rewarded with this Divine intercedance. Their spiritual foundation is of humility, and they are filled with admiration for the overflowing Divine Goodness which rewards chosen ones during life.

    Yes, my associations is with the Roman Catholic and not Orthodoxy and yet, because of my experience I can see Dostoevsky's two holy men. To me, elder Zosima may have experienced mysticism but, he is a man of faith. A faith based on the premise of Orthodoxy which is based in Canon Law. Where as Father Ferapont, afraid of Elijah, is saying, he is afraid of intellectual contemplation which is opposed to incoherent rambling, as is his heart centered devotion.

    Jo Meander
    May 17, 2001 - 09:31 am
    So should we consider again the “head” and “heart” dichotomy noted in Dimitri and Ivan, this time with Father Zosima and Father Ferapont? Not that Father Z doesn’t exhibit plenty of heart, but perhaps Dostoevsky is providing us with examples of the variety in the way human beings reach toward God. Maybe the Russian sensibility allows for all of these “fool” types. Personally, I laughed at Father Ferapont and his devil with tail caught in the door! I read that part twice (doing that frequently of late!) and laughed both times. Could such madness be holiness? Would God laugh too, and love anyway? ( Maybe Alyosha telling his father that he’s just “twisted” is one way of saying he is limited, flawed, as all are, but that God can accept him, too.) The goodness, wisdom, insight into the individual spirit that characterize Zosima are one facet of Russian mysticism; the madness of Ferapont is another!? Barbara, you enlighten us again with your description of St. Sylvester’s monastery and the variety of approaches to contemplation in different monastic orders. Could the visiting monk, characterized by our narrator as a nosey, meddlesome type, also need, as so many others do, that sense of wonder Ferapont’s visions provide?

    Joan Pearson
    May 17, 2001 - 10:41 am
    Chains??? Fr. Ferapont is wearing thirty lbs. of chains??? How did I miss that, Hats! I'll have to hand it to him, he is living the ascetic life, depriving himself, wearing the hairshirt, well chains anyway, but all of this for what? There is not one mention of anything spiritual linked to his motives. He is following perscriptions, the strictest guidelines and yet there is no love involved. In fact, he wants nothing to do with the others. Is this one of those people who love mankind, but not the individual? Is he living this life to attain for the sins of mankind?

    Jo, I'd have a hard time ascribing "head" to Ferapont if we get into the heart and the head analogy here. Ferapont seems stand for everything wrong about religion when the commandments become simply a law to follow, without the spirit, without the beatitudes within. I really don't think there is much "head", intellect, rationality involved.

    Now, Zosima on the other hand does represent the heart. In fact, to me he seems to be living the ideal life, as Hats points out...he to me symbolizes Christ...no matter where he gets his advance information from!!!

    I like Fr. Paissy! Now he's real! He's not irrational. He is "head". I think he is what Dostoevesky thinks a priest should be. But I'm not sure he's an elder type. Hats, you ask what is an elder. A while back there was some information that said the elders were a dying breed. That they were not named, elderhood was not an office, but that some men rose to this state, were recognized by others to have superior insight and abilities. Here's a description of an elder who lived some time before, but you'll see Zosima's abilities described in Seraphim's life:


    In the Russian Orthodox church, Startsi are elders from whom younger monks take advice and orders. St. Seraphim of Sarov was the original and most famous Staret. Staret means literally "spiritual teacher." Born on this day July 19, 1759, at Kursk, Russia, he entered the monastery of Sarov when he was nineteen years of age. For 45 years he led the life of a contemplative, first in the monastery and then in an isolated hut. Eight years before his death he opened his cell to visitors so that they might seek his advice.

    It was said he could supply answers before visitors had time to ask their questions. He counseled tough cases of conscience and reportedly worked miracles, healing the sick. Gentle but firm with others, he was very severe with himself. He spent many nights in continual prayer.

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    May 17, 2001 - 10:46 am
    Jo to me the visiting monk is no different then the monks waiting with anticipation - rather than doing the work to create their own connection with their God they prefer to admire (hero worship) those that achieve the intercedance of Divine Goodness and then, by association, they can feel good about thmeselves. Rather than follow their own difficult path they can simply now follow the actions, the behavior, of their "hero." They also have clout in that they can say to others, they have seen these Holy men perform their specialness.

    Joan we are posting at the same time - great we have an Orthodox Church example of an elder. Yep, I agree with you Paissy is all Head. To me he seems to be a bit more political but also sounds like he will be a good Leader as He speaks to Alyosha - it will be interesting to see if he ever becomes an elder though.

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    May 17, 2001 - 11:19 am
    Huh just realized Stinking Lizaveta and Father Ferapont do have in common how the honor their body or rather dishonor. Her giving away her meager basic foods, wearing a rough shift regardless of weather - their difference though, her silence seems more complete and she is not discribed as thinking of herself better than others because of her lifestyle. I wonder if that makes her more of a holy fool where as he seems to be acting with intention. Aha maybe it is the fool part that they have in common since Stinking Lizaveta does not seem to be acting out the "Holy" aspect.

    Joan Pearson
    May 17, 2001 - 11:24 am
    Barbara, I agree, Fr. Paissy does seem political, but at this time, with the struggle between atheism and religion, I think it is political, and that Fr. Paissy's approach, rational approach to Christianity is exactly what is needed. I don't think he's mystical enough to become an elder. But a great spiritual director for Alyosha and for the monastery. He sends him out to the big world with words of warning...that the world is full of those who have renounced Christianity and attack it....but in their inmost being, still follow the Christian ideal, given by Chirst of old.

    And the first person Alexei meets outside of the monastery is his father who tells him that he believes when he dies he will go to sleep and there will be nothing more. No wonder he smiled...he was prepared by Fr. Paissy for this.

    Did I read Fr. Paissy right? Did he say to Alexei, "You are young and the temptations of the world are great and beyond your strength to endure." What a wise, wise man!

    Marvelle...don't be scared! Feel free to wade into any of the lacerations Alexei encounters, armed with the wisdom of Fr. Paissy...up to and including Chapter IV! We're just finding so much to ponder in the first chapter! We are gradually moving out into the wide world of temptation and will cover the next three chapters by the beginning of next week! Whenever in doubt, just look up at the discussion schedule. That will always be up-to-date...at least we're trying to keep it so...

    Why is Pere Karamazov so upset at Ivan? Why does he want his meeting with Alexei secret?

    Hats
    May 17, 2001 - 11:29 am
    Oh, here is more about Father Ferapoint. My translation reads differently, but here it is, "Under his coat, his rough cotton shirt was almost black with dirt since he did not take it off for months at a time. It was open at the neck, leaving his chest bare. It was said that he wore thirty-pound chains under his coat."

    He does not change his clothes! Is that written in the other translations?

    Deems
    May 17, 2001 - 12:24 pm
    Whoever would have thunk that this novel would have provoked so much wonderful discussion, not to mention research and thoughtful commentary?

    I am IMPRESSED with you all!!

    As to the term "holy fool," I think we have to remember that we are dealing with a society steeped in and permeated by religious thinking. Not only saints and holy men and women were thought of as "holy." For a long period, people that we would now say were retarded, or developmentally disabled, were called "holy" fools as well.

    Lizavetta is a good example of such a person. She cannot SPEAK. She wears practically nothing. She lives on handouts and what she can find. She lacks all powers of reason. She is definitely retarded. She has been "touched by God" though not in a way one would want one's child or one's self to be touched.

    I think Lizavetta's mute condition is extremely interesting because she cannot NAME the father of her child. I think she does all she can to name F. Karamazov as the father when she goes to have her child in one of his outbuildings.

    Maryal

    FaithP
    May 17, 2001 - 03:36 pm
    Alexey you are so naive! so here he is on his way to meddle again having just left the terrible "laceration" in the drawing room he is off to find trouble in the cottage. Maybe Alexey too is a masochist just a little eh? This cottage scene is troubling to me, so much misery in one room. The daughters at least try to stop the ex Captain Snegiryov from his atrocious behavior.Of course he has been insulted, has no fight in him, and is warned he will lose his work with Grushenka and FK if he tries to fight back after Dmitri insults him.The son is morbidly effected .

    Quote the captain re his son "An ordinary boy, a weak son, would have submitted, have felt ashamed of his father, sir, but he stood up for his father against them all. For his father and for truth and justice. For what he suffered when he kissed your brother's hand and cried to him 'Forgive father, forgive him,'- that only God knows- and I, his father. For our children- not your children, but ours- the children of the poor gentlemen looked down upon by everyone- know what justice means, sir, even at nine years old. How should the rich know? They don't explore such depths once in their lives. But at that moment in the square when he kissed his hand, at that moment my Ilusha had grasped all that justice means. That truth entered into him and crushed him for ever, sir," the captain said hotly again with a sort of frenzy, and he struck his right fist against his left palm as though he wanted to show how "the truth" crushed Ilusha. " Now that is a LARCERATION.

    Dmitri was so wrong to offer a dual to this man, and everyone who has come to him,Snegiryov to help right the offense has made it worse including Grushenka. He really is beyond help but obviously not beyond shame as that is why he wont take Katya's money from Alexy sheer shame in front of his son Ulusha. Ulusha the child fighting everyone for a morsel of dignity.

    Russia too needed dignity in the streets of Europe.Perhaps there were many in Russia that needed justice too.

    Henry Misbach
    May 17, 2001 - 07:24 pm
    Yes, Joan, chains. And they're not for his car in the Russian winter. Welcome to Medieval Russia in the 19th century.

    Fr. Zossima assures Alyosha that he will stay alive until he returns. This looks like the kind of long term medical case that is consistent with his doing so. Paissy really doesn't say much inconsistent with what the monastery would hope of its graduates, out in the real world. He reminds Alyosha that, with all of science's impact on Christianity, nobody has come up with a better idea. Watch out, he says, for the atheists, but don't worry overmuch about them.

    One little vignette at Fyodor's house is certainly a little unusual for members of one's family. If I get this correctly, he asks Alyosha to put his brother Ivan, whom Fyodor considers his main competition for the hand of Grushenka, on what used to be called impolitely in an impolite business a "would-ja take." If Dad just gave you a thousand, or maybe two (some range!), would-ja take it and hit the road? Of course Fyodor does not want Ivan to know that this query comes from him. He figures Ivan will be straight with Alyosha, but not with their Pop.

    Whatever the other monks expect, Alyosha plans to leave the monastery, complete his education, and marry Lise when she comes of age. He says, almost matter-of-factly that Fr. Zossima has said that he must marry.

    FaithP
    May 17, 2001 - 08:08 pm
    Here is a url for a page of links some look extremely interesting but written in Russian!! The link takes you to the home page though and there are pictures of Russian authors Dostoevsky and many others. I noticed the resemblence of Dos to the peasants in the pictures Joan had the link to a week or so ago. http://www.brandeis.edu/departments/ecs/recs130a/recs130a.html#Dostoevskii

    Jo Meander
    May 17, 2001 - 09:18 pm
    Joan, I wqould never say that Ferapont represents "head"-- he's mad as a hatter! I meant that he may represent the more emotional side of Russian religiosity, in a deranged sort of way. The monk from St Sylvester's is drawn to his extreme behavior, his "visions," perhaps because they are more exciting to him than the calm humility of Zosima. Zosima,with all the love he exhibits toward his followers, is still the rational one.

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    May 18, 2001 - 02:19 am
    Wasn't it Buckminister Fuller who desided to die three hours after the death of his wife back in 1983. Seems to me there are many through out history that have been so clear they can create their death with Bucky Fuller being one of the last that I know of that has accomplished this experience. I understand he simply stayed at the bedside of his dead wife saying he planned to die and then died. And so it may not be such a feat of magic for elder Zosima to know when he will die.

    Hats
    May 18, 2001 - 05:25 am
    Father K. tells Alyosha that Ivan is different from the rest of the family. Father K. says Ivan has no love for anyone. "Ivan doesn't love anyone, though; Ivan is not like us. He's different..." Well, I am wondering what gives Father K. the right to say this about any of his boys. Has he, as a father, shown any love? I don't think so.

    It still amazes me. After Dmitry nearly beats him to death, he still can endure Dmitry more than Ivan. Hmmmm. Perhaps, I am not seeing Ivan clearly. His father paints him as a greedy, cold and unintelligent person. Ivan's personality confuses me.

    Henry Misbach
    May 18, 2001 - 08:33 am
    Hats, if I may say so, Fyodor could be on target with cold about Ivan, if you see him from a very traditional perspective. Greedy may also be true of him. But unintelligent? Here, we seem to have an attribute that Fyodor hopes is true of him, the better to beat him out for Grushenka. Let's see what happens, but I think you'll see this later as Fyodor's wishful thinking.

    Hats
    May 18, 2001 - 09:06 am
    Hi Henry,

    I agree with you. It will be interesting to find out more about Ivan. I become cautious in my thinking when Father K speaks.

    FaithP
    May 18, 2001 - 02:18 pm
    When considering Father Ferapont and then Elder Zosima I was reminded of something I had read and went searching again and here it is. It may help others too.Source is at the bottom of the Quote. Faith

    "Although Dostoevsky's Christian socialism contained a revolutionary message, its ideological distance from Belinsky's [a contemporary critic of his time] subversive atheism was clear from the very beginning. Especially repugnant to him must have been Belinsky's belief that human beings are not responsible for their evil desires but are simply forced to do eveil by an unjust society. In "The Grand Inquisitor" Dostoevsky returns to this idea- that there is no crime and no sin, only hunger and the hungry."

    Annodate in the book I took the quote from Unknown commentator: So I would infer from this bit, and from the way he dealt with the two works I recently finished, that Dostoevsky presents his own worldview through the perspective of its opponents, who usually come around to his side in the end, by enduring or overcoming some great hardship or suffering. That is a definite theme of his. Does that help you? Here's one more to the point, and I think it is of service:

    "our frequent difficulty in arriving at clear, unambiguous conclusions is due to the fact that Dostoevsky was from many points of view himself a doubter. He was certainly a Christian writer, but his Christianity was far from conflict-free. "His faith is moving, full of doubt, uncertain, and ardent," wrote Albert Camus. Dostoevsky was a god-seeker who struggled wit his doubt. This aspect of his character set its mark upon the type of novel he created. ... Dostoevsky ranges against opinions that are both his own and not his own. It is by letting contradictory voices and opinions fully unfold that he could approach his vision of the truth underline is fp's>The obscurities and self-contradictions that occur in the dialogic struggle that takes place in Dostoevsky's novels also have deep roots in his view if writing itself. He disagreed in the notion that everything in a work of art must be easily comprehended and pleasantly obviously at whatever price. An author must have the right to keep certain things concealed in the mystical and obscure. "Let the readers do some of the work themselves", he would say, defending his right to produce books that were difficult and intricate.

    Dostoevsky offers no conclusive answers to the questions he poses...partly becasue he could not give conclusive answers, and partly becasue it thought it up to his readers to draw their own conclusions. Those who go searching Dostoevsky's novels to find the solutions to life's problems will be quickly disappointed. Dost. writes for those rather who are interested in knowning who things are worth thinking about. This is possibly why his books possess such vital energy. Answers and solutions go quickly out of date, while the most importantquestions about man's existence always preserve their actuality."

    -Gier Kjetsaa, (p. 55, 337) "F. Dost: A Writer's Life"

    Joan Pearson
    May 18, 2001 - 02:20 pm
    Hats, I am wondering more at Fyodor's ambivalence, no hositility towards Ivan than about Ivan himself! We haven't really had a good look at Ivan yet. But what's going on with Fyodor? First he forgets that Ivan is Alyosha's brother. Now he's secretly telling Aly, "I don't recognize him. Where did he come from? He's not one of us...in soul." What is this all about.

    Henry, you think he's trying to get Grushenka? Surely not for himself. Ivan doesn't want Grushenka. He wants Katerina. But in a way, Fyodor believes Ivan wants to get Grushenka away from him...and if Ivan succeeds in taking Dmitri's fiance, Katerina, then Dmitri will turn to Grushenka and Fyodor will lose her. So we are back to GREED. Fyodor suspects that Ivan wants his money and if F. were to marry Grushenka, then Ivan would be out of his inheritance. Do you believe that is Ivan's motive? Greed? Fyodor seems to. He even asks Alyosha if he thinks Ivan has come home to kill him!

    Fai, I havent read the cottage laceration yet, but will save your post till we all catch up with you next week, I promise. That is a wonderful site you posted...am putting it up in the heading today.

    Maryal, you said something about Lizaveta yesterday...and I had a thought about that...she may have chosen Fyodor's outbuilding to birth her son, because of all the men she's met, he is the only one who saw her as a human being, not an animal. And where else could she have gone. One of the suspects is an ex-con who's been roaming the neighborhood...where else???

    I find Dostoevsky at his best when he puts forth the big dramatic human scenes...I loved watching Lise turn into a strong woman from the tittering schoolgirl once she barged through the door. What's funny is watching her hiding as a schoolgirl behind the "crack in the door"...and when she's out, she's a WOMAN! I wonder what was Dostoevesky's motive or inspiration for writing this book. Was it to entertain with a big powerful dramatic scene...or to write a political or religious treatise with as much human interest as he could muster to get his point across. Or both. Whatever his intent, he has produced a fascinating story on several different levels, hasn't he?

    ps. Don't you love the coincidences? Alyosha makes his way to Mme. Khohlakov's house and Katerina is there! Of course, this must be the reason she has sent for him...but weren't we led to believe it was for different reasons? Not only is Katerina in the house...but so is Ivan!!! Madame knows all about the new miracle, and also about the tensions among Ivan, Katerina and Dmitri.

    But this dramatic meeting is NOT what makes this scene...this one is all about Lise and ALYOSHA. I wasn't at all prepared for Alyoahsa's response to her, were you?

    Joan Pearson
    May 18, 2001 - 02:27 pm
    Fai, we were posting together. That is a wonderful site. I think that we find ourselves now trying to figure out Dostoevsky's message and he would say, "Let the readers do some of the work themselves", offering no conclusive answers to the questions he poses...partly because he could not give conclusive answers, and partly because he thought it up to his readers to draw their own conclusions.

    Yes, this helps! I think we are all beginning to understand that the value of this work is the way it makes us stop and examine our own lives and attitudes. Wavering between the ideal and the human...

    Thanks!

    Nellie Vrolyk
    May 18, 2001 - 02:32 pm
    Isn't it Dmitri who wants to marry Grushenka and hence is in competition with Fyodor? I think Ivan wants Katerina but she wants Dmitri.

    Fyodor K does not know how to relate to Alyosha and I think that is why he speaks in such a hostile tone of voice; what he is saying to Alyosha is not necessarily of a hostile nature -at least not hostile towards Alyosha.

    Fyodor feels hatred towards his oldest son Dmitri. He wants to squash him like a bug. He wanted to have Dmitri put in jail for assaulting him, but decides not to do so for it means that Dmitri will win Grushenka.

    For some reason I have not yet figured out, Fyodor fears Ivan. He says of Ivan, "He is not one of us in soul." and "Ivan loves nobody." Are those the reasons he fears Ivan? If I were Fyodor I would fear Dmitri more than Ivan because Dmitri has threatened to kill him and has violently kicked him in the face.

    But Fyodor neither fears nor hates Alyosha. But he doesn't want to love Alyosha, I think, because that would make him (Fyodor) feel somehow beholden to him. Maybe Fyodor feel or fears that expressing love for Alyosha will mean that he will have to give him some of his precious money -in his Will, if not earlier.

    Old Fyodor K is a miser through and through; he looks through accounts for amusement, and is gathering money so that he will be able to buy the favours of women when he is old and ugly.

    I like that red handkerchief that Fyodor K wears around his forehead as a bandage. From a distance it must make his head look all bloody and make it look like he is more wounded than he is. That would certainly play on people's sympathies, wouldn't it?

    The kiss on the shoulder -maybe that is a mistranslation? (on page 208 in my book)-seems to mean to Fyodor that Alyosha doesn't expect to see him anymore. The shoulder seems like such an odd place for a kiss imo.

    FaithP
    May 18, 2001 - 02:39 pm
    Ah Joan I was very facsinated by Alexie's proposal (which he felt was dictated to him by Zosima,) to Katerina Osipovna Khokhlakov...Liza anyway. I remember when I was reading htis in the 70's that I had a translation that insisted on using her full name and also using Katya's full name. Katerina Ivanovana, so in this translation it is easier to follow which one we are reading about. I remember turning to the list of characters in the front of the book over and over again. Wouldn't it be nice to just remember how you felt the very first time you read a book like this. I sincerly wish I did but I can just remember it was a struggle then as it is now.(for Me)

    I pulled up the quote re Dos and his view of Christrianity, also his writing using doubles or contraries, from one of the more obscure links in the main site. .Dolores had read a Dos Biography and that is what I was looking for and I dont know if this is the same one she read or not. But in the Oates thesis she makes much of the doubles in Dos's writing and I am trying mightly to understand it. Faith

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    May 19, 2001 - 01:25 am
    I am so excited - I really think I’ve worded out some stuff - Reading along chapters two through seven and it all is beginning to sound like an improbable soap opera - as I am reading chapter FIVE, “Strain in the Drawing Room” a couple of things hit me all at once -

    Madame Kholkhlakov seems to be the one moving the characters along as compared to Alyosha’s visit to his father in chapter two. In chapter TWO, we’ve been there, done that, said that with maybe a little twist that he could ‘use’ the law to put Ivan away -

    Alyosha comes and goes, a head is re-bandaged, a couple of drinks, a kiss on the shoulder, no real movement in feelings or activity. Where as where ever Madame Kholkhlakov is, there is no bogging down in activity or repetitive thematic dialogue.


    And then in chapter FIVE I start to get this mind picture of Katerina in flowing robes, sitting straight holding an upright staff in front of her. That was when I thought, what is this all about.

    Katerina seems like this grand - aha, yes, Mother Russia - Well how could that be - she is a young women and then wait a minute the flood gates opened. Yes Mother Russia - she is free - free to give - she is proud and is resolved in her excesses. “... a character like Katerina Ivanovna must rule.” “She could rule over a man like Dmitri,” the heart of Russia “but by no means over a man like Ivan.” The head or intellectuals of Russia because “Ivan could not submit to...” Mother Russia.


    Alyosha loves them both “He could not love passively, once he loved, he immediately also began to help...one had to know firmly what was good and needful for each of them, and becoming firmly convinced of the correctness of the goal...”

    Ah so the spiritual center of Russia had to know if the intellectuals or the heartfelt ones were correct and Mother Russia asks the ‘Church’ “whether I am right or not.” The Churches, “approval...will bring me peace.”

    Then back to The schoolboy biting Alyosha - what finger did he bite - if you have ever been given the bird you know middle finger is a phallic symbol - Was the child, a poor beleaguered child, allowing us to see the indecisiveness of the Church was like a castrated church in its relationship to the poor, the masses. A Church not championing justice for the poor.


    Madame Khokhlakov, what is she representing - she had a house in Moscow, an estate in the country and this old house in town that she loves the most. Re-read that Katerina is the second daughter of a second wife and lives with two elder aunts - hmmm a triad - hmmm the two aunts and Madame Khokhlakov are all moneyed and older, they are three. Where does Lise fit in to all this - she makes four.

    Out comes my copy of “An Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Traditional Symbols.” Of the many associations for the number
    three are; Creative, power, movement and of all things, Weird sisters.
    Hmmm now I am getting a flash of Botticelli’s Primavera - but aren’t there nine nymphs - but the painting depicts them in three groups of three.

    Down comes my copy of, “Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology.” Wait not nymphs but Fates, the daughter’s of the night. The women are always indoors. Alyosha visits Katerina while Grushenka is visiting and it is night. Yes, look how often black is repeated.
    nightprecosmogenic, the 'Mother of the Gods,' maternal, feminine power.

    Of the three Fates we have
    one for ‘luck’
    one for ‘fate’ and
    one is ‘the thread of life.’
    Yes, Madame Khokhlakov is surely “the thread of life.” But what about Lise - look up number four
    four - total, solid, earth, order, body versus soul (which is 3), justice, chief arch-angles.
    Back to Larousse - there it is
    Nemesis, born of night, the first moral idea, seeing that order is maintained, often depicted with a finger to her lip??
    Aha whose finger, could we have Alyosha’s finger do the job of quieting the divine anger of Nemesis. But our Lise is crippled. What is that saying about the future union of the Church with a crippled moral idea, a crippled sense of order.

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    May 19, 2001 - 01:55 am
    I’m now noticing a lot of repetition of certain words and numbers are being tossed into the story. Three windows with four panes shutting out the world or shutting in the occupants?
    Six boys -
    Six: harmony, senses, union of polarity.


    Then we have Arina Petrovna calling Alyosha “Mr. Chernomazov,” which my books says is Alyosha’s surname meaning Black in Russian. In Turkish and Tartar it also means Black and the root maz in Russian conveys the idea of “paint” or “smear.”

    The child has black eyes and his age is nine.
    Black: void, hidden, destroyer of time, secret aspect of knowledge

    Nine: completion, attainment of God, nine muses.

    A black horse is
    funerary, heralds death and symbolizes chaos. The days of chaos between the old and new year.

    The repeated and repeated word sword.
    Sword: discrimination, courage, the penetrating power of the intellect, spiritual decision, the higher form of knighthood, it divides the body and soul. The sword of Damocles represents danger in the midst of seeming prosperity, retribution. WOW!

    “A Russian boy is born with a horse.”
    Horse: life and death symbol, intellect, wisdom, nobility, dynamic power, the swiftness of thought, a sacrificial animal in Siberia and the Altai.


    His sisters, like Lise, one is crippled. Three ladies, hmmm Vestil Virgins? Are they in the Bible, something to do with oil lamps. Oh here they are Vestal Virgins. At first there were two, then later four and finally six. If they let the sacred fire go out or broke their vow of chastity they were walled up alive with a few possessions.

    Walled up within crippled, feebleminded and hunchbacked bodies.

    But one is too smart, “a student, longing to go back to Petersburg and search for the rights of the Russian woman...” Varvara Nikolaevna, the goddess Vesta bright and pure like the flame, which is Vesta’s symbol. The goddess of nourishing fire who presided over the preparation of meals as does Dostoevsky’s Varya.

    The number one: the beginning, Creator, first mover, isolation, germinal, uprising. Yes our isolated, germinal Varvara Nikolaevna.

    “...Whiskbroom does not sell his honor, sir!...five steps...five more steps”

    Five: pentagon, whole, perfection, central creator of the four great forces, spiritual aspirations, man after the fall of Adam, wounds of Christ.

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    May 19, 2001 - 03:13 am
    OK but how does Grushenka fit into all this - back I go and read everything describing her - The exotic silk mantilla and purple raisins served by Katerina, a tale as strange as the Arabian nights - maybe the east? - - - She also wears black, a "Black silk dress," her features are being described less European, she is described as stong and abundant - but wait, a photo in an old Smithsonian Magazine of a painting of an 1883 Boyar wedding shows the women wearing mantillas.

    She is so close to Mother Russia, what does she symbolize - she is sly and merciless, likes money, was in alliance with an older gent, her protector and Foydor is taken with her. Hmmm old Russia -

    Her love for a young officer is really spurned when he married and now widowed is coming back for her. As fickle in his commitments as she, it appears. She charmed Dmitri, the heart of Russia just to laugh at him. And yet, Dmitri is so taken with her he is willing to be her yardman if she doesn’t marry him. Could not get a handle on her - what is this union that Mother Russia wants with Grushenka.

    OK folks this is great - this makes the book come alive for me - First thing I look up her name in my old Britannica Dictionary with notta - and so the internet --- YES!

    Grushanka - round leaved Wintergreen found in the Pine forests of Yaroslavl. Not Yugoslavia but Yaroslavl - where in the world is Yaroslavl - BINGO - HURRAH - YIPPIE I AY - found the connection -

    great Map showing Yaroslvl as a major crossroads and located between Moscow and St. Petersburg.

    The heartland of European Russia Yaroslavl region is situated in the center of the European part of Russia, in the basin of the river Volga.

    The Yaroslavl region is rich in woods and bushes spread over the banks of 2500 great and small rivers. Forest is not only the source of timber and other raw materials. It is a home for animals, birds, it is a place of growing berries and mushrooms, for charming glades and murmuring streamlets. The fresh air in pine forests and smell of leaf-bearing woods are incomparable. Striking whiteness of birchwoods and coral bunches of ashberries are the features of forests.
    Grushenka must symbolize the center, the crossroads of Rural Russia.


    I am picturing country villas and farms with abundant crops and stong peasants (that we learned are the descendants of the Tartars) the likes of which we find in Ivan Turgenev's Fathers & Sons. Where twenty years before Dostoevsky wrote The Brothers... Turgenev on page 1, described a Rural Villa as on "a fine property of two hundred souls, or, as he expressed it -- since he had arranged the division of his land with the peasants, and started a "farm" -- of nearly five thousand acres."

    Mother Russia with the intellectuals loving her and she loving the heart of Russia, while seeking approvel from the Church for her sacrifice, emanates from Moscow and can only become the new Icon of noble honor in tandem with Rural Russia.



    The forests are a favorite place of having a rest for Yaroslavl townsmen. Yaroslavl stands guard over its monuments and art valuables. Restorers keep old buildings in good condition, new buildings are erected only according to designs specially worked out particular case.

    Masterpieces of ancient Russian architecture, (the city including the Governor’s Palace, the magnificent 13th-century Spassky Monastery ensemble, a group of majestic 17th century cathedrals, as well the Church of Elijah the Prophet, an architectural treasure situated in the town's central square) and modern industry with its high-level technology, unique historic heritage and valuable scientific and industrial potential, A Center of Learning, offering classes in Russian to English speaking students

    In the beginning of the 13th century, the town became the capital of the independent Rostov (Rostov enamel is a real pearl of Yaroslavl traditional handicraft art, though the region is famous for the production of linen, exported to Europe years ago, for embroidery and icon painting, for issue of jewelry, wooden and clay articles) and Suzdal principality, one of Russia’s oldest cities (loads slow but really worth it) and soon after, like the other towns in Northeast Russia, it was invaded by the Tatar and Mongol hordes.

    Yaroslavl, since the 11th century protected the trade route along the Volga and Kostroma, where the young Michael Romanov was told that he had been chosen to ascend the Russian throne in 1613, whilst staying at the Ipatiev Monastery.

    Jo Meander
    May 19, 2001 - 07:14 am
    Thanks, Faith, for #854. The quotations from essay on Dostoevsky as an ardent doubter, an ambivalent thinker who presents all viewpooints and allows the reader to think for himself. It makes me more comfortable with my own reactions. And thank you, Barbara for all the stuff on Grushenka and Yaroslav. Your recent posts containing the idea of Katerina as Mother Russia are interesting: Katerina can control the "heart" but not the "head," accounting for her need to love Dimitri rather than Ivan. And then all the Grushenka stuff! somehow I see her already as an earth figure, a being easily associated with woodlands, a connection with a fecund environment, something beyond the sly, manipulative creature we saw at Mme. Khohlakov's residence.
    I clicked into the Church of Elijah the Prophet and saw some great pictures!

    Jo Meander
    May 19, 2001 - 07:23 am
    Joan, I think it was you or Barbarawho said that Mme.Khohlakov is a prime mover of events. So true! And funny in a way, as Dos. depicts her as a rather "hysterical female" (quotes on chauvanistic phrase mine), emotional, nervous, almost silly, but she seems to see all and understand what is going on in the minds and herats of others. When Lise is all upset about Alyosha, she implores her not to scream, or asks who is screaming, then decides it is herself!

    Joan Pearson
    May 19, 2001 - 08:30 am
    Mme Khohlakov is really in the center of things, isn't she, Jo? Not only is she privy to the monastery politics, the new miracle, but here are Alyosha, Katerina, and Ivan all assembled in her house! She reminds me in many ways of the omniscient narrator, does she you?

    Since she is so well known at the monastery and to Zosima, it shouldn't be a surprise that Lise would be hand-picked to become Alyosha's wife. "Katerina Osipovna Khokhlakov", that's Lise's name, Faith? I missed that! How does she get "Lise" from that? Yes, wouldn't it be wonderful to recapture first responses to books? Some I can...most I remember so little of the plot, let alone my own response! I think it's the ones I read over and over that I remember.

    Lise is SOOO young! And silly! I was blown away when Alyosha announces so matter-of-factly that he will marry her. What was her reaction to this? Why is is always hiding behind the door. Waiting? Waiting until it is her turn to enter the stage of his life? From the giggling teen-ager, she comes across as Alyosha's wife...or even mother when she takes over the bandaging scene, doesn't she? Does there have to be bloodshed...will that be the link between Alyosha and Lise...

    Nellie, yes, I wondered about that strange kiss Aloysha put on his father's shoulder. Could it be such a simple thing as wanting to avoid kissing his bruised face? hahaha...what a character! Arranging the red kerchief "in a more becoming angle"...thinking red was better than hospital white...somehow the red with those purple bruises made him appear more threatening...formidable!

    The kiss surprised Fyodor too..."What did you do that for", he asks. "We'll still see each other. Or do you think we won't?"

    Barbara, didn't you detect a change in Fyodor toward Alyosha ...when he entered, his father was outright hostile towards him...won't even offer him coffee...tells him he came to see him for nothing. But after that kiss, he seems eager for him to return...tomorrow and he'll make him a special fish soup!

    You have come up with some information that only YOU could find. I find the meaning of Grushenka's name and place where this poplar tree grows...that was real detective work!!! Only YOU! I'm going to spend some time now looking through the information you have provided. Thanks YOU! This is so exciting!

    I'm looking for Lady C...your suggestion that Zosima might read the monks's mail they were unable to do so...makes me wonder who will read that when he's gone. Hope it's Fr. Paissy and not Fr. Ferapont! The text wasn't clear if Zozima reads all the mail, or just those for whom he serves as mentor/elder....like Alyosha.

    I find it interesting that he can promise Alyosha that he will save his last words for him...and then sends him off the grounds. Alyosha is telling everyone that he has to get back because the elder is going to die today...

    Somehow, I am skeptical...and don't believe that Alyosha will get back in time...

    Jo Meander
    May 19, 2001 - 10:35 am
    Don't know if he will get back in time, but remember how Zosima reacted to Lise, with kindness, compassion for her feelings, humor,and later, his words to Alyosha about going out into the world, even getting married? Considering how Alyosha reveres Z., maybe we shouldn't be too surprised at his sudden plan to marry Lise. She acts like a schoolgirl with a crush up until the moment she discovers Alyosha's injury, and then she takes care of him. Suddenly she is assertive, even confident, less silly than Mme. K. who seems to be utterly flustered. But she's not, either.

    FaithP
    May 19, 2001 - 11:03 am
    I could still be mixed up about the names couldnt I? I am goin' on a trip back into another translation I think, and see what I find.

    The littly essay Barbara put up is fantastic. I follow it very well but you could give me her library and I couldnt do what she does. It takes a cerain kind of mind to follow the train of mythical Ideas and symbols that she does and she does it in such an excellent way even I can follow her

    Yes indeed Md.Khokhlakov at age 33 seems both ageless, old, while she retains the hysteria of youth. She presents a double all in herself to me. And she does know everything that is going on. I was surprised at her resistantance to Liza's impending engagement to Alexei. I think she feels that since Liza is crippled it would inevitably hurt her this engagement, and she is just being protective since she sincerly loves Aloysha.

    Jo yes, I see the need for each individual to "do the work" of understanding this novel and each of us will do it from their own level of interest. Political, Religious, Human Folly, Sin and Redemtion, Philosophy, and the basic Hero's Tale all stories are in the end, which is kind of what I am looking for, under all the prose and pose of Dos's writing. Faith

    Deems
    May 19, 2001 - 11:56 am
    Following up on a number of recent posts: Dostoevsky is a great Dramatic novelist, that is he presents many different characters who have sometimes violently opposing ideas and philosophies. He puts them side by side, in conversation or conflict with each other, and lets us listen to them. The scenes in this novel are very much like the scenes in a play.

    Somewhere many posts ago, I compared Dostoevsky to Shakespeare. This is not an original idea. Many have compared the two writers. Obviously, Shakespeare was a dramatist and Dostoevsky a novelist, and there is a huge difference between the two genre. BUT both writers give us characters who represent a spectrum of behaviors. All characters, at least the major ones, are given their time to speak.

    At the end we are left with questions.

    Let's think about Hamlet for a minute. You can read and see that play a dozen times and still be left with questions.

    Why does Hamlet not kill Claudius sooner? Is the ghost a real being or a presence empowered by Hamlet's own grief? What does Hamlet really feel about his mother? Why does Hamlet treat the young and fair Ophelia so badly? Did Gertrude know that Claudius killed her former husband, Hamlet's father? Were Gertrude and Claudius having an affair before Claudius killed the king? There are dozens more legitimate questions.

    And, worse still, what is Hamlet really about? Give me ten different thoughtful readers, and there will be ten different answers.

    Maryal

    Joan Pearson
    May 19, 2001 - 12:49 pm
    hahaha...Faith! When I read Barb's interpretations of the symbolism of the numbers, colors ~ wonder if Dostovesky even understood the meaning behind the red scarves, the middle finger, the boy's age! What would we do without our Barbara! I'm sure Dos. would have been fascinated to talk to her!

    We've been talking a lot ab0ut the politics, western influences, the conflicts swirling around in Dostoevsky's Russia... Especially the struggles within the Church as Socialist atheism threatens the Orthodox Church. But you know, I never thought much about the influence of Western Catholicism and its impact, if any on the Orthodox east. Until yesterday, when I read two different articles in two different papers...and find myself attaching the image of this benevolent Pope and the resisting Orthodox Church. It reminds me somehow of what is going on between Zosima and Ferapont on several levels. I'd be interested to hear what you think?

    #1~ Russian Orthodox Express Anger at Pope's June Visit to the Ukraine

    Moscow. About 1000 people marched down Moscow's main street to the Kremlin to protest Pope John Paul's planned June visit to the Ukraine

    The May 12 demonstration, approved by the Russian Orthodox Church, marked a rare cooperative effort between the country's largest faith and a mainstream political party, the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia.

    United by a common threat`the rebirth of the Catholic Church on historically Orthodox territory - conservative Orthodox clergy, Cossack and lay people marched alongsdie ultranationist politician, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who has expressed concern over the expansion of Catholicism in Russia.

    Stoked by months of public complaining by Russian Orthodox leaders about the pope's visit, the demonstrators' anger was focused on the Catholic Church, an institution some said was a political tool of Western governments bent on fomenting unrest in the former Soviet Union.

    #2~Lech Walesa Credits Pope for Communism's Downfall
    Kansas City, Mo. Walesa, the shipyard electrician who formed the first noncommunist labor union in the Soviet bloc in 1980 and was elected the first postcommunist president of Poland in 1990, met with reporterers in Kansas City at a press conference on May 4.

    When asked to comment on the pope's contribution to the eventual defeat of Communism, Walesa called the pope the 'gift of divine providence'. The pope initiated 'all the processes that you have heard about` against all odds. The second millennium of Christianty was immenent, the pope the divine instrument.

    If one were to apportion credit for the downfall of communism, more than half of it would have to go to the pope with the remainder divided between eth Solidarity movement in Poland and various world leaders..."


    What do you think was going on between Western Catholicism and the Orthodox Church in the mid 19th century?

    Joan Pearson
    May 19, 2001 - 12:59 pm
    Maryal, thanks for that! I'm sitting here typing this in the Folger Shakespeare Library and can FEEL what you are saying! We are in production of As You Like It at the moment (excellent reviews...did you read the one in today's Washington Post?) and while this comedy is not one of big sweeping drama, Shakespeare has that power to include the playgoer's own response to the situation...and you're so right...as many individuals there are who witness the play, the variety of experience and response to the work!

    I must say I am really enjoying Brothers K on the human, the psychological level ALONE, but knowing of the tensions in the air only heightens the whole experience! Do you think Dos. meant simply to entertain, or was he trying to make a political statement too?

    FaithP
    May 19, 2001 - 05:22 pm
    Joan I am certain Dos would have been fascinated by Barbara...as we are.

    Maryal what a good way to describe the "Double" the Contrary, without going into a long lecture you bring right forward the method of creating the questions we are trying to answer. And as has been said Dos (and other great authors) is not trying to answer all the questions the "story" creates in our minds, he is trying to write an entertaining novel that will sell enough copies to buy the daily bread, make them a name in literary circles too, and hopefully instuct and educate the public a little in the philosophy the author may espouse.

    As I get into the book and read for the excitment of finding out what happens next I know I am the way Dos would like a reader to be. "I can't put the book down" is what is happening as the story unfolds. Now I must get back and settle in my mind this question of Zosima and when he is finally going to die and will Alexie get back there?? Read on...fp

    Deems
    May 19, 2001 - 08:32 pm
    Faith--Me too, just want to keep reading and find out about Zosima and what will Alyosha do after he dies. And then there are all the twists and turns in the plot.

    I'm also really interested in the little boy who keeps defending his father even though 6 of his schoolmates are beating him up and tormenting him. And then he BITES Alyosha.

    Anyway, I love this novel. It has a strong narrative drive whatever else it has going for it.

    Maryal

    Lady C
    May 20, 2001 - 08:44 am
    Re Alyosha kissing his father on the shoulder: I read about this ages ago, and if I remember correctly it's a symbol of submission, such as that of a vassal to a leader. But here the father says they will meet again, wont they? And this implies that it is a kiss of farewell, which it may turn out to be.

    As far as Alyosha consenting to marry Lise; he has known her since childhood, loved her as a child, knows her quirks and foibles and as he has been told to marry, probably feels he may as well marry her as a stranger. She seems wiser in an emergendy than her mother and is probably so. I think she has greater sense of purpose tnan her parent. Lise attempts to direct her own future with her letter to Alyosha, then like any teenager regrets putting her feelings on the line, because she doesn't know if her likes her too. She listens at doors to get information which would not be available to a child.

    Madame Holahkov doesn't have the depth and breadth of the narrator, and makes me crazy fluctuating between accurate intuition and insight, and her tendency to go into hysterics out of the blue.

    I loved the questions about Hamlet, most of which I had pondered over through many readings and viewings, and have answered most of them for myself. They are the kinds of questions--not those, but more applicable ones--that tease the mind in BK.

    Henry Misbach
    May 20, 2001 - 03:58 pm
    I've already commented on my father's avid readership of Dostoevsky. Some years after his premature accidental death, I met his principal mentor during his graduate school years in the '20's at Northwestern. He was very much like my father in his speech cadence and mannerisms, to a remarkable degree. Now, his favorite literary source for psychological discussion was Shakespeare. That certainly authenticates for me, if I had any doubt, that the two minds are indeed similar in what they tell us about human nature, if not in their specific approach.

    We are led through these chapters labeled "lacerations" through extraordinarily explosive emotions, that leaves everyone involved "lacerated." Poor Lisa. She is really just a little girl, and some noble who is also a monk just pops the question out of the blue. It isn't fair of us to expect rationality from her. Poor Katerina. Little rich lady has more suitors than she can control, and control them is what she is all about. She cannot help but cry out in pain when Alyosha crudely points out that she is playing Ivan and Dmitri against each other. But she immediately gets her revenge on poor Alyosha, whom she gives an insulting sum to try to remedy her boy friend's ill-mannered slight of the ex-captain. She has a pretty good idea that he'll throw the money back in Alyosha's face. And I'll bet Madame H. wishes she'd spent the weekend at her house in Moscow!

    It's hard to pick a winner. Ivan gets to tell Kat. to her face that her relationship with Dmitri is self-defeating for them both. It does cost him an offer to get out of town, but that seems prudent anyway. Everyone else seems to "lock on" to a course of personal action that will probably lead to destruction of self and others.

    FaithP
    May 20, 2001 - 04:51 pm
    This is the essay on The Holy Fool . I have scrolled down the contents to read specific things but now I am going to read it more. The Electronic book is fabulous. Faith

    FaithP
    May 20, 2001 - 04:57 pm
    Derek Krueger Symeon the Holy Fool Leontius's Life and the Late Antique City The Transformation of the Classical Heritage, XXV

    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Publication Date: January 1996

    Subjects: Religion; Literature; Christianity; Classics; Classical Religions Rights: World Clothbound: $45.00 0-520-08911-1 £29.95





    Read this book online: This and other titles are available as electronic editions.

    This first English translation of Leontius of Neapolis's Life of Symeon the Fool brings to life one of the most colorful of early Christian saints. In this study of a major hagiographer at work, Krueger fleshes out a broad picture of the religious, intellectual, and social environment in which the Life was created and opens a window onto the Christian religious imagination at the end of Late Antiquity. He explores the concept of holy folly by relating Symeon's life to the gospels, to earlier hagiography, and to anecdotes about Diogenes the Cynic.

    The Life is one of the strangest works of the Late Antique hagiography. Symeon seemed a bizarre choice for sanctification, since it was through very peculiar antics that he converted heretics and reformed sinners. Symeon acted like a fool, walked about naked, ate enormous quantities of beans, and defecated in the streets. When he arrived in Emesa, Symeon tied a dead dog he found on a dunghill to his belt and entered the city gate, dragging the dog behind him. Krueger presents a provocative interpretation of how these bizarre antics came to be instructive examples to everyday Christians.

    Derek Krueger is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

    Click here to get there

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    Marvelle
    May 20, 2001 - 09:34 pm
    Thank you FaithP, for following up on the definite purpose of Holy Fools in the Brothers! Yes, the Holy Fool is the one who sets a contrary position, whose strange, sometimes hostile and repugnant behavior calls into question the COMMON (i.e. unthinking) ASSUMPTIONS of people.



    A Holy Fool -- who has to be a little strange, let's say in the beginning, to even undertake such a role -- forces people to EXAMINE their opinions, assumptions, beliefs. In most cases, these opinions withstand the examination and are strengthened because of the examination. Weren't Jesus, the Buddha, and Nashruddin (Islamic wise fool) all examples of the Holy Fool?



    Isn't it the examined life that is worth living? Doesn't Ferapont call into question common assumptions of diet for religious purposes, humility vs. pride, and saintliness? Aren't these assumptions WORTH the time it takes to seriously question them? I think so. It is an example of 'mindfulness,' of being aware in your life. That is the value of Ferapont.



    Thanks Faith for following up on the important role of the Holy Fool in society. On a less religious and contemporary note, could Newscasters be called Holy Fools? Or Whistleblowers? Or perhaps Schindler (belatedly)? Who else? We still have them in our midst, bless them.



    Marvelle

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    May 21, 2001 - 12:01 am
    Faith - fabulous - he did seem to be about tricking folks into his religion didn't he from jewish glassblowers to circus workers. This concept of putting your body through torment seems to be a theme still evident. Isn't it even in Spain that on certain feast days Catholic men flog themselves. I've seen some Documentaries of Orthodox Moslems practicing physical self punishment.

    It seems to me that those that practice this physical punishment believe there is a war being faught between the body and the spiritual nature of man, rather then, The body and spirit as a union, a catalyst and by focusing that combined energy we touch the inspiration from God.

    I can't help wonder if Lental fasting is from the same source of beliefs that prompted some to become Holy Fools. Hmmm need to rethink the concept of denying the body as a means to spirituality. If that is true then why are we born in a body and why do we have a body to take care of. I guess I'm having trouble with the concept that God is a trickster that gives us a body for the purpose of it being a continuous test to our spiritual connection. I can buy the concept of the illimiation of certain stimuli to better focus and yet thinking further, there are those that plan physical deprivation just to call attention to their cause. But then I wouldn't see these folks as fools with such outragious behavior that we think they are nuts.

    Been so busy reading the linked book that Faith provided I didn't see your post Marvella - I never thought of Jesus and Ghandi as Holy Fools. They certainly acted in opposition to the accepted way - But now that you have brought that up what flashes through my mind are the young hippies of the 60s and early 70s. Much of their behavior appeared similar to the Saint Symeon's behavior in Faith's essay doesn't it.

    Joan Pearson
    May 21, 2001 - 06:15 am
    Oh, Faith!!! What a treasure trove you've spread before us. The link will go into the heading for easy reference!

    Marvelle, Barb, I agree, we need a larger umbrella to include so many more holy fools...after reading Dr. Krueger's assessment...Ghandhi, Jesus, yes definitely. Zosima, Ferapont both... Then the physically and mentally impaired and how they handle their infirmity...they serve as a touchstone for the rest...isn't that what holy fools actually are? So we add Lizaveta...and Snergirov's crippled angel of a daughter, Nina? And what of those who pretend to be fools...Snergirov himself...Karamazov???

    Mark Twain, in a moment of levity, said, "Let us toast the fools, but for them the rest of us could not succeed." But is there truth to this?

    From Dr. Krueger's article Faith provided...
    "The Theme of Concealed Sanctity"

    Related to the theme of madness in the Life of Symeon the Fool is the fact that Symeon’s true nature is concealed; that he is a holy man is known only to a few residents of Emesa. The Syrian homilist Isaac of Nineveh, writing a generation or two after Leontius, grouped those who pretended to be fools with other types of ascetics who humbled themselves by acquiring a mistaken reputation for depravity.

    A man who is truly humble is not troubled when he is wronged and he says nothing to justify himself against the injustice, but he accepts slander as truth; he does not attempt to persuade men that he is calumniated, but he begs forgiveness. Some have voluntarily drawn upon themselves the repute of being licentious, while they are not such; others have endured the charge of adultery, being far from it, and proclaimed by their tears that they bear the fruit of the sin they had not committed, and have wept, asking their offenders’ forgiveness for the iniquity they had not done, their souls all the while being crowned with all purity and chastity; others, lest they be glorified because of the virtuous state which they have hidden within them, have pretended to be lunatics, while in truth they were permeated with divine salt and securely fixed in serenity, so that, because of their uttermost perfection, they had holy angels as heralds of their deeds of valour.26

    The Life of John the Almsgiver reveals Leontius’s ongoing interest in the broader theme of concealed sanctity, stories in which a holy person pretends to be something he or she is not. In an extensive digression in the Life of John, Leontius relates the story of the monk Vitalius who came to Alexandria and solicited prostitutes. In each case, after paying the woman for her time, he spent the night in a corner of her room, praying for her soul. Vitalius forbade the women to tell what had actually transpired during the night, and the townspeople were scandalized by what the monk appeared to be doing. Many of the prostitutes became nuns, others married and raised families. The saint’s pretense here is an instrument for the salvation of others.



    In Chapter V:
    Lise cries out to Alyosha, "How did you get to be an angel?"
    "From my terrible foolishness

    When Alyosha tells Katerina the truth, she angrily accuses him of being 'a little holy fool'



    I have to keep asking what Dostoevsky is saying to us with his "holy fools"? The big picture? Is he finally saying that those who cling to the belief in immortality, in Christianity are the 'holy fools' ~ not only will they be saved...but that they will be the salvation of those who have espoused the new western ideas...Socialist atheism?

    I liked learning more about Ivan in these chapters. He is becoming "human", isn't he? I do worry about him though...can he handle being human?

    Joan Pearson
    May 21, 2001 - 05:34 pm
    Henry, it is still difficult for me to see Alyosha locking on to any self-destructive action yet...unless it's his decision to marry Lise? He keeps saying that he knows nothing of love, but I'm not so sure that is true. Is this yet another example of Dostoevsky's ambivalent attitude toward his characters? He keeps telling us Alyosha knows nothing of love and the narrator tells us Alyosha performs nothing but "active Love"...?

    Lady C, I thought you might like this:

    a kiss on the shoulder means...

    I can't find anything else...but this seems to indicate that Alyosha is saying goodbye to his father...or at least he feels his father might leave him. Poor guy! His father figure, his mentor, is dying and Alyosha seems to sense that he might lose his father too... Do you picture this kiss a frontal or a kiss planted on the back of his father's shoulder? Whatever it was, Fyodor understood the meaning of the kiss and entreats him to return the next day...

    CharlieW
    May 21, 2001 - 06:08 pm
    Madame Kholakov confesses to Father Zossima that she suffers from a "lack of faith in...the future life." Meaning, the eternal life of the believer. She's terrified at the thought that there might BE no life beyond the grave. He counsels her that, although there is no "proving" that there is this life after death, there is a way that she can become "convinced" of it. This is by the experience of what he terms "active love." Something like loving thy neighbor leads to a growing belief in the reality of God, and hence, the "immortality of your soul." Self-forgetfulness=belief without doubt. Convincing or not, it seems to me that what Father Z does is send Alyosha out into the world to practice these tenets - and that Book Four is presented to us as Alyosha in the middle of thess "heartaches", these "lacerations", and practicing, time after time after time, the very counsel Father Z gave to Madame K.


    There is an exhibition of photographs at The Library of Congress, running through August 11, called The Empire That Was Russia - The Prukodin-Gorskii Photographic Record Recreated. Called "Photographer to the Tsar", these images represent a period of time that spans the life of Dostoevsky. Some fascinating renderings of early "color" photography.


    Charlie

    Jo Meander
    May 21, 2001 - 06:27 pm
    What wonderful pictures, Charlie! I'm flabbergasted by the ingenious methods he used to get color pictures!

    FaithP
    May 21, 2001 - 08:16 pm
    I spent about an hour Charlie in the Picture site you linked us to. Thank you for that. Love pictures as it brings home to me how alike we are when I look at a bunch of pictures called ethnic diversity. The architecture of the Mid-east which influanced all Russian is distinctly different though. And is wonderful to look at.

    Md. Khokhlakov doubts her own faith, but in the doubting and the feeling of sin it brings forth is the beginning of renewed faith.She knows, she at least, needs her faith to remain "whole".

    Now Ivan is a different case entirely. He fools around with philosophic notions and seems to me to be a student of the sceptic tradition.

    I seem to have jumped ahead and am in Book five and didnt realize it over the weekend and just keep reading. I will lay back a while .Fp

    Henry Misbach
    May 21, 2001 - 08:22 pm
    No question but that this is a tricky sequence of scenes through the "lacerations." I must edit myself on several points. First time through, I thought Zossima had said it a form of sorcery to pray for someone who is alive--, but only, he adds, as if they were dead.

    Secondly, in that portion where Fyodor seems content to buy out Ivan and use Alyosha as his agent, he then reverses himself deciding that it is a maneuver too crude even for him (Fyodor)!

    Are all the lacerations self-destructive? Pretty much. Alyosha seems already to have taken a "hit" when his brother Ivan stalks out of the scene with Katerina, promising never to darken her door again.

    By the way--it's not a big point, but my translation has Kat call Aly a "little religious idiot."

    Anyway, to continue with Ivan's threat to "go away," where he himself is so moved he quotes Schiller in German from memory (I'd say he's pretty moved), Aly immediately calls after him: "Ivan, come back!" Then, "But it's my fault. . .I began it!" I'd say he's hurt here at the very least. Fundamentally, I think he figures whatever happens between Dmitri and Kat is beyond his control anyway. Any control he had is now gone, in a New York minute. Kat knows the truth about the relationship now--Alyosha has caused her to face it openly. And he knows he has injured Ivan to the core.

    Surely he has some presentiment that it's not going to go well at the cottage. Yet at the end of it all, he goes to Kat to report on the success(?)of her commission.

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    May 21, 2001 - 08:54 pm
    I think it is interesting that Katerina who beseeched Dmitri for funds to cover her fathers debt is offering funds to Nikolai Ilyish Snegiryov who "does not sell his honor." Quite a contrast -

    Charlie what a wonderful site - the photography is glorious - loved just knowing that monks in a line planted in their fields potatoes.

    betty gregory
    May 22, 2001 - 02:16 am
    Thank you, internet, thank you, Charlie, for that wonderful link. Amazing to think of this photographer, on a czar sponsored train (and darkroom), documenting so many facets of Russia/Soviet history. The photos of the stall of fabrics for sale and the melon stand and the barefooted children on the hillside...and all the backdrops of nature...I had such a wonderful time studying each photo.

    The photo of three generations. Did you see that the hem of the woman's skirt had been let out (someone shorter wore it first) and that, although each of the three was in black clothing, the grandfather's black clothing was the most faded, the granddaughter's, the least faded. Also, in two photos (fabric seller and ??) the main person squatting had his pair of shoes nearby. What I loved the most, though, was the prominence of the land---the colors, the relative size of it compared to the people, and its form....buildings, bridges, roads, sections of crops matched the flow of the land....it was so clear that no land had been levelled, or made uniform.

    Did you read the caption paragraphs? So many mosques, monasteries, etc. were built centuries ago---and some were destroyed within a few years of these photos.

    Another section, about recent declassification of Soviet material----oh, my, did anyone read Lenin's letter about using the famine as a perfect time/cover to steal millions from and to close churches? An incredible document. You never expect to see madness in explicit form.

    betty

    Joan Pearson
    May 22, 2001 - 06:12 am
    Charlie, what a treat! Photographs! We were happy to find paintings from this period, now actual photos! Faith, I agree, the photos of the diverse ethnic population strengthen the images Barbara's research provided a few weeks ago!

    There was one shot of a mean, rustic prison that drives home a truer picture of the place Dostoevsky spend some years of his youth! That must have been a life-changing experience!

    And the Architecture! The contrast between the rustic and the simply glorious provides another picture of the contrast between the lives of the haves/have nots during this time! The monasteries were truly desirable places to live for young men, weren't they? I missed Lenin's letter, Betty, will go back and read it, but did note that many of the Churches and monasteries were shut down shortly after these photographs were taken and put to other uses during the Communist regime.

    Betty, I too pored over the photos of the ...three generations - the clothing, the hairdos...the woman reminds me of what Katerina might look like...or is that Mme. Khohlakov?

    Charlie's link to this exhibit is now up in the heading in case you want to go back to look at it again...and again! I can't help but add one little personal note about this exhibit. Through the magic of the Internet, Chas has managed to find actual photographs online ...of the very land and people we are discussing... online! And how is this for another bit of serendipity...I work at the Folger Shakespeare Library, directly across the street from the Jefferson building of the Library of Congress where this exhibit will be on display until August. Directly across the street! And I might never have known about it if not for Charlie! Of course I intend to go over there very very soon and will report to you any additional information that might be available.

    Isn't this an amazing experience???

    Joan Pearson
    May 22, 2001 - 10:45 am
    I find the whole idea of "active love" and "holy fool" fascinating. There is a strong link between the two, I think. The holy fool who thinks only of others is incomprehensible to the average person, as he gives away the shirt off of his back, the bread that is all he has...to a total stranger. This is what Fr. Zosima says is necessary to do to save your soul, to achieve immortality.

    As Chas says, self-forgetfulness=belief without doubt. That's the advice Zosima gave to Mme. Khuhlakov ...and to Alyosha too. That's what our "holy fool" is doing out in the world ...and is giving him so much trouble - the "little religious idiot", as Henry's translation reads Katerina calls him.

    Why is Alyosha so full of doubt about the result of his "active" loving? He is stating nothing but the truth to those he feels need to hear it, out of love, out of the desire to do what is right. He tells Katerina that it is Ivan she loves, not Dmitri. Katerina is furious at his words.

    Alyosha is full of self-doubt, fearing he doesn't know enough about love. I personally think he is doing just fine, but can understand his distress at the results! I wonder how Zosima himself would have handled the same situation with better results?

    He concludes after making a mess of things with Ivan and Katerina, "though I did it all sincerely, I must be smarter in the future. What does that mean? Will he learn to couch the truth in diplomacy, perhaps?

    Now what about Mme. Khuhlakov? She received the same advice from Zosima. She too feels that Ivan is the one K loves. How does she handle the situation differently? She is far more hysterical than Alyosha, who makes his pronouncements with calm confidence...though he is later distressed. But what is she doing? Is she practicing "active love", forgetting her own interests and showing concern for others into order to arrive at the "belief sans doubt" state? To be honest, I don't fully understand her part in all of this yet. Is she acting for Katerina's best interests?

    And what of Katerina Ivanova? What her her intentions? Is she practicing active love in her desire to save Dmitri? In sending the money to compensate Snegiryov?

    Alyosha goes to Snegiryov with heartfelt intentions...does he get carried away? Snegiryov came close to accepting the rubles, didn't he, Barb? What was it that suddenly made him take it back?

    FaithP
    May 22, 2001 - 03:31 pm
    Joan IMHO the Captain took the money as if intending to keep it and while he was ranting as to the things he could do with it he could not stand to think of the shame it would bring to his son who was already humbled beyond what the captain can stand and though I think he really meant to take it, he threw it down. He really needs to save face for Ursla(sp) (the son)Alexie does understand this in his heart as he understands and empathizes with everyone. This is what I dont know about Aloysha yet, at 19 with no worldly experience how does he know what is good for everyone. Psycologically speaking he is a regular little busy-body. In some dysfunctional families game he is called the Savior. He Caretakes the whole bunch of disfunctional people that form his family and then his friends and then the world. and he makes everybody love him too which is part of the saviors game. fp

    Deems
    May 22, 2001 - 05:55 pm
    --Faith, you and I are on the same page when it comes to Alyosha. I think he is wrong to attempt to manage Katerina and Ivan, to tell them what he thinks. It would be better to save his energy for something worth doing, since Katerina is going to do what she wants to do, and Ivan will do the same. And I too think that the Karamazovs are about as dysfunctional as a family gets.

    "Active love" for Zosima has to do with behaving lovingly to others with no thought of reward. The love itself is Active although the person doing the loving may take no action. Here's Zosima speaking to Mrs. Khokhlakova,"Try to love your neighbours actively and steadfastly. The more you practise love, the more you will be convinced of the existence of God and the immortality of your soul. Should you attain total renunciation of self in your love for your neighbour, then your faith will be absolute. . ." Alyosha's problem is that his definition of "active love" has to do with taking action. He does not know how to love without acting.

    Seems to me that Alyosha--because he is young and because he thinks he can figure out what other people should do--is setting himself up to be the "savior" which this family badly needs. The big problem I see is that God is supposed to be the savior, not Alyosha.

    Here's the narrator describing Alyosha just before he encounters Katerina and Ivan: "It was easy to become totally lost in all this confusion, but Alyosha's heart could not tolerate uncertainty, because his love was always of an active kind. He could not love passively; once he began to love he immediately had to offer help. But to do this he had to set a goal, he had to establish firmly what would be in the best interests of each and what exactly they both needed, and then, having assured himself of the validity of his goal, he would have to help each of them individually." ("Crisis in the Drawing-Room"; my italics)

    I think Zosima sends Alyosha out into the world so that he can discover how to love.

    Maryal

    Hats
    May 23, 2001 - 06:20 am
    I love Alyosha, and to me, he does seem angelic, but I worry about him. His philosophy about "active love," well, I am afraid that he will end up disappointed. It's inconceivable that he can make everyone happy. "He had to be sure what was good for each person."

    Then, I worry that he will neglect his own happiness. He is so busy hoping and wanting the best for everyone else, well, won't he lose himself?

    I think Alyosha is in for many painful experiences. There does not seem to be anyone as unselfish as Alyosha, so, who will be there to help him get through his life experiences? Who will support him?

    Jo Meander
    May 23, 2001 - 07:29 am
    At this point I think I nedd a definition of "active love." Did Zosima mean that Madame Khohlakov and Alyosha should encounter others they met with love and prayers for their spiritual and moral welfare, or did he mean that they should immerse themselves in activity that would materially improve the lives of others? Or did he mean both? Do some of our posters think it is wrong for Alyosha to try to help others in an active way? Do some of us think that the "savior" thing really comes from self-love and can only result in disappointment because Alyosha cannot really solve their problems?
    My first impulse is to say that part of Alyosha's behavior comes from his youthful reaction to Zosima's instructions and part from his own nature. A natually loving, ingenuous disposition makes him a suitable condidate For Zosima's direction, and not necessarily a neurotic in search of approval. Perhaps his experiences in the world where Z.has sent him will teach him when to be active in his efforts to help others and when to be more patient and watchful. Zosima saw what was going on with Lise and Alyosha, but he said that Alyosha should go into the world, even marry. He didn't say he had to marry Lise! Perhaps this is the discretion of maturity and experience, something that Alyosha shows he lacks when he tells Katerina that she really loves Ivan. She's not ready to hear that.

    Hats
    May 23, 2001 - 08:29 am
    Thank you, Charlie. The photographs are simply wonderful! This is quite a learning experience.

    FaithP
    May 23, 2001 - 12:36 pm
    Well Aloysha is no goody two-shoes, he is just openly loving, and it is an "active love" for as soon as he see's someone's need he sets about "helping" fill that need, even if it is just to open their eyes to the truth as when he told Katya she did not love Dmitri and gave her hysterics. (she might have gotten the hysterics from Ivan agreeing and then walking out) Still Aloysha has been sent into the world by Zossima to learn and he will begin to learn the consequences of his acts soon. Also he is becoming close to Ivan now and this is sure to open a new view for us of both of them. Faith

    Deems
    May 23, 2001 - 01:28 pm
    This is my own definition of what I think Zosima is getting at when he speaks to Mrs. Khol. of active love. Charlie, somewhere up there, said something quite similar.

    Zosima recommends that Mrs. K. practice actively loving her "neighbors," as a kind of spiritual exercise. One form that active love could take would be to perform small acts of kindness for people, to cook them a meal, to pray for them. If a neighbor's load is so heavy that she stumbles under it, the person practicing "active love" would take some of the baggage. (I'm thinking of an actual heavy load here such as peasants might carry, but the image will work metaphorically too. If a friend is loaded down with sorrow, you can help them to bear the burden by lovingly listening to him.)

    However, when Alyosha involves himself in Katerina's and Ivan's and Dmitry's lives simply because he feels the need to take action, he is NOT practicing "active love." I think he thinks he is, and I think he is wrong. Actively loving someone does not mean trying to take control of his/her life (or trying to).

    If you go back and reread the scene with Zosima and the women who come to seek his prayer, his blessing, his love, you will discover that he does NOT tell them what to do. He also doesn't preach at them.

    Maryal

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    May 23, 2001 - 01:43 pm
    We have had a 50 year record breaking low for two days that has been glorious - no AC - nights going into the 50s!!! Hard to focus on Dostoevsky's frozen Russia -

    Yes, I also see Alyosho having a judgemental concept of active love - haven't looked at the book to quote but he does ponder if Katerina or Ivan are 'right' because he cannot figure out his alligence and therefore, worthy of his loving action without determining who is right.

    I loved the way "Whiskbroom" realed in Alyosha, actually taking the money and just at the moment Alyosha became excited, "was about to embrase him. So pleased..." he was able to trance Alyosha's feeling of doing good into the mud. Ah the drama of it all -

    ALF
    May 23, 2001 - 01:43 pm
    Alyosha is "active "alright."He spends all of his time bustling to and fro, rapidly jumping to the assistance of one of his "fractured family" members or friends.  He "actively" rustles about , persevering to "fix"  everyones dilemmas.  Why hasn't he "shown them the light?"  He does not preach, sermonize nor invoke the Lord .  Isn't that what his instructions  from Zossima should have been?discover   Perhaps Z sent him out into this cold, cruel world as an aprrentice to uncover the fact that he also is a mere mortal and some things can only be fixed by higher powers.  Certainly higher than himself!!

    Joan Pearson
    May 23, 2001 - 02:26 pm
    Wonderful insights!

    Hats, you've asked a great question! Who is going to look out for Alyosha's happiness while he is trying to take care of everyone else? I think that we are beginning to see that his soul-mate is to be little Lise. I don't pretend to believe that she is any match for him...she's only 13 or 14! He's 23 or 24! How can he find happiness with this giddy child? It seems that to love others, you have to first love yourself. Like yourself, be comfortable with who you are. Alyosha seems not to give this a thought. He will marry Lise because he thinks that's what he's been told to do. But what of love?

    Does one find happiness in active love? Immortality, maybe, but happiness? Hmmm...is Zosima happy? Does he find happiness through his active love? He seems to be comfortable in his role. As was pointed out, he doesn't tell people what to do...he just tells them to love without expecting praise or reward. Isn't this an ideal for all of us? Is this something Dos. himself believes? Is he using Alyosha as an example of how one develops into this ideal way of living and loving one's neighbor?

    Maryal, that's the definition I think Jo was looking for..."behaving lovingly toward others without thought of reward". It can be either helpful acts or quiet prayer. It's harder to do than it seems. So many ways to go wrong.

    Alyosha has left the monastery with the intention of doing just as Zosima counsels and has botched every opportunity, beginning with the scene in his father's house with his brothers, to Mme. K's drawing room with Katerina and Ivan...and now in Snegiryov's little "hut".

    What did you make of this proud, though poverty-stricken family? There was wonderful play on words in this chapter, wasn't there! Snegiriyov referring to himself as "Yessirov"...now that's English..."yes sir", isn't it? I'd love to know what it is in your translations! I understood Mama least of all. What was her reference to Chenamazov instead of Karamazov do you think? And what of her breath?

    I think Alyosha was greatly confused by the contrast of their poverty, haughtiness and humorous banter and realized he was both moved, but out of his element. Had he not had the 200 ruples in his pocket, you have to wonder how he would have handled the situation differently...Alf, he needed them to show him the light. Maybe that's what Zosima sent him out to do! To learn FROM others, not to fix them. Aly seems to be learning from each incident.

    Barbara, I think you've hit it...Alyosha is judging others and reaching his own verdict as to their needs. (But they are judging him in return!) He is not listening to their needs to help them, but telling them what he thinks they need. Now this little Snegiriyov family is giving him the business. He can't come up with a solution to what they need...(honor, self-respect), so he shoves money at the problem...the solution to everything! Another blunder!

    betty gregory
    May 23, 2001 - 05:13 pm
    Excellent point, Joan, when you write of active love, "It is harder to do than it seems. So many ways to go wrong." Even if the definition is clear and you understand what's needed, it's still difficult to achieve. In the last few months, I've had the most perplexing thoughts about a similar kind of love (or maybe it's the same)....I am a hundred times more involved in my grown son's life, simply because we're in the same city now and because he reached out in time of crisis. Even beyond my wearisome private worries over when to listen, when to answer questions bluntly, when to strangle, I find myself wondering how responsible I am at this time, at his age, at my age, for such things as morality, values, wisdom. I know the stock answers to those questions, but that doesn't seem to lessen my need to find a balance.

    ---------------------------------------------------

    These miscalculations about "active love" that Alyosha makes----maybe part of Zosima's plan for someone this young is a deep-end approach....send him out to do good works, knowing that this trial and error method is one way to "know" love from the inside out. (In the secular helping professions training, nothing quite takes the place of the doing of it, mistakes and all.) Helping and loving and doing spiritual good works and growing in spirituality.....maybe we never stop learning/growing in these, and we all had to begin somewhere.

    betty

    Joan Pearson
    May 23, 2001 - 05:47 pm
    Oh, Betty, we connect on this! Our sons, our grown sons. And yet our children always. How does a mother know when to back off and when to "finish the job" she didn't get to do earlier.

    I hold my tongue...and you know me somewhat, that's not an easy thing for me to do. I'd like to do a little "active loving" a la Alyosha. But I hold my tongue because he is a man...but I look into his eyes and see my "boy" who used to turn to me for interpretation of the world he didn't understand. I think of Zosima. He didn't tell the women what to do. He listened until they blurted out their problems, and even then he didn't tell them what to do in a given situation, but rather, general guiding principles.

    So that's what we do? Wait. Listen. Don't preach. Don't try to fix things...not anymore. The kiss and make it better days are behind us. When approached, and if we are patient and open-minded listeners, we will be, even then..no specific directions...but rather general guiding principles. They will learn from those. They will make their own decisions based on those. They will turn to those ...when we are gone.

    Speaking from where you are, Betty dear.

    Listen, I've been reading the Matlaw/Garnett translation...in the back there are letters Dostoevsky has written to his publisher. I won't give away what's to come, but will say that, according to Dos. himself, children are of great importance in this novel, the future of Russia. So we should pay very close attention to the children we meet...the little stonethrowing schoolboys, Sneriryov's (I don't think I've spelled this man's name the same way twice!) son, Ilyusha...watch how Alyosha interacts with children...

    Oh, and rocks and bread are important, symbolic of the environment...Russia.

    Good night.

    FaithP
    May 23, 2001 - 07:12 pm
    I posted my comments on Laceration in a cottage way too soon. Before the rest of yussguys had caught up to me. I was interested mightely in the biting incident so when I came into the cottage scene I was ready for a fiery little Ilusha but had a shock at the misery and want in that cottage. Mama has bad breath I am sure because she has bad teeth and cant eat anyway. The girls are full of pride and shame at their circumstances. What a roomful of misery including the crippled body also of one daughter, never mind the crippled status of this family.

    Here is part of what Zosima sent good little Aloysha(I think he is 20) out into the world to see and learn from. Dos does intend us to see Alosha as active, getting worldly and is not ready for the monks life.Dos shows us this busy body running to and fro trying to help everyone. Yet so far it seems he isn't doing much good.( we will see.) Remember Zossima's ideals that every man being responsible for every other man, it(active love) will only work out in society. Not closed up in contemplative work. Faith

    Henry Misbach
    May 23, 2001 - 07:39 pm
    Since I don't know Russian, I haven't the slightest idea if "religious idiot" or "holy fool" more precisely renders Dos at this point. Ever since I found that trick in Latin, in which the adjective "sacer" has two diametrically opposed meanings, so that Livy says either the Plebs withdrew to the Sacred Mount or the Mount of Curses, depending on the translator, I have been a little edgy about assuming any one-to-one translation of anything related to religion.

    I think that we must view the "active love" matter (which, by the way, I still have not found literally) in context. Fr. Zossima probably means that it would be a waste of Alyosha's potential value to the community to keep him in the monastery, which is rather the purpose at the outset. I daresay not many of us has personally known a monk. The one I knew was of the Benedictine Order, which urges its monks to be active in the outside world. This does not seem to be the case in the monastic scene in the novel.

    Barbara does seem to have rather exalted goals, but that might depend on how she plans to work for Russian women's emancipation. Social work might give her an excellent avenue, both to employment and improved status. Frankly, though, it's hard not to wish she'd get into a practical field, such as nursing. Nina just seems to be in too much pain to do much for herself.

    I still can't believe it when Alyosha leaves with the beat-up money to report to Kat the SUCCESS of her commission!

    Jo Meander
    May 24, 2001 - 08:19 am
    JOAN, you asked who is actually practicing active love. Each is being him/herself. Zosima’s wise counsel is the seed on fertile ground where Alyosha and Mme. Khohlakov are concerned. I don’t think Alyosha sees active love as sacrifice; it is his nature to help others. I don’t think Mme. Khohlakov is necessarily behaving in a conscious attempt at active love. She too, is being herself, and I think her intentions where Katerina are concerned are based upon her own perception of the truth. She wants Alyosha to put into words what she feels and is unable to articulate to Ivan and Katerina, although she didn’t want the interview to come to such a disastrous conclusion. I think the truth emerged. At any rate, we have to wait to see the long term effects.
    Katerina is immature and lacks the self-knowledge necessary for “active love” in any effective way. I’m tempted to say that Ivan has her pegged: she must experience “laceration” in order to feel she is worthwhile, is making some contributions to life, not just living a life of privilege. Dimitri’s help in her time of need opened the door for her to make a sacrifice, which in her emotional confusion she sees as her love for him. She is far too self-absorbed to be a “holy fool,” and the only one she is fooling is herself. As for Ivan, his analysis of her is incisive and even a bit nasty, demonstrating his intellectual view of life but not disguising the fact that he leaves as a wounded suitor. I’m bewildered about why he initially said he “approved of” her plan to dedicate herself to Dimitri for the rest of their lives, unless he means that’s all she can do, given her nature.

    Jo Meander
    May 24, 2001 - 08:20 am
    Henry, maybe the active life Zosima sends Alyosha to experience is preparation for the contemplation he will have time for (?) later.

    Henry Misbach
    May 24, 2001 - 10:42 am
    Quite possibly, Jo. I hope you're right that Katerina is just immature. It's hard to find any semblance of holiness in that much narcissism.

    Alyosha tries to relate to people on a basic human level. It's hard to do. I've met people like Snegirov. Their mental attitude verges on delusions of grandeur. They desperately want power, and the instant they think they have it over you, you're cooked. Of course, it should be nothing for his daughter to change the national attitude towards women. And that's how these people get in deeper and deeper. He'd been that much to the good if he had taken the money!

    W. C. Fields is supposed to observed that you cannot swindle a truly honest man. I will wager that S. would be dead meat in the hands of a skilled con artist. Since Alyosha's honest, virtually without deviousness of any sort, he can only set himself up for the sucker punch S. is only too happy to deliver.

    Jo Meander
    May 24, 2001 - 11:22 am
    I remember Snegirov telling his son that it certainly is better to be rich, so I suppose desperately wants that kind power. But his life circumstances and the indignity inflicted upon him by Dimitri do evoke sympathy. It seems his pride and "honor" are more important to him than the immediate relief the money would provide for his family, and I do not find that admirable.

    Nellie Vrolyk
    May 24, 2001 - 03:23 pm
    Dos creates such lifelike and interesting characters that I keep wanting to know more about them than is revealed to me. I want to know more about the overly proud Snegiryov. He used to work for daddy Karamazov, but he doesn't anymore. Why did daddy K fire him? I know Dmitri dragged him out of a tavern by his beard which seems to be very whispy in nature. Was that because daddy K sent Dmitri to fire Snegiryov?

    I have this feeling that Snegiryov once had a much higher position in life than that he has ended up in and that daddy K is the one who is most to blame for his fall into poverty. I feel this because his wife is described as a genteel woman. It would explain Snegiryov's pride and reluctance to accept the money: if he had a much better life before, he wouldn't want to be reminded of how far he had fallen.

    Just a few thoughts

    Hats
    May 24, 2001 - 10:51 pm
    Snegiryov is harder to spell than Karamazov! I have put off my post simply because of the spelling. Anyway, I found the poverty of the family very sad.Yet, so far, I find this is the only family that shows any semblance of true family love. What a difference between this family and the Karamazov household.

    I think the love between Ilyusha and his father is refreshing after being with Father K and his sons. Ilyusha is willing to fight anyone who would reach out to hurt his father. He is too young to wonder why the family is so poor. He just loves his dad and wants no one to hurt him. Ilyusha says, "father, you mustn't make up with him. When I grow up, I'll challenge him to a duel myself, and I'll kill him!" This is a typical son's reaction to anyone who might hurt his dad.

    This family seems more ordinary. Whereas, the Karamazovs seem almost like a caricature.

    His father reminds him that it is wrong to hurt others. The father is just as protective of the son. Snegiryov says to Alyosha, "But the trouble is, he has started coming back from school badly beaten up...As a matter of fact, I think you're right, I won't send him to school anymore."

    This father and son are able to sit down and talk to one another. There does seem to be true and unconditional love here. So far, there has only been the screaming of angry words between a father and the sons.

    Then, there is the daughter who is interested in women's rights. "She has a degree and is impatient to return to Petersburg and fight for women's rights on the banks of the Neva." Hmmmmm. The father and mother, no matter how poor, must be applauded for their daughter's aspirations.

    What a different type of family, a study in contrasts.

    Joan Pearson
    May 25, 2001 - 04:44 am
    Good morning, Hats!

    Snegiryov is impossible to spell the same way twice! I've been watching posters here (myself included!) labor through the spelling with some amusement! Up to Sneg. we seem to do alright (although Nellie has abbreviated to "S.")---it's the remaining letters that confound! Let's try that...calling him "Sneg", rather than put off posting!

    There is love in this family, but also so much bitterness and impatience - which probably comes from the way they are living! Barbara in particular is distainful of her father...calling him a "buffoon" on several occasions - a term we've seen applied to Karamazov pere as well.

    I'm curious as to what it is Barbara does for the emancipation of women? And which women? Those in poverty? In the last chapter we saw strong women...Katerina must dominate her men. Is the Russian woman meek and submissive? We've seen Karamazov's Adelaida beat him up!

    Maybe Barbara fights for women's opportunity in the workplace, but it would seem for that to help Barbara, she would need some skills. I'm baffled that a young woman, living in such poverty, who has the opportunity to get to the university, has chosen the rights of women in general as her "major". It sounds like earlier characters...Mme. Khohlakov for example, who could love mankind in general, but not in particular. Barbara wants to fight for women's rights in general, but what of her own mother, sister...herself? She appears as helpless as her crippled family in her inability to help out.

    There is affection in this family, the difference between Sneg and Karamazov the reason. Poverty is the source of their problems...and extreme poor health. Why are so many of these young Russians crippled? Do we know that? Jo, you mentioned something yesterday that sounded as if you were disturbed that Sneg. put honor before feeding his family. I've been thinking about that. If Sneg was acting out of his own pride, it would be one thing. The question is, was he? Or was he letting pass the opportunity to feed his family and take care of some of their needs because of the look in Illy's eyes that begged him not to do this for him? Of course, Sneg is tempted to take it...but is he selling out the last shred of honor the boy has? Would the boy take the money ~ food or the family honor if it was his choice? I think Sneg. feels that the boy requires that he pass on the money and that's the only reason he finally turned it down.

    Henry, you say you can't get over that Alyosha returns feeling that he has carried out his commission. I think he failed in paying off Sneg to satisfy Katerina's need to save Dmitri's honor, but he performed much better in this situation than in his other attempts at active love, I think. He is much better with Illy, understanding his needs, forgiving him for the lacerated pinky. He concludes, "he is a good boy (this 'good boy' also stabbed another child with his penknife we are told)..."he is a good boy. He loves his father." To Alyosha this is an acceptable reason for biting him and he understands and the boy's action for his father's honor. If he understands this, he should be able to understand the father's rejection of the money for the family honor. But does he?

    He seems to understand and forgive the child. But is unable to understand the father. I need Jo to s'plain why it was a bad thing that Sneg. passed on the food for his boy's need for honor...

    Hats
    May 25, 2001 - 05:03 am
    Good morning, Joan. You have made my day. I can handle Sneg. What a relief!

    Jo Meander
    May 25, 2001 - 08:07 am
    Joan, I was thinking about all the things the family needed, icluding medicines to ease physical suffering and the opportunity to escape from an environment that was causing them so much misery. I understand why Sneg(!) wants to protect his honor and to soothe the terrible sense of injury his son expeirienced over his father's shame, but Katerina isn't a Karamazov, she is practically and anonymous donor, and her charity could give them a fresh start. As thngs stand, Illyusha (?name?) can't even go to school without feeling endangerd and humiliated. The daily experience seems to offer only an increase in suffering of all kinds.


    Perhaps Barbara, from her youthful perspective, sees much of life's suffering resulting from the buffoonery of men! Fighting for the opportunities of the wiser women may seem an avenue to social (include family) improvement.

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    May 25, 2001 - 11:46 am
    For me the family pride is easy to understand - remember back to the 1930s - some families 'begged' at the church to be given the holiday Turkey or what ever was being offered and the family usually picked out the youngest or the cutest child to represent the family when 'begging' - where as other families felt that all they had was their pride left and would not beg or take any handout. Often these were the families with someone chronicly ill. (needless to say my memories of all this puts the new concepts of churches taking care of the needy as an unnecessary humiliation for the needy - where as, out of tax dollars the basic needs of the poor are included as just one more social responsibility in the pot along with all the social needs of the people, addressed by the community, using the shared community or national resources called tax dollars. I guess I never saw the abuse of any fund being any greater then the abuse of tax dollars spent on Defense or FHA or for that matter the costs attributed to running the Congress. - OK enough - as you can see this all hit my buttons)

    I think we could take this one step further and see that most of the poor feel angry and humiliated as would S. about charity when they really want the opportunity to work or be given their due. If S. is a captain than there must be more to the reason he is in such dire straights and this story does not lead me to believe the financial hole that he is in was self- inflicted.

    Wow I can even understand Barbara - yes, I was not allowed to go to college since the family needed my income - I did not get to go to college till my children were ages 7, 12 and 13.

    Henry Misbach
    May 25, 2001 - 01:37 pm
    I'd like to think that Dos might be setting up a contrast between a functional household (Snerg's) and one that is not (Karamazov). If so, I'm disappointed.

    Barbara is the first to accuse Alyosha of being just another chicken-eatin' preacher on the mooch. She wants to make the world safe for women, yet she has a hair-trigger prejudice reflex. She's been taught it, probably by Snerg, who, though a victim of circumstances, admits it was his own vices that got him where he is.

    These folks have some legitimate beefs, but I predict they're gonna stay down. I have to agree with Joan that Snerg would be better advised to look at his daily opportunities and accept a little cash even at what he seems to think an unacceptable cost to his honor. How much dinner can his honor put on the table?

    Lady C
    May 25, 2001 - 04:04 pm
    Yes, he has come down in the world and is bitter. He has been humiliated by a Karamazov, and in front of his son who humbled himself before the tormenter. Any wonder that he is bitter and acts the buffoon and the proud man by turns. It's a wonder to me that he even talks to Alyosha, another Karamazov, never mind throws the money underfoot. But Alyosha understands all this and will deal with it in his own compassionate way.

    This family can hardly be called functional--the father demoted because of wrongdoing, the mother half-mad, a daughter who is physically impaired, and another daughter who is so bitter. There is devotion among them, but little action that can be called functioning in any positive sense. In Ilusha I see shades of Dickens and Tiny Tim--a typical nineteenth century waif.

    FaithP
    May 25, 2001 - 05:29 pm
    I do not see a functional family in the cottage.I do not see love in the cottage and Sneg showed no love when he passed up the opprotunity to get his family out of these dire straights even at the cost of his sons illusions being destroyed.I more or less see what Lady C does. I also do not think Aloysha is seeing Sneg and his family at all. He does have compassion for Ilusha but doesnt seem to understand the father and seems to ignore the rest of them, Mom and the girls who are all in such deplorable health physical and mental. Old Sneg was a gambler was he not, therefor losing his fortune and his commission. He really is to blame for family circumstances if that is the case. I better backtrack and see . Faith

    Joan Pearson
    May 25, 2001 - 06:29 pm
    Jo, I understand what you are saying - if Katerina herself had sent the 200 rubles to Sneg, or had she sent any other agent except a Karamazov, Sneg may have taken the money???

    Barb, from your post, I gather that it doesn't matter who hands Sneg that money in front of his family...charity is humiliating. Better an anonymous donation left at the door? But Katerina needed Snerg to know where that money was coming from!

    fae, if you backtrack, will you share with us what you find? Lady C, Barbara and Nellie have all referred to the captain and what happened between him and Dmitri in the Metropolis...but also his relationship to Father Karamazov too. I'm fuzzy about the details.

    I remember something about an IOU ~ Dmitri owed his father the money. I think it was 200 rubles, but not sure. Father K. sends the captain (Snerg), who must have been working for him as an agent at the time ~ to give the IOU to Grushenka in payment for ???? and she takes it to Dmitri to demand payment on what is now her money. That was the first meeting between Grushenka and Dmitri.

    Is this the reason Dmitri sees red when he meets up with Snerg in the Metropolis? Furious...he pulls him by the beard...but when the son sees what he's doing, Dmitri feels bad about that and offers him a way to save face...a duel. They are both military men and that's the way they settled things then. But Snerg walks away from the duel. Why? I think the answer to that question provides an important insight into the Snerg's character...

    Joan Pearson
    May 25, 2001 - 06:35 pm
    (I'm still puzzled over Barbara's "major" at the university - given the family circumstances. Barb (our Barb), you seem to understand her better than I do! May I ask what you studied once you were able to get to college? Just curious to hear if it was something practical...did you acquire a marketable skill, or did you study liberal arts?

    Snerg's daughter studied women's rights. but the 1860s was the period of marking a change in feminine consciousness and the starting point of feminine struggle for equal rights. The idea of emancipation was conceived by the progressive, educated part of Russian women nobility. They strove for the right to get public education, including higher education. (In the 70s the higher courses of Bestuzhev were founded and existed up to the Revolution of 1917)

    Malryn (Mal)
    May 25, 2001 - 07:40 pm
    I am not a participant in this discussion, but I do read the posts every day and as much of the book as I have time for. Joan, I'm sure you didn't mean it that way, but your questions to Barbara about what she studied "May I ask what you studied once you were able to get to college? Just curious to hear if it was something practical...did you acquire a marketable skill, or did you study liberal arts?" sounds like a put-down of those of us who did study liberal arts.

    I majored in music at a liberal arts college. This was a continuation of four years of music study at a conservatory while I was in high school, and did, indeed, earn me a living before I was married. The knowledge of languages, literature and art that I received at my college led to other jobs and certainly helps me in the electronic publishing work I do today.

    Mal

    Joan Pearson
    May 26, 2001 - 04:39 am
    "Those of us who studied Liberal Arts", include myself, my husband and three of my four boys, so no, it was not a put-down at all. I was speaking from experience. All of us, (xcept the youngest, who is searching for what it is he wants to do) found that we needed an advanced degree to learn "how to do something" in the job market. I don't think any of us gave much real thought to future jobs while in college. I would never "put down" the Liberal Arts as they provided a life time of appreciation and a foundation for the future degree. If I did, I'd never have financed four college educations in the Liberal Arts! (Barb, if you, or anyone else feels put down, I please forgive me for having asked the question in a way that offended.)

    Barbara in the novel lived a life of extreme hardship, among sickly siblings and a needy, disturbed mother. I found it curious that she chose to study and work for the emancipation of women. It seems incongruous with the financial situation at home. Every source I read indicates that it was the wealthier women who were active in this movement ...and who attended university.

    This makes me wonder if Barbara AND the family had at one time been among the wealthy. Her mother seems to have been better off at one time. Barbara finds she is unable to RETURN because of the family circumstances, which indicates that at one time, they were able to afford her education. What terrible blow did they suffer, that not only wiped them out financially, but devastated their health and crippled her mother and her sister? Was he a Captain, who found himself working as a "copy clerk", as Katerina tells Alyosha?

    Mama says that when they were with the army, the deacon's wife would visit, the General...I suppose the question is, why is Snerg no longer with the Army? Perhaps the answer will come in later chapters. Why is family is so ill may or may not be related to their inability to get medical help now...

    At any rate, Dmitri and Snerg fought as equals, as military men and that is why Dmitri offered Snerg the opportunity to regain his honor through the duel, which he refused. Why did he not take this opportunity if honor meant so much to him, and to his watching boy?

    ALF
    May 26, 2001 - 08:00 am
    Mal: I think that you have misinterpreted what Joan asked of Barbara. Not only have you misinterpreted what Joan asked Barbra but you've sorely criticized Joan's kindheartedness.. Her posts always inspire an affable exchange of conversations and ideas without being confrontational or insolent to any of us. We would love to have you join us in this marvelous great book discussion but I believe you have taken offense at a remark that was not intended to degrade of revile.

    Malryn (Mal)
    May 26, 2001 - 08:17 am
    Thank you, Andrea. There was no offense taken on my part or any criticism of Joan in my post, nor ever would be. She and all of you discussion leaders in Books and Lit do a superb job and have won my admiration and that of others long ago. I intend to continue reading these fascinating posts about The Brothers Karamazov, but really don't have time to participate in an active way. Thank you, anyway.

    Mal

    Deems
    May 26, 2001 - 10:01 am
    I trust that our questions will be answered. Dostoevsky always plays fair although we do not always have all the information we need at the time we think we need it.

    His manner of telling a story is sideways. We learn that there is conflict between Dmitri and Snegiryov. We learn that Sneg Used to Be in the army. .......

    The best example I can think of to illustrate Dostoevsky's storytelling method is the introduction of nine-year-old Ilyusha. Ilyusha is engaged in a schoolboy battle, six against one, and Alyosha jumps in to protect him. But Ilyusha hits Alyosha with a stone and when Alyosha stops and goes back, Ilyusha BITES his middle finger.

    Important things to notice about this scene: we don't know the boy's name. Alyosha doesn't know the boy, but the boys who are engaged in the stone-throwing say "You're Karamazov, aren't you?" This is most interesting because it sounds like the schoolboys know that this man is another Karamazov. We don't know why yet. We are as confused as Alyosha is by the whole incident. The boys tell Alyosha that Ilyusha has stabbed another boy, Krasotkin, with a penknife. But Ilyusha will not tell Alyosha why he is fighting or anything about his situation.

    LATER, we find out about the dispute between Dmitri and Snergiryov as well as the reason for Ilyusha's anger and his battles with his classmates. The boys have been mercilessly teasing him about his FATHER. The whole novel is concerned with FATHERS and SONS and the relations between them. Snergiryov's family is every bit as "dysfunctional" as the Karamazov family. The difference is that Karamazov has some money and Snergiryov has very little. They both drink every chance they get, however.

    And that's what Dostoevsky does repeatedly. We keep walking into the middle of stories; we get confused. We keep reading and eventually we discover the parts of the story that we did not have before.

    Maryal

    betty gregory
    May 26, 2001 - 10:15 am
    Joan, I think you'll want to deep-6 the link that contains a paragraph on 19th C Russian Women. The paragraph you posted sent off alarm bells, so I went to read...and started with the first section. It's a gem, alright, and I laughed most of the way through. I THINK this thing might be part of a packet sent to men looking for Russia wives, or goodness, I hope it's something semi-innocent like that. The author is talking to male readers about each "type" of Russian woman and how he might handle this type if she is a wife. I might have been laughing, but this whole link is rotten to the core, full of misinformation about women and worse.

    Please and thank you for its untimely demise. (Why this endears you to me, I can't figure out. I think we might need someone to trail you for a while, keep you out of mischief.)

    Edit...uhh, yep, that's what it is. Don't know if the women are priced to sell, but that would be my guess.

    Betty

    Joan Pearson
    May 26, 2001 - 10:18 am
    Maryal...you said it! I thought it was me. I was thinking it was a pinky laceration and it was instead the middle finger. Is THAT important, I wonder? Now that you mention it, how DID Illy. know that Alyosha was a Karamazov? Something else to wait for.

    But in Chapter VII, we do hear from Sneg the reason he refused the duel to defend his honor in front of his boy...and I still think that is important in understanding this man...if indeed he is telling the truth!

    betty gregory
    May 26, 2001 - 10:26 am
    Joan, did you catch my edit? (We were posting together.)

    Deems
    May 26, 2001 - 10:31 am
    Joan---YES, I am next thing to certain that it is significant that it is the MIDDLE finger. And Ilyusha bites it just below the nail, all the way to the bone!

    That link on Russian women IS from some site for men looking for women. BETTY is absolutely correct. I went to one of the other chapters in this "book" and discovered that

    "Needless to say that sex is too personal a matter to analyze and classify it. Nevertheless, it is possible to distinguish a series of peculiarities characteristic of the Russian woman's attitude towards sex.

    A Russian woman is basically passionate, spirited and impetuous, she gives her full self away to her feeling and will never be content to stop mid-way. However, the historical background of Russia, the Russian set of values formed during the previous centuries, the peculiarities of life in Russia have all constituted the factors that hold the woman back from manifestation of these fine qualities in her sexual life."

    Maryal

    Joan Pearson
    May 26, 2001 - 11:02 am
    Betty, I not only missed your edit...I missed your whole post! I spent nearly an hour on many search engines looking for something on 19 c. Russian women...and would you believe that most of them came up with the same thing...men looking for Russian wives. You should have followed me to keep me out of trouble! Unbelievable!

    When I found the paragraph quoted in the post, I knew I had to supply the source! The information seemed inoffensive and informative. Do you really want me to delete the whole thing. I will if you say so. I thought the information on the womens' movement in 1860 was important. I'll go back to the search if you want...will you chaperone me???

    Actually, it sounds like a job for our "MAD RESEARCHER"!

    Henry Misbach
    May 26, 2001 - 11:18 am
    One has to think that Dos thought of the practice of duelling a feudal survival that he especially detested. Only the schoolboys are stupid enough to think it a good idea. Interesting, from the standpoint of recent events, just how bloodthirsty children, who haven't yet any concept of what it really means to have a life ended or ruined, can be.

    Alyosha is just horrified at his brother's suggestion of a duel to begin with. Of course, it is mostly the adverse possibilities for himself that led Sneg to refuse any duel. One angle on duelling that seems not to occur to him: what if he wins and gets the last shot. He loses just as surely if he does not make a convincing effort to kill his opponent. Sneg, though perhaps in pure military terms the equal of Dmitri, is socially and economically by far his inferior. On his life and ability to earn a living hang the well-being of his family. If he throws his own body away, by being killed, he throws away their basic well-being as well. Maimed, he would add his own to the mouths to be fed in his household, and be of no use as well!

    Grushenka has no insight into this, judging by her plan to make Sneg lose his job if he takes any legal action against Dmitri. You have to give Katerina credit for making an attempt at a settlement out of court (so to speak) between Dmitri, whom she plainly deems to be in the wrong for the most part, and Sneg. Can she even think ahead to possible unfavorable outcomes, both for her and Dmitri, if this much anger against them is allowed to fester, even if in just one man?

    I guess I'm real close here to elevating her to "holy fool" status, since (1) she doesn't stand to receive immediate gain for the 200 rubles and (2)her motives are semi-sacred, or at least not out of keeping with such motives.

    Ilusha has a really tough time accepting his father's apparent pacifism (in which, really, he has no viable choice). He wants to use duelling to carry out his own agenda by not killing his adversary but just scaring him to death. He seems to reject this possibility on its own patent absurdity. Or, he thinks that if he becomes a great military leader, he will strike fear in even the hearts of the rich. But his solution boils down to flight, and his father cannot even guarantee that. Surely his son realizes it'll take a lot more than "saving up."

    Much of this whole exchange explains many of Ivan's and Smerd's socio-political views.

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    May 26, 2001 - 12:59 pm
    Whew 14 posts - what ever happened I could not get into Seniornet last night - hate to rehash the earlier posts but to follow up on Joan's curiosity - I was facinated with economics and became a business major. Hated accounting, this was before computers with all those little numbers in columns - oh the detail - loved my English lit and History classes but knew I would never make a living pursuing that discipline. Marketing opened my eyes to how the world influences our buying power. Had I the resources I would have loved to persue the study of international trade and diplomacy. This was the late 60s and early 70s when the call to women's financial independence was first stirring in my breast.

    I've always had a lot of energy and seem to tackle many things at one time. This was also a time when I was very involved as a trainer in Girl Scouting. I had found scholarship money to attend a National Training event held in a campsite in New York (where I thought I would freeze to death in the August!!! nights and requested 5 blankets, one more each night) I followed that up with two years later requesting a second scholarship for myself and one of the paid staff memebers. We overhauled our local training and found funding to develop a library specific for adults working with children and how best to teach and learn. This came about only because of my learning how important training is in business. I also, because of this practical application, learned that folks learn best when, what they are learning ties into their interests.

    And yes Joan, well put, Chaity is humiliating but even more - it is like you not only have no self-pride but you have given up on yourself. You have nothing else at that point except your belief in your view of youself. Without that you are a pawn to your next meal.

    I think it is why so many poor adults, men especially, take basic goods acting angry, not thankful at all. I remember when a Girl Scout troop thought they would be helpful in that there was a woman with 13 children whose husband walked out and she was very ill. The girls knew one of the children and they thought they would help her and her family out by bringing over groceries and cleaning up the house and yard. The women wouldn't let them in. I understood, but, most of the mothers clucked for a year after that one as if they were the wounded party. I have labeled many people Ms. Bountiful as they think charity means compassion. As Will and Ariel Durant say in "Lessons of History"
    Freedom and equality are sworn and everlasting enemies, and when one prevails the other dies. Leave men free and their natural inequalites will multiply almost geometrically, as in England and America in the nineteenth century under laissez-faire. To check the growth of inequality, liberty must be sacrificed, as in Russia after 1917. Even when repressed, enequality grows; only the man who is below the average in economic ability desires equality; those who are conscious of superior ability desire freedom; and in the end superior ability has its way.

    Inequality is not only natural and inborn, it grows with the complexity of civilization...Economic development specializes functions, differentiates abilities, and makes men unequally valuable to their group.

    Utopias of equality are biologically doomed, and the best that the amiable philosopher can hope for is an approximate equality of legal justice and educationnal opportunity. A society in which all potential abilities are allowed to develop and function will have a survival advantage in the competition of groups.
    And as we can see from this story educationnal opportunity requires more than inexpensive tuition. For the poor it is a luxury and they learn that lesson very early in their lives.

    Some learn but do not accept their fate believing, since they are still young, that their parents, the center of their universe, are being unjust. That was my belief until I was in my 40s and finally understood.

    Without having the words I know that my family understood and I certainly experienced that rather than Charity being compassion, Opportunity is compassion in the eyes of those that are needy. And certainly with so much in the news about how the poor can not afford to receive the same legal council we can transfer that knowledge and easily understand how Snegiryov and his son Ilyusha desire legal justice obtained through the mores of social respect and sword fighting.

    Now I must review the many posts and get back to this story.

    Jo Meander
    May 26, 2001 - 02:43 pm
    Barbara, super post! Just in the nick of time! I'm thinking about Henry's reference to Ivan and Snegiryov's socio-plitical views (not sure about Ivan's yet), and I wonder if they would argree with the Durants that the only effective equality is equality of education and opportunity. More and more to ponder re Snerg.'s behavior. He loves his son, whose pride mirrors his own, want justice, better things for his family, but in the end scorns the help Katerinsa offers. Could it be because he wants opportunity, fair play, in addition to his son's approval, and not someone elses's money? OK, I can see that, but I can't stop believing he should have taken it to alleviate the suffering of the women in his household.

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    May 26, 2001 - 04:27 pm
    Jo I think Dostoevsky is saying there is always suffering and I have to agree. All the poor possess at times is their suffering. With that realization, as much as it would be valuable to feel fed, clothed, health than the question becomes why? - for what further humiliation will their improved good health subject them - as the song goes, they have sold their soul to the company store - they no longer have any commodity to sell in exchange for a place in society other than as a pet that receives scrapes from their master, or to accept, as Snegiryov, that he would have to become no more than a peasant not far removed and of the mindset of a serf/slave dependent on his master, the owner of his soul - the poor with pride, in order to maintain that pride and step of dignity in society will not sell their soul for bread today or health today in exchange for a stake or even the dream of a stake in that metaphoric small plot to plant and harvest continuously with the ability to provide with their own respected labor their required food, shelter, clothes and health.

    If the poor sell their soul they can no longer even motivate themselves with righteous anger. They sold out for a temporary fix. During the nineteenth century Russia there is no system in place that assures them this is a temporary experience and with a handout now, you will have the energy to take advantage of some opportunity. There is no opportunity in place. And what opportunity has been recently made available because of the freedom of the serfs and higher education opportunities for women in Russia, this freedom requires hoops to jump that are so far off the floor and those that created the opportunity have no clue what is required to jump that high.

    Just as those that offer educational opportunities have no clue that the battle is between being homeless or the death of an ill family member but for the child’s income or the child's labor caring for that family member versus a child’s higher education, the doorway to better employment and the opportunity to make changes in the social structure.

    It is not unusual to hear of daughters that had to give up college to care for their dying mother. 20/20 last evening explained just that family background for Quinlinn, author and columnist.

    This to me goes to the outrage that Betty felt upon reading the site about nineteenth century woman that are actually marketing sites for an arranged marriage. What appears more horrifying that these women are still looked for today by men that prefer this Iconographic view of historical womanhood. What is so amazing to me is that there are enough men still seeking this arrangement that a web site can be successful marketing these woman.

    As to the woman it appears that all they have to sell in their freedom is this dependency on men since they still have not acquired any wealth of their own that enables them to seek to express their souls. Woman were trained as children to sell their souls as well as their sex, in order to be provided for. They had not experienced a place in society in their own right of respect that the captain once held. And so I can still see hitting and smacking as the frustrations of dependent women exhibit their "hysteria."

    Barbara experienced opportunity and had to give it up in order to care for her mother and sister. She is angry and only knows to blame her father. I wonder if we learn in reading how the captain was reduced to such poverty. Regardless, he is not willing to sell his soul to benefit even Barbara, releasing her to go back to school. He sees that honoring his son's future as instilling the value of family pride and dignity is more valuable than the education that Barbara could obtain and use to maybe better the families circumstances.

    Again, I think Dostoevsky is saying that pain and suffering are the means or price to pay for true joy, which is encased in the dignity of each human, the soul of each and the pride that allows us each to be an equal member of society. I'm sure in Siberia he had the opportunity to see many a prisoner withstand much depravation and degradation in the name of personal dignity.

    Jo Meander
    May 26, 2001 - 04:50 pm
    "Woman were trained as children to sell their souls in order to be provided for. They had not experienced a place in society, in their own right, of respect that the captain once held." Barbara, this seems like a perfect explanation for Serg.'s daughter wanting to become an independent woman. She does not want to sell her soul, does want to becomean independent woman!
    I understand that Serg. would turn away from charity if it was a temporary fix, if her really was selling his soul, but he might still find a way to improve his family's circumstances after accepting some help.

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    May 26, 2001 - 05:44 pm
    Yes I understand Jo but I think he is too far down - his contribution to society was as a captain that required some youth and vigor - as a patriarch I think all he can be sure of is to instill in Ilyusha the value of honor and individual pride.

    Aloysha thinks if he moves away he will make money but the issue for Nikolai is not money. On page 205 he says"...a noble spirit arose..." Nikolai is valueing the nobility of spirit as he explains that his son is ordinary and even weak, that he could have felt ashamed of his father but he "stoodup for his father," not only that but, he stood "alone against everyone."

    Alone, the individual nobility of man. And than Nikolai proceeds to say "for the truth, sir, for justice, sir." And so a man is measured by his ability to tell the truth and his ability to understand, expect and express justice.

    This is followed by, "Because what he suffered then...only God alone knows and I sir." This is a covenent between each man and his God. His soul, his integrity is built on this foundation. Once the foundation is cracked by selling your "honor, sir" (page 212) you are breaking that covenent. You have sold your soul.

    This is not an easy battle as Nikolai's face is described, "...all shaken with tears. In a weeping, faltering, spluttering patter, he cried out." The anguish, the sacrifice, the solid foundation worthy of Isaac saying "...unto Abraham his father, and said. My father; and he said. Here am I, my son...where is the lamb for a burnt offering?..and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood." Genesis 22 7-10.

    Nikolai Ilyich Snegiryov further compares the value of his honor with mere money. Money, is really nothing but paper that represents the sweat of the earth and offered to him by someone that thinks she owns its intrinsic value. Earthly value offered by one that did not even work for the value behind the paper as compared to The Snegiryov family honor and noble covenant with God.

    This is a small town and I am sure that, in addition, Nikolai is aware of the connection between Katerina and Dmitri. Dmitri, the man that has challanged the equality, the nobility, of the Snegiryov with a most dishonorable, unjust act. And so, I am sure, Nikolai must be suspect that the money is buying more than his being beholden to Katerina's good will. Because like all commerce unless there is an exchange at the time the money passes there is another covenant, a man made covenant, that you are beholden to the one that has extended the money. Beholden to Katerina is bad enough but, the risk that he is also beholden to Dmitri looms over the transaction.

    Marvelle
    May 27, 2001 - 12:20 am
    I had to leave for a little while to do some research and now I'm SO FAR BEHIND in the posts. Excuse me if my following comments are a little scattered but I'm trying to play catch up!



    Thank you Charlie W.for the photo link. What amazing photos of Russia at work, and the photo of three generations. Don't you think that their dress styles which go from 'old to new' symbolize the impending major social changes in their country?



    I wonder what Barbara Nikolavna is really doing to work for "the emancipation of the Russian woman (my book is 'woman' singular, not plural) on the banks of the Neva"? What do the banks of the Neva have to do with anything? Is it work for the homeless, or prostitutes, or factory workers, or is the Neva some site of radical and/or revolutionary activity? Or is the university on the banks of the Neva? I'm just curious and it probably isn't important to the content and meaning of the Brothers. But I have the feeling that Barbara Nikolavna has taken a radical viewpoint, the last hope of the hopeless.



    I appreciate (our) Barbara's comments about charity. There is an honest offer of opportunity and then there is charity and they are two very different things. People like Katerina -- the Lady Bountifuls -- use charity to assure themselves that they are better than those other people. No Holy Fool she! She has her self-serving motives.

    People who are on the receiving end of charity know that it places them in a social abyss from which it is hard to escape, maybe impossible in the Russia of Dos' time which has such extreme inequality between classes. Sneg's worth in society has been quantified to 200 rubles. It might earn Sneg and family temporary respite but it will keep them all permanently down once they are labeled as "those people" or as "other". What a terrible dilemma and so heartbreaking for brave little Ilyusha.



    Alyosha doesn't understand at first what Katerina's mission is but I think he starts to get the idea -- not correcting a wrong, but the buying, i.e. degradation, of a soul. Yet Alyosha only partly understands. He needs more experience and to stop being an observer of life. Zosima was right to send him out into the world. Alyosha needs to learn true "active love," what Faith called the difference between that of Alyosha's taking action (and therefore judging what is right/wrong) to Zosima's practicing love without judgment.



    I wish I could follow Zosima's example of unconditional love. But how difficult it is!

    Marvelle

    Joan Pearson
    May 27, 2001 - 08:30 am
    Good morning! Memorial Day weekend! Are you doing anything special? We are going into DC today to watch and then mingle with the Vietnam Vets... "Rolling Thunder" is a powerful, memorable presence here on Memorial Day.

    Barbara, yes indeedy it is a small town and people are all aware of the Dmitri's and Katerina's engagement ...and you can bet they know what happened between Sneg and Dmitri at the Metropolis and the resulting lawsuit, can we call it that?

    Jo, Sneg was so close to accepting the money he needs so badly...actually took the notes in his hand. Couldn't he have taken the 200 rubles from Katerina as compensation for injuries? Settled outside of court? I think that may have been what he was thinking or at least feeling when he accepted the money.

    But what happened? What caused him to accept it and then stomp on it? Didn't Alyosha's lack of understanding of the man's pride lead to overkill? Didn't he go beyond offering the 200 rubles in compensation, turning the whole gesture into a clear act of charity?

    Henry, Grushenka does reveal a superficial understanding of Sneg's pride in her threat to fire him unless he drops charges, doesn't she? But Katerina also indicated a lack of understanding of the implications of her bribe...by refusing to recognize it for what it was. Sneg could have accepted compensation, but not charity. She has convinced herself that she is acting out of charity. Not honest with herself. This is a bribe pure and simple to save Dmitri.

    Poor Alyosha never does get it...that Katerina's rubles are a bribe and nothing more. He thinks it's pure charity and compassion, which is what causes him to overdo the offer to help the family. I think that when Sneg. heard there would be more from where that came from...as much as he needed, not only from Katerina, but from the Karamazov "monk" himself...well, this was not compensation for damages...this was charity, humiliating charity and Alyosha is enjoying the giving so much...more than Sneg can tolerate.

    Marvelle, I'd be interested to hear why you think Alyosha is starting to understand the charity/honor/bribe situation. He still appears clueless to me.

    And I'm still wondering, along with Henry, about that last line in Book IV:
    "After smoothing them out, he folded them up, put them in his pocket and went to Katerina Ivanovna to report on the success of her commission."



    Can anyone explain this? In what way does Alyosha delude himself that he was successful?

    Off for "Rolling Thunder", meeting now at the Pentagon parking lot a mile from my house, literally thousands of motorcycles, preparing for the roar down Constitution Ave. at noon! Will tell you about it later!

    Deems
    May 27, 2001 - 09:09 am
    Marvelle--You wrote, "I wonder what Barbara Nikolavna is really doing to work for "the emancipation of the Russian woman (my book is 'woman' singular, not plural) on the banks of the Neva"? What do the banks of the Neva have to do with anything? Is it work for the homeless, or prostitutes, or factory workers, or is the Neva some site of radical and/or revolutionary activity? Or is the university on the banks of the Neva?"

    My Avsey translation has a footnote on this section. Universities ran special classes for women only. Full-time student status was not available to women at the time. Avsey adds that "women's rights were among the top priorities of the Russian radical movement. 'The banks of the Neva' is a poetic reference to St. Petersburg."

    Maryal

    FaithP
    May 27, 2001 - 12:28 pm
    We were wondering the background of Captain Snegiryov and he supplies the most information in the Chapter Larcerations in a Cottage when he pulls his chair up to Alexie's and with knees touching he states"Nicholas Snegiryov Sir, a former Captain in the Russian Infantry, degraded by his vices though still a Captain, though I might not be one now because of the way I talk, using Sir ...etc" So he admits to his vices and I assumed gambling and drinking. In other places references to his drinking, and to his being a drunkard are made. When they are walking together in the OPEN Air...he defends his drinking to Aloysha. I think it is obvious so far anyway that he has some income but drinks and otherwise does not manage well even using his daughters school money.

    Everyone in the discussion now seems to have agreed that the main reason he threw down the rubles is because Aloysha was so insensitive as to Say "Oh you would have enough for a new life and if not I would give you my own money and the best thing would be for you to go away out of this province..(paraphrased) and when he looks at the Captain the man is in a frenzy of disgust, fright, indecision and mostly fury and it is all understandable.

    Aloysha does understand his part in this, though he does not see the money as a bribe which it really is as Joan was talking about in her posts. He does run to tell of the success of his errand but then when he is recounting his morning to lisa there is a conflict . Joan you wonder about him running to tell Katya about the success of his errand well on Chapter one, page p209 The Engagement. after he arrives and is finallly alone with Lisa "He could think of nothing but his failure.(at delivering the money) So we have a Dos giving us those mixed up sentences again leaving us with questions. He tells Lisa that Zosima told him to care for people as you do for children and for the sick, and Aloysha says, I have a sordid soul, I dont think I am ready for that.I am impatient and I dont see things." So I think on reading furthur Chapters and also on studing the posts with what others think I can see Alexie growing up. Faith

    Joan Pearson
    May 28, 2001 - 04:59 am
    Maryal, thanks so much for the footnote information on the university classes on the banks of the Neva. No wonder Barbara has been studying about the emancipation of women! These are the only classes available to her in Petersburg! That helps! Now on the other hand, what was available to Katerina, the girl from the Institute...what was she studying in Moscow?

    In searching for more information on education and women in the 1860's (unsuccessfully), I did find much on this subject in France...about what the Revolution of 1848 did for human rights, and women's rights too. More "western ideas" finding their way into Russia at this time, shaking up the status quo...

    Joan Pearson
    May 28, 2001 - 05:17 am
    Good morning, Faith! You lead us right into Book V, Chapter I this morning, but first some lingering thoughts from Book IV...

    Your post, the scene with Sneg. and Alexei, "knees touching", telling of his "fall", his degradation, forced to "yes sir" everyone...reminds me of the Captain Snegiryov/Captain Yessirov names...I was fascinated with "Yessirov" and wonder what your translation says? Wondered too about the original Russian...

    While on names, when Sneg's Arina uses the name Chernamaov, my Pevear translation footnote explains that Dos. is bringing attention to the implicit meaning of the name Karamazov:
    Cherny is Russian for black but in Tartar and Turkish translations, kara also means black - the root maz comes from paint or smear. Black smear? hmmmmmm...


    As Faith tells us, the success of Alyosha's commission is suddenly considered to be a failure in Chapter I. Alyosha despairs at his inability to follow Father Zosima's directives. From this "failure" he begins to question his belief in God. I found this to be quite a leap, did you? This question seems to be in the minds of many Russians at the time, but I don't understand the logic that would lead Aly. to question the existence of God because he has "blundered"?

    I find it curious that he is able to pour out all his innermost thoughts to little Lise. Is it because she is so mature for her age, such a good listener, or can it be because she is so child-like?

    Marvelle
    May 28, 2001 - 06:15 am
    Maryal what great info about women only classes and the poetic reference to the university as "on the banks of the Neva". That helps a lot. What do you bet that Katerina is going to "finishing school" to study the social arts expected of a society woman.



    Joan I posted after I had read ahead a bit and maybe that is why I thought Alyosha had an inkling that Katerina's offer was bribery rather than charity. But I reread the first part of Book Five and now think that I gave A too much credit for wisdom. He is, after all, a VERY young man. What I read was in Book Five 'Pro and Contra', Chapter I 'The Engagement,' Alyosha is talking to Lise about his meeting with Snegy/Yessirov and A says among other things that he offered more money if needed and:



    "That struck him all at once. Why, he thought, did I put myself forward to help him? You know, Lise, it's awfully hard for a man who has been injured, when other people look at him as though they were his benefactors."



    But I think that A is still only beginning to understand people and there is actually no comment about Katerina or a bribe here. So I think I erred.



    Later in this talk with Lise he enthuses about how Yessirov will 'be sure now to take the money.' (Yessirov, what an appropriate name for the captain! Snegy recognizes with bitterness and despair his standing in society.) A tells Lise that Yessirov should now be regretting his rejection of the money and now he, Alyosha, will go to Yessirov and say:



    "'Here, you are a proud man..you have shown it but now take the money and forgive us!' And then he will take it!...The great thing now is to persuade him that he is on an equal footing with us, in spite of his taking money from us...and not only on an equal, but even on a higher footing."



    Now that idea of Alyosha seems like an unrealistic pipedream to me. I can't wait to see if this dream actually works!

    -- Marvelle

    P.S. I vote that A is comfortable with Lise because she seems so child-like. Maturity also means the physical and A is wary of that. Even the fact that Lise is an invalid (temporary?) would appeal to him.

    Henry Misbach
    May 28, 2001 - 02:29 pm
    Marvelle9, I greatly "dig" your variant, "Yessirov," and if it were't so long I would surely use it.

    I guess we just have to credit Dos with a round house curve that just looks like it's headed right between our eyes, but can suddenly drop into the strike zone. Either that, or it is a fault of the translation, where some English cognate maybe smothers the actual sense.

    It is in any case clear in the opening of the next chapter that Alyosha certainly does not consider himself to have succeeded in his mission of the previous day. Not only that, he knows exactly the point at which he absolutely ruined it. He knew that Sneg had taken the hook and was running with it. Instead of letting him run with it, Alyosha had to run his mouth and offer him even more money, so that he could move. That's Alyosha's view of it. While he may be right, I see it differently. Sneg probably knows if he takes the money, he accepts a payoff. But if he refuses it, he knows he has his mark on the run, and may induce him to pay a much larger amount. It's not unlike accepting an insurance payoff, where they'll usually ask you to sign off on a waiver of any further damages. Sneg has to know that he has Alyosha & Co. right where he wants them.

    FaithP
    May 28, 2001 - 03:33 pm
    I did not come across Yessirov in Garnett translation. Bet it is a Russian Pun and was in the original in some form of put down to Sneg. Aloysha considers Lisa his long time good friend, remember, from childhood and school in Moscow. When he got her "love" letter he admits he lied about it to her and did not throw it away but kept it close to him and puts it back in his shirt.(by his heart? youth being what it is) He certainly has not been "inflamed" by his love for Lisa, and he does seem curiously insensitive when he says "Who else would have me" But Lisa is truthfully a very mature person and understands Aloysha pretty well.

    I don't think it is this failure re:Sneg, at all that causes Alexie's brief question"Perhaps I don't believe in God" I think it is his inability to feel that love he wants to feel and feels a grief at his lack of it.(his secret grief?) More about that as the book goes on I am sure. The whole book is questioning Mans relationship to God and to Man, and from the viewpoint of Russian's of the early century . Knowing little of that era I just am learning what it is all about as I go along. fp

    Hats
    May 29, 2001 - 05:11 am
    In this beginning chapter, I am beginning to like Lise. At first, I thought she was rather silly. Perhaps, I like her simply because I feel that Alyosha likes or loves her. She is a fun girl, and also, I think her handicap will give her deeper insights into life. Is it possible that she might even add to Alyosha's spirituality or wisdom?

    Hats
    May 29, 2001 - 05:53 am
    Lise admits that she will open and read Alyosha's mail. Then, she says there will be times when she will eavesdrop on his conversations. Now I am beginning to feel a bit uncomfortable with Lise again. Won't this cause their marriage to get off to a wrong start?

    Marvelle
    May 29, 2001 - 07:08 am
    Faith, funny about translations. I have a Garnett translation too but in the Norton Critical Edition. Maybe it was changed for this edition, but anyway, the Yessirov nickname was self-inflicted. When he talked to Alyosha about his situation, Sneg called himself Yessirov. He spoke with great bitterness because he has to "sir" so many people. Who of us wouldn't be unhappy in such a situation? And Yessirov was a captain!

    That is one reason why I think it is pride that causes his refusal of the money. I think Yessirov is hurt rather than calculating. Well, we'll see.

    Marvelle

    Joan Pearson
    May 29, 2001 - 08:37 am
    Faith, take another look in the Garnet translation for "Yessirov", the curious English translation "Yes Sir"...I really would like to know what it looks like in the original Russian. ANYBODY? Carolyn, what do you find in your Norwegian version?

    The reference appears in Book Four, Chapter VI, approximately four pages into the chapter at the time Alexei and Sneg introduce themselves, right before the curtain is pulled to reveal the boy, Illyusha in his bed...
    "...Captain Yessirov, rather than Snegiryov, for the last half of my life I've learned to say 'sir'. It's a word you use when you've come down in the world."


    When Alyosha asks if the term is used involuntarily or on purpose, Sneg answers:
    "Involuntarily. I didn't use it before. I didn't use the word 'sir' all my life, but as I sank into low water I began to say 'sir'. It's the work of a higher power."


    Marvelle, his pride is hurt, but for how long? Half his life? Is that how you read this passage? It seems that if a person has been down for so long, that he has acquired some sort of survival skills. Perhaps he really is the scam artist Henry suspects him to be? An interesting thought! Sneg knows that he may get a better offer out of Alyosha by seemingly refusing the first offer. But hasn't Aly. offered more than the 200 rubles from Katerina? Perhaps a vague promise of "more" isn't concrete enough... Perhaps he expects the number of rubles pressed into his hand to increase in the next offer?

    I don't know, Henry, this sound so cynical. I'll agree with Marvelle, his pride is hurt, but it's been hurt for half of his life! I guess the question is...how does he go about reclaiming his honor, his dignity...he knows that the 200 rubles (and MORE) could solve a lot of his problems, the painful reminders of how low he has fallen. How much is his pride worth after being without it for half of his life? And what did he mean when he says that the cause of his fall is the work of a higher power? Do you suppose he says this because he thinks it will impress Alyosha?

    Joan Pearson
    May 29, 2001 - 08:55 am
    Hats, read on for a few more pages - Lise takes it all back! I thought the mail reading comment was interesting after our discussion about the implications of Zosima reading the monks' mail...was it Charlie who pointed out that this was a sign of the monks' submission and vow of obedience? Is Lise saying here that she expects Alyosha's submission once they are married? What causes her to change her mind about this after their chat?

    I find it curious and a bit disconcerting the way Lise refers to Alexei in the third person while she's talking to him! I've checked two different translations, so I don't think it was a translation mis reading. Did you notice? What did you think when you read these staements?
    "Ah Alyosha, how do you know all this? So young and yet he knows what's in the heart."

    "I kiss his hand and yet he says, 'what a good thing' "

    "He has chosen me as his wife and is quite settled about it. He is sure I was in earnest. What a thing to say!"



    Hats, that is such an interesting question you ask! Will Lise be the means to strengthening Alyosha's spirituality, which he is seems to be questioning right now?

    Hats
    May 29, 2001 - 09:09 am
    Joan, I am beginning to wonder is there a "secret" side to Alyosha. He tells Lise that he has a secret. He says that he will tell his secret later. Then, he says, "What would you say if I told you that perhaps I don't even believe in God?" Is this Alyosha speaking?

    That statement blew me away! I never expected Alyosha to speak such words. Why does he say this? He's not the type to joke about God. Why does he say this to Lise? Why? Why? Why?

    O.K. I will just read further. Everything and everyone will become clearer sooner or later, I hope.

    "But Alyosha didn't answer her. There was something too intimate and mysterious in his unexpected statement, something that was, perhaps, unclear even to him, but that had certaily been tormenting him for some time."

    Now I am thinking, after the shock, maybe Alyosha is becoming more like the rest of us, more human. Everyone, I think, at some point, questions God's existence or his presence in our lives. So, maybe, Alyosha is becoming more "real."

    I wonder is Alyosha beginning to question what he has believed for so long, the teachings of Zosima. Is this why he does not hurry back to the elder's bedside?

    I think he is beginning to see that the sacred can not be understood apart from that which is earthly. Now, he is beginning to put that "active love" into practice.

    I might be totally confused.

    Henry Misbach
    May 29, 2001 - 09:21 am
    Yes, Joan, I'm sure my interpretation is cynical. But, from Sneg's point of view, have any true cynics starved to death? I can't think of any.

    FaithP
    May 29, 2001 - 12:27 pm
    I reread about 3 times pages 195 to end of chapter four. Nope. my edition is translated by C Garnett and edited by Manual Kamroff with afterword by John Bayley. ? No Captain Yesirov in the place you find it and no Captain yesirov anywhere in my book. I wonder how many other little things are different. I was reading the on line version and switched to this when I found a good paperback that I could afford. Now I may compare them as the online is Garnett too. OK it is not in the online version either.

    I seem to have a very different view of Alosha than most of you. I keep remembering how young he is. How sensitive he is. Remember his natural modesty, how he could not stand "boy" talk and certain words that boys think funny. "He would put his fingers in his ears"

    In puberty after his benefactor died he went to live with elderly ladies and then did not finish school. I remember that he was totally unconcerned with how he got a living or who he was living 'on'. Everyone loves him and thinks he is so superior in morality and in my humble opinion it is shyness and lack of curiosity, and his lack of normal curiosity regarding the life going on around him seems "backward" to me, he doesnt care about money, he doesnt care who pays his way he lives on whoever takes him in with no questions ..This seems as if he is totally self absorbed to me. I remember at the grave of his mother he wasnt curious but Papa told him he was "like his mother"that crazy lady...

    I think this child was a perfect candidate for retreating from the world and going to the monestary. Zosima is worldly and understands Aloysha is not at all ready to make a decision about the life he would lead as a monk. He does need to get out in the world and learn. And yes, Lisa will be the leader in their love affair as that is the only way it started in the first place. I like Lisa a lot. I find she is a bit of a manipulator but most women have to be in that day and this. Faith

    Lorrie
    May 30, 2001 - 07:06 am
    HAPPY, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JOAN!

    Deems
    May 30, 2001 - 09:21 am

    Happy Birthday, Joan!

    Henry Misbach
    May 30, 2001 - 10:43 am
    Yes, Joan, happy birthday.

    I have not been able to find Yessirov in my Garnett translation, either. May be a pun that a more recent translator assembled.

    Yes, Alyosha does think Lise is more mature than most people her age, but he attributes much of that to the fact that she has suffered. The ability the two have to speak openly and frankly with one another augurs well for their future together. Alyosha persuades me that, in analyzing Snerg, he is just building upon what he would do himself under the same circumstances, and Lise seems to go with this also.

    It comes as no real surprise to me that Mom Hohlakov punctures a new hole in the ceiling over the news of the kids' engagement. No doubt her discomfiture is heightened by her daughter's still tender age. Still in all, she comes through it rather well.

    I may be a little biased in that view of it. When I was in Italy, what I learned about how an engagement is likely to occur there led me to wonder how they manage to get people married often enough to propagate their kind! "Fidanzato in casa" is a phrase every young man there dreads, because once he's on that status he's past the point of no return.

    I will add to that, however, that the discussion between Lise and Alyosha about the extent to which they will share their lives is as un-characteristic of European society as our willingness to write out a post card. The Italians call that sending a card "tutto scritto," with details about where you've gone, what you've seen, etc. They think us naive to do so. Some Genoese friends of mine drove, yes drove, from there to Afghanistan. They did it in a Beetle modified to carry extra gas. Their postcard from there says, "Auguri," and all three signed. That's it.

    Joan Pearson
    May 30, 2001 - 10:48 am
    Have been tripping over colorful birthday greetings all morning...thanks so much! They make the day a bit brighter, happier!

    Henry!, after reading your post just now and remembering Faith's, I just scrolled through the electronic text about, and just as you say, no mention of "yessirov"! Now isn't that something!!! Do you really believed that translators just made that up or do you think that there was something in the original Russian, skipped over by earlier translators, and picked up by the later ones? Vedddy interesting!


    I came in after thinking for while about Hat's question and how Lise can be a good match for Alyosha, how she can add to his spirituality and wisdom...

    She is> a good listener; knows how and when to question him, which seems to clarify his reasoning to himslf. Above all, she is not critical, judgmental She clearly admires and respects his views (even thought some of them require a leap of faith. You can sense his doubts dissipate and his resolve strengthen as they speak.

    She is quite aware of the difference in their ages...and can explain life to him through her child's eyes..."We must put off kissing. We're not ready yet." Never mind that the next moment, they ARE kissing.

    Alyosha can connect with children, can speak from his heart without fear of disdain. I think that's going to be important to remember. Perhaps children, who are open and willing to listen and not be swayed will be the future of Russia?

    Alyosha seems relieved and more confident now that he has settled matters with Lise. We still don't know what's bothering him...his secret grief! Is it spiritual, physical? Does it have anything to do with his mother?

    The one who continues to puzzle me is Mme. Khohlakov! Is she a main character? A pivotal character? I don't understand her at all! She eavesdrops, well that's normal, but she gets so overcome at the thought of Lise and Alyosha marrying, and then calms down just as quickly when he tells her they will have to wait for a year and a half! She sounded almost jealous of Alyosha in the beginning...she never tells me she's sorry when she laughs at me...she remembers Alyosha as her greatest childhood friend...what of me? And then there is the weird comment to Alyosha when she refers to the comedy (comedy?), Woe from Wit...What does she mean when she refers to the final scene.."love to the daughter, but death to the mother?" Is she simply saying that Lise is her whole life and when she goes she "might as well be in her grave?"

    Henry, you really think that she took it well when she heard of their plans? This "betrothal" is uncharacteristic of European society...what about Russian? I do remember quite a formal ceremony when Dmitri and Katerina announced their marriage. Maybe Mme. K. calmed down when she heard ofthe year and a half wait because it let her off the hook planning a big celebration...knowing a lot can happen in that time. I wonder if we will still be reading Brothers K a year and a half from now? I remember that Dos. planned to write a second novel that was to be Alyosha's story, but died first. Maybe we won't ever know what happens between these too. I'll bet we hear more about the secret grief though!

    You can bet that Alyosha wishes he made it out the door before she stopped him. Off to Zosima's bedside??? Nope! Must find Dmitri again...as he senses impending catatrophe! And who does he meet instead? Another mysterious character! SMERDY!!! And he's playing a guitar!

    Hats
    May 30, 2001 - 11:42 am
    HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JOAN

    FaithP
    May 30, 2001 - 03:44 pm
    Many Happy Returns of the Day, Joan!>

    I just figured out what that saying means. Am I a little backward or somethin?

    O Smerdy is so petite and graceful,so clean and combed and perfumed, so disdainful, and smirky and distasteful so far, perhaps I will come to have different feelings regarding him. I do think there is a way to really pun names in Russian and if my erstwhile relative was around I could find out. Doesnt Smerdy sound like some kind of insult or something not very nice. Still Dmitri is making friends with him and the landlady's daughter,Maria is entranced with him.Here he is playing the Gallent in the garden with her and Aloysha happens upon them as he trys to hid in the summerhouse.

    Aloysha evidently could care less about Smerdy, and manages to get the information he needs. Dmitri is sure staying out of this isnt he.

    When Aloysha and Ivan meet for dinner in the Tavern I have to read, and reread as it is like somekind of long treatise on Ivans beliefs. Who he really is is gradually emerging. Faith

    Deems
    May 30, 2001 - 03:50 pm
    Everyone is welcome to a fine piece of........


    Karamazov Kake


    in honor of Joan on her birthday!

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    May 30, 2001 - 05:42 pm
    HAPPY BIRTHDAY (in 161 languages) Joan

    Happy Birthday in Russian and in Ukrainian and of course in French

    betty gregory
    May 30, 2001 - 06:03 pm
    Happy birthday to you (chinnng), happy birthday to you (chinnng), happy birthday, dear Jooo--ooan, Happy birthday toooo youuu (ching ching chinnnng).

    betty

    Jo Meander
    May 30, 2001 - 06:48 pm
    HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOAN! Many happy returns!
    Just think, the Karamazov kollection of folks can wish you H. B. again this time next year!

    Jo Meander
    May 30, 2001 - 07:15 pm
    I've changed my mind about Sneg's refusal of the money. In addition to compelling arguments made by posters, especially Barbara and Faith (I need to go back and check!), I reread Katerina's commission to Alyosha to take the money to Snerg. I think I missed clues in her words the first time:
    "You see, it's not by way of compensation to prevent him from taking proceedings (for I believe he meant to), but simply a token of sympathy, of a desire to assist him from me, Dimitri Fyodorovich's betrothed...." At first I thought she was somehow trying to help Dimitri find redemption for his cruel behavior by performing an act of kindness that he would find out about. I thought she wanted him to feel penitent, but now I think she may have been trying to save him from legal prosecution. If Snerg begins to sense this while he is planning to use the money and Alyosha is chiming in with promises of even more financial help, he has no choice but to refuse. His son has already been taunted at school about his father's plight, about accepting money to take an insult, which he hadn't done yet. His son would have believed the awful things the boys were saying about his father if he did take it. I think I understand his refusal now.

    Marvelle
    May 30, 2001 - 10:21 pm
    Happy Birthday Joan! You've been so wonderful to all of us; you deserve to celebrate yourself. Sometimes birthdays can come too frequently, so why not think of it as a "laugh day." Navajos don't celebrate birthdays, they celebrate the day a baby first laughs. Food is given by the person who was first able to make the baby laugh. This joyful, giving tradition is continued so that the baby will grow into a kind and generous person. So, happy day of laughter!



    Henry, I was entranced by your reminisces of Italy and the tie-in to Alyosha and Lise. It really makes me think. And so many other great posts by , Maryal, Barbara, Charlie, Faith, Jo, Hats, Betty...gee, everyone keeps contributing pieces of the puzzle to the book.



    About the translation of Yessirov. While I don't like to read synopsis or critiques of books until AFTER I've read the book and thought about it, I did check into the general editor's comments on my copy of the Brothers (Norton Critical Edition). The editor is Ralph E. Matlaw from the University of Chicago. Previously I'd heard criticism in literary circles of Garnett's Victorian-sensibility in editing and translation. Here is what Matlaw says:



    "The version offered here is a revision of Mrs. Garnett's translation....(The changes) may be grouped in three categories: first, and most important, those that bridge the vast differences between Russian and Western cultures and languages, in social, theological, and verbal assumptions; second, those that attempt to duplicate exactly Dostoevsky's usage of certain words and terms, when Mrs. Garnett's eminently readable version has modified his repetitions for the sake of a facile elegance, or when she seemed to have missed the importance of a key word or phrase; finally, and least significant, changes necessary to accommodate the difference between genteel English at the turn of the century in England and our present idiom."

    Matlaw gives examples of the changes to Garnett's version which includes simple things like chapter headings such as Book Three, Chap 9 where Garnett calls it "The Purgatory of a Soul" and Matlaw changes it to "The Torment of a Soul" because Russian Orthodoxy does not have a purgatory.



    The endless repetition of the word 'sir' is also mentioned by Matlaw who writes that Captain Snegiryov "coins a name for himself I have given as 'Yessirov' ('Sigma-userov' is more exact but requires footnoting)...(Snegiryov) uses it as a means of self-abasement and self-humiliation."



    If anyone out there reads Russian please jump in with your version of 'Yessirov.' It is unfortunately true that reading a translated version makes us hostages to the skills of one translator.



    It is helpful to have different versions, isn't it?

    --Marvelle

    Hats
    May 31, 2001 - 05:40 am
    Marvelle, I like how the Navahos celebrate birthdays, a day of laughter.

    Joan Pearson
    May 31, 2001 - 06:37 am
    What a happy day of laughter, it was, Hats!...Still smiling over Betty's "ching, ching chinning", the warm wishes from you all, lingering over kake krumbs and kvass! Not forgetting Jo's suggestion that we will be gathering here in this discussion same time next year, for a repeat performance! hahahaha...Jo! I'm aiming for a Christmas wrap-up, but at this rate, you might be right!

    Indeed, as Marvelle says, the pieces of the puzzle are coming together. Look at all we'd miss if we were galloping through the text! Remember the old Palmer Method handwriting exercises...those round cirles that you made across the line never lifting your pen until you reached the end? That's what this discussion reminds me of...we complete a circle, circle back, but all the while we are slowly moving to the right towards the end of that line.

    I'm glad you circled back to Katerina's attempts to settle Dmitri's problems and Snerg's refusal at her offer to settle, Jo. The question is, will he change his mind tomorrow as Alyosha predicts? I'm rooting that he won't!

    Marvelous, Marvelle..., that explanation of the absence of "Captain Yessirov" from the early translations! The early Garnett's Victorian sensibility in editing...explained by Matlaw in the revised edition of the same translation! Oh doesn't that explain so much in the differences we've been finding from chapter to chapter? Even the chapter titles! We will have a better understanding of these differences now as we move across that line!

    Joan Pearson
    May 31, 2001 - 06:56 am
    Faith, let's circle around again to the meaning of Smerdy's name, which you have described as "sounding like an insult"...is this an example of onomatopeia, prof? I circled back to Book Three, Chapter II, because I had a funny feeling that there was something about this nickname earlier.

    I had forgotten the it was Fyodor K. himself who "invented the surname for the child, calling him Smerdyakov after his mother's nickname."

    His mother's nickname. "Stinking Lizaveta" How did the Victorian sensiblity handle this? A footnote in the Pevear translation:

    "Smerdyashchaya - translates as "stinking woman" in Russian. Smerdyakov's name thus means roughly, 'son ot the stinking one.'"


    So, Fae, the name means and sounds "stinky", "like an insult", and yet we find the lad all powdered, perfumed and pomaded. But just listen to him spew hatred towards everyone and everything! He still reeks, doesn't he? Why on earth is Marya spending time and showing interest in him at all???

    FaithP
    May 31, 2001 - 11:36 am
    I spent some time, going back to original description of Smerdyakov and his naming and growing up. When he comes back from Moscow he is changed and now a professional cook, he was always very clean almost a fetish but now he is "done up". Perhaps his experience as a child hearing "Stinking Lizavet" as his mothers name gave him the 'clean and purfumed complex'. These contradictions in Dos's characters are never explained again "he wants us to do the work".

    As we read the first chapter in book five I begin to "see" Ivan. He speaks in a confused manner but after all he is not confused and really is an athiest. He also could care less about his father and his brother. He tells Aloysha at their dinner "I am not my brothers Keeper. His philosophy brings us right to the heart of what Dos is writing about..Man questioning his relationship to god, life, other men and moraliy. This and the following chapters are the very meat of the novel.I so far have read the whole think once and am on my way again.Faith

    Joan Pearson
    May 31, 2001 - 01:22 pm
    Fae, that is very interesting...because Smerdy tells Alyosha the same thing ~ that he is his brother's keeper, referring to Dmitri!

    Marvelle
    May 31, 2001 - 02:09 pm
    Joan, at the time of reading "The Engagement" I just thought Lise kept saying 'he' when talking to Alyosha as a way of letting the eavesdropper (her mother) know that Lise was aware of her lurking presence. She started saying 'he' right after she asked Alyosha to see if her mother was listening by the door and Alyosha had to walk over and open the door -- of course, in the time it took for him to cross the room to the door the mother could have hidden. Then it's 'he' this and 'he' that from Lise, even to pointing out the hand kissing (in case an eavesdropper would miss the sound of a kiss?)My interpretation is that this was a little game of Lise's.

    Is anyone else having trouble getting through "The Grand Inquisitor"? I swear I'll finish it tonight but, oh, what work it is to read!

    --Marvelle

    Joan Pearson
    May 31, 2001 - 02:34 pm


    Ooooooooooooh! The third person references are all for mama's benefit! Got it! It never occurred to me! Thanks, Marvelle!

    I have a letter from Dos. to his publisher about Chapter V, the Grand Inquisitor. Let's wait on that chapter till next week...it's what Dos. is begging his publisher to do...to print the first four chapters of Book V in one week's issue of the Russian Herald and then hold Grand Inquisitor for the following week for emphasis. Let's do that!

    Will type out as much of the letter as I can...

    Joan Pearson
    May 31, 2001 - 03:37 pm
    Dostoevsky's letter to Lyubimov, May 10, 1879

    "Today I sent off to you at the Russian Herald forty pages (minimum) of the text of The Brothers Karamazov for the forthcoming May issue of the Russian Herald.

    This is the fifth book, entitled Pro and Contra, but not all of it, only half. The second half of that fifth book will be sent for the June issue, and will consist of fifty pages. I had to divide this fifth book of my novel into two issues...because, even if I put all my efforts into it I would hardly be able to finish it before the end of May...and in the second place, this fifth book is in my view the culminating point of the novel, and must be finished with particular care. Its meaning, as you will see from the text I sent, is the depiction of extreme blasphemy and the kernel of the idea of destruction of our time, in Russia, among our youth who have broken away from reality...

    ...since the difficulty of the task I have undertaken is obious, you forgive my preferring to stretch it over two issues, rather than spoil the culminating chapter by my rushing it. The whole chapter will be full of movement. In the text I sent you I merely depict the character of one of the leading figures in the novel who expresses his fundamental convictions. These convictions are precisely what I consider the synthesis of contemporary Russian anarchism. The rejection not of God but of the sense of his creation. All of socialism emerged and began with the rejection of sense in historical reality and developed into a program of destrution and anarchism.

    The original anarchists were in many instances, people of sincere convictions. My hero chooses a theme I consider irrefutable: the senselessness of children's suffering.....Everything my hero says in the text is based on reality...My hero's blasphemy will be triumphantly refuted in the next (June) issue on which I am now working with fear, trembling and veneration, since I consider my task (the destruction of anarchism) a civic deed. Wish me success, esteemed Nikolay Alexeevich..."


    So Marvelle, I wish you success tonight as you approach the task of reading Chapter V, which Dos. considers the "culminating chapter" of the book, trembling as he did at the enormity of his task.

    The rest of us will continue to listen to him set the scene in the May issue as Ivan dines with Alyosha in the Metropolis...shocking him with his extremist views...preparing ourselves for Chapter V's Grand Inquisitor. See you when the June issue comes out on the third! Be brave!

    Henry Misbach
    May 31, 2001 - 06:53 pm
    I guess I'm just dense, because I see no relationship between Smerd's appearance and his name.

    He has a legitimate beef with Grigory, who "outed" him in Moscow. But, as he so often tells us, he is illegitimate. His father is unknown (but probably Fyodor). He is quite bitter, and it is hard to imagine what Marya sees in him, though she says he's like a foreigner to her--and I guess she wants a walk on the wild side.

    Smerd is not, I suspect, an altogether unsympathetic character to Dos. His concerns are many of those the author probably harbors himself. What will become of the Russian peasant? Marya does a fine job as Smerd's straight man on the subject of duelling, which is another of Dos.' betes noires. This is at least the second time he's brought it up. Smerd's attitude towards military service seems to be unabashed pacifism.

    Last week, when the local high school band and chorus performed the "1812 Overture," I had some difficulty keeping a straight face while recalling Smerd's comment on its subject. If a really smart culture, like France, had subjugated a very dumb culture, like Russia, could that have been all bad?

    He's cold. He's bad. Today we would probably attribute many of his views as "passing through a phase." But, of all Dos.'s characters, he strikes me as one we are to take as being in deadly earnest.

    Deems
    May 31, 2001 - 07:25 pm
    Yes indeed, the name is pronounced SMARED-ya-kov---rhymes with merde. And don't think Dostoevsky didn't know that. He sprinkles the novel with French, generally showing his disdain for all things French.

    However, Smerdyakov is not smelly at all, physically that is. He is all perfumed and pomaded for his evening serenade. We shall see if he is like merde in a figurative sense.

    Maryal

    Marvelle
    May 31, 2001 - 07:56 pm
    Oops! Sorry about reading ahead! Didn't realize.

    Smerdy said that he goes to Marya's house as "an old friend and neighbor." So they were children together in that town, and of the same social class? He and Marya seem to be imitating the social graces they've seen in the upper classes. Remember our "tea parties" as little children when we pretended to have real adult conversations and drink real adult tea? I remember I had little porcelain teacups printed with delicate blue pansies. I was so serious about my intime tea parties at age five! That's how Smerdy and Marya appear to me.

    Smerdy we know was born under dubious conditions and is not of a respectable social position. And Marya doesn't seem all that respectable either (how did she survive in the big city? I can guess, or am I being cynical, Henry?). But that long, come-hither train on her dress! I also see her blood-thirsty nature -- she considers a duel romantic and would love to be present at one. Smerdy is just as servile and hostile. She and Smerdy have similar personalities in that they smile and say sir and then dish behind people's backs.



    It may be only natural for such people to be friends. And don't their character traits when added together make them absurdly pretentious/ambitious, not respectable, malicious?



    Smerdy seems to deny brotherhood with the Karamazovs too. He told Alyosha "I'm not (Dmitri's) keeper." Or is he implying that ALYOSHA should be?



    As for Ivan, he claims that he isn't his brother's keeper. But I do feel -- at this point -- that Ivan is not an atheist. He tells Alyosha that he believes in God but cannot accept the cruel realities of God's world. Ivan truly thinks too much (and aren't all the brothers extreme examples of type?) and he argues himself into a sterile circle of meaninglessness.



    It reminds me of Poe's evaluation of American transcendentalists, "thinkers that think they think."



    Well, I started to post a looong message earlier and lost it in a power outage. So I'm going to close now, even though my paragraph transitions are nonexistent, and hope this one 'takes.'



    --Marvelle

    FaithP
    May 31, 2001 - 09:27 pm
    yes Henry now that I am thinking more in political terms and reading on the side a little more about the socialist party, when it began etc. things I either dont know or have forgotten, anyway in those terms sometimes things appear in a different light. Smerdy is very intelligent and he see's things from a view point the brothers can not. I too think he is becoming one of the dominant participators in the book and of the message th at Dos has coming at us.

    Marvella I love the tea party anology. It just was an aha! when I read your post. Very perceptive you are.

    It has been to hot today to think much. faithp

    ALF
    May 31, 2001 - 09:42 pm
    Smerdy speaks like a true sibling (whatever his parentage be.)  He  denounces Dimitri for "being lower" than any lackey, in his behavior, in his mind and in his poverty and bemoans the fact that Dimitri is respected.  He feels inferior to him, I am sure, and he questions how D is any better than he is.

    Believing that his youth shall triumph over all,  Ivan's opinion is that it is "best to get to know people just before leaving them?"  What's that all about? As he muses over his love of life he is proud that this is a Karamazov trait. (I've missed that one.).  Although Alexy is trying to save him, he states that perhaps he is not lost.  Is that true of most people we attempt to save?  Is it  sabotage of the soul?

    We now get into the meat don't we?  The eternal questions, "the same questions turned inside out" are now up for discussion between these brothers.

    Lady C
    June 1, 2001 - 11:04 am

    Lady C
    June 1, 2001 - 11:14 am
    These discussions were prevalent in Europe at about that time. I was reading "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man' for another (real-time) book club and the protaganist, raised Catholic in Ireland and very nearly entering the priesthood, expresses many of the same ideas toward a rational society. Talk about synchronicity! Darwin and his theories of evolution played a big part in the questioning of the validity of religion and affected the thinking of intellectuals in many countries.

    Joan Pearson
    June 1, 2001 - 01:47 pm
    Alf, I don't think it's surprising that there is no love lost among these brothers. They have not been brought up together...and as has been said before, theirs is a disfunctional family. Sibling rivalry? It seems deeper than that! Rivalry signifies competition for something...and I don't see what that could be ...besides the competition between Dmitri and Ivan for Katerina's love. But they don't even seem to be competing...do they? What is this Karamazov trait we keep hearing about? There seems to be more than one, or are they all related to the fact that they are all "sensualists"...

    There seems to be no love among the Karamazovs except they all care for Alyosha. None wants to be his brother's keeper, except Alyosha plays this role, caring for all of them (except Smerdy). And they all seem to want the love and respect of Alyosha in return. Why is this?

    Lady C, I thought it was interesting when Ivan says that the Russians accept what is merely hypothesis in Europe as axiom. In so many words, he is denouncing Russians for this. Another interesting point along those same lines, he says that older Russians talk of nothing except the fatal position of Russia, and the Emperor Napoleon...whereas the young are talking about the existance of God and immortality.

    (I do remember oldsters in earlier paragraphs talking about immortality, however...Karamazov, Miusov....)

    So, now, Ivan is preparing to leave and feels it is important to get to know Alyosha (?). He seems to want to impress him with his views...because Alyosha is his only friend, but he seems to want more from him...understanding perhaps. Affirmation.

    We are forced to pay such close attention to Ivan's beliefs in these next chapters...isn't it important to remember that he is only 23 years old? Even Ivan makes a point about his "green-ness. I think we have to read his "axioms" very critically, at least, remember the age of the young man who has expressed them.

    Joan Pearson
    June 1, 2001 - 02:39 pm
    Back again with a further thought about Ivan's age..I was in the shower thinking how important it was to remember that he IS a very young man, BUT that Dostovesky considers Chapter V, Ivan's prose poem about the Grand Inquisitor to be the culminating chapter of the book! The views are those of an old man coming from the mouth of a young man. That's what's important to remember. The views however are intended to reflect the error of youthful thinking...well, we'll have to get this straight when we get there. Let's just look at Ivan's "youthful" thinking here in Chapters III and IV and if we understand those, we will be prepared for the poem when we get to it.

    Marvelle, of course, read on...just wait for the discussion till we all catch up with you. I am interested to know how you fared though? Did you finish?

    Marvelle
    June 1, 2001 - 04:58 pm
    Joan, yes I finished the chapter. Here I always worry that I'm behind, and then find out I'm too far ahead. Will have a chance to think before we start discussing it. Interesting point Joan that Ivan could be a mouthpiece in "The Grand Inquisitor" for Dostoevsky.



    I was thinking about Marya too and that trailing train of her dress. Rather than a come-on, could the dress be an attempt to copy the stylish ladies of the big city? But the village is not like a big city. Think of the village's dirt streets, being either dusty or muddy depending on the seasons. Marya would look bedraggled wouldn't she? Unless, like Smerdy, she took extraordinary care of her clothing and washed the dress out every night. Just a thought.



    --Marvelle

    Joan Pearson
    June 2, 2001 - 10:07 am
    Marvelle, that is a comical image...Marya with the 6 foot train in the country gazebo with the pomaded, perfumed Smerdy. Both of them appear as the genteel city folks they are not. Early Snerdy was said to wear white powder on his face...and had the appearance of a eunach. What a pair, as she flirts and says she likes poems that rhyme, and Snerdy spews disdain for everything, everyone, including poetry, which he considers "rubbish"... She doesn't seem to be getting anywhere with him, does she?

    Earlier there was a description of Marya
    "She lives in that house with her bedridden mother...and had been a genteel maidsevant in generals' families in Petersburg. Now she had been home for a year, looking after her mother. She always dressed in fine clothes, though in such poverty that they went every day to Fyodor's kitchen for soup and bread. Though she came for soup, she had never sold her dresses...one of them even had a long train..."


    Thinking more about Ivan. And Dostoevsky. Perhaps he is using the young Ivan to represent one of the young people in Russia who are questioning the immortality of the soul, the future of religion in Russia. He writes that those who do not believe, are turning to anarchism, socialism, atheism. Somehow I find Ivan hopelessly caught in the middle. He seems to be begging Alyosha to "heal" him... to help him learn to love his neighbor...to love anyone.

    Lady C
    June 2, 2001 - 02:41 pm
    I think that Dostoevski uses Ivan and his ideas to play devil's advocate. Dos himself actually is a believer and in that case must eventually--down the line, somewhere--demonstrate in some way that Ivan's thinking is very faulty.

    FaithP
    June 2, 2001 - 03:16 pm
    .Editor's Note: This review appeared anonymously in November 1779, Volume 61, pages 343-355 of The Monthly Review. William Rose's authorship is established in Benjamin Christie Nangle's, The Monthly Review First Series 1749-1789 (1934). Excerpt from review of Dialogues re Natural Religion But suppose that Mr. Hume's principles are let loose among mankind, and generally adopted, what will then be the consequence? Will those who think they are to die like brutes, ever act like men? Their language will be, let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die. When men are once led to believe that death puts a final period to their existence, and are set free from the idea of their being accountable creatures, what is left to restrain them > from the gratification of their passions but the authority of the laws? But the best system of laws that can be formed by human wisdom, is far from being sufficient to prevent many of those evils which bread in upon the peace, order, and welfare of society. A man may be a cruel husband, a cruel father, a domestic tyrant; he may seduce his neighbour's wife or his daughter, without having any thing to fear from the law; and if he takes pleasure in the gratification of his irregular appetites, is it to be supposed that he will not gratify them? What, indeed, is to restrain him? end of excerpt.

    Humes philosophy of Natual Religion does not need to be examined here but I bring it up because Ivan is espousing some of the same philosophy. For intance when he was saying man must believe in Afterlife or he will have no restraint it is really just what these French and English philosophers have been saying and also they have been producing alternatives in human behavior to replace the old religions and it is much like what we now call Natural Humanism.

    When Ivan is told he is a "green boy" by Aloysha (another green little boy) he is not offended he agrees. And goes into a dissertation which he does at the drop of the least little hint of a listener. This is where he said he would turn away from the cup at 30. He is talking about life being worth living with all its horrors and having tasted "life" he will not turn away fromit until he is 30, and I believe he means "the dissolute life" of a young man in the taverns and inns of society. He does not know what will take its place yet. Then Ivan says this thirst for life is called base, yet it is a genetic featurer (Ha ha) of the Karmazov family. He says even Aloysha has it.

    Ivan is certainly like many young men of his time who are reading the philosophers and sciences and coming to some conclusions that appear very radical to the older people. But even they are beginning to listen to these young men of the early 19th century who are testing their belief in God...and Ivan says the young russians are talking about the eternal question of the existance of God, an immortality. They talk of socialism and anarchy,Of the transformation of all humanity so it comes out the same.And he goes on to say maybe he does believe in God but he does not accept the world He created. And this is followed by his feelings re the innocent children.

    I did see Ivan as an intellectual snob now I just see him as an extremely young man falling prey as many intellectual young men do to forgetting how to lead a practical life. He is not a snob he is just unaware of much other than his own inner quest for "who am I" that keeps many young people from true relationships and real understanding. I like him ok. I like Aloysha a little more and I must wait to mee t Dmitry and see what I think of him. I know him very little.

    Hats
    June 3, 2001 - 07:00 am
    At first, when Ivan began talking to Alyosha, as he says getting acquainted with his brother, I thought, oh no, more babble, babble, but then, I began to realize this is just a young guy. Most young guys are full of themselves and like to talk. So, then, I began to relax, I listened. For some reason, I thought Ivan was much older.

    His thoughts about children made me pay more attention to him. I think, Ivan believes that children should never suffer for any reason. It does not matter that the perpetrators are punished in some distance time. Why should they suffer in the first place? After the children have been harmed, Ivan says it is too late for these evil, harmers of children to pay for their induced pain. So, I think he is questioning why should children suffer in the first place?

    Hmmmmm. Now, I think some of what he is saying is worth thinking about. What would Ivan say about all of the child abuse we hear about today on the news? I think Dostoevsky is using Ivan to speak his own ideas about eternity and hell an other lofty ideas.

    For me, Ivan has been so mysterious. Maybe the only way to get to know him is just listen to his loooooooooooong conversations. Everyone has a different way of making themselves known to others.

    Perhaps, Ivan cares about children because of his own sad childhood. He doesn't want children to suffer as he did.

    After chapter three and four, I feel less frightened of Ivan, like I know more about him. He seems more human.

    Hats
    June 4, 2001 - 04:39 am
    The Grand Inquisitor, I am totally lost and confounded! What is Ivan talking about? I feel like he's torturing me. Ohhhhh! When will this chapter end and he called it a poem!

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    June 4, 2001 - 05:00 am
    Oh dear have y'all really started the Grand Inquisiter - I am just starting the Rebellion it took me awhile to sort out the discussion Ivan is having in the Tavern with Aloysha. There is so much in just that conversation alone - This book has prompted me to take a class in Philosophy with Professor Robert Solomon who writes about Hegel, Existentialism, Neitzshe etc. I've learned tons - but so recently is the learning that I am trying to connect the dots while reading The Brothers I found several wonderful sites on the net that are about Nihilism in Russia during the ninteenth century.

    What I find so interesting is that Nihilism is still affecting the Russia of today and also, there are so many different definitions for the philosophy. It appears that each paper is authored by someone that has a different twist in understanding or maybe in just explaining Nihilism.

    The one thing that does seem consistent is the word has a bad rap since it is associated with bombs and anarchy as the intellectuals of nineteenth century Russia fought against the Tzar.

    Here is a great painting of just the sort of meeting that Ivan is saying is going on all over in Russia that he is emulating with Aloysha. The Revolutionary Meeting, by Ilyan Rapin 1883

    I haven't even gotten into Rebellion but I do think these two chapters are setting us up for The Grand Inquisitor. One of several sites that I have bookmarked and will share later Nihilism: Catholic Encyclopedia which explains the movement in Russian and this one explains better the philosphy Nihilism Must run - full day - back tonight.

    Joan Pearson
    June 4, 2001 - 05:14 am
    Hey Barbara, missed you last week! I think we will have to take Chapter IV, the Rebellion ...along with Grand Inquisitor this week, so feel free to comment.

    Hats, help is on the way...do not despair! Stay tuned...

    Hats, back in an hour...

    Hats
    June 4, 2001 - 05:22 am
    Oh, Barbara, thank you for the links and information. Joan, I am waiting.

    Hats
    June 4, 2001 - 05:51 am
    I think the Inquisitor believes in God, but believes that God and/ or Christ died for the wrong reasons. I think the Inquisitor is saying that the people can not handle freedom of thought. The people would rather have physical needs met rather than their spiritual needs. Therefore, the Inquisitor must correct everything that God has done.

    Just taking a stab!

    Joan Pearson
    June 4, 2001 - 05:56 am
    Hats, do you think the Inquisitor represents Ivan's thinking? If so, does that mean that you think that Ivan believes in God as does the Inquisitor?

    Barbara, the painting is wonderful...will keep it here in the heading...it reminds me of all of "us". Ivan standing, trying to get across his views, the rest of us sitting at the table trying to follow...

    No matter what we get out of this chapter this week, it is important that we pay attention to it...knowing that Dos. feels it is the whole book right here in this chapter...will repeat again the letter he wrote to his publisher, regarding the significance of this chapter...
    Dostoevsky's letter to Lyubimov, May 10, 1879

    "Today I sent off to you at the Russian Herald forty pages (minimum) of the text of The Brothers Karamazov for the forthcoming May issue of the Russian Herald.

    This is the fifth book, entitled Pro and Contra, but not all of it, only half. The second half of that fifth book will be sent for the June issue, and will consist of fifty pages. I had to divide this fifth book of my novel into two issues...because, even if I put all my efforts into it I would hardly be able to finish it before the end of May...and in the second place, this fifth book is in my view the culminating point of the novel, and must be finished with particular care. Its meaning, as you will see from the text I sent, is the depiction of extreme blasphemy and the kernel of the idea of destruction of our time, in Russia, among our youth who have broken away from reality...

    ...since the difficulty of the task I have undertaken is obious, you forgive my preferring to stretch it over two issues, rather than spoil the culminating chapter by my rushing it. The whole chapter will be full of movement. In the text I sent you I merely depict the character of one of the leading figures in the novel who expresses his fundamental convictions. These convictions are precisely what I consider the synthesis of contemporary Russian anarchism. The rejection not of God but of the sense of his creation. All of socialism emerged and began with the rejection of sense in historical reality and developed into a program of destrution and anarchism.

    The original anarchists were in many instances, people of sincere convictions. My hero chooses a theme I consider irrefutable: the senselessness of children's suffering.....Everything my hero says in the text is based on reality...My hero's blasphemy will be triumphantly refuted in the next (June) issue on which I am now working with fear, trembling and veneration, since I consider my task (the destruction of anarchism) a civic deed. Wish me success, esteemed Nikolay Alexeevich..."


    Found another essay written by D. H. Lawrence...

    Joan Pearson
    June 4, 2001 - 06:05 am
    D.H. Lawrence

    The Grand Inquisitor


    "It is a strange experience to examine one's reaction to a book over a period of years. I remember when I first read The Brothers Karamazov in 1913, how fascinated yet unconvinced it left me. and I remember Middleton Murry saying to me: "Of course the whole clue to Dostoevsky is in that Grand Inquisitor story." And I remember saying:"Why? It seems to me just rubbish."

    And it was true. the story seemed to me just a piece of showing off: a display of cynical-satanical pose which always irritated me, and I could see nothing else in that black-a-vised Grand Inquisitor talking at Jesus at such length. I just felt it was all pose, he didn't really mean what he said, he was just showing off in blasphemy."



    Later in the essay, you will see he will take this back...recognizing the importance of this chapter...

    Joan Pearson
    June 4, 2001 - 06:38 am
    Hats, you are in great company then when you say at first Ivan's talk seems at first to be so much "babble"...but on close examination, Dos. is using Ivan to put forth the whole argument of the day...

    LADY C: "I think that Dostoevski uses Ivan and his ideas to play devil's advocate. Dos himself actually is a believer and in that case must eventually--down the line, somewhere--demonstrate in some way that Ivan's thinking is very faulty." That is interesting...Do you get the idea that Dos. puts some of his own ideas into the mouth of the G.I.? Is the G.I. both Ivan AND Dos???

    Faith, you make so many excellent observations...we'll go back to them when we make some headway into sorting out the many facets of Ivan's story

    "Ivan is certainly like many young men of his time who are reading the philosophers and sciences and coming to some conclusions that appear very radical to the older people. But even they are beginning to listen to these young men of the early 19th century who are testing their belief in God...and Ivan says the young russians are talking about the eternal question of the existance of God, an immortality. They talk of socialism and anarchy,Of the transformation of all humanity so it comes out the same.And he goes on to say maybe he does believe in God but he does not accept the world He created. And this is followed by his feelings re the innocent children."


    I don't know how I feel about Ivan's story...right now I'm with you, Hats, and with Alyosha , when he excitedly exclaims to Ivan, "but your poem is in praise of Jesus, not in blame of Him...and you want to be free!"

    But there's so much going on here...where do Dos. views fit in... Let's start at the beginning...the setting. Is it important that he sets the poem during the time of the Spanish Inquisition? What was the significance of the Inquisition?

    Deems
    June 4, 2001 - 08:46 am
    If, as Joan suggests, Ivan is playing Devil's Advocate here in his notes for a "poem" called The Grand Inquisitor, then we must wonder who God's advocate is? The obvious answer is Zosima. Remember him? The soul that is in the balance here is Alyosha's. Ivan wants to win Alyosha away from Zosima. Zosima wants to point Alyosha in the direction of God while leaving him free to find his own way.

    In order to understand "The Grand Inquisitor" better, we need to remain open to information that will follow. Notice that Book Six is entitled "A Russian Monk" and is devoted to information about Zosima. No, I haven't read it yet! Just checking out the chapter titles under Book Six.

    Maryal

    ALF
    June 4, 2001 - 11:01 am
    Wasn't the Inquision a period of religious inquiry re. heresy??  Isn't this what Ivan is culpable of  in chapter 3?  Isn't this controversial for this period of time?  "As for me, I've long resolved not to think whether man created God or God man."

     "And what's strange, what would be marvellous, is not that
    God should really exist; the marvel is that such an idea, the idea of
    the necessity of God, could enter the head of such a savage, vicious
    beast as man."

    You've got to love this poor fellow who freely admits (with his earthly Euclidian mind) that if he can't even understand the parellel lines, how in the world would he be able to understand the concept of God.  There are SO many people that hold that very tenet.  God exists but  the horrors of this world are not justified, therefore not accepted.  I must declare that in all of these arguments I have witnessed over the years, I've never seen it presented as well as Dos has done.

    I  know that Ivan's talking about being Russian here but---  " the stupider one is, the closer one is to  reality. " I'm not sure I understand this.  Reality, in essence, is the fact of existence, the substance and the validity!!!!  The stupider one is, the clearer one is. Stupidity is brief and artless, while intelligence wriggles and hides itself. Intelligence is a knave, Is this to say that intelligence is unprincipled, scampish?  but stupidity is honest and straight forward."
     

    Nellie Vrolyk
    June 4, 2001 - 02:05 pm
    Just thinking...this one book seems like it is really two different books put into one: the one is the story of a dysfunctional family by name of Karamazov; the other is the story of Russia and her people -this is really the main story and to a great extent the various Karamazov's are merely vehicles through which the main story is related.

    There are times when this book becomes almost too didactic -if that is the word I'm trying to think of- for me. I have this sense that Dos is trying to cram what he knows, his philosophy, his beliefs about Russia, into my head. Somehow having all this grand philosophical material in the book spoils it for me. If Dos had written a non-fiction book about Russia and what the Russian people were like in his day, I would have enjoyed reading that. But placed within another story, I find I don't enjoy it.

    I am more following the smaller and more minor story about the Karamazovs. I am gathering possible clues as to who commits the murder that was mentioned right at the beginning of the book and which I expect to read about at some point. Which means I am not going to stop reading because I want to know what happens to Fyodor K and Dmitri, and Ivan, and Alyosha. I will just skim over the stuff that doesn't carry the story forward; the stuff that doesn't interest me as much.

    Lady C
    June 4, 2001 - 02:48 pm
    I think perhaps Ivan is saying that thinking too much is not necessarily a good thing, and it's true you can intellectualize until your analysis leads to paralysis. Faith isn't an intellectual process.

    Also re the Grand Inquisitor: The Russian Orthodox Church would view Roman Catholicism as non-believing. Throughout this book there are negative remarks about Jesuits. They are easily passed over in reading unless one keeps this split in mind. So the story of the Grand Inquisitor can be seen at least in part as anti RC as well as being critical of the role of all churches in distorting the message of Christ for its own ends. Please, no one take offence, but RC does tend to take over the thinking process of its adherents, proscribing behavior even into the bedroom and brooking no argument against that church's interpretation of the gospel. And it is a power in the world.

    Henry Misbach
    June 4, 2001 - 03:51 pm
    Alf, I mostly agree. Don't you suppose that the stupidity argument has its historic parallel in Occam's razor. Also, I decided to take it upon myself as an obligation not to develop any argument so elaborate that I could not explain it to a former co-worker who once told me he had never read a book. After working with him for awhile, I came to believe he was telling the truth.

    Yes, here we are in that part of Brothers K that I read as a college sophomore, on my own, and in my spare time. I will say what it meant to me then and see if I wind up in the same place this time.

    What I got out of it then was something of considerably more value than a mere critique of either the 13th century Catholic inquisition or a very similar enterprise carried out by the "Catholic Kings" of Spain a couple of centuries later. Design your church any way you like, and you still cannot expect to find Jesus as anything but a heretic to it if you seek in any way to "purify" it of opinions different from your own. This is a message that, fifty years ago, meant quite a bit more than it does today. In fact, I would almost say that if you can't find the version of Christianity that exactly suits you, you just haven't shopped enough.

    I think Ivan respects Alyosha much more than he lets on. He figures that Alyosha is going to wield some power in the Church, and he hopes to inoculate him in advance against any more foolishness than is absolutely necessary.

    Jo Meander
    June 4, 2001 - 10:48 pm
    After all these years, Ivan is the character I remember best, and his thoughts in this section are the reason. Dos. is using Ivan to air the ideas he has struggled with himself, I am convinced. Why, indeed, should the innocent suffer? No suspension of logic, no admission of the limitations of human reason can make Ivan accept it. He introduces his argument by noting that men do seek to make sense of life, either through belief in God or through their own efforts to establish a new order: “And what do they talk about …? Of the eternal questions, of the existence of God and immortality. And those who do not believe in God talk of socialism or anarchism, of the transformation of all humanity on a new pattern, so that it all comes to the same, they’re the same questions turned inside out.”
    Is this a form of goodness, either way? The desire to make things better or to understand God’s intentions?

    Ivan says that are so limited that we can love only those we can’t see! He sees self-sacrificing love is a form of “laceration,” a penance we impose upon ourselves because we think that’s what God wants. (Ivan accused Katerina of imposing laceration upon herself in her dedication to Dmitri! Now he vividly illustrates for us what he means by laceration when he discusses the saint who warmed the foul smelling beggar in his own bed!) To Ivan, neither has exhibited true love of one human being for another, and he really isn’t dealing with the motive the comes from the love of God, probably because he sees that kind of God-man intimacy as being in contradiction with the way many humans treat each other. The rest of the “rebellion” chapter is taken up with pointing out how limited we are, how base, and most important, how cruel, and even if it is true that all will be clear and harmonious in the end when our perception of life is at last joined with God’s, Ivan can’t accept the final harmony at the expense of the suffering of even one innocent child. He gets Alyosha to admit that he wouldn’t sacrifice a child for that final harmony, either. Ivan is young, but he is expressing the conflict that the author knows at a riper age.
    In his struggle to express his feelings, his torment over creation as he sees it, he has given us a hint of the goodness of man and a vivid picture of his corruption. At this point, I have to borrow another line: “My head aches, and I am sad.”

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    June 5, 2001 - 12:43 am
    OK folks - I am backing up - because of this class I can shed some light that may even make more sense out of the Grand Inquisitor.

    First let me say - when I attend a class I do not take notes about who said what, when and which of these great men spoke to each other. I am looking for and take notes on what is the thesis of the concept. This is a 6 evening class running 3 hours each with Prof. Robert Solomon at UT.

    Dostoevsky, Kafka, Camus (who also writes philosophical books) and Hermann Hesse are the Literary figures that are included in the lecture. Then there is Kierkegaard, Schelling, Hegal and the biggie Friedrch Nietzsche. In addition Goethe a bit of both Martin Luther and Zarathustra (Nietzsche's hero from the 6th c. BC) and Pindar. Some Schopenhouer, Sartre, Heidegger, a bit of Kant and Husserl.

    Theories develop and all of the above men do not agree with each other. But there are points that there is either agreement or the theory was a platform that enabled another to add or clarify. I cannot go back and give a synopsis of the class but I can see the queue words and sentences in what we are reading. And so rather than using my class notes I am going to use our read and comment on what I've learned is the underlining meaning. The story is not building theories in a similar sequence as the class is prepared.

    This may take me a few days. (I do work full time and then some) I am going to simply put my head down and go for it till I am caught up to the Grand Inquisitor when I can carry on a conversation with y'all again. And please folks as the saying goes - Take what you will and leave what for you isn't fitting. I am simply sharing here.

    p. 230 - If I did not believe in life, if I were to lose faith in the woman I love, if I were to lose faith in the order of things, even if I were to become convinced, on the contrary, that everything is a disorderly, damned, and perhaps devilish chaos, if I were struck even by all the horrors of human disillusionment — still I would want to live, and as long as I have bent to this cup, I will not tear myself from it until I've drunk it all!
    Religion and morality take our value away - the Value is in life itself - not survival - but not living as Religion and morality promote, for an other worldly existence which is better then this one. The other worldly being heaven or a utopian future. Developing ourselves for another world or a distant future - this is escaping life.

    Christianity is herd behavior and practitioners no longer follow the example of Christ. Christians no longer live a life of passion for the faith, a commitment (my words in my notes summarize the thought with these words - Sink a shaft). Christianity is about doctrines a part but not the essential part, rituals, social belonging. It has become a battle between good and evil. (the question of good and evil is addressed in the next chapter)

    Morality requires a metaphysical picture - get rid of the battle. This world, this life counts, Passion make life meaningful, reason can be an escape from life. It is not one truth but rather there are many truths. Truth is our interpretation of the world. All we can do in life is live it passionatly from our own truth. Throw ourselves into who we are as determined by our character as the Myth of Sisyphus exemplifies.

    Sisyphus was condemned by the Olympian gods to spend all eternity in fruitless labor, rolling a rock up a mountain until it would roll back down of its own weight, again and again and again. This absord life was filled with Sisyphus learning the size and wieght of his rock, where on the path each pebble and rut was located, the amount of work it required to roll the rock up the mountain, what was in his immediate view either side of the path of his rock. He threw himself into his labor with passion. No reflection, no committment, no chain of justification, there is nothing else to live for except life. This is similar to a saint refered to in the earlier part of The Brothers...

    p. 235 My task is to explain to you as quickly as possible my essence, that is, what sort of man I am, what I believe in, and what I hope for, is that right?


    Most of the time we just do things. There is a theory that because we act we must have an unconscious cause - deliberate activity - cause -act on. Nihilism says the conscious is over rated. Our character, our essence, our view of ourselves, justifies action. We act because it would be of our character, unthinkable for us not to act. The theory says there is too much judging and justifying. We 'do' because of what we are and as our character is developed or changed, we cultivate other actions.

    Faith is character. Part of our character may be to make choices and have the strength to carry them through. e.g. I do not lie because I am not a liar. And so Ivan is saying if he lost his faith, his character that he was born with would be reshaped. And he is further saying his faith is in the order of things.

    He is not orderly because it brings him pleasure, or because it is a duty. He is not acting virtuous because of rules or fear of God, but he is motivated by his character. He is not split between being righteous versus, acting in his self-interest. He is not at war between being selfish versus, altruistic. We can look at Aloysha and consider his character in light of his being split when I can share with you the information about 'Master morality' and 'Slave morality.' Tomorrow along with the significance of the Euclidean geometry.

    Joan Pearson
    June 5, 2001 - 06:01 am
    I have printed out all of yesterday's posts; right now Barbara's and Nellie's sit side by side on my breakfast table. I find myself wondering where the rest of you are with this chapter.

    Nellie, I hear what you are saying about two books in one, the "smaller story" of the Karamazovs and the bigger story of the history of Russia and Dos' philosophical views.

    And then there is our Barbara, attempting to enlighten even futher the philosophy that drives Ivan into the role of Grand Inquisitor as he attempts to make sense of the his world and his place in it. (Where you get time to delve into these ideas, and make such connections Barbara...after a full day's work, and then a three-hour course, I'll never know!)

    I see Nellie waiting patiently on the shore for the story to resume, and Barb swimming into the deeper philosophical seas - with the rest of us somewhere in the middle, treading water, trying to decide if we have the energy or inclination to follow Barbara into waters over our heads or to make our way back to Nellie's blanket on the shore. Where are YOU?

    Nellie, you raise the question I've been asking myself. Did Dos. write to entertain, to tell a story or is this a didactic piece, a vehicle he used to argue his own philosophical beliefs?

    I procede with faith that the two will meet, the Karamazov story and the philosophies on the minds and lips of the Russian people at this time. The book has survived the test of time, continues to appear at the top of every list as one of the best books ever written. He MUST have succeeded and produced more than a treatise on philosophy in the guise of the Karamazov story, don't you think?

    As for this chapter, we have Dos. own words that he trembled at the task of writing it, it was that important to him. So I will trust that the effort and attention we are putting into the Grand Inquisitor and Ivan's state of mind, will make the story line that much more satisfying....although admittedly my lips are turning blue.

    Keep close watch on us, Nellie...we may need a life line by the end of the week - or just maybe you will decide the ater isn't as cold as you feared!

    Joan Pearson
    June 5, 2001 - 07:23 am
    Maryal, yes! That is how I see it too! Ivan is playing the role of the GI, but that's all he's doing. Not for a moment is he speaking for the church that has enslaved the Russian soul. But in this role, he faces Alyosha, Ivan, Christ, declaring them the heretics who threaten the power of his church over the freedom of the people... Is the Inquisitor Ivan trying to win Alyosha from Zosima...or from the temporal church itself? Is that the question? Is he questioning Alyosha as He would question Christ? I'm confused on this. I sense that Ivan wants Alyosha to accept him, to convert him, to let him know that there is a place for him...outside of the temporal church, not among those who have rejected a God, but a place where the teachings of Christ, of love, of freedom prevail. But he also needs to convert, to convince Alyosha that his Church, (the church of Fr. Ferapont) is not the place to find the freedom and the immortality Alyosha is seeking.

    He needs community Ivan needs Alyosha to tell him that it is possible to remain a Christian without belonging to the Church. He needs Alyosha to affirm his need for something other than the obvious choices other Russians are considering. Did he find it in this chapter?




    Alf! ..does Ivan or the Grand I. or both ...believe that the average man is a beast, savage, stupid, weaker, baser than Christ believed when He taught the principles of free will, conscience and man's control over his destiny? As the GI, speaking for the Church, he says the Church removes all the burden, the struggle for right and wrong...even permits man to sin. The Church will use its power to forgive anything, as long as man is obedient to him. It isn't necessary to understand anything at all of the Euclidian concepts. The church will think for him, give him bread (share with him and others the bread he has given to the Church)...and so he will achieve happiness on earth. Ivan does not believe this for a minute.

    Wow, Henry...an "aha" moment...Is any organized religion, temporal Church able to translate without distortion the teachings of Christ?


    Jo, you make it so clear! This book was intended to be Alyosha's story, but as yet, he is a ghost, incomplete and unformed. Maybe Dos. intended to breathe some life into him in the book he planned to follow Brothers K.

    But doesn't Ivan speak for all of us...so many years later? He cannot tolerate the sufferings and sacrifice of children...even if to atone for the sins of their fathers for the promise of happiness in a future life...in the final harmony. Don't we all wonder why some must suffer so much more than others? As you put it so well, Jo, Ivan is in torment, as is Dostoevsksy, though there is a difference between the two.
    "Ivan is young but he is expressing the conflict the author knows at a riper age. Dos gives us a hint of the goodness of man and a vivid picture of his corruption."


    Barbara, will look for your midnight post on Alyosha's master/slave morality...and the significance of Euclidian geometry too. (Boy, do I need some Euclidian inspiration in this floor tile design!) Isn't it interesting watching Alyosha submit his own will to Zosima, trying so carefully and exactly to follow his directive to practice "active love" among his people...though of course Zosima did no such thing!

    It's posts like these that quiet the soul, relieve the headache. Thank you all for your perseverance! It will...it is paying off!

    ALF
    June 5, 2001 - 08:48 am
    Aye, for the sake of community .  Are we to note here that Mother Russia is the "banner of earthly bread"   and those who accept it will reap the profits and be fulfilled by the state?
    In bread there was offered Thee an invincible banner; give bread, and man will worship thee, for
    nothing is more certain than bread.

    Didst Thou forget that man prefers peace, and even death, to freedom of choice in the knowledge of good and evil? (With only His image as our guide?)Nothing is more seductive for man than his freedom of  conscience, but nothing is a greater cause of suffering. Do we prefer peace, or death even rather than freedom of choice in the knowledge of good and evil?  Do we shun our own free will, free choice, our own voluntary decision and willingness to partake in the knowledge of good or evil presented to us ?  I can't buy that.
     

    FaithP
    June 5, 2001 - 12:01 pm
    Dos draws a comparison between Christ and Aloysha who"remain silent and never speak a word in defense" and the GI (Vanya) must argue the case and in the end of the story Christ kisses the Grand Inquisitor and so does Aloysha kiss Ivan.I hoped for more on this so must look for it myself. But of course the story goes on as Ivan attempts to explain the story to Aloysha. Poor Vanya all he can do is repeat the nihilism of 19th century Russia and it is the authors own fight against anarchy that brings things to a head in his (Dos's) mind in this chapter. But we as readers are chopping at the bit here, I think. Our lips indeed are turning blue so I for one had to stop and now I can breath again and Ivan now too tells Aloysha "come on it is just a sensless poem of a sensless student" but Aloysha is sad and says "You dont believe in God".

    Actually my opinion is that Ivan does not at this point in the book believe in God and Aloysha believes, without to much investigation of the Church. And I dont want to make rash statements without reading more into the chapters following this. For to me this Chapter could not end the book at all. I cant really see it as the high point either like the letter to the editor claimed. I have to wait.

    I can't believe all the things I am learning here. I can hardly read a post that it does not send me off to other books. And seridipity enters in too, As I read in May issue of Newsweek an article on Religion and the Brain. An excerpt[after years of being unable to truly feel the presence of God, a cloistered sister began having visions. The cause is temporal-lobe epilepsy. Sister John of the Cross must wrestle with having surgery to cure her but it would end her visions. Dostoevesky and Saint Paul, Saint Teresa and Proust and many others are thought to have had temporal lobe epilepsy leavig them obsessed wtih matters of the spirit.]

    Henry Misbach
    June 5, 2001 - 12:59 pm
    I'd like to back up a little to the chapter headed, "Rebellion." We've already seen a little of Dos on a number of social issues, such as war and national pride, duelling and social status. By the "nailing of ears" by the Turks, he intends an indictment of man at large. Even a lion would never think to do something so cruel. Then, on a little from there, he drops a bombshell. In it, he reminds me of someone, now departed, who used to say of a recently executed person: "Bet that'll teach 'im a lesson," often said as a kind of parting shot. In reference to "Richard" Ivan says, "And they chopped off his head in brotherly fashion, because he had found grace." If any of you can read this line with a perfectly straight face, I don't want to know.

    I find it ironic that, in the Grand Inquisitor, the reason the Church can substitute miracle, mystery, and authority for freedom is that it is mankind who seeks the trade. Of course, Dos could not have then known that the Russian Revolution would simply substitute the collective farm for Christianity in this model. It would have been a miracle if it had worked, how it might have worked remains a mystery, but the authority of the Party Head made it so. A book I recommend for the curious, as to how something as openly anti-religious as the Revolution, could itself have aped religion is any authored by Nicholas Berdyaev. Whether you agree or disagree with him, you'll have also to decide if you belong among those who understand him and those who don't. All four types of readers of B. exist.

    Dos certainly has to be counted among people who sought a major change in Russian government and society, but I think he might have preferred the success of moderate parliamentary government, as in that of Kerensky. Some relief of the pressures was needed at his time. After another full generation and more had passed, only an explosion was possible.

    Does Ivan believe in God? I rate him as practically orthodox in his Neo-Platonism (or Unitarianism), based on his comments when he refers to Euclid. To some that makes him an atheist, but I would claim that atheism is entirely different philosophically.

    FaithP
    June 5, 2001 - 03:24 pm
    Well yes Henry, I agree. Ivan on some leval does believe in God, even if my post above you, I said he does not, He does but not in His works so I just extend that and say if you don't believe in His works it is a denial all the way for only by his work do we know him etc. I do not call Vanya an athiest or agnostic or anything except mixed up , spouting Cynics philosophy right out of Hume, and afraid of his unbelief which is why he is clinging to Aloysha asking him to "save" him. We will see We will see. You write so clearly I love to read your posts and you help me see my own inconsisant views ...one day I am thinking one thing then the other so I am worse than little Vanya.

    Deems
    June 5, 2001 - 03:28 pm
    Whether or not Ivan believes in God, I think that he is baiting Alyosha who he knows is under the influence of Zosima. He wants to get Alyosha to examine his beliefs and face some of the cruelty and irrationality in the world. At least I think that's what he's up to.

    Certainly the Grand Inquisitor seems both to believe in God and not believe in God. Most interesting.

    Maryal

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    June 6, 2001 - 12:44 am
    Look I hate this dragging it out - but I am beat and I've a roaring headache, and of course this is the night that everytime I go into a discussion my computer freezes and I have to get completly out of the internet and start all over again. Clearing my cache doesn't do anything. I posted once and tried to clean up what I had posted and the message froze. I got out and back in but I'm just too tired for this tonight so I removed the message. I need to post tomarrow when I am in a better mood, although I think it is already tomorrow. Listing appointment tonight that went on f-o-r-e-v-e-r.

    And Alf I've even got stuff on the Free Will bit - it isn't really all that bad once you hear the logic.

    I need to get to the office in the morning and enter the listing into the computer and get the Title Company the information so they can get the copy of the deed etc. and do my flyers and post cards. But honest Pete, without crossed fingers, I will get all this written out for us tomorrow.

    Joan Pearson
    June 6, 2001 - 08:09 am
    Alf, Mother Russia, the banner of earthly bread...well, I think that's how it will turn out, but as for now, the Grand I. is seeing that role for Mother Church! So you think it is flawed, the G.I.'s assumption that man would rather give up freedom of choice, rather than get involved in the struggle between right and wrong ~ let others make his decisions for him...do you really think that is far-fetched? I mean I would hope so, but I know plenty of ostriches who act the same way.

    Do you suppose Dos. is criticizing the nihilists, or as Faith points out ...the anarchists, or those who show no interest and would prefer to leave decision making to others...the Church?????

    Faith, I think that Alyosha mistakenly concludes that Ivan does not believe in God, because Alyosha does not really grasp the idea that the Church itself is the problem yet. He concludes that if Ivan does not accept the Church, thinks the Church is evil and corrupt, then he does not believe in God. And it also seems to moi, that Dostoevsky is stating his own beliefs through Ivan's poem, that one can still believe in God, though NOT his works if he recognizes that his works have been distorted by the Church for its own temporal ends.

    Maryal, I can see Ivan baiting Alyosha to examine his beliefs, not so much to woo him from Zosima, but to get him to distinguish between Zosima's teachings (Christ's) and the Church to which he is attached. I come away from this episode feeling that both Ivan and Dos. DO believe in God, but feel the Church is not going to be able to defend itself in the growing unrest, because its position has been compromised by temporal interests.

    Henry, you've managed to find humor in this grim chapter in which man is defined as a savage beast...weak and savage, another of Dos's little double meanings. (Faith, this chapter is probably not the high point to the reader ~ Nellie nods vigorously in agreement ~ but to Dostoevsky this is it. That's why we are spending so much time and effort on it...can we catch temporal lobe epilepsy from this? Is it contagious? My head hurts.)

    The Nickolas Berdyaev book sounds intriguing, but more than I have time for right now... the very idea that the Socialist regime could have aped Religion in the hearts of the Russian people...could you tell a bit more?

    I've been thinking about the role of the Church in Russia, had Socialism NOT taken over...and the G.I.'s question to Christ:"why didn't YOU do it when you had your chance?" And of course the answer goes back to man's free will as his means to immortality. I think that Ivan/Dos. sees that the Church will not be able to pull off the huge task of feeding the masses, both temporally and spiritually....and that in attempting to do both, Christianity in Russia is doomed. And you know what? Dos. was right!

    ps. Old Pete, slow down, take it easy. We worry you are not getting enough sleep. Though of course we look forward to your thoughts on free will...when you get the chance.

    pps. A number of you were on the Canterbury trail and were intrigued as I was with the presence of our fairy Fai...we have unearthed a photo just in case you question the existance of fairies...or unicorns! See for yourself, the fairy Fae

    Jo Meander
    June 6, 2001 - 02:59 pm
    Wonderful picture! Where does Fae keep the unicorn? Will such a creature stay in an ordinary stable and eat ordinary oats?

    Jo Meander
    June 6, 2001 - 03:24 pm
    But there has been a revival of religious practice in Russia. Probably not as fervent and universal as before the Revolution, but it seems the Russian spirit does require it. Joan , how do you define the temporal interests of the Church? Expecting the population to maintain their institutions and life style out of religious conviction? I wasn’t thinking about that when I read the Grand I.’s exegesis to Christ (who remains silent and kisses him!) because I was so struck by the argument that the Church’s duty as the G.I. sees it is to comfort people with false promises of a beautiful afterlife when they are actually on their way to oblivion! I agree that Ivan’ rejection of the Church is not denial of God. His Grand Inquisitor is his method of showing Alyosha the flaw in religion. There is a place in the argument where the G.I. focuses on the Roman Catholic Church, but I think Ivan’s purpose is to excoriate all religions that exist just to make people feel better and not to deal with the truth, the exercise of free will and individual redemption, which may not be the Church’s “redemption” at all.
    Dos.’s use of The Inquisitions and The G. I. Seems to reflect Ivan’s attitude about the dogmatism that brooks no interference, not even from Christ! He who dares question the established order of things must submit to the auto de fe! Ivan’s Christ remains silent, because Ivan doesn’t know what he will do or say next, now, in the next millennium, or ever. He just knows what is going on is unacceptable, and he is trying to make Alyosha see that, too.
    I think he needs Alyosha’s love, he needs a sense of belonging to someone, some member of his fractured family, even though he is such an independent thinker. His departure, almost limping and exhausted, is sad. Alyosha runs back to the monastery, looking for sanctuary from the bombardment Ivan has visited upon him.

    Henry Misbach
    June 6, 2001 - 03:31 pm
    Faith, my claim for Ivan's basic "faithedness," if I may coin a term, is based on his remarks right after the discussion of Euclid. Look at the part where he suggests to Alyosha that the nature or existence of God and His Wisdom,"are utterly beyond our ken." He could have stopped right there and established his basic credentials as a Deist, but he goes on. When he speaks of, "the Word, Which of itself was with God," many will recall the opening lines of the Gospel of John, that most philosophical of the Gospels. In Neo-Platonism it came to be called the Logos or terms that translate, "World-soul." If you've ever studied basic Hinduism and/or Buddhism, you'll think immediately of the "Atman." There are other (I have always found)astonishing points of contact and similarity between a tradition in the West beginning with Plato and what we think of as the totally different theology of Buddhism. Compare, for example, Plato's Parable of the Cave with the Hindu concept of Maya.

    Thankfully for you and me, there is no "ortho" doxy in this theology. "Multi" doxy would be more appropriate.

    I thought my comments might be deemed provocative by some, but this book is meant to be nothing if not provocative, and it is purely in that context in which they are offered.

    FaithP
    June 6, 2001 - 08:25 pm
    And as alway Henry very interesting, you are right, Ivan is not a true Deist like Ben Franklin or , Thomas Payne. but he is under the influance of the writers in the 17th century re: THE ENLIGHTENMENT movement who from France through England and Russia Austria and eventually America, spread their (philosophy) they were actually not philosophers as much as writers and also they wrote tracts and books and posters , in effect they were prostelyzing and they were truly fighting the Church.They believed in logic and rational morality.And according to some were the beginning in the 17th century of Materialism as a Ism. I can see why some think Dos is using his double thing with The Church and The Communist but there were no Communist yet. Dos is more concerned with the question of Freedom of choice verses Security. I will be delighted to see what Barb comes up with. fp

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    June 7, 2001 - 02:46 am
    Where to start - I must say this is one of the hardest things I've attempted in awhile - some of my pre-conceived beliefs and concepts are being blown apart by this class and yet, so much of what we are studying is along the lines of my association with the philosophy of the Carmelites (my high school experience) which is in many ways similar to Taoism (my study of the last 16 years). Even in this class Professor Solomon says that there is every reason to believe that Greek phiolosphy may have originated in India and Southeast Asia. That the Hindu and another religion which I forget which, has this concept of oneness with the world that we, in the West, have been in a rage for unity, a unifying principle which brought us to wanting one God.

    I feel the need of a caveat here - like all of us, we learn best when we can compare new knowledge to what we already know. I have taken class information and short handed the understanding of it based on my experiences and knowledge. Example, when I shorhanded the kind of focused committment, mentioned in a previous post, I used the expression 'sink a shaft,' knowing that means choosing a spot on this earth, about a 24 inch diamiter of a wide open grassy field that you are going to sink all your worldly value and then some, also, as much time as it takes, into that hole hoping for oil. (of course in the State of Texas this excludes your home since until two years ago the State Constituion forbid equity loans on your homestead)

    Also, my mission if you would - I read The Brothers Karamozov years ago as an exotic tale with lots of characters speaking to each other. This time I want to really understand what it is that Dostoevsky is saying.

    In light of twentieth century history it was too easy to dismiss much of his argument as simply being a prologue to this socialistic form of Communism with all its trauma and ultimate failure Russia experimented with for about 80 years. Along with that failure is this calm superiority that "our" way is right. And that easily leads to, of course the religious view is correct since freedom of religion was denied during Communism and we know better.

    I really want to better understand what Dostoevsky is saying through the character Ivan. In fact I think there is a piece of existentialism in all the characters. My difficulty is trying to immediatly compare what I am learning to the story. As I learn I see how parts of the story fit or how characters and incidents in the story are depicting this or that part of a philosophy but, I am not yet centered in the verbage and principles to easily make the comparison as I share.

    I have two more classes to go and during break today I was able to clearify some of my questions in light of this book.

    Let me start with Euclidism As you can read, there is a problem expressed in Euclid's Fifth Postulate that addresses the fact that circular reasoning is used to explain this postulate. In philosophy this is refering to "eternal reccurance." Ancient time is circular time - it is only Christian time that is linear time. Ivan seems to be refering to a circular reasoning and circular time that is part of the existentialists and Nihilists thinking about time. Again, like Sisyphus, we live our lives over and over again.

    It is one thing to blow it as a one time event in our linear timed life - it is another thing to blow it if you are going to repeat it over and over again. You must ask yourself; How much do I love my life - How much regret is there in my life - Am I living my life exactly as is, a number of times within my accepted limitations because, who would I be if I did not.

    In order to explain Free Will and morality and good versus evil I need to back track. There is a difference in philosophy of Nietzsche, considered the father of nihilism, Hegel and Kierkegaard, considered the first existentialist and a student of Schelling in Berlin. Hegel and Schelling were college roommates and competitors. In many ways the diologue presented by Dostoevsky is the arguments and philosophy of Kierkegaard, Hegel and Nietzsche. Dostoevsky never met Nietzsche but like the hundreth monkey the time had come for his philosophy.

    Hegel looks to history and determins that history develops through conflict, an idea later echoed in Marx. Where as Kierkegaard, a devout Christian, is solely about the individual.

    Nietzsche himself, is no nihilist. The values he attacks are "anti-life or "other worldly," the morality of the Judeao-Christian bourgeois. His touchstone are the ancient Greeks, Homer and Heraclitus. He sees Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle as already decadent.

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    June 7, 2001 - 04:22 am
    A by the way - a few other sites that had something to say about the intellectuals -

    The Westernization of the Russiona Intelligentia
    The aristocratic and clerical origins of the intelligentsia left a decisive imprint upon the ideas of ninteenth century Russia --- and it was these ideas, rather than any precise occupational function, that served to distinguish the intelligentsia from other social groups.

    It comprised those who, having received a modern education, felt alienated from the existing political and social order. They might earn their living as professional men, zemstvo employees, or even civil servants and landowners; the figure of the "repentant nobleman" stands at the cradle of Russian intellectual history.

    The Russian intelligentsia tended to be socially radical, democratic, and cosmopolitan, although they might have a concealed elitist, authoritarian, (this characteristic is part of the master morality that fosters the war between pride and humility) or nationalist streak.

    Intellectuals were acknowledged to be mentors by nearly all educated Russians, that is, by everyone not closely identified with the autocratic regime. Their leadership was in normal times implicit, but in periods of crisis (1877-81, 1902-7), it became overt and decisive.

    Spirit of Russian Revolution
    The character of Russian revolution was anti-national, it also has shown the national tang of Russian people and style of our unlucky and fatal (fate or freedom? we discuss this difference) revolution – the Russian style… Revolutions are in a greater sense a masquerade and if you whip off the masks you’ll see the old well-known faces. (eternal reccurance being played out) On the surface everything seems to be new – new gestures, new casts, new costumes, new formulas ruling life. They who were at the bottom are exalted to the top; they who were superlative fell down; those who were rattled are dominating; and hunted are those who were ruling. Slaves became absolutely free and those who are free-minded are outraged.

    What is Nihilism?
    Politically anarchism and nihilism are often confused and in a limited yet tangible sense nihilism is the struggle between law/government (forces of anti-natural order) and liberty (nihilism). Here anarchism and nihilism seem to have certain elements in common.

    For example the anarchist will say 'no one has the authority to tell another what to do'. But the nihilist would say that if the one giving orders has a gun and the other not, then what do rights or authority matter?

    Anarchists are idealists, they believe in subjective concepts such as peace, justice, and especially the ultimately noble nature of the individual (at least under the proper social conditions). The nihilist doesn't believe in anything incapable of empirical verification; the nihilistic reality is devoid of idealism.

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    June 7, 2001 - 05:56 am
    How do we face death and the injustices of life. Philosophical suicide is to attempt to deny or escape the concept that we all face the absurd (the myth of Sisyphus)

    Evils are typically faceless (except in the form of a Hitler) and they are inevitable. We can either deny it, with little success, try to escape it (I’m in this for myself and others do not matter - kind of thinking), take advantage of it (each gets the war we deserve - kind of thinking)

    Reflection can bring on guilt which promotes confession. Confession is promoted by judging your life, which flies in the face of “Judge not that ye be judged.” Reflection is holding a mirror up to ourselves which allows us to seduce our selves into doubting our own integrity.

    We can ask if everything we do is about ourselves. Do we act in order to feel good or because we are afraid of guilt feelings, we want to avoid the pain of feeling guilt, or because we see a future advantage or do we enjoy manipulate others for our own advantage. Do we give to charity wanting the acknowledgment that comes with having our name on the gift,
    as Katerina offers the two hundred rubles
    or in anonymity which appeals to our selfishness - what we know that they do not know. Is our generosity all about our reputation.

    Socrates say an unexamined life is not worth living, but, reflection, always thinking can be like a decease that will easily paralyze us, so that we become unable to act for thinking, feeling guilt, feeling miserable. Making ourselves happy seems rational.

    Do we see the dichotomy between Dmitri and Ivan, a man of action who gets his women versus the thinker.


    There is the wisecrack variation on the concept of judging. “Judge someone as insignificant first so that what they say about you matters less.”

    Hmmm sounds like Aloysha as he explains that his not giving the money as a way to feel good having something to tell Lise and calling him a wretched man.


    Vanity is pride, arrogant pride, wounded pride even if self-inflicted becomes resentment, indignation, self-righteousness.

    Aha this sounds like our Snegiryov. But where is Christian redemption? Aloysha does not offer him redemption. In fact reading back Aloysha seems to be devoid of feelings. His concerns seem to be selfishly about his finger during his earlier visit to Lise and then his enjoying the telling of Lise the story and in rapture explaining what he believes will happen next.


    The privileged world around us makes us aware of injustice and points to suffering. Easily there is a feeling we cannot do enough. Since what we do is not enough we feel guilty which turns to Christian self-righteousness - I am dirt, mia culpa is self righteous. How do we capture inner goodness. Pursuing pleasure doesn’t work. Developing happiness becomes a problem.

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    June 7, 2001 - 06:07 am
    Is the pursuit of happiness through the religious life? Believing in Doctrine will make you feel better about yourself which is the presumption of being a Christian. If you ask a Christian what they believe most will answer with a Doctrine memorized on Faith. If you are a Christian it is easy to take faith for granted. It takes no committment it is empty beliefs, banal social memebership.

    Hegel continues to attack and suggests a Christian should feel fear and trembling. Have an emotional rationship, not simply a set of beliefs, not a social memebeship. It is not about doctrine, ritual, social belonging. To be a Christian is an inward passionate committment.

    I'll catch us up with the remainder later today.

    Joan Pearson
    June 7, 2001 - 08:22 am
    I continue to ponder this chapter with two questions in mind...
    Why is it so important to Dostoevsky that he approaches it with trembling? And how does all of this relate to our understanding of the story? Some of us are reading this for the story line, as Nellie pointed out earlier, while Barb is intent on understanding every nuance of the philosophical meaning this second time around.


    My hope is that we come out of this week with a better understanding of the Karamazov relationships and what is to come of them.

    Barbara! I honestly don't know how you are doing this...the long hours at work, in class, and then with us! I love the way you relate the philosophies to the Russians, to your (our) own lives...and the way you have just begun to relate the philosophical motivations to the characters in the novel. Alyosha is rather complicated in his simplicity...ghostly...his real feelings unformed, as yet unspoken. Is he Christ-like in this? Is this intentional, I keep wondering? Will we get to know him by the end of the novel? He is supposed to be the "hero" ~ maybe Dos. was saving him for the next novel, which he didn't live to write.



    What do you think of Ivan/Dostoevsky's contention - "Given freedom, the strong will destroy themselves, the weak will destroy one another and the rest will turn to the church?"

    Does Ivan consider himself one of the strong? After reading the distinction between the anarchist and the nihilist, I'm still puzzling over Ivan's position. At this point, I can't call him a nihilist! Will he destroy himself? What does he mean when he says he will "dash the cup" when he is 30?

    Henry, your posts are provocative! Thought-provoking! That's how we take them! And we accept faithed-ness and multi-doxy into our lexicon. The influence of the East is indeed felt if not as clearly expressed as the West. Interesting that Barb's prof expressed the same idea in his belief that Western philosophy may well have origins in India and the Southeast.

    Jo, the Inquisitor is of the Roman Church. He speaks of the time...in 756 a.d. when Pepin turned over Rome, and the sword of Caesar to Pope Stephen III. When Stephen accepted land for the Church, the Inquisitor says that he accepted the bribe in the last temptation of Christ. It was at this point that the Church intertwined its temporal and spiritual mission... When Christ, who had withstood all three temptations, handed over his Church to the Roman pope, he relinquished all rights to claim separation and criticize the Church on earth.

    What of the Masons? Alyosha accuses Ivan of being a Mason because he does not believe in God. Are Masons a force in Russia at this time? I know next to nothing about the Masons.

    Deems
    June 7, 2001 - 08:43 am
    Joan---I looked up some basic stuff about the Masons. The noun that describes the system is "Freemasonry." The fraternal order of Free and Accepted Masons is the largest worldwide secret society. It evolved from the guilds of the stonemasons and cathedral builders of the Middle Ages (hello, Mr. Chaucer!). Later, non-Masons were allowed to join.

    In the 17th and 18th centuries, Masons adopted various rites and trappings of ancient religious orders and chivalric brotherhoods.

    Almost from the beginning, Freemasonry has encountered considerable opposition form organized religion, especially from the Roman Catholic Church. Most of the members are white and Protestant.

    Masons have subsidiary parts for women--Eastern Star and for girls--Rainbow Girls and for young men--DeMolay.

    It's sort of like a fraternity for adults. You have to be asked to join, are initiated, etc. There are a number of offshoots of the Masons such as the Shriners.

    Maryal

    Henry Misbach
    June 7, 2001 - 10:17 am
    I find much with which to agree in all postings, especially Faith's and Barbara's. No question but Ivan/Dos gives us a preview of Camus.

    If the Grand Inquisitor was presented by Ivan/Dos as an at all sypathetic character, he misses me completely. After all, what is he doing at the start of this scene. The "auto da fe" I believe translates loosely, "act of faith." He calls to mind a bishop's advice to a group of knights in the 13th century about to ride in upon and slaughter heretics of the Catharist sect: "Slay them all; the Lord will know His own."

    Russia at this time reminds me of what a Kansas preacher once said about God's treatment of Kansas farmers compared with His treatment of Iowa farmers. Clearly he discriminates against the latter, for he sends Kansas farmers all the droughts, floods, locust infestations, and other crop reducers that will build their character.

    What the Russian church desperately needed, long before the mid 19th century, was a credible challenge. I doubt seriously that there is much here that would really disturb someone who has learned from childhood the notion of "every man his own priest" and other familiar concepts from the Protestant Reformation. There is a very small indication of some pressure to reform, such as occurred in the West in such monastic movements as Cluny and Citeaux (Fr. Ferapont sounds a little the type). The Counter-Reformation did more to change the Roman Church than a legion of Fr. Feraponts could do. The poisoning of the relationship between church and people can only lead to the kind of extreme estrangement experienced, not only by Ivan/Dos but even the GI in his less murderous moments.

    We have sanctions in our churches, but thankfully not quite as permanent as being burned as a heretic. Of course, Russia didn't do that anymore in the 19th century either. Some of the most hair-raising stories of the forms of social distress created in our churches I have heard from those who would know: retired ministers. If we can still "cut" people in those, oh, so subtle ways, in our churches today, it is easy to imagine how unpleasant it was in Dos' world.

    betty gregory
    June 7, 2001 - 12:55 pm
    I enjoyed several of your links, Barbara, though I suffered a body shiver when beginning to read the math theory proofing page.

    You wondered about "circular reasoning." In general, it means the premise is faulty, that when you attempt to prove something in an experiment, you cannot say something is because something is. I think I'm right when offering the recent studies on the meterorite from Mars as an example. The original hypothesis was that life on Mars can be proved by life found on a Mars rock (found here on Earth). Turns out that most scientists now think that the signs of "life" found on the Mars rock came from Earth, either while the rock (from Mars) sat here on Earth or when the rock (from Earth) was on Mars. The common usage of "circular reasoning" in science is high criticism of the experimental premise (or math proofing in your article), so you would think that it would be easy enough to avoid. That's not the case, though, because it can sneak into the best of science.

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    June 7, 2001 - 01:25 pm
    aha so then when it is being used to express circular time it is saying because something happened to you the fall out can happen to me and we can repeat this on infinitum - in other words as we each roll our rock the "Eternal Reccurance" of an event cannot be explained because we only have "circular reasoning" to help us determine the cause of the event that we keep bumping over.

    Or maybe since parellel lines cannot be proved, there being a flaw in the argument, than the ancient circular time is our reality which furthers the premise of Sisyphus.

    Deems
    June 7, 2001 - 01:47 pm
    It is Albert Camus who writes extensively about Sisyphus. He uses him as a type for the human being who struggles with absurdity (having the rock roll back down just as he/she has it almost to the top.) Camus presents Sisyphus as the Absurd Hero, all his passion thrown into the task of accomplishing nothing. Thus the story becomes a paradigm for our life--Camus concludes that in order to adjust to a meaningless effort (living), one must "imagine Sisyphus happy."

    Maryal

    FaithP
    June 7, 2001 - 07:20 pm
    I will spend the evening pondering Barb's post. And all the follow up too. Henry in the midst of deep concentration I came upon the Kansas Farmer and burst into giggles like a teenager. It really broke me up as my great grand child of nine says.

    I have been reading ahead oh me, and dare not divulge me thoughts yet. So I am at the stopping place at the end of Chapter 5.This is really sad, the parting between the brothers after Vanya has bewildered, entertained, and bedeviled simple though sweet Aloysha. Ivan is abrupt in his leaving perhaps to diffuse the emotion that has surfaced as the evening went on. Aloysha too, is emotional as he watches his brother, who he has not known until today and may still not know him but he loves him and something else is present. Some edgy fearful new thing that "was growing up in him" . The brothers seem to forget about each other as they leave just as Alexi forgot Dmitri when he left him last. Our author has written a great book alright but boy did he leave the reader with a lot of space for presumtion re the Relationship between the Family Karmazov. I think of the teacher saying "what do you think of when I say "The Cat is Blue" and every one draws cat who is blue, and most people would draw a nice little cat with pointy ears and whiskers and color it blue. The teacher is a poor teacher however because he says "You are all wrong, I am thinking of a San Francisco poet who is sad, you know a cool cat who is sad and down and out etc." That teacher did not communicate what was in his mind when he ask the question. Communication ! To me, it seems that none of them love each other.The all have needs and are looking to the others to help fulfill these needs, nefarious as they may be or as alturistic in either case they are all self centered and so far have not shown any of the Responsibility for man that Dos preachs is the Saving Grace. Being Responsible for not just your own life but all others good and bad. He said it in Crime and PUnishment too. F

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    June 7, 2001 - 08:18 pm
    Yes, Camus who lived in the twentieth century and died in a car accident after WW2.

    From my text and notes - The Myth of Sisyphus is a philosophical theory that can be interpreted two ways. 1. He devotes himself to his labor so completely that he must be considered happy. 2. He undertakes his task with resentment, and his resentment of the gods makes his life meaningful. He rebels by refusing to accept his life as absurd.

    This myth is furthering the confrontation and conflict between our rational expectations of the world, justice, satisfaction, happiness and the Indifference of the world. The only thing that matters is personal experience rather then looking at the world objectively.

    The agreement that we all die and that we all contend with evil and we cannot escape or out-wit either is our commonality. And it is absurd to imagine ourselves escaping or out-witting these life experiences. Just as absurd are some of the various positions of denial man subscribes. The myth of Sisyphus is being used in this class as the bases to further our understanding of passionatly thowing oursleves into life in response to the absurdity of life, in response to the passionless herd phenomenon of Christianity, as the concept of chosing a life style that no choice can be proved true, since truth, even in science, is subjective and also, to further the understanding of "eternal reccurance."

    My notes indicate both Hegel and Kierkegaard use this myth. I have not read their work and can only share the information as I am learning it. To me it is making sense. But then, based on what I am learning it would, wouldn't it - Hehehe - I have thrown myself into this class and this book with passion. Although I have sunk my shaft I am still drilling and where I hope for oil, I could come up with salt water.

    One of the things I am learning in this class is that there are many shortened and mis-understood phrases out there that have taken on a pop meaning that was not the intention of the author.

    Example; it was first Hegel that said "God is Dead" not Nietzsche and it was said in relationship to the theory as explained in an earlier post. That the organised Christian Church, its parishioners were spouting Docterine, were into ritual, quoted Dogma to express their faith, were judging themselves and each other and looking to the church as a social outlet. They had lost the passionate committment required to "be" a Christian. The same passion and committment that the early Christians, the saints and Jesus displayed.

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    June 7, 2001 - 10:37 pm
    Interesting Henry, where you do not see Ivan as a sympathetic character - I am right in there with him. I found the "rebellion" chapter difficult to read and wished I could be a five year old again with the magical ability to read as if I was at the movies and when the witch would be on the movie screen I could close my eyes. This issue of children, yet formed, being subjected to evil is what I railed and raged at God about. And I could easily understand Ivan wanting to chop off the foolish heads of any religions during "his" Inquisition.

    Henry please fill us in - what is the story on the monasteries Cluny and Citeaux.

    And Joan do you have a link or can you enlighten us to this story of Pipen and the sword of Caesar.

    Regardless of possible disillusionment, Ivan is going to live full tilt, loving "life more than its meaning" until, he turns 30 when he will walk away to another way of life, another choice of style.

    It is Kierkegaard that says we are faced with various choices, "modes of existence" of "lifestyles." Although each mode of existence might dictate its own priorities or rationality, there is no reason or rational standard for choosing one rather than another.

    Kierkegaard distinguishes three modes;
    • The aesthetic; seeks pleasure, the avoidance of pain, satisfaction.
    • Ethical is the life of duty, keeping promises, caring about others.
    • Religious which includes aspects of the ethical life but conflict may exist between the ethical and the religious.


    Examples of the aesthetic mode, the overstepping of boundaries in order to enjoy oneselves is not always unethical or non-religious, nor does it need to be vulgar but, the priorities of personal satisfaction are most important. This includes both the life of Don Juan, who pursued his own pleasures, without consideration for others. He had 103 conquests in Spain alone. And then there is Mozart, who was not satisfied unless he could express beauty with the perfect piece of music exclusive of how it played for an audience.

    The liability to living the aesthetic mode is boredom. Desire and satisfaction become more difficult to satisfy leading to the next desire and the next. Passionately throwing yourself into this lifestyle avoids boredom or becoming Jaded but, as in Sisyphus the repetition is numbing.

    Choosing to live the Ethical mode appears to be a rational choice which begs the question "Why be rational?" Chosen is a moral point of view among many. It is other-directed rather than concerned with one's own satisfaction. Central is duty. Socrates died rather than compromise his virtue.

    The limits and frustrations to the ethical life, given the overwhelming number of injustices in the world, is to become self-defeating, as in compassion "burnout." You become tired of making decision, you cannot help everyone, you feel that you are not doing enough, there are more wrongs in the world than can be righted.

    It does not matter which choice you make - you make a leap of faith, take your chances and the mode you choose determines your priorities. Example you can marry for the pleasures but, if your mode is ethical you "become" an expression of duty and concern for your other and your family.

    The religious life also includes aspects of the ethical life, but conflict may exist between the ethical and the religious. This conflict is exemplified in the story of Abraham, which presents an intolerable dilemma to someone who both believes that God's word is ultimate and has a need to obey the moral rule. One of the greatest moral rule is against killing your own child, and is called into question by God's command. This crisis of faith is called a "teleological suspension of the ethical."

    We see Aloysha as an ethical person and where he appeared to have made the choice to the religious lifestyle on P 18/19 it says he "threw himself into the monastery path, it was only because it alone struck him at the time and pre-darkness of worldly wickedness towards the light of love...famous monastery elder Zosima, to whom he became attached with all the ardent first love of his unquenchable heart...he was not very effusive, not even very talkative, not from mistrust, not from shyness or sullen unsociability, but even quite the contrary, from something different, from some inner preoccupation, as it were, strictly personal, of no concern to others, but so important for him that because of it he would, as it were, forget others." Later he has little difficulty chatting with Lise and sharing his exploits as well as his thoughts. I wonder if the monastery was a safe place for Aloysha to hide, to be safe from a family that did not share his ethics rather then Aloysha having chosen the mode or life of religion. Aloysha looking for love in all the wrong places and it takes elder Zosima to see into his heart.

    We can see Father Karamazov a Don Juan and Dmitri, just a bit more thoughtful, also living for pleasure. Ivan I think is also living the lifestyle of the aesthetics. He is the Mozart looking for the perfect argument and solution to his thoughtful search for order, the other side of the coin to Dmitri. Could it be they are the Janus, Dmitri and Ivan. The question though is, what mode is Smerdyakov representing. He in his powdered and shaved body that controls the music and the gate key to the home of Fyodor Karamazov.

    Is Smerdyakov our anarchist where as our Ivan is a nihilist rejecting the "other worldly" the untopian future for a life lived fully today, Justice today not after death, Truth in religion and a rational Morality.

    Marvelle
    June 8, 2001 - 02:22 am
    I've written everyone's posted comments all over the Grand Inquisitor chapter in my book until the printed text is almost impossible to decipher. I've underlined, highlighted, pointed arrows, and still you keep finding new points to bring up that I need to study.

    I am really not competent (this isn't coyness) to contribute to the inquiry into the Grand Inquisitor and the philosophy of Dos, but I am learning so much from everyone else that I had to write and say thanks to Joan, Barbara, Henry, Faith, Alf, Maryal, Jo, and company. I appreciate all the intelligent offerings.

    I'm an existentialist myself of the Viktor Frankl variety and another obscure variety that we won't get into here. So what is the consensus about Dos? Has one been reached as to his leanings and can it be named? How much of Dos is in Ivan?

    Obviously, I need to go back and study my crib notes (stolen from your comments). So I will be a fly on the wall for this chapter but I haven't dropped out and I am very interested in the posts for this chapter. Thank you to everyone.

    -- Marvelle

    Joan Pearson
    June 8, 2001 - 09:18 am
    Oh Marvelle, it is so good to hear from the flies now and again, knowing you are on the wall, and not flown away altogether! What an upbeat post and there is that question we keep asking...where does Dos. fit into the scheme of things. I am still on the fence, listening, reading and searching! Good to learn to that you count yourself among the existentialists - you will probably be of help answering the very question you pose!

    I've got another idea about Dos...

    Off on yet another tangent today, which has my eyes popping, and maybe will be of some interest to you all...

    Maryal, you started me off with your information on the Masons, (Cool! The Masons were stonemasons, real masons, the cathedral builders who formed their own guilds, which led to secret societies....) If you all remember, Alyosha accused Ivan of being a Mason because he did not believe in God. Hmmmm...Ivan does not NOT believe in God. Neither does Dos, it seems to me. Do Masons believe in God then? I spent some time looking for further information this morning and found some sites which link Masonry, geometry (Euclid), Jesuits, a new world order, secret societies, Freemasonry, Communism, atheism and Schiller (Dostoevsky's friend, that Schiller)! Are you ready???

    Joan Pearson
    June 8, 2001 - 09:26 am
    The order of Masons is thought to have arisen from the English and Scottish fraternities of practicing stonemasons and cathedral builders in the early Middle Ages; traces of the society have been found as early as the 14th cent. Because, however, some documents of the order trace the sciences of masonry and geometry from Egypt, Babylon, and Palestine to England and France, some historians of Masonry claim that the order has roots in antiquity.

    Notable European Masons included Voltaire, Giuseppe Mazzini, Giuseppe Garibaldi, Franz Joseph Haydn, Johann von Goethe, Johann von Schiller, and many leaders of Russia's Decembrist revolt (1825). Origins of Masonry

    On May 1, 1776, the day that Adam Weishaupt, a former Jesuit priest, formed his occult group, which he named The Masters of the Illuminati. Adam Weishaupt founded his new group on the basis of the Jesuit Order, with which he was very familiar. The Masters of the Illuminati was a true secret society, completely closed to the outside world. They had a definite Plan to overthrow all religious and civil institutions and governments, replacing them with a brand new global government, a system which Weishaupt called, The New World Order.

    What were the specific plans of this New World Order? Nesta Webster, writing in her book, "World Revolution", listed the following six (6) goals:


    Abolition of Monarchy and all ordered Government
    Abolition of Private Property
    Abolition of Inheritance
    Abolition of Patriotism
    Abolition of the family (i.e., of marriage and all morality, and the institution of the communal education of children) [My Note: "Communal education of children" refers to State run public education].
    Abolition of all religion
    To achieve this plan, Weishaupt understood that he needed supernatural power, if he was going to successfully destroy Western Civilization, which was religiously Christian. Therefore, Weishaupt established his Masters of the Illuminati with an occult base! ("The New World Order", by A. Ralph Epperson, p. 108-112). Weishaupt created a symbol for his organization, all All-Seeing Eye atop an unfinished pyramid, inside a circle. At the top of the circle were the words, "Annuit Coeptus" which is Latin meaning "Announcing the birth of" and at the bottom of the circle are the Latin words, "Novus Ordo Seclorum", meaning New World Order. In other words, Weishaupt's symbol was "announcing the birth of the New World Order".

    Freemasonry/Illuminati created Communism as the direct opposite to the Thesis, so Hegel's theory could proceed.

    Communism was economically State-owned and State-planned, and religiously Atheistic, and politically a dictatorship. A more complete opposite to Thesis could not have been possible, even if it were planned that way, which, of course, it was. New World Order

    Dos, a Freemason? (Schiller was) An Ideal Freemason What do you think?

    The man who is free from superstition and free from infidelity; who in nature sees the finger of the Eternal Master; who feels and adores the higher destination of man; to whom faith, hope and charity are not mere words without any meaning; to whom property, nay even life, is not too dear for the protection of innocence and virtue, and for the defense of truth;

    The man who towards himself is a severe judge, but who is tolerant with the debilities of his neighbour; who endeavours to oppose errors without arrogance, and to promote intelligence without impatience; who properly understands how to estimate and employ his means; who honours virtue though it may be in the most humble garment, and who does not favour vice though it be clad in purple; and who administers justice to merit whether dwelling in palaces or cottages.

    The man who, without courting applause, is loved by all noble-minded men, respected by his superiors and revered by his subordinates; the man who never proclaims what he has done, can do, or will do, but where need is will lay hold with dispassionate courage, circumspect resolution, indefatigable exertion and a rare power of mind, and who will not cease until he has accomplished his work, and then, without pretension, will retire into the multitude because he did the good act, not for himself, but for the cause of good!

    If you, my Brethren meet such a man, you will see the personification of brotherly love, relief and truth; and you will have found the ideal of a Freemason.


    More!
    Is Freemasonry a Religion? (Differences between Masons and Freemasonry)

    Can a Christian Be a Mason?

    FaithP
    June 8, 2001 - 02:20 pm
    I have read most of the conspiracy theories or heard of them and my grandfather "knew" it was true and so did the old men in the parks on soap boxes I listened to. They told me first about the doller bill and dont forget the 13 arrows etc in the eagles foot. I married a talker and arguer and almost lost my marriage over the Wendell Wilke One World theory.In my naive mind in my teens I thought it would solve so many problems.My husband was a great believer in conspiracy theories. His dad was a 32deg. Knights Templar what ever that might have meant to him and his formative years. He was Demoley and when we were young marrieds he said he would never join an organized church.

    Well I did not care about that, but I sure didnt like him espousing Technocracy as the solution to the opposing systems of Capitalism and Communism. He got me to read biographys of Ben Franklin, Thomas Payne and others. But he himself never understood all the pieces. And according to some of the Christian writers we cant because of the deception and lies. I am a great skeptic but reading today this stuff in the links Joan put up is the first time in my life it has all made a little(I mean petite) sense to me. The thinking I have to do now ..Oh dear what can the matter be,,.what is the matter with us guys..here we are in the halcyon days of our lives so they say and we are questioning all the stuff we have read, and slotting the philosophys we have into new positions. My quilt is coming unraveled ...

    Henry Misbach
    June 8, 2001 - 03:29 pm
    Barbara, if I said I did not find Ivan a sympathetic character, I certainly did not intend to. It's the guy he invents for his "poem," the Grand Inquisitor, whom I dislike, and there is a huge difference there.

    Oh, yeah. Ivan. When I read this, I was not yet of legal age to drink anything alcoholic. I thought, "Could I do this blow it out till 30," life that Ivan says will be his plan? Looking back, I could do a pretty good job of establishing that I did follow it. But I am not at all sure, from Ivan's evasiveness, that he himself knows if he will be alive or dead afterwards. Obviously, I neglected that part (I bet he does too).

    Dos, whatever his broad philosophical commitments, which I doubt will be subject to accurate labelling, shows astonishing, more like terrifying insight into the human dilemma. He is first an artist and afterward an apologist for any one recognizable point of view.

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    June 8, 2001 - 03:58 pm
    Henry thanks for clearifying - Yes, I can see that Dos is all over the charts using Ivan as his mouth piece but, this is better then a crossword puzzle with so many concepts hinted, I am having a field day learning and adjusting my passions.

    Jaon absolutly fabulous - I need to study your post and I haven't even shopped the links you have provided - boy the matching to the verbage in the book is so right on - One bit, the sentence that included Hegel, what is it you are saying - it is such a short sentence but I can't wrap myself around what it is you are saying. Please, please clearfy for me.

    What is so facinating, this veritable course I am taking speaks of the rivalry between Schelling and Hegel who were college roommates. Hegel it seems eventially became more fanous and as Schelling's star faded he was filled with jealousy and wounded pride. Kierkegaard was not aware of this competition but his philosophy fit perfectly with the predispositions of Friedrich Schelling who he studied with in Berlin.

    Since you mention Hegel I would like to see if I can incorperate this loadstone of information you found about the Masons with what I am learning about Existentialism, especially if I can see the influence either way that this special group of Masons either had or were influenced by Hegel in reference to the slant I am learning in this class.

    Oh Faith isn't this just grand to be re-aligning our lives regardless of our age - in some ways it is like finding the missing pieces of a puzzle and in other ways it is like affirming those beliefs we adapted so many years ago.

    As I am reading the Grand Inquisitor I feel like I need some information from the preceding chapter but I just do not want to read Rebellion again - awful, awful, awful.

    FaithP
    June 8, 2001 - 08:03 pm
    Barb Schiller, Johann vonn was the friend of Dos.He was a freemason. Reading Joans links took me most of this morning but it was worth it to remember then all the other things I have read about the Masons.

    Henry I felt to that Ivan's "drink from the cup" was just a way of saying, I will sow my wild oats and then when I am thirty I will settle down. fp

    ALF
    June 9, 2001 - 04:31 am
    I had to skip to the very last post so that I wouldn't be tempted to read the comments before I finished the chapter. My ISP has visited "never-never" land and I have been unable to access the Internet for 3 days. I'm on and then I'm shut off. (YES, I paid my bill.) Not only could I not read the posts, I was unable to read the electronic text. So with all said and done, I am delinquent theis week and will catch up with you tomorrow when I am alone.

    Joan Pearson
    June 9, 2001 - 04:45 am
    But Faith, didn't you get the feeling from the way Ivan was talking that dashing the cup was going to be much more than settling down at the rate he was going? I'm sure that Alyosha and anyone who heard him use that phrase thought that sowing wild oats was all he meant. Things never change, do they? It's all over once you reach 30. Kids are still saying that today! But Ivan's "wild oats"? He's not exactly enjoying his 'salad days', is he? From the way he is talking, thinks are pretty desperate within, and he's only 23!

    Henry, I hear what you are saying...there are so many philosophies that Dos. may have espoused, that we can't really pinpoint the ONE to which he was most attached. Easier perhaps to identify Ivan..but Ivan is in such chaos, and doesn't seem to have made up his mind how he feels about anything yet really. He's searching. I think he told the Grand Inquisitor poem, not so much as to shatter Alyosha's faith, as much as to get some answers from Alyosha. And I don't think he got them...because it's all about free will. Alyosha played the role of the silent Christ in the poem. What would Zosima done in the same role?

    Nevertheless, Dostoevsky continues to toss out tantalizing references that go unexplained. Probably most of them were familiar to his readers at that time...

    For example, when Ivan says, "Return to your Pater Seraphicus", meaning Zosima..Dos. draws our attention to this name

    "Pater Seraphicus - he got that name from somewhere-where from?", Alyosha wondered...Yes, ye that he is, Pater Seraphicus, he will save me - from him and forever!"


    So what does this mean? Alyosha wonders where he got the term. So did I. It seems the Seraphicus reference goes way back, but I could find not reference that helped explain what it MEANS! HOWEVER, I did find something vedddy interesting that may explain Dos' use of the term here.
    Cesar Franck drew to him a loyal and devoted circle of pupils and in 1871 won some official recognition as the nominated successor of Benoist as organ professor at the Conservatoire. A man of gentle character, known to his pupils as Pater seraphicus, he exercised considerable influence through his classes and performances, although remaining something of an outsider as a composer in a Paris interested largely in opera.


    Reading this link, I see that Franck was associated with Victor Hugo, the French Revolution, it would make sense to me that Dos. was familiar with this "Pater Seraphicus"...but I don't yet understand the link between this Pater and Zosima.

    Dos wrote this chapter with great care and calculation, don't forget the trembling! I really don't believe that anything was included casually. This term means something...

    Good morning, Alf! OOOOOOOH! What a week to be out of touch! What a chapter to have to catch up on! Good luck! But, you are definitely NOT alone! I wondered where you were...thought you were waiting on shore with Nellie..or a fly on the wall with Marvelle!

    psBarbara, I'm really not ignoring your requests for more on Hegel or Pepin...just am short on time. If you read the link to the Freemasons, you'll see a lot on Hegel. Maybe I can put up the stuff on Pepin this afternoon. It's really important in understanding where the G.I. is coming from when he says the Church succombed to the last temptation in accepting land from Pepin.

    FaithP
    June 9, 2001 - 01:59 pm
    Pater Seraphicus: Geothes Faust-54(finis) http://www.boudicca.de/goethe54.htm http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~brians/hum_303/faust.html

    http://www.dhushara.com/book/death/inquis.htm this is in reference to The grand Inquisitor

    I remembered the words Pater Seraphicus from some german poem. It is from boudicca.de so click on that and you find the german poem in german. I have no translation. Pater Seraphicus is there/faith

    Henry Misbach
    June 9, 2001 - 02:41 pm
    Faith, I think there's more in Ivan's arrival at 30 than just a minor shift of life style. He says he will "dash the cup to the ground." Alyosha thinks what I'm thinking: he means in some way to end his life prematurely. Ivan knows he can't tell Alyosha that. If he did, Alyosha might get him committed and ruin all his immediate plans.

    I think I can relate to Ivan's desire to travel in Europe. The sense of distance from the objects of one's study is, if anything, much greater than it would have been for Ivan in the mid-19th century. Since some of the documents I studied back then are even older than the Great Plague, one of my high school teachers suggested I be careful not to become its last victim. If I remembered Ivan's discussion of the combination of leaves and antiquities, it was on a subconscious level. If I could live again any year in my life, it would be my year in Italy on Fulbright. But the lovely thing about that is, I'd be young again. As Ivan implies, what you don't enjoy while you have it, you may never get to enjoy. Our senses are never as keen later as they are while we're young.

    As to Pater Seraphicus, isn't a seraph a kind of angel? And isn't that just where Zossima seems to be headed?

    Henry Misbach
    June 10, 2001 - 11:29 am
    Normally I prefer not to post behind myself, but I'd like to address the discussion questions.

    To question 1, I see Fr. Ferapont as representing the part of Catholic Church history that tends to be neglected. We all know that as the secular power of the Empire declined, the form of monasticism that came to be known as cenobitic gradually took over many functions of local government, including but not limited to schooling. On into the Middle Ages, it was not unusual for a baron to support the local monastery, because, in so doing, he was supporting the community. By any standard, a monk during those times had an easy economic ride, and the resultant relaxation of discipline became evident to everyone. The movement based on Cluny monastery was originally aimed at Simony, namely the buying and selling of church offices. The one based on Citeaux became the Cistercian Order and was led by Bernard of Clairvaux who, over a period of years, captured many of the important bishoprics of France and finally even the papacy itself with his own hand-picked people. After his death in the mid-12th century, other orders came up, trying to assure the ideals of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Anyone who was a cleric was supposed to strive toward those goals. During the student uprisings of the mid-20th century, students argued that the university had originally been the students, not the faculty. When I agreed, but then pointed out that at that time all students were also clerics, they declined to pursue 12th-century cleric ideals. Not too hard to guess why.

    I see Ferapont as trying to carry forward Medieval monastic ideals. St. Bernard probably ruined his health with fasting and other extremes of denying the flesh. His chains give him away. I think he sees in veneration of elders a form of idolatry. Most of us today can hardly see that.

    My time ran out, so I'll have to address the other questions later. I may have already reponded elsewhere anyway.

    Oh, one other thing. I think the question about Smerd's appearance should have been postponed, because it's really obvious later.

    Joan Pearson
    June 10, 2001 - 11:39 am
    Henry, I think you are right about "Seraph"...just came across some interesting footnotes in the Pevear translation:
    Pater Seraphicus ~ Seraphic Father, an epithet applied to Francis of Assisi, also an allusion to Goethe's Faust. Note that Ivan's sarcasm is NOT without respect.


    I've noted your comments about the monk, Ferapont. Have read on and think you might have further thoughts on this when we get to Zosima's lectures on the cloistered monk next week. There is much to come on this.



    Another footnote, same source on Freemasons:

    Freemasons ~ a secret society of mutual aid and brotherhod...first lodge organized in England in 1717 and then spread to other countries. Considered heretical by Orthodox and RC Churches.




    If you remember the GI tells Christ that:
    "Exactly 8 centuries ago, we took from him (devil) what you so indignantly rejected, that last gift he offered you when he showed you all the kingdoms of the earth. We took Rome and the sword of Caesar from him and proclaimed ourselves the sole rulers of the earth...and the only rulers."


    So with that action eight centuries ago, the Church became embroiled in land disputes and the temporal affairs of men. That made the Church the ruler, not Christ, who as the Inquisitor says, has had his chance, but turned all over the the Pope.

    Here's a footnote on the event "eight centuries before" (before the Inquisition):


    In 755 AD, Pepin the Short, king of the Franks took the Ravenna and the Pentapolis (5 cities of Lombardy) and turned these territories over to Pope Stephen II (III?), thus instituting the secualar power of the papacy.



    And one more really interesting footnote over this passage:
    "I hold out for the sticky bitter leaves, I shall love them only remembering you. It's enough for me that you are here somewhere, and I shall not stop wanting to live...a declaration of love. And now you go right, I'll go left."


    The footnote on right and left:
    Genesis 13-9. Left sinister, associated with the devil, especially in depictions of the Last Judgment. Ivan scrunches up his left shoulder, Smerdyakov squints or winks with his left eye.


    Henry, the question on Smerdyakov's appearance? I can only say that the questions are drawn from the chapters under discussion from week to week. I remember thinking that Smerdy reminded me of Michael Jackson the first time he was described! The question can certainly be repeated and often is in later chapters if the same issue arises again later!

    On to Chapters VI and VI! Watch those left feet!!! Talk to you tomorrow!

    Joan Pearson
    June 11, 2001 - 07:17 am
    Good morning! I must confess I have read ahead beyond the discussion schedule. Did something to my back on Saturday, well, actually, I bent over to pick up a paper bag, and couldn't get back up. Stayed off my feet all day yesterday, reading the newspapers, and did go on several chapters into Brothers K. Won't divulge anything beyond this week's discussion schedule, but must admit that after reading the chapter on the Russian Monk, I have mixed feelings about Ferapont that I find confusing! I guess what I'm saying is that it is important to remember Henry's post on monastery monks, and the meaning of the name, Ferapont..in French, il fera un pont means "he will make a bridge." But we'll put off that confusing chapter until next week!

    This week brings us back to the story, once Ivan has delivered his Grand Inquisitor poem to Alayosha (which he now describes as "so much gibberish"). I felt so sorry for him, he suddenly seems so young, and so alone. It seems he has never had anyone in his life to talk to, that all he knows about life he has gathered from books. He's feeling "anguish to the point of nausea, yet it's beyond me to say what I want." Talk about isolation!

    To me Ivan really was trying to connect with Alyosha, and needed Alyosha to "save him"; he wanted to be part of Alyosha's community of believers, and yet all he did was convince Alyosha that he was just the opposite! No wonder he's upset. I thought Alyosha was not particularly helpful throughout the Inquisition. Was it because he was playing the role of the silent Christ? Or was it because he had no answers due to his youth and inexperience? I can't help but wonder what Zosima would have said had he been the one Ivan was addressing as the Inquisitor. We will hear from Zosima next week (but Ivan won't!)

    I can understand Ivan's upset over this, but can't understand why he suddenly pins all his disappointment and depression on Smerdy's presence in the house. What is it about Smerdy that bothers him this much?

    ALF
    June 11, 2001 - 02:15 pm
     The GI (like Ivan) taunts his prisoner  before freeing him with the command to "Go and come no more."  Is Alyosha akin to this prisoner, listening attentively and not speaking?

    Ivan was liberated after being kissed by his brother (the plagiarer. )  He, too, was exempt and given the leeway to go freely , he to the left and his brother to the right.  Ivan says "there is strength to endure everything"  (the Karamazov way) and beseeches his brother never to speak to him again on "these subjects."  He does however promise to purposely have one last talk with  him   in 7-10 years , before he "dashes his cup to the ground."  Is this a prelude to undisclosed burdens that should not be spoken of?

    ALF
    June 11, 2001 - 02:48 pm
    With a feeling of impending doom Ivan reaches his father's residence. His depression had a kind of external, casual character as he identifies Smerdyakov's wounded vanity  and his revolting familiarity as the reason for the anger in his heart.  I didn't feel so much that Ivan was intimidated as he was aggravated. He did not like the feeling of being a cohort of Smerdy's. He listens to Smerdy's rendition of Demitry and Fyodor's  absurdity toward one another and the possibility of Agrafena's becoming the mistress of the estate, leaving them all penniless in the event of Fyodor's demise.  That sure  leads to an interesting thought here!  She would then have  the pater, the son and hope  she doesn't have to deal with the holy ghost.

    FaithP
    June 11, 2001 - 03:02 pm
    When Ivan reaches home feeling so terrible, so depressed and doesnt really know why, there not 15 ft from him he sees what now he thinks is the cause of his irritation. He wants to avoid him. Go around him. But he does not. When Ivan first came home he and Smerdy were much together in the Karmazov home where they had many philosophical discussions and Ivan had encouraged Smerdy even, thinking him an original and calling him the contiplativie, and then after while began to feel loathing for Smerds egotistical attitude and his vanity, and "wounded vanity too. Ivan feels guilty for associating with him. Smerdy tried to impress Ivan at the dinner the night before, even though he was talking to everyone at large and his old foster father in particular. But Ivan is distressed by him, loathes him really but what confirms his dislike is the familiarity he begins to assume and he always spoke to Ivan with sneaky kind of understanding of a secret or a compact between them. So he does stop and speak to him in the garden here in the beginning of chapter six. And so I still have not found Dmitri's place here except by inference from everyone else. I have been reading back and forth. This is some trip....fp

    FaithP
    June 11, 2001 - 03:06 pm
    Alf and I were posting together. We are on the same subject and I too was immediatly struck with a giggle when I read that Grushenka might wind up with what ever the Father has left after his death which is being planned in the garden. No that is wrong Smerdy already has it planned only needs to insinuate it into Ivan's mind. I dont really know Smerdys motive yet.fp

    Henry Misbach
    June 11, 2001 - 03:17 pm
    Alf, I like your little two-thirds un-holy trinity in your post.

    This is the place where we get the full appearance of Smerdy. His emasculate, sickly face, his little curls combed forward, and his pointy toed boots give a much more graphic look than we've had before, even if what we've seen sets it up. He's a disgusting little parasite. The thing Ivan likes least about him is that he talks with him as if they were sharing some secret, of which Ivan has not a clue.

    His pointy-toe boots remind me of people I have known, most of them untrustworthy. Often they are much more self-important than any evident status they hold. The way I look at it, Smerdy's hold on his position is his ability to cook. The Old Man thinks he's quite a bit more loyal than he really is, and anyway, Smerdy dared not tell Dmitri of his secret understanding on how to signal whose arrival to the Old Man, because it would put Smerdy ahead of one of the Old Man's own sons. But now that he's already done so, he knows he'll be implicated in anything Dmitri does. On top of that, Smerdy wonders if Dmitri might kill him, instead of the Old Man.

    Smerdy goes on to tell him how the way is going to be open to Dmitri to do as he pleases with his father, because everyone is going to be otherwise occupied. Ivan is surprised at his own indifference when he decides to go ahead to Moscow and send word to his Dad that he did not go to Tchermashnya after all.

    ALF
    June 11, 2001 - 04:05 pm
    Henry:" Smerdy goes on to tell him how the way is going to be open to Dmitri to do as he pleases with his father, because everyone is going to be otherwise occupied." You've got that right. That little capricious, deceitful Smerdy has his epileptic seizure planned well in advance. I've cared for many epileptics and can never recall their "aura" occuring a full day before their seizure.

    Joan Pearson
    June 12, 2001 - 07:05 am
    When the G.I./Ivan tells Christ/Alyosha to go...for good, "come no more", this is chilling, isn't it Alf? Doesn't it mean that Ivan has given up, Alyosha cannot save him, he will not come back to him for help again? (He does promise Alyosha that he'll talk to him one last time in 7-10 years though. Zosima makes him that same promise.)

    Ivan leaves Alyosha, depressed, convinced he will take the left path. And who does he meet on the left path, but the repulsive Smerdyakov. I think the feeling of depression from his meeting with Alyosha is immediately connected with Smerdy. Ivan, on the gut level, knows that somehow he is involved, or will be involved in something sinister with Smerdy.

    Watch his left winking eye, and those little pointy boots that Henry mistrusts so much, as he slowly reveals his plans to Ivan:


    "Damn you, speak out what you want?"
    Smerdyakov drew his right foot up to his left. "Substantially nothing - but just by way of conversation."

    "Do you mean to pretend to be ill tomorrow for three days, eh?"
    Smerdyakov...playing with the toe of his right foot, set the foot down, moved the left one forward and , grinning...



    Alf, I agree, there's no way Smerdy could have predicted his seizure...even predicted he could fall from the attic again, or even down the cellar stairs...and yet, when he actually does fall, his act is so convincing, the widely respected doctor is convinced he is really out. So much for science!

    How did he fake it so well...get his mouth to foam like that? I'm going to admit, this is written so well, I almost think that Smerdy's plans have gone awry...that he really did slip on the stairs, that he really is out cold.

    The other part of the plan...Grigory and Marfa have to be knocked out. Grigory is already laid up and Marfa is administering her special treatment. I'm wondering if Smerdy hasn't added something to the ointment to assure they will both be knocked out when they drink it.

    The only part of the puzzle is how will Smerdy get Dmitri to come to the house? It seems we are missing that piece at this point, or did I miss something? Still not clear why Smerdy wants Ivan to go to Chermashnya rather than Moscow, but I can sense that Ivan's decision to finally go to Moscow is fateful...that he has indeed gone to the left!

    And like Faith, I question Smerdy's motive. What does he hope to get from having Dmitri kill Karamazov? He knows K. has no will. If K. dies, what happens under Russian law. Smerdy seems to tell Ivan that his brothers will share his estate. But what does Smerdy get out of it?

    FaithP
    June 12, 2001 - 09:15 am
    Well Smerdy has planned that Mitya will come dashing in as usual to see if he (S) is ill, to hurt him,to steal the three thousand that he knows Papa K has, Smerdy says or see if Grushenka is there. Smerdy has already given Dmitri the signals so he tells Ivan. What he has to do now is get Ivan involved, and being a manipulator first degree he is doing it with his left foot forward hahahah Sinister he is. Now when Ivan does leave after Smerdy puts forward the idea he should go to Tchernmashnya insead of Moscow and as he leaves he breaks into laughter. "Now anyone looking at him would kow he is not laughing from lightness of heart. Indeed he does not know why he is laughing. He is in a frenzy." And the plot is laid.FP

    FaithP
    June 12, 2001 - 09:25 am
    Oh I forgot to say that in my opinion the way that Gregori and Marfa will be silanced is simple. Drugged but not by Smerdy directly. He just makes available the drug which is probably laudlum (paragoric)which was very often used for pain in those days and it does, being morphin preperation, knock some people out. But the literature says it is a pleasant drug which is why Marfa always sneakily saves back some of the potion for herself. I think. Faith

    Lady C
    June 12, 2001 - 01:28 pm
    Smerdyakov is certainly a busy little bee isn't he--manipulating everyone and everything. Yes he wants old Karamozov killed, and he wants to be sure that he isn't blamed, so who does he want the blame to fall on? Obviously Dmitri. But why?

    Henry I think you're right. ivan is disgusted, does draw back from Smerdyakov's familiarity implying a shared secret. But more than that I think his intuition is at work here too.

    ALF
    June 13, 2001 - 08:31 am
    It sounds to me as if Smerdy wished Ivan to be as far away from F as possible.  The further the better to deflect any suspicion from him in the event anything were to happen to F.  Ivan asks of Smerdy, "".. Moscow is farther and Tchermashnya is nearer. Is it to save my spending money on the fare, or to save my going so far out of my way, that you insist on Tchermashnya?"
        "Precisely so..." muttered Smerdyakov.  You can almost hear him say  "to save your..."

    What was this "vague" and intense excitement  that Ivan felt that night as he stayed up past 2 AM?  Why do you suppose Dos has set us up to ponder this?  His inclination to go down and open the door almost set me on edge, as I anticipated the murder happening at this point.
     

    Henry Misbach
    June 13, 2001 - 08:40 am
    Joan, all I can say about Fr. Ferapont is that, if he is really going to do something constructive, I'll be very surprised. People who claim they can see demons, either to admonish them or to have them do a person's bidding, scare me equally the one as much as the other.

    Joan Pearson
    June 13, 2001 - 08:45 am
    Lady C, that is an intersting question. Why does Smerdy want Dmitri to murder Karamazov? I can't see how money is the motive. His father has no will. If he dies, his money will be divided among the three legal heirs, won't it? If not money, then what? I don't believe that he is that fearful of Dmitri. Ivan tells him that Dmitri won't kill him, break his legs, etc. Surely Smerdy must know this. Why does he want Karamazov dead and Dmitri punished?

    FaithI'm still not clear how Smerdy is going to get Dmitri to come to the house...in a rage. Ivan has already told Smerdy that Dmitri wouldn't kill his father for money. Has Smerdy told Dmitri that Grushenka will be coming, before he feigns his seizure? Has he told Dmitri about the envelope of the 3000 roubles earmarked for Grushenka (his little chicky) ...if only she'll come to him? Dmitri knows Grushenka well enough that she'd do anything for money. That would bring him to his father's place. I'll bet that Smerdy has told Dmitri she's coming tonight!

    I've been thinking about what you and Henry have been saying about Ivan's resentment of Smerdyakov's familiarity, including Ivan in his plan, as if he and Ivan are on the same level. Look at his parting words to Ivan when Ivan tells him he's going off to Chermashnaya..."It's always interesting speaking to an intelligent man." GGGGGGGGGGGGGGAh! I think it is these words of Smerdy that cause him to change his mind and go to Moscow, washing his hands of any part of Smerdy's plot!

    Deems
    June 13, 2001 - 09:11 am
    GREETINGS from Maine! I'm at the public library on Great Cranberry Island (Maine)where I have a limited amount of time on the computer. And the library closes at 3:00 pm, so the time is even more limited.

    BUT I am in touch --sort of--and I'm up on the reading. ta-da!!

    I too am eager to find out what's in it for Smerdy. He certainly is busy as Lady C points out and he can easily drug Grigory and Martha with laudenum or some such. FP is generally drunk at night so he won't be much to handle. And clearly the blame will fall on Dmitri if all goes as Smerdy plans.

    Henry--I agree. Ferapont is bad news; I'm certain no good will come from him. I know a crazed zealot when I see one.

    OK, folks---I will be back tomorrow, same time, same station, assuming that the golf cart makes it up the B I G hill. Does anyone out there know what might be wrong with a sluggish golf cart (electric) that won't always make it up a hill? I used WD-40 on it this morning. The accelerator pedal seems to be erratic. I know NOTHING about electric vehicles. Yes, the cart is fully charged and my brother-in-law just had a new battery put in. Arrrrgh!!!!

    Maryal

    Deems
    June 13, 2001 - 09:13 am
    Hi Joan!--I'm back!!

    Problems with golf cart delayed my appearance. But I'm here now.

    Maryal

    Joan Pearson
    June 13, 2001 - 09:13 am
    Good morning, Henry! I understand your point about Ferapont, I really do. I am looking forward to see what will happen at the monastery after Zosima's death. I haven't read that far yet...but I did read the two chapters scheduled for discussion next week and see there something puzzling about Zosima's concept of the value of the cloistered monk who fasts and prays for those out in the world. Oooopps! Sorry. No more till next week, I promise.

    Alf, I think to understand Ivan and his response to Smerdyakov...and his decision to go far away to Moscow, it's necessary to keep in mind the previous chapter ...his Grand Inquisitor was searching for a response from Christ...a reason to believe. At the end, after Christ/Alyosha gave the old Inquisitor/Ivan/ the kiss of peace, he says, "The kiss burns in his heart, but the old man holds to his former idea."

    Remember Ivan's earlier idea expressed in Zosima's cell? He contended that if there is no God, no hereafter, then there is no responsibility for one's brother (or father) on earth...there is no crime, everything is allowed.

    So he's struggling with this, although he remains unconvinced, on the left path, when he comes upon Smerdy, squinting that left eye, pointing that left toe toward his diabolical plot, including Ivan as if Ivan is one of those who believe...there is no crime or evil, as there is no God.

    The reader is shown that Ivan is not as one-sided as this. But would you say that he is as guilty as Dmitri (if Dmitri in fact does kill his father in a rage)? Is he as guilty as Smerdy, now that he knows the plan...isn't he an accomplice? Can he simply get on a train to Moscow and remove himself from all complicity?

    Joan Pearson
    June 13, 2001 - 09:15 am
    hahahaha! Maryal!!!! From the Cranberry Library in Maine? Sunny?

    Isn't this my luck that I'm here when you get some computer time? I didn't know you played golf? You and Alf will have to get together in November down here at the Congressional golf course!

    W40 didn't work? You'll have to try laudenum next time...save a little for sipping at tee time! hahaha

    We have missed you!

    Deems
    June 13, 2001 - 09:23 am
    Joan----The golf cart is the means of transportation. I do NOT play golf and there's no golf course on the island which is just over two miles long and a mile or so wide!

    The golf cart is the island's version of a car. And central to my existence. And it has a problem. Perhaps ALF knows what I should check. It has almost no moving parts to fool with.

    IRK!

    ALF
    June 13, 2001 - 10:30 am
    Hello , Harry, up there in Maine. If you'd like I shall check with he professionals here at the club and see what advice they have to offer. In the meantime, saunter on over and have some grog. We're happy that you are here with us and hope that the "shoe leather" express isn't needed.

    FaithP
    June 13, 2001 - 10:32 am
    Well Joan Smerdy did not have to tell Dmetri about the three thousand in Father Karmazov's safe as they all heard about it before the wrestling match between Papa and Mitya the night of the dinner. And though he hasnt been proved a thief Smerdy just understands him well enough to know that if he thinks he can, he will- steal that money. He will hear of the fall Smerdy had and he will have the signals at hand too, and Smerdy counts on him doing the dirty deed. I feel that we have begun to see a lot more of Smerdy's character, his base nature now and according to my memory we will see more than we wnat of him.Fp

    Joan Pearson
    June 13, 2001 - 01:29 pm
    Faith, I find the more I learn about Smerdy, the less I know him...and like him! He is so evil, and disagreeable, I find no saving graces. To me, he stands for evil itself. Fyodor isn't real to me either, but every once in a while, he'll show that he says a heart, and a sense of humor. Not often, but sometimes. Smerdy? Never!

    betty gregory
    June 13, 2001 - 11:24 pm
    Hello from the deck of the house on the hill (that overlooks Nellie on the shore, blue lips Joan out in the safe water and Barbara on the library yacht...her version of deep end).

    For Maryal. Golf Carts. Most golf carts and newer 4-wheel electric scooters were never meant to climb anything but the measliest incline or grade. Yes, a few more expensive models have electric motors designed to climb serious hills, but those are just on the market and really expensive.

    Second guess....the new battery is a lemon.

    Last thought. Instruction manuals for 4-wheel scooters say you're supposed to charge the battery after every use, as in every day. I never do, but that's what it says.

    betty

    ALF
    June 14, 2001 - 04:19 am
    Maryal: I concur with Betty. Bill said to tell you that exact same thing-- not made for bopping about hilly terrain for any amount of time. I can't tell you the number of times he has had to go out on the course to push in a car--I'm also told that they are not CARTS but CARS!!! They have four wheels, etc, anyway, plug it in, check the connections and voila'-- off to the library with you.

    Deems
    June 14, 2001 - 09:38 am
    Thank you all so much!--Where else could I get such reliable info about golf carts but here on SeniorNet. WOW. OK--the cart JUST made it up the hill to the library today. I charge it EVERY night, every single night. AND last summer, same cart, same hills on the island, and it made it up them without slowing to such a pace that one could literally walk faster, walking at a SLOW pace.

    I think the cart may just be OLD, and will tell my brother-in-law that. I don't want my sister, who is not well, getting stuck on a hill. She is coming up on the 18th.

    As for the BROTHERS K--I am reading ahead because I am on an island and there isn't much to do at night. Last night I read quite a few chapters in our book. Dostoevsky really knows how to draw me in.

    I will reveal nothing as to plot, but for those of you who aren't much into philosophy or religion or the philosophy of religion, just read along through the Zosima chapters to come and don't worry about it. The plot soon returns. There's something for everyone in this novel.

    Again, thanks for the golf cart advice and I'll see you tomorrow.

    Maryal

    Nellie Vrolyk
    June 14, 2001 - 11:02 am
    Dos sure knows how to write cliffhangers! Here Smerdy's plot is coming to fruition and Fyodor K is eagerly awaiting his beloved Grushenka... and then Dos leaves us hanging...

    In the meanwhile I gather up clues and hints as to who will commit the actual murder. I know that Dmitri is the most obvious suspect, but somehow I don't think that Dos will make it that easy for us.

    FaithP
    June 14, 2001 - 05:31 pm
    Here in the last chapters of this book (six) we come to the scene I believe Dos wrote the letter to the editor about. It is his whole viewpoint on his life his religion etc and there is only one way for him to get these viewpoints across to the masses. Write a book every one will read and in the middle of it write a Thesis re Suffering as Salvation and he Dos tells Alexi to go to Dmitri and bow down to his suffering. Doestoevsky believes the masses of Russian plain folks will be the salvation of the whole Russian people, they and the monks of course. He thinks that their simple faith and their quiet acceptance of life, their non-rebellious subjection is the way to salvation.

    I, personal faith, do not understand this at all but Dos wrote about it before in other books,and he says "Man will not be held accountable for things he does not comprehend." Even his criminals are saved by confession and suffering re:Zosima story about the man who murdered who came to him . This is a deep chapter when Zosima is exhorting his listeners and telling his life story. Dos/Zos is very much a worldly man who has become this preacher in his old age . And Alexi is blinded by grief when he dies. fp

    Henry Misbach
    June 14, 2001 - 07:58 pm
    Smerdy seems to make a corrupt bargain with Ivan, whereby he lets Ivan know that its all going to blow up soon. He clearly wants Ivan out of town, but not too far away. His repeated, "It's worthwhile to speak to clever man," is a tip-off of some kind. Dos almost blows Smerdy's cover by having him predict a seizure. He must know that, if Grush comes and runs off with the Old Man, the boys are going to lose their inheritance. It is in their interest for someone to off the Old Man!

    Ivan thinks Mitya is more capable of a crime of passion than of muder-for-robbery, and in that he's probably right.

    I find it hard to find fault with much of Zossima's last remarks or the people around him, although some of them are looking for an immediate miracle that is not really in keeping with Zossima's teachings. He is not a "gee-whiz" cleric.

    Hats
    June 15, 2001 - 06:39 am
    Hi all,

    Zosima has the ability to see beyond what others can see. To be able to see inside the souls of others must be a heavy burden. Zosima has seen something horrible in one of the brothers, and he chooses to tell Alyosha, hoping that Alyosha can help his disturbed brother.

    Zosima is so kind and caring. I am thinking that his death will be a great loss for Alyosha. I do not know how he will bear it, and again, I wonder who will help or console him.

    Deems
    June 15, 2001 - 08:04 am
    Will be back later to comment on Brothers K. Good news about the golf cart/car. Something wasn't making the proper contact with something else and Chris W. has worked on it and it now will make it up Schoolhouse Hill which is the hill that must be conquered to get to the library, where the computers are.

    Later. Maryal

    Jo Meander
    June 15, 2001 - 10:17 am
    Have had trouble connecting for several days, and we had a grandson-graduation, but I've kept up with reading and posts. Here's my "2 cents":
    Dmitri had a gun when he threatened Smerd and made him promise to tell if Grushenka came to his father’s house. Could Smerdy be thinking that he can place both brothers under obligation to him and then reap some of the rewards after Fyodor’s death? He is helping Dimitri by revealing the signals Fyodor has planned and by arranging (or predicting!) a clear coast for him to come and do violence upon his father. He is suggesting that Ivan should disappear from the scene in order to be technically uninvolved with the events. He wants him to remain within summoning distance when the time to divide the spoils arrives. He knows how to set up the situation for Dmitri to do the deed. Who is most guilty? Can we know yet? Joan, I think Ivan has to share in the guilt of whatever happens after he leaves. He is trying to wash his hands of all of them, like Pontius Pilate. His revulsion, disgust with Smerdy, ironic laughter, refusal to go to Chermashyna to serve Fyodor’s pecuniary interests, refusal to face the possibility of Dmitri committing this crime, are the actions and reaction of a snob and a an escape artist. He will live to regret this episode in his life. He still seems a sympathetic character, for all of that. In fact, they all do! Even Smerdy deserves acknowledgement of the unfair start he had in life, but he surely comes across as totally unsavory and diabolical now.

    Jo Meander
    June 15, 2001 - 10:24 am
    Zosima knows -- as only he can-- that something terrible will mark Dmitri's life, and that something will lead to great sugffering. Whether or not he thinks, as he seems to, that Alyosha can intervene in time to stop a terrible act, I don't know. His attitude does suggest that. The grain that falls to the ground and dies is the human being who totally sacrifices him or herself to save others. He believes Alyosha will discover this and act accordingly. At this point, the thought certainly doesn't characterize Ivan, as he beats a retreat to Moscow!

    Henry Misbach
    June 15, 2001 - 10:54 am
    Jo Meander, I quite agree. Smerdy seems to play both ends against the middle, and he does look for some reward for himself. Ivan realizes later that, what he has effectively done, is cut his father's fate loose, everything except to say, "Aw, go ahead and kill him, somebody."

    Alyosha, assuming he does at least try Zossima's recommendation, is a sharp contrast to Ivan, whose solution to every problem is to escape. Someday, he will discover, the only thing you can't escape from is yourself, a point we'll see reemphasized shortly in a subplot.

    To do what Zossima suggests, is to die to one's selfish desires to the benefit of others. One thing Alyosha must do is serve truth faithfully, even though it may be harmful to someone else. Alyosha will find this a difficult road to travel, but will find resources in himself. We don't find out in the novel, but I predict a happier life for him than either of his brothers.

    Joan Pearson
    June 15, 2001 - 12:27 pm
    Hello you all...am out of town for a few days, but just had to find a few minutes to tune in to catch up on what's going on and mention yet another letter from Dos. to his publisher regarding the next two chapters, which our vacationing Maryal (is the golf cart fixed?) has just forewarned about.

    Dos. tells his editor yet again that this is indeed, the culmination of the novel. He does admit that there are two chapters, this and the Grand Inquisitor that share this importance. The Zossima chapters are to be an answer to the Grand Inquisitor...though not point by point. Dos. fears that he hath not succeeded. "I reckon myself that I wasn't able to express one tenth of what I wanted. Nevertheless, I look upon this sixth book as the culminating point of the novel..."

    More from this letter on Monday, after you have made your way through Zosima's sermons. In the rest of the letter however, Dos. does state that after these two heavy chapters, the Grand Inquisitor and Zosima's chapters, the rest of the novel will be the plot! Come on, you can do it! Read in small segments, take a break, take a walk, watch some tv and then Nelly, we are back to the story for good!

    Still wondering about the grain of corn...The grain that falls to the ground and dies is the human being who totally sacrifices him or herself to save others. Are we speaking of Zosima, Ivan, Alyosha who? who? who?

    Henry Misbach
    June 15, 2001 - 07:00 pm
    Jo Meander, I have Dmitry's immediately previous threat against Smerdy toward the end of Ch. II, Book 5. Here he is quoted, not even by Smerdy but by his girl friend, as saying he (Dmitry) would pound Smerdy in a mortar. I frankly don't get the precise image, but I gather it must translate that he will beat him to a pulp. Alyosha thinks that might only be talk.

    Surprising, in a way, how little gunplay there is in this novel. Except for the duels, there is none to speak of. Matching any gun to any ball would, I should think, have been quite impossible.

    Hats
    June 16, 2001 - 02:59 am
    Joan, I am glad you are cheering us on. This is very, very, hard! There is a lot to read about Zosima. Hmmmm. I am trying to go on with all of my might. However, the story about Zosima's brother's death is very interesting and his resemblance to Alyosha. I think the part about Zosima's life is very interesting.

    Henry Misbach
    June 16, 2001 - 07:43 am
    Oops, beg pardon Jo. I just happened to pick the book up today and my eyes fell on the part where Dmitri did threaten to shoot Smerdy if he lets Grushenka in to his father and doesn't let Dmitri know right away. Could be that threat came since Smerdy talked with Alyosha.

    I would have to say, and I suppose this anticipates events in a certain sense, but only so, that Ivan and those of us reading this book in our time are most alike. Even what we loosely call situational ethics, or the amoral outlook that probably arose in the '20's, could leave one in the position of being steered into what we may most charitably describe as a serious sin of omission. I've seen this done where the consequences are, of course, not nearly as harmful to all concerned, but nonetheless quite serious.

    Jo Meander
    June 16, 2001 - 09:10 am
    Henry, I had typed a reply last night about the episode you mention in chapter 6, then I was knocked off line! Couldn't get back on until just now. So much for me!
    I agree that the modern reader probably tends to have a lot in common with Ivan. At this point, nothing to brag about, although it does create a certain empathy for his internal struggles.
    Joan, I was trying to reply to your post last night, also, and now I'm not sure I remember what I said! I think it was about the grain of wheat again, and I think Zosima means everybody when he says that it must die to bring forth fruit, but he is addressing Alyosha particularly, telling him that he must go to Dmitri.

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    June 17, 2001 - 02:02 am
    What a week - as Betty so aptly put it, I was buried in the stacks - So far chapter 6 seems like the beginning of things to come - I get this feeling that Smerdy, trying to be an equal to Ivan, is some kind of power play on his part. The fact that in chapter 2, when he was singing on the bench, we learn he has the keys to Fyodor's gate and now we learn he guards Fyodor's house as well as being Fyodor’s confidant - as an allegory, it seems that Smerdy the servant is jocking for the power now held by the landowners, while Ivan, the Intellectual and Alyosha, the religious are manipulated and have a less direct access to the one who holds the power and wealth in Russia.

    OK to the Brothers - I thought for sure y'all would still be discussing chapter 5 when I saw I was behind by 45 posts - Y'all are just too smart and knowledgeable for me - I bet none of you were so dense to the fact that Revelations is the same as Apocalypse - that alone was a two day search. I thought it was part of the Old Testament and my Confraternity of Christian Doctrine Version is only the New Testament. Searched and sure enough found my King James where last is Revelations! Then for the life of me I could not figure out what it was all about - seven this and six that and beasts and on and on - I feel like I needed a class just to understand the reference used so nonchalantly by Dostoesvsky. Thank goodness he explains it as a mystery because it is still a mystery to me. If y'all understand that part of the Bible and would be willing to e-mail me with some explanation I would be very grateful. Bout the only thing I know from Revelations is the reference to the four men of the Apocalypse. Which I understand represents some of the horrors that will befall man if we are not "good" believers. If this is what Korash was trying to figure out in Waco - God love him he took on more than I could fathom.

    At the risk of boring the heck out of y'all I still want to share - if nothing else as a celebration of all my learning. I learned a ton and still have oodles more that I had only given a casual nod.

    The amazing thing to me is that the bit about the Masons - the World Order - Hegel, just was not sitting too well for me and off I went before I had read the chapter. Days of research - do you know there are 11100 - yes, three ones and two zeros - web sites about Hegel and the New World Order. No I did not read them all but enough to get a gist of things. My questioning led to a line of thinking that low and behold almost follows what I believe Ivan is saying in Chapter 5.

    For the first time I think I understand Communism or rather Marxism and realize history and our relationship with Russia had me thinking Stalinism was Communism. There is much knee jerk vocabulary that it takes a bit but, now I even understand why currently the big 'who-ha' about privatizing land in Russia.

    I've also learned more about Hegel than I ever wanted to know.

    Seems to me chapters 3, 4 and 5 are all of a piece with one of the issues being the paradox of a Christian God that is all knowing, all powerful, good and kind and would still allow so much suffering in the world, especially to children, not yet able to discern moral "good." Thus we have the question of "Evil" and its connection to our understanding "Free Will."

    P. 244 the quote is used "stole fire from heaven" referenced to Prometheus, who foresees.
    Prometheus is the creator of mankind who with earth and water fashioned the body of the first man into which Athena breathed soul and life. The first men lived in the "Golden Age" free from worry and fatigue; age did not afflict them; they rejoiced in continual festivity and died as though overcome by sweet slumber. At there death they became benevolent genie, protectors and tutelary guardians of the living. Gods and men lived on terms of complete understanding. Everything changed with the coming of the Olympians.

    Zeus asserted his divine supremacy. Meetings were held two portion out which victims would be sacrificed to the gods. Prometheus was in charge of the partition, laid out an ox which he cut up in his own way, laid out the most succulent morsels to one side and on the other side he laid the fleshless bones which he covered in fat. Zeus was invited to take first choice, chose the bones and when he discovered there was nothing but gleaming fat he fell into a rage. In his anger he withheld fire from the race who lived on earth. But the astute and cunning Prometheus went to Lemnos where he stole from the forges the holy fire which he enclosed in a hollow stalk and carried it back to man.

    Outraged Zeus gives orders to create the dazzling Virgin Pandora. Hermes puts perfidy into her heart and lies into her mouth. Zeus sends her as a gift to Prometheus' brother, Epimetheus who reflects after events. Epimetheus enchanted with Pandora's beauty, welcomed her, and imprudently made a place for her among men. Pandora brings with her a great vase we call "Pandora’s Box." She raises the lid and the terrible afflictions with which the vase had been filled escaped and spread over the earth. Hope alone did not fly away. Misery made its appearance on earth.


    As a Christian the problem would be so much easier wouldn't it if we held the myth of Prometheus, Zeus, Epimetheus and Pandora as an explanation when we read chapter 5 and the discussion of Freedom - versus Predestination - "bind and loose" from Mat 16:19 where Peter is given the keys of the kingdom of heaven and whatever is bound on earth is bound in heaven etc. unifying the Western Church with God. Since God created, or caused everything then the problem - how evil could be caused by a good God.

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    June 17, 2001 - 02:04 am
    St. Augustine says; God made human beings free, because He is all good, and free actions are better than unfree ones. However, since freedom allows us to sin, we are responsible for bringing evil into the world. In Book II he says:
    "If anyone uses fee will for sinning, he incurs divine punishment. This would be unjust if free will had been given not only that man might live rightly, but also that he might sin. For how could a man justly incur punishment who used free will to do the thing for which it was given? When God punishes a sinner, does He not say, "Why have you not used free will for the purpose for which I gave it to you, to act rightly?" Than too, if man did not have free choice of will, how could there exist the good according to which it is just to condemn evildoers and reward those who act rightly? What was not done by will would be neither evildoing nor right action."
    This begs that we understand Determinism - the thesis that everything that happens in the universe is determined according to the laws of nature. Human actions are events in the physical universe therefore, as just another law-determined natural occurrence, can it also be free? It would be like praising people or blaming them for obeying the law of gravity. Determinism does not say that any event is inevitable, it insists only that if certain conditions exist, then a certain kind of event will take place.

    Man is connected to universal nature and submits to the necessary laws that interpose on all beings. We are born without our own consent; our organization does not depend upon ourselves, our ideas come involuntarily, our habits are in the power of those who caused us to contract them, we are increasingly modified by causes which we have no control, which regulates how we thinks and determines our manner of acting. In spite of these shackles we pretends we are free agents or that we are independent of causes by which we are moved, as if we regulate our own condition.

    Determining "free will," we must determine who "we" are. Are we the meeting place of a body and a mind or is our consciousness just brain processes. Are our bodies just cogs in the universe, and if we fell from an airplane we would not be scared out of our minds wishing for a miracle. Is our consciousness free and our bodies determined by the laws of nature? Aha but, do we make the choice to attend a certain movie or read a certain book because our upbringing determined our character and we were conditioned to chose, and we are only going through the motions of making a decision.

    These thesis' continue till we finally arrive at what appears to be Ivan's dilemma - p. 252 "for nothing has ever been more insufferable for man and for human society than freedom!"


    Existentialism explains freedom this way - "When you have to decide what to do, all the knowledge of the possible factors determining your decision are not sufficient to cause you to decide. For you cannot predict your own decision without at the same time making it. We can of course, refuse to make decisions, acting as if they were made for us, as if circumstances already determined them, as if the fates had already established the outcome. But even in these cases, we are making decisions - choosing not to choose - We can always act against any desire, no matter how strong, if only we are sufficiently decided that we shall do so.

    A starving man may yet refuse food if, for example, he is on a hunger strike for a political cause. A mother may refuse to save her own life if it would be at the expense of her child. A student may miss a TV show if there was resolve to study for a test. There is no escape from freedom or responsibility.

    Being condemned to be free carries the weight of the whole world on each of our shoulders. If we are the author of an event or of an object we are the ones by whom it happens that there is a world; since we are the ones who makes ourselves be, then whatever may be the situation in which we find ourselves it is senseless complaining since nothing foreign has decided what we feel, what we live, or what we are. What happens to us happens through us and can not affect us. What ever happens to us as qua man, happens to us through others and through ourselves can be only human.

    The most terrible of war, the worst tortures do not create a non-human state. It is only through fear, flight and recourse to magical types of conduct that we decide on the non-human, but this decision is human and we carry the entire responsibility for it. Free choice it the image of ourselves and everything that is present symbolizes me.

    There is no accident in life; If I am mobilized to war I am war, it is in my image and I deserve it. I can get out by suicide or desertion. These possibilities not chosen then, I have chosen not to get out of it. Inertia, cowardice, because I prefer other values, the good opinion of relatives, the honor of family, it is all a matter of choice. Therefore, I have preferred war to suicide or dishonor and everything that takes place is my responsibility for this war. Others may have started it but we are not an accomplice - I have decided it does exist. Without excuse, remorse or regret we carry the weight of the world alone without anyone able to lighten it.

    We may say we didn't ask to be born. We are abandoned in the world. Not that we must remain abandoned and passive in a hostile universe. We are responsible for our very desire of fleeing responsibilities. To make ourselves passive is to act upon things and upon others is still choosing ourselves and suicide is one mode, among other, of being in the world.

    We can be ashamed of being born or rejoice over it, attempt to get rid of our life or affirm that we live and assume responsibility for choosing to be born. Look to everything in life as an opportunity.”

    And so Ivan could easily be saying, as Henry suggests, that to “smash the cup on the floor” is suggesting suicide.


    The Karamazov curse - "in time man has often acted for his own advantage - men knowingly rush headlong on paths to risk, to chance, compelled by no one and willfully they go off into the darkness. Men act in opposition to all laws in opposition to reason, honor, peace, prosperity, for "freedom." Stubbornness and willfulness were more pleasant than advantage - Dostoyevski is picturing freedom as desperate and radical but he is saying it is freedom that makes us human."

    Ok lots more to share - the next 2 posts represent days of research and insight from Dr. Solomon who simply speaks to Hegelism and its influence on Marx. Thank goodness I had started the search because I did not really understand what Hegelianism was.

    The conspiracy of the New World Order is what I questioned and that led to more understanding of the Masons which led to understanding Marxism and what Hegel’s influence was - which led to learning the importance Hegel had to American and to Germany - this led to learning the difference between Existentialists and Marxists - the desire for Germany to unite as one nation and how Hegel fit that concept - “the” World-Historic Split of 1841, The Expurgation of Hegelianism - the differences between Marx and Engles interpretations of Hegel and then - Shiller’s poetic eighteenth century letter on reason and art - followed by a site that expresses Shiller and Dostoevsky as both employing the dark side of beauty.

    I tried to keep my thesis going with a few lines from each site with all the research sites linked. The site that to me is particularly directed to the history of the “ism’s” in Russia is the one linked to the words Russian Narodism

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    June 17, 2001 - 02:19 am
    According to Barry Smith’s theory much of the New World Order rests on the connection between occult symbolism and the secret society of the “Illuminati." However, the <>i>Illuminati, founded in Bavaria in 1776 by Adam Weishaupt, was disbanded by the Bavarian government in 1785. Also, one head of the society, Baron Knigge, was a Christian.

    It is therefore unlikely that the objectives of the Illuminati would have continued into the present day or have been anti-Christian. From time to time groups have surfaced calling themselves, or claiming to be, the Illuminati. However, there are not necessarily any connections between these groups or Weishaupt’s original Illuminati just because they share a name.

    Another connection is suggested with the secret society, "Ordo Templi Orientisis," co-founded by Theodore Reuss and Franz Hartmann, who also belonged to the Illuminati. Again, there are many groups that use this name, although the one that advertises itself on the WWW is the only one recognized to be legitimate by the US Courts. This connection certainly does not imply that the OTO is an extension of the Illuminati.

    The Freemasons, a secret society is often accused of having occult or even Satanic connections. According to an Anti-Masonry 'FAQ' compiled by T.W. McKeown; Freemasons are not Satanists, and few would claim to be Luciferans. The term "Luciferan," rather than referring to the Christian devil, denotes "a spirit of inquiry and a search for knowledge, wisdom and truth." It has nothing to do with worship, and no specific supreme being is worshipped in Freemasonry. "Lucifer" itself actually refers to the planet Venus not the Christian Devil.

    A statement, allegedly quoted by Albert Pike, asserts that Freemasons everywhere accept Lucifer (the Christian Devil) as the real God and that he should be worshipped accordingly.

    New World Order relies on the symbolism on the American dollar-bill, to back up claims that the secret societies are connected with the American government. The "Great Seal of the United States" is a highly subjective symbol. It carries a simple core meaning that can be applied to whoever and whatever one wishes, even within Christianity. The symbol can have several completely different and even contradictory meanings, which can change through time, depending on the interpreter.


    The World Wide Web seems to be filled with controversial sites that foster adversity. This site blames the work of the World Order on the Jews and even cites two Jewish men as the originators for the Nazi German program!!?!

    This is one of many sites that put into question the claims of the New World Order ETHER Zone - Willow Creek Church’s remarks -
    "...The Hegelian Dialectic. Sounds like the perfect formula for an Apostate Church to me. I wonder if Hybels has sent everyone personal invitations to "The Millennium World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders," meeting at the United Nations later this month as well? I hear they're all getting together to create a great big One World Religion for us here on planet Earth. Won't that be wonderful?....A WORLD CHURCH!

    I wonder who we'll worship? Let's dialog to consensus and find out....shall we?"

    Cyrill Vatomsky explains the fundamental aspects of Marxism. It is neither a hatchet job nor is it a piece of Marxist propaganda, but rather, an attempt to separate its fallacies from its achievements. It is a compressed and simplified view of Marxism, not Stalinism and written mostly for those that never read Marx, Engels or Lenin.

    Hegelian Dialectics is the foundation of Marxism. Marx did not formulate dialectical principles, Hegel did. But Hegel did not really discover any of them either. Most of what is now, sometimes pejoratively, known as Hegelian Dialectics had been around for millennia.

    Marx borrowed Hegel's dialectic, dropped the idealism, threw in a healthy measure of materialism, and called himself a communist.
    Hegel's influence in America has been overwhelming. Hegel's thought was crucial in sparking a revolution in American educational policy. The "Kindergarten Movement" and John Dewey's Democracy and Education are only two examples of the accomplishments influenced by Hegel's emphasis on the mind and the need for human interaction in order to achieve true "selfhood," which led to the training of the mind through education, and a revolution in American educational policy.
    The most offensive problems with Hegel's philosophy to a modern reader is the racism of Hegel's historical analysis. One of many examples of this racism / ethnocentrism can be found in the Philosophy of History: Hegel interpreted "barbaric" peoples as the antithesis of Europeans; their negative existence was necessary in order to create a clash of cultures which would result in a new nation which had a fuller understanding of the "plan of Providence."

    His nationalistic fondness of Germany leads to another problem. Highly influential in Germany for most of the 19th century, and many of his followers used Hegel's ideas to support their own nationalistic ideals (this was the era when "Germany" did not yet refer to a single state, or, even a single nation).Though a philosophy of change, many conservatives were able to interpret Hegel's thought in a manner consistent with their own right-of-center ideas.

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    June 17, 2001 - 02:37 am
    Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Hegel "an important precursor of... modern strands of thought such as existentialism and Marxist materialism." While the traditional view of Hegel remains, it is increasingly questioned as accurate within Hegel scholarship.

    How interpretations of Hegel Philosophically arose. Hegel espouses in "Phenomenology of Spirit," that "world history exhibits nothing other than the 'plan of providence'." He furthers this belief in his "Philosophy of History," - "in the pure light of this divine Idea...the illusion that the world is a mad or foolish happening disappears." His dogmatic statements are consistent, that history follows a specific path, predetermined by the purposeful movement of Spirit through time.

    The idea of a world state is ancient: Alexander Demandt traces it back 3450 years to Pharaoh Thutmosis III, Friedrich Berber 4350 years to Sargon of Akkad.
    As at the end of the 19th century, or again in the 1920's, there is a revival of nationalism - especially since 1989... classic nationalism - including soviet internationalism - standard globalism is rarely criticized. This contributes to its image of moral superiority. (political oppositionto it in the West now comes from populists and conspiracy theorists. It was also a feature of some anti-Communist propaganda). Most of the world's population is committed both to their own national / ethnic identity, and to some form of religious / humanist idea of a universal moral community.
    The Hegelian dialectic: (that Joan shared earlier) -
    One concept (thesis) inevitably generates its opposite (antithesis); their interaction leads to a new concept (synthesis), which in turn becomes the thesis of a new triad.
    Application of the dialectic in the political arena, made Hegel a hero to those working for a unified Germany. He was a major influence on idealist thinkers such as philosophers Kierkegaard and Sartre; his most far-reaching effect was his influence on Marx.

    World-Historic Split 1841 - The Expurgation of Hegelianism The ten years after Hegel's death, the peak of Hegelianism, his students popularised his teachings and translated them into the language of politics - or much more correctly, translated politics into the language of Hegelianism.

    A movement of young radical philosophers, The Young Hegelians, emerged and turned Hegel's philosophy to work against Christianity and the Prussian establishment. Included were for a time Marx and Engels. The circle included anarchist Mikhail Bakunin (1814-70), the founder of Russian Narodism.

    In 1843, Engels published Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy, which caught the attention of Marx and the 23-year-olds struck up a correspondence. It was Marx not Hegel who made a critique of political economy.
    Labour is the human creative activity, but the capacity to labour, is bought and sold like a thing. Both in life and in theory, people are treated as objects, while only commodities, like money or machines, embody those social forms which rule the humans who set them up. Money and capital have power over humans, including their owners.
    The philosophy of Marx eliminates the religious aspects of Hegel's teachings. During the later years of Hegel's life, his philosophy students split into two well-defined groups.

    Dean Gotcher, President, Institution for Authority Research. "Marx found himself swept up in the great philosophical debate of the day. Hegel had propounded a revolutionary scheme and the conservative German universities found themselves split wide over it. Change, according to Hegel, was the rule of life.

    The philosophy of Marx and Engels, "took the name dialectical materialism: Hegel's idea of inherent change, and materialism grounded not in the world of ideas, but on the terrain of social and physical environment.
    "The materialist conception of history, starts from the principle that production, and the exchange of its products, is the basis of every social order; that in every society the distribution of the products, and with it the division of society into classes or estates, is determined by what is produced and how it is produced and how the product is exchanged. Accordingly, the ultimate causes of all social changes and political revolutions are to be sought, not in the minds of men, in their increasing insight into eternal truth and justice, but in changes in the mode of production and exchange; they are to be sought not in the philosophy but in the economic of the epoch concerned."
    Where as Schiller says in his Letters Upon The Aesthetic Education of Man, 1794: The eyes of the philosopher, as well as of the man of the world are anxiously turned to the theatre of political events, where it is presumed the great destiny of man is to be played out...For this great commerce in social and moral principles is of necessity a matter of the greatest concern,...It must accordingly be...every man to think for himself. It would seem that...a question that formerly was only settled by the law of the stronger is to be determined by the calm judgment of the reason, and every man...can look upon himself as in possession of this judicial faculty of reason; being...member of the human family,...involved more or less in its decisions...I hope that I shall succeed in convincing you that...art is less foreign to the needs than to the tastes of our age; nay, that, to arrive at a solution even in the political problem, the road of aesthetics must be pursued, because it is through beauty that we arrive at freedom.

    Schiller and Dostoevsky employ the dark side of beauty with emphasis on the horrible and the terrible, and connect it to the theme of spiritual rebirth.

    betty gregory
    June 17, 2001 - 08:34 am
    Barbara, I loved your request for an email, explaining the book of Revelations.....hehehehehe

    betty

    Henry Misbach
    June 17, 2001 - 09:53 am
    We're coming to the time of year when my entree line is full of meaning. How I would have enjoyed the cool breezes we sometimes get up here, not only in the evening but sometimes just out of nowhere. Back in KC, pretty soon now, you can hang those in your ear for awhile.

    If there is a stickier wicket in all of theology than determinism, I don't know what it would be. Augustine, whom you mention, added a little complicating factor to what was then under discussion: maybe God does not predetermine what all our players do in this novel. What if he only foreknows? And if we can get to that idea, we remove one of the really huge obstacles to free will. I confess I'm not as pessimistic as Dos in believing that most people can't stand freedom. We've all experienced that feeling at some time in our lives, most often right at the end of completing something--a course load, a book, or any work that took discipline to finish--because, sometimes, on those occasions, we say, "Now what?" And we know that if we don't move along to a new undertaking, we may get to brooding too long about what it's all for.

    Most of the time, I think most of the people want to think that they have free choice.

    Personal outlook: I tend to lean toward Ivan. I cannot explain fully what replaces the Judaeo-Christian ethic in the faith's absence, but I have no doubt at all that there are many fine people who apparently have no problem doing that. The God-and-devil paradigm, contrary to what Dos sometimes has his characters state or imply, is not a cultural necessity for correctly identifying crime or even moral error. Since the Romans pitched their criminals off the Tarpeian Rock long before the common era, we can hardly be taken in by such a claim.

    Later on, we might wish Dos had done as Luther did and just throw his ink bottle at the devil and be done with it.

    FaithP
    June 17, 2001 - 10:15 am
    Henry I think I am in agreement with Ivans thoughts too, especially when I was at his age. Age, experience and much more reading and pondering of men and womens ideas regarding religion and other philosophy have lent me a much more tolerant attitude toward all religion. I also realize how millions of good people live good lives and love and care for family friends and strangers too, without ever going into a formal church or mosque or temple. And no God I can imagine would consign these good people to hell. Of course I can't imagine hell,hehehe Faith

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    June 17, 2001 - 10:57 am
    It would be so nice to live expecting cooperation and good will but we have learned there is more at stake and often those that seem to act in ways that we deem as horrific are really coming from a different mind set. What all this has helped me better understand is, realizing the growth and the many sides of each theory, and the theories of the day that became a platform for Dostoevsky. The theories as related to Marxism I know I held a twenty first century view developed by the media.

    To me the most help was learning the difference between Existentialists taking Hegel's idea of the limited, historical and cultural dependence of individuals and leaving out all pretensions to the supreme deity. And then Marxists taking the same historical dynamics of Hegelianism and changing it to a materialistic rather than idealistic theory. Really learning about the split that occured in 1841 seem to make it easier to understand Marxism without judging from my place in history.

    These are the issues that I think Ivan is struggling with along with the regligious views. We learned early in our discussion of this book that the Tzar appointed the heads of monasteries in Russia and so that would say to me that Religion and Political theory are wrapped together in Russia. That is a different concept for us since we are so busy assuring their seperation.

    I've also experienced the dark side of people using existentionalistic thinking to place blame on me for a family member's wrong doings as well as the wrong doings of strangers toward me, which took away the justification for my rage. Therefore I may see or even imagine mushrooms under the grass in my own knee jerk reaction to certain words.

    Also what is so amazing to me is, having been brought up Catholic and having heard how "bad" it was to join the Masons, I believed they were a Satanic lot. Having read so many of the sites I can see they have had a bad rap and I just wonder now what the start of this war was between the Masons and the Catholic Church. I guess I believe in numbers and there are a great number of sites explaining the Masons, which do agree that there is a difference in the affiliation of the average Mason as opposed to those in the upper echelon of the society.

    I think bottom line we may prefer the thinking of Shiller - it not only is poetic with a love of the arts but is celebrates man's use of reason. I loved reading the Letter.

    Henry sounds like you are familiar with issues like determination - are there sites or books you would recomend that give this sticky wicket view of the theory. I'm only now aware of all of these thoughts.

    ALF
    June 17, 2001 - 03:01 pm
    Question 11 above re. the grain (seed) has caused me to take pause.  Jesus is called "The Seed" (Gen.3:15) the Word of God is designated as "Seed"( Luke 8:11; 1 Pet. 1:23). The growth of the believer is likened to a plant and the evangelism of the world to a harvest.  This only begins the imagery of the "seed faith" in the Bible. Perhaps Dos is saying it is desirable to capture a firm grasp of this truth, the essence of which is that the little we have to bring to God is not a limit to faith's possibilities. When anything is placed in the hands of God- sown like a seed- there is a guaranteed fruitfullness and harvest forthcoming.  There are no shortages.  Our giving is not a debt we owe but a seed we sow as giving and recieving belong together.  Seeds!  A seed of forgiveness, a seed of prayer, a seed of love and joy.    They bringeth forth much fruit.

    Henry Misbach
    June 17, 2001 - 05:22 pm
    Barbara, I'm sure you have been able to tell that I'm not much on web-sites. I did misspeak myself slightly, as I should have said, instead of determinism, the term under which you would more likely find it in a book on theology: predestination. Augustine and Boethius offered the "foreknowledge" solution, but every branch of Christianity has its own favorite take.

    What I want to bring up here is the rather amazing parallel to our story in the sub-plot of "Mihail," Zossima's friend earlier in life, who committed a murder, got away with it, later wanted to confess, but when he did was not believed. So he committed suicide. Very interesting.

    The discussion of "hell and hell fire" is also surprising. After I read the first two lines of it, I said, "Hey, wait a minute. He can't have read Rollo May. It can only be the other way around." I'll bet it was, too, though I don't recall any acknowledgements.

    Joan Pearson
    June 18, 2001 - 08:44 am
    Good morning, amazing posters! oh my, it is already afternoon here! Where did the time go? I have spent the morning reading through your marvelous posts!

    Hats, I agree, it is confusing, because there is so much going on in these two grand arguments over what will make the unhappy Russian happy...on this earth. Once we grasp both sides of the argument, we will be ready to move back to the story line next week, hopefully with a better understanding of what motivates the characters.

    I won't even try to respond with all my thoughts to each of your posts, although they are very much on my mind. But...no, I won't try. The best thing about this book is the repetition of the recurring themes...coming from the mouths of different characters each time. You can bet that these major themes will come up again and again. If you are having as difficult a time comprehending the arguments as Hats and I are...you are in good company. Dostoevsky himself appears to ask as many questions as his characters do... To me there appears to be two major recurring themes:

    ~ Except a grain of wheat shall fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone, but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.
    Someone has to die, before anything can be gained. In these chapters, Markel dies and so does the rich man, Mikhail, who murdered the young lady.

    Do you fully understand why the grain of wheat has to die, and how it can bear fruit if it dies?



    ~ Each man must be responsible to and for other men. This concept keeps expanding to mean that not only is man his brother's keeper, but also he is responsible, and must suffer for the transgressions of his brother. And brother means every man.



    Dostoevsky seems to have a problem with these two concepts. At first , he appears to agree with Ivan...and questions why the innocent must suffer for the sinner.

    But in these chapters, doesn't he appear to be saying that this brotherhood is the only hope for man and that to achieve it, there must be sacrifice? I find it interesting and important, that Zosima promises "Paradise on Earth", not just a happy reward in Heaven if man can only love is brother.

    I find the sudden conversions to this point of view somewhat difficult to understand. What happened to Markel that he suddenly turned into ... a saint? It's the same question I've always had about Saul/St. Paul. And Zosima, what changed his life so suddenly?

    I have the feeling that Dostoevsky's answer to this question lies in the grain of wheat...the seed Alf explains...the seed planted in the mind of the young will find the way to the sunlight and bear fruit later in life. Do you believe that? Does that which is learned as a child reside within, even forgotten, until it bursts forth suddenly many years later? Does that account for these seemingly sudden conversions? Did the seed really die then, to produce this fruit?

    I must unpack and get the washer going, but am really excited about coming back and hearing about your understanding of these seemingly simple concepts so difficult to comprehend.

    Hats
    June 18, 2001 - 10:44 am
    I am thinking that the mysterious stranger is saying that "No man is an island." Is he saying that it is impossible to find happiness only for ourselves, that we can only find happiness if we reach beyond ourselves to our fellowman. So, no matter how secure our house is, we must make sure our neighbor's house is secure also.

    Hats
    June 18, 2001 - 11:48 am
    Welcome back, Joan and Maryal.

    Jo Meander
    June 18, 2001 - 05:37 pm
    Does the seed dying represent total sacrifice of one's earthly life, personal/selfish desires, perceived needs? Is the harvested fruit the result of this sacrifce that planted the seed? Ivan stands away from such sacrifice because he mistrusts a God who allows so much suffering. Zosima seems to be urging Alyosha to sacrifice himself to rescue someone else.

    Henry Misbach
    June 18, 2001 - 06:28 pm
    Concerning question 7 above:

    Quoting Zosima, "But God will save Russia, for. . .the peasants have faith in God. . . . Salvation will come from [the peoples'] faith and their meekness. . . .[The peasantry] are not servile." He goes on to say that he has already seen peasants who respect the rights and property of others but are not deferential, and he has faith that, even though they are not to the point of saying as much, they can make a solid basis for a society in which there is more equality.

    Of equality, he says it "is to be found only in the spiritual dignity of man." There must be spiritual fraternity before there can be any agreement about the division of wealth.

    Uh, I don't see this as an explicit call to socialism. And I certainly see nothing of the "call to arms" that would be necessary to produce a revolution along "Animal Farm" lines. This society we have in view is, after all, way more rigidly stratified than anything the West had known since the 1600's. There is no necessary socialism in anything Zosima says here. Such as there is would more nearly be defined as what we should call Utopian Socialism, which I don't think any part of the world has seen yet on any large scale. Its evolution would be entirely different from that which took place in Russia later. Of course, I suppose the monastery would be microcosm for what Zosima perhaps hopes will someday happen, in effect making all of Russia one big monastery. I think even he would say, "Don't hold your breath."

    Zosima is only hoping for what we had here almost as soon as the first European setters got here: a strong, fully articulated middle class. Recall that Russia's at this point is still quite truncated. The Karamazovs remind me of Ozzie in O & H, as they don't "do anything." Those who "do something," in the novel, either grub at the bottom of the barrel for a hardscrabble existence or are professional people--there isn't much in between.

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    June 19, 2001 - 12:19 am
    I thought it was interesting to read that the bow we discussed in the early chapters was Zosima honoring Dmitri's future suffering.

    My reaction to, "Except a grain of wheat shall fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone, but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." - was something along the lines the seed of the father-- Then I thought of the Karamazov curse or what is it they say, sensabilities-- If their base behavior, freedom for life, dies, as it seems to have in Ivan and in Alyosha, then becoming other than, but out of the Karamazov lifestyle, bears fruit by virtue of coming from this seed and dying to the Karamazov lifestyle is a choice. Coming from this seed of Karamazov sensability, dying to it and then living a different lifestyle with different sensabilities is a choice. And with that choice more energy is thrown into changing-- changing the fates, bringing forth much fruit. Ivan, compared to Fyodor, is intelligent and educated as Alyosha is simple in his habits trying to create harmony.

    The bit that follows as Elder Zosima speaks "...you will go forth from these walls, but you¨will sojourn in the world like a monk...Life will bring you many misfortunes, but through them you will be happy..." along with, "Each man must be responsible to and for other men" reminded me of Tragedy - I wasn't sure what the components of Tragedy where-- here is what I found--
    The purpose of Greek Tragedy was to ask questions about the nature of man, his position in the universe, his relation to the powers that govern his life, in short: ...the problems of man's fate. Therefore, the prime function of these dramas is the expression of the feelings and reflections excited by man's encounters with the external forces which appear to rule his life, and the actions man takes in such an encounter.
    Sounds like a recipie for The Brothers
    In Greek tragedy...is always a situation in which man seems to be deprived of all outward help and is forced to rely entirely on himself. The Muse of Tragedy Melpomene one of the nine nymphs of Spring.
    Ivan has gone to Moscow and is now entirely on his own - Dmitri, although choosing to live near his father, has been essentialy cut off from his help and Aloysha will loose his help when his mentor Elder Zosima dies. I wonder how much outward help Lise and her mother will become? Only Smerdy is surrounding himself with help although, he appears to be manipulating them. But then, when I think about it, what are his choices as a servent. He could fulfill our picture of the helpful, loyal, "good" servent but that would seem like he was accepting his fate and not standing out or looking for the kind of recognition that would be in keeping with his being one of Fyodor's sons.
    Every tragic situation results in severest suffering for the protagonist. This suffering-- though not necessarily leading to destruction-- and death, always carries with it the serious danger of impending ruin...the protagonist's suffering is so severe that he is destroyed by it...In other cases the hero stands the pain, but his personality is broken;...Characteristic...is...innocent people are also involved in the tragic happenings and lose their lives...The catastrophe. sealing the tragic situation, comes as an avalanche that overrolls both the bad and the good, the guilty and the innocent. This indicates that the individual is responsible not only for his own fortunes, but also for the fortunes of society. If he stumbles, or takes a "false stop," it is possible that his guilt may become the guilt of the society he lives in, so that his fate may throw a dark shadow over theirs as well. Everybody's fate is connected in some way with the other's and if at one point the harmony is disturbed, disaster is lurking everywhere.
    Sounds like the personal responsibility and weight of the world on each of our shoulders, concept of Existentialism.
    It is common to all characters in a tragic situation that they are confronted with a choice. "Choice is at the heart of tragedy"...The point is that ... a decision has either been made, or has to be made, by the character, and that the results of this decision -- whatever the choice may be-- are fatal. Act he must, but his action rests on a perilous freedom. This is what makes a Greek tragedy so awe-inspiring to watch; the inevitability with which the tragic character has to make a choice, which-- whatever it is like-- can never be the "right" choice and brings great suffering for him.
    Is this the discussion of "free will" Greek style. I wonder if Ivan making the choice not to stop at Chermashnya or even the choice to go to Moscow will bring him great suffering.
    Greek tragedy, is an expression of man realizing that his human standards have become questionable...The evil forces in a tragedy most frequently destroy the tragic hero, but the tragedy rarely ends with evil triumphant...the story of Pandora's box which contained all the evil qualities that have since bedeviled mankind and which Pandora let loose upon the world. In the box remained one more quality to be let loose -- hope.

    If there were no hope, there would be no consciousness of the moral and intellectual life; and if there were no such consciousness, a tragic downfall would not only be not tragic, it would also be meaningless.
    WOW!!
    This is a great site definining Tragedy and Comedy with the aspects of Drama in simple explanation offering the tools for analyzing tragedy as well as comedy. Guide to Drama

    Aristotle had a simple view of Tragedy - stories which start happy and end badly. Hero dies. Tragic Hero is a character ABOVE average. Comic one -- below the normal man. Kind of an idiot. Tragic Situation must have no solution. It is always between hero and gods; fate, as we know it.

    Aristotle believed in mimesis and thought that the most important is IMITATION OF ACTION (Plot). Where as in modern drama and literature we have discovered that CHARACTER could be ACTION as well. The Character becomes the story. Everything DRAMATIC (Drama v. Epic) must have Beginning, Middle and End. And the CHORUS is very important; it is still with us in many different forms.

    It seems that Russia and political tragedy were linked during the development of Russian national culture. Alexander Petrovich Sumarokov (1717 - 1777), was a creator of the first Russian political tragedy, the first Russian comedy, and the first opera in Russian language, presented by the first Russian performers. He also wrote the libretto for the first Russian ballet.

    Marvelle
    June 19, 2001 - 04:34 am
    I wondered if Alyosha would ever get back to Zosima. He kept avoiding the return, and this avoidance seemed to be Alyosha's way of staying Zosima's death. As if Alyosha is saying 'He told me he'd save his last words for me, so if I don't go back he won't die.' But Alyosha eventually returned to the monk and did hear his last words.

    Alyosha also delayed seeing Dmitri. There is a holding back from Alyosha as if he is still not ready to commit to involvement in life.

    Marvelle

    Joan Pearson
    June 19, 2001 - 05:18 am
    Barb, I thought it was interesting to read about the significance of that bow before Dmitri...from Zosima's own mouth too. He recognized the deep suffering in store for Dmitri. What I find interesting is that he singled out Dmitri. To me, it is Ivan who is in great pain and it is Ivan who is going to suffer. But hey, who is the Elder here? Zosima knows what he knows. He bowed to Dmitri, not Ivan. We'll have to remember this when we get back to the Karamazov story.

    Henry, you commented that there "isn't much in between"...referring to the lack of a middle class representation in the story. I suppose the Karamazov's are in between, no? I find that the polar extremes between those who choose the new Socialism and atheism, and then those who continue to follow Orthodox Christianity very interesting. Especially those who reject Socialism, but are not really practicing Christians...I suppose they are in-between aren't they? They haven't fully rejected God, just the role of the Church.

    Does it seem to you that Zos. is holding the Church responsible for a lack of spiritual direction? When he tells the priests that they should put aside an hour a week to read the Bible with the children, it indicates that there hasn't been much attention to spiritual nurture at this time. Zos is saying, isn't he, that the future of Russia needs to be built on the principles of Christianity, love of neighbor...that a society based on atheistic Socialism will be doomed to failure, because man is not capable of learning to share property and earnings without the element of Christian love.

    Henry, we saw that in Animal Farm..."some animals are more equal that others" ~ Socialism just can't work given the nature of the beast. Dos. seems to be calling for a new form of Christianity, one based on active love, on the brotherhood of man, based on Christian principles, recognizing the immortality of the soul. What I thought was interesting...Zosima seems to be promising not only eternal salvation, but Heaven on Earth, if Christian brotherhood is practiced...if all men recognize that they are responsible for all neighbors, AND for their transgressions. To me, this still sounds too idealistic, but Dos. seems to think it will work. What do you think?

    As Barbara mentions, Zosima sends Alyosha out to live the life of the monk in the world. Is he the first apostle of the renewed Christianity? Will it be up to Alyosha to demonstrate how this call to Christian Brotherhood will work? Marvelle notes that Alyosha seems to be "holding back" when it comes to involvement in the affairs of the world. This won't do in the new "assignment", will it? He seems to need a spark to ignite the desire to become involved. Father Paissy says with some confidence that he will come back...to the monastery? hmmmmmm...

    Jo, the dying seed represents a sacrifice of one's earthly, selfish desires, for a higher purpose...to bring forth fruit. I've been thinking about the "fruit". Is the fruit the benefit of mankind, or the salvation o one's own soul? Mikhail's confession of the murder certainly represents sacrifice of family, reputation, etc., but what was the fruit of the sacrifice? His own peace of mind?

    Hats, you mention that Mikhail's confession represents his desire to be part of the community of man, that "no man is an island"...that his isolation became too much for him. Everyone admired and respected him and his benevolence. He had everything, but was not in his conscience part of the brotherhood, because he knew that he was not the person everyone believed him to be. But what was the moral here? No one believed him. They thought he was insane, rather than believe him.

    Henry, you pointed out that Mikhail almost committed suicide under the weight of his awful secret, and yet five days after he confessed, he died anyway. Now where is the parallel to the "grain of wheat"? I suppose he died peacefully with a clear conscience. Was that the fruit of the confession of guilt, his admission of his responsibility? Is that that all that came of it? Or is there more "fruit" that I'm missing?

    Henry Misbach
    June 19, 2001 - 07:34 am
    Joan, we seem to have a major difference in our interpretations of Mikhail (my trans. leaves out the K, but it's easier that way). It was not the servant who was suspected and shortly thereafter died who did the crime. It was Mikhail himself. He knew that, and under Zosima's spiritual advice not only came clean with the world, but more importantly with himself, and that's what killed him. Since he could not persuade the world of his guilt, it would not punish him, whence his self-punishment. The latter was worse than the former would have been. His illness was quite psychosomatic, and I don't think Dos intends us to think otherwise. He died, not in peace as you say, but in the worst mental turmoil imaginable. Most people who suffer it die younger than they otherwise would. To take him in five days, this had to be very strong. Sometime, read "Crime and Punishment;" about 90 percent of that novel consists of the perp's anguish, nearly all of it self-inflicted, that compares favorably to any seven years in prison one can invent. We are wired this way, says Dos, and it may be our only redeeming virtue that we are.

    Sorry I can't buy the Karamazovs as middle class. When the kid calls Alyosha a monk in noble's clothes, that's just what he is. I was speaking in socio-economic terms, not philosophic. It's no wonder Dmitri can't make up his mind which woman he wants to marry. He's totally self-absorbed. In a sense, it is the noblesse oblige that keeps him from doing any socially useful work, Russia's lack of a middle class partly defines him. Even Smerd has a trade.

    Is Christian brotherhood of man, or even a humanistic based version of it, at all possible? I sure do hope so. I think my great grandfather lived a version of it and taught it to his children and on down through the generations. Our early family farms in this country didn't have servants; but they had enough kids that they didn't need any. The notion of servants sticks in my craw. I don't consider any man's concerns to be beneath my dignity. The way I look at it, we're all on this big lovely rock together. I do not much enjoy persons who are full of themselves or their careers to such an extent that they will not give a moment of time to talk in general terms with people outside their specific rat race. Such people have my pity, but never my admiration.

    So, no, I don't think full utopian socialism is possible. Neither is utopia, by definition. But I do think that striving toward brotherhood of man as an ideal is not only useful, it's probably the only thing that may save us.

    Of course, Dos needs some lessons himself in the area of nationalism (which, back then, was a form of racism). All his doctors are Germans. None is at all likeable. Little Markel pulls the string on one. He hits him with something profound, but it just blows right by the doctor who immediately assumes the child's brain is messed up by his illness. Dos has told us he doesn't like doctors. His German ones are "sold" on their own methods of healing which they take to be scientific, but they have no ordinary human sentiments and in fact seem quite incapable of them. But Dos plays on a stereotype here, as in various other places. Daresay you couldn't write a novel like that today without encountering major flack.

    FaithP
    June 19, 2001 - 11:46 am
    Oh all you posters are really teaching me some things and I love it. I think that what Mikhail was seeking in his confession JOan, was forgiveness. Not just his own revelation of his guilt as confession but for the purpose of recieving forgiveness, and what he recieved was unbelief. And so he died unforgiven and punishing himself mightely. All guilty self punishment is an attempt to attain forgiveness and even if you say "I did wrong I forgive myself" it is not enough you need God's forgiveness, and since God does not directly say it, mere human beings need a priest/friend/society to say "You are forgiven."

    As far as the dream Zosimo has of the Brotherhood of Man well every generation there have been attempts to bring a utopia through love and suffering and new ways of relating to society. Even in the sixties the flower children were trying for Utopia. How many places all over the world it has been tried, I dont know but There have been groups using the concept forever. Including the monks going back to the Essnes. And Christ to for that matter. And in each of the attempts materialism ruins them. For it seems impossible to be equal in material assets as we did read in Animal Farm.

    The Karmazovs live on an income recieved through Father's marriages. These incomes are derived I take it, from Landowners. The serfs could not own land and the land owners owned the serfs and they worked the land and were allowed to keep only the barest subsistance for themselves and the land owners kept the rest of the income from what the land produced be it agricultur, lumber, fur, mines, etc. After the reformation (Serfdom Act) not very many serfs moved up. You notice Grigor still is a "serf" to the Karmazovs and Marfa's idea to be a merchant is squashed by him. His mind can not concieve of such a thing and it is not because he loves being a servant. It is all he knows and he cnat change. fp

    betty gregory
    June 19, 2001 - 10:48 pm
    Whoa, beware the ire of Henry M. I do love reading your posts, Henry. Except for the ones that sound like you've stood up to speak (which I like as well), most sound like a person talking over tea in front of a fire.

    I know I'm just a hanger-on lurker, but I had a thought to your question, Joan, about the identity of the fruit....the good/welfare of man/humankind...or salvation of one's soul. They are halves of the whole, aren't they? One and the same? (Or were you thinking that Zosima would think otherwise?) The only reason I'm thinking about this is that I'd like for my son to discover that the act of loving (yes, even akin to Dos' active love) is a certain way to have love in his life. That the first brings or makes ready for the second? Even more than that, really...maybe already is the second. I am wondering how many years I will have to watch him not realize/understand this.

    betty

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    June 20, 2001 - 09:36 am
    Hmmm found this and now I am wondering if we have the correct concept of Fyodor when he is called a Buffoon - I'm thinking clown like - but in the Canon of the Synod that establishes the Greek Orthodox Church as seperate from the Roman there is this line that puts a different slant on the definition of the word Buffoonery.
    A matter which merits great sorrow, even many tears, has come to our ears from many of the faithful. They say that under the previous emperor some laymen of the senatorial order were seen to plait their hair and arrange it on their heads, and to adopt a kind of priestly dignity in accordance with their different ranks at the emperor's court. They did this by wearing various ornaments and articles of clothing which are proper to priests and, as it was thought, made themselves out to be bishops by wearing a pallium over their shoulders and every other piece of episcopal dress. They also adopted as their patriarch the one who took the leading role in these buffooneries. They insulted and made a mockery of a variety of holy things, such as elections, promotions and consecrations of bishops, or by bringing up subtle but false accusations against bishops, and condemning and deposing them, switching in turn from distress to collusion as prosecutors and defendants.


    I need to go back and get the link - wish me luck - OK here is the link Fourth Council of Costantinople 869 - 870 A.D. the above bit is from Canon 16

    Henry Misbach
    June 20, 2001 - 02:16 pm
    Hey, Barbara, I don't think I post in ire <G>--not much anyway.

    I think the main problem with the Mikhail matter is that, yes, he does in a way satisfy the scriptural passage about the grain of wheat. Where I am primarily handicapped is that, though I've heard that passage repeatedly, I never did understand the botany behind it. What I thought it meant was "dying to self," not dying literally. If you do, there's not much you'll be able to do for others. Sorta ends your utility in this life.

    I'm quite sure Zosima's meaning for Alyosha is to die to self, but if possible stay alive, because that way you'll be able to help your brothers and other people around you.

    FaithP
    June 20, 2001 - 02:35 pm
    I have always interpreted that passage "except a seed die there is no fruit" as the seed does disappear (die) as the tree grows and then bears the fruit, so too the person must die to the world of egoism and selfishness, then the person can grow (love) and bear fruit(become responsible for the world) and there is no literal dying involved. So Alexi was just warned to die to the Karmazov gene (heheheh) and let his love and understanding save the world though Zozima knew this would not bring (fruit) to Alexi happiness, and would be a burden and sorrow would follow him.Still that is what he himself chose to do after he turned his back on his dispicable life and had a conversion. FP

    Joan Pearson
    June 20, 2001 - 04:25 pm
    Of the three dramatic conversion stories, it seems the mysterious stranger, Mikhail captures the attention. Markel's is a deathbed conversion. I think that is understandable. He sure makes an abrupt change though, doesn't he? I noted especially the way he talks to mama..."little heart of mine". Zosima slaps his servant and is immediately moved to a conversion. I thought that was rather dramatic...he risked death during the opening round of the duel!

    But Mikhail has committed such an egregious crime! He has stabbed the young lady in the heart! And it doesn't bother him for fourteen years. What is it that causes his change of heart? He is so admired and praised for his benevolence. His children and wife adore him. But he knows what he has done, he knows he is a murderer.

    Do we sympathize with him because he is so like ourselves? Don't we all need to be accepted, loved for our true selves, flaws and all. Mikhail cannot accept the love of his wife and children, because they don't really know him and what he has done. It is better that they know him and not accept him than to continue deceiving.

    He feels the need to confess. Does he need forgiveness? Maybe. Maybe he just needs let people know who he really is. He tells Zosima, and he does not believe him for three days. He thought he was mad.
    "He believed with his whole heart that if he confessed his crime, he would heal his soul and would be at peace forever."


    He's not asking for forgiveness here, he's just seeking peace.

    ~"I know it will be heaven for me, heaven the moment I confess."

    ~"And they won't believe me, they won't believe my proofs."



    Nothing about being forgiven, just heaven the moment he confesses. He doesn't expect to be believed. What does he expect?

    "Well! Goodbye, perhaps I won't come again...we shall meet in heaven. So I have been for fourteen years in the hands of the living God...tomorrow I will beseech those hands to let me go."


    After he confesses, he expects...heaven? death?

    He confesses, they don't believe, just as predicted. Five days later, he is dying, everyone blames Zosima's preaching.
    "I (Zosima) was siletn and indeed rejoiced at heart for I saw plainly God's mercy to the man who had turned against himself and punished himself.
    He was weak, yellow, his hands trembled...but his face was full of tender and happy feeling.

    "I know I am dying, but but I feel joy and peace for the first time after so many years. There was heaven in my heart from the moment I had done what I had to do...and now I feel God near, my heart rejoices as in Heaven. I have done my duty."



    I see a man who did not expect forgiveness...did not even expect to be believed. I DO see a man who dies in Peace because he has confessed.

    In this chapter, "the grain of wheat" comes from Zosima's mouth, directed at Mikhail who is struggling with the idea of confessing his guilt. The seed was his former self, the one everyone respected and admired. The fruit? The Truth, Peace, Heaven. He regards the disbelief as a sign of God's mercy. His children and wife will not be stained by his sin.

    Zosima will never forget him. Neither should we.

    I've run out of time for the moment, but you have each made so many good points that I need to find some more time to get back in here this evening.

    betty gregory
    June 20, 2001 - 05:53 pm
    Hey, Henry, it was me that accused you of ire. (grin)

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    June 20, 2001 - 07:24 pm
    Oh dear we all have a slightly different understanding of the seed and the fruit - I think like most symbolism there are many ways it can be related to the message we each think is important - I'm sort of with Faith,and not thinking a literal death but, I was taking it one step beyond by saying that the seeds of the father's - his sensuality are, according to his boys, supposed to be passed down by virtue of the fact that they are all Karamazovs - I see both Ivan and Alyosha, although they may have the seed and possiblity of the frutation of the seed in the form of sensuality, they seem to have let that part of their family character die and they have picked up characterizations not shared by Fyodor. Now I'm wondering because, If Fyodor's buffoonary is mockery he may be more intellectual than he lets on as well as, under all the selfish and sensual behavior he may also have a streak of religion. Mockery is not a skill for the unintelligent - clowns or dense folks.

    Henry Misbach
    June 21, 2001 - 02:51 pm
    Quite so, Betty.

    Joan, I think you now have a good working notion of how John 12:24-25 applies to Mikhail. I suppose when the seed falls into the ground we no longer see it, and in that sense it "dies." I thought there was real botany behind it. Oh, well.

    When all else fails, read the scripture, as the very next line helps explain it. Jesus expected his disciples to turn completely to him. So of course, "The man who loves himself is lost." Mikhail did so long as he "got away" with his crime and paid no mind to his conscience. But once his life was fully satisfactory, he fell out of love with himself. We know the consequences.

    Since we've discussed tragedy somewhat, you may be familiar with the term "anagnorisis." It's that moment when Oedipus suddenly realizes, "Omigod, that was my father I killed!" I think Dos provides us a point of anagnorisis for Markel considerably ahead of where he starts calling his mother, "Little heart of mine." It is a little past the point where his illness was diagnosed in Lent, while he still regarded the annual observances as "silly twaddle." But he actually started going to church the Tuesday of Holy Week, and he was already realizing that his time on earth was very limited. Having the nurse light the prayer lamp was touching; and soon after, "Every one wondered at this words, he spoke so strangely and positively. . . ." He remarked upon his having friends, and appreciated having them.

    I especially liked how he reacted to the doctor (you know, one of them Krauts) when he told him he'd live many days. Markel says one day is all any man needs, if he gives up his contentious competition with other men and goes "straight to the garden, walk and play there, love, appreciate. . . ." While Dr. Eisenschmidt (who, I'll bet got his name right about here) takes this as the raving of one whose, "disease is affecting his brain," we know that Dos does not think so. He thinks it's just crazy enough that it ought to be considered at least semi-seriously.

    Dos is a utopian socialist, but I don't see much of either Marx or Hegel here. There certainly is a sense that Russia may be moving towards a major social and economic change, but not by a sudden, vast sweeping change such as later occurred. If he did lean towards Marxism or Hegelianism, why does he vent so much spleen on the Germans? Is it a cover? I doubt it.

    Barbara, was it you who had gotten into the Book of Revelation? Apocrypha antedate the common era by at least 600 years. People who claim they understand this, the Christian apocryphon, will have to explain why they do, yet scripture says that "ye know not the day nor the hour," together with an overall sense that there's not much you can do about it.

    Merkel's main impact on Zosima, I think, is his telling his brother to enjoy life "for him." And this is at the level of his personal commitment to Christianity, and not, I think, more that we might read into it.

    FaithP
    June 21, 2001 - 08:17 pm
    Well, Henry I have not yet and may never figure out what Dos's 'ism is. I do not think he had one.Seems from his writing he was a pretty modern psycologist. He had a great love for the spiritual arguments, for intellectual debates over criminal justice, over good and evil, and he loved the earth and all natural things. He did feel that the peasants would save "Russia". Russia in those days was not geographically the same as USSR of course. And the monks would some how be the leaders of this movement toward true justice and brotherly love, where all men take responsibility for all other men. Yes Utopian with liberal social policies dominating his politics.

    When he writes of these "conversions" of Zosima or later Aloysha I dont think they were like the conversion of Saul on the road to Damascus where he was instantly converted.

    Saul was a Roman, had not any idea of the old testement and was unaware of the old traditional jewish story of the coming of the Messiah, he knew a Nazarene had been crucified and it caused a lot of trouble, then he was struck blind by the light on the road.

    Zosima was aware of his brothers love and spirituality and he had obviously had a background in the church teachings in his home.It was upon maturity in the service that he became a playboy. Still it was a pretty fast shock when he slapped the servant and then drew his sword against another. His internalization of his brothers devotion and spirituality was there all along and the circumstance snapped him into a realization that he was on the wrong road and must change. And he did.

    And Aloysha too had his dream after failing to pass the temptations tests that Ratkin(sp) set up and he woke with his doubts gone and he went out and "kissed the earth". This was not bibical conversion. He had always been spiritual. He was disappointed that he didnt get a miracle and that he was so in doubt caused by listening to Ivan, but truly with out doubts and inquiry he couldnt have made any transformation. He would have remained a simple person. Now he is going to go into the world and learn being wiser because of his failures. I think we will see more conversions or perhaps transformations is be a better word. I am still plugging away, trying to understand all this. Faith

    Henry Misbach
    June 22, 2001 - 06:51 am
    Faith P., I quite agree with your post.

    The unfortunate fact is that we are not much the wiser than Dos in the morbid area of psychology he explores.

    I wonder if the driving motive behind such crimes as just happened in Texas is a sort of suicide by government. Is there some level at which a person decides to commit a crime so horrendous that only the death penalty is a possible outcome? And what is that level, compared to one's fully conscious and normal state? Can one flip in and out of it? It's an area of the science of the mind where it always remains just out of reach how to construct a really scientific inquiry.

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    June 22, 2001 - 10:29 am
    Henry I am not sure which crime in Texas you refer (hehe we have so many or the other 'better role your pant leg up' - we are sooo big that lots happens in this state) But to me unless we can see life from the percpective of the criminal we can only judge using our state of mind, our subjective truth. It is as if we want everyone to be like a scientific experiement that must adhere to certain questions and prove a past outcome - as long as we think everyone is going to adhere to this past outcome than we can cry foul when they do something that we can lable horrendous.

    Of course to me the labeling of outcomes that do not match our agreed upon science or life values only fuels our rage and desire for revenge. I know when I see a TV show that is showing how little can actually be done to rehibilitate certain crimes that I've experienced, ii pumps me back into my rage and anger, which only subjects me to self-pity for the havic in my life - this self-pity than keeps me dependent on the criminal - wanting some acknowledgement for my suffering - it takes work to get to the place where I realize again and again I will never get that acknowledgement because the criminal is about a different scientific experiment if you would - they can even state why their scientific experiment has value therefore justifying their actions - if they say they are sorry or act sorry, I have learned it is only to be acceptable to us - not because they are seeing life from the same scientific experiment as many of us are comfortable re-proving - the one that Dos basis in 'love.'

    I am still struggling to accept that there is a universal Love - I think we have a expectation for a universal love - it really does not make sense to me - power yes, but love??

    To me we can plug into a universal power to be our fullest but that is subject to our culture - I am not expressing this well just now - I guess bottom line I have a problem with a God out there - I was taught in second grade that we are part of the body of Christ - the way I was taught; one child in the class was like God's thumb and another like God's toe and therefore God did not have gender. Later reading Whitehead with Father Clem it was easy to accept God did not have special gifts and that God was in process as the universe is in process.

    My current concern is that we look at the world as a battle between bad and good - I think as long as we reject bad we actually are rejecting oursleves. - Some how I think life is more than this battle and focusing on the battle is like an obsession that keeps us from seeing all of life as a mirror to ourselves - 'all the universe in a grain of sand' kind of thinking that therefore, includes all the universe - growth, black holes, gravity, good, bad, storms and calm, within ourselves. I do not see the Universe as especially loving.

    FaithP
    June 22, 2001 - 12:51 pm
    Whee Barb, A General Semantist would say "Please define your term "Universal Love" so we can debate this. You see I do not know what you mean by that . I know what I mean. Therefore if I say I do believe in universal love, you will take it that I am not in agreement with you but depending on the meaning we may be in agreement or else we may be diametrically opposed on the subject. I do believe in goodness and love. And I know and understand "bad" having had the experience of a terrible evil in my childhood. I have outgrown my hates, rages, revenge filled fantasies, they are gone. I even understand how I overcame all the garbage that was in me still at age 40. The evil done can never be changed. The way I view it and the way I treat myself with love and also those whom I love recieve an active love from me proves that that evil is not in me- is not mine- is not part of my life and poof the mystery of love works. Before I knew about this I thought the evil stayed with me and I sort of hugged it to myself as my secret rage and hate and only hurt me more and more : it became a part of my psyche. When I began doing every thing I could to show love to everyone around me and "think" I love the universe not the universe should but doesnt love me because I suffer, I forgot or stuffed the suffering, and loved in an outward way. Not overnight but gradually I was able to go over a year at a time without one thought that was related negatively to those old feelings. So for me I love (the universe) but expect nothing, still I feel I have gained everything . If I had to explain it I probably couldnt. It is a zen thing. Dos would probably explain it but he would take 300 pages heheheh fp

    Joan Pearson
    June 22, 2001 - 04:59 pm
    Oh my, so many dazzling posts to catch up with! I have no idea what is the problem with my computer. The mouse cursor freezes (or disappears) and the only thing I can do is reboot the computer...losing all my work each time! I've tried everything for the last two days...I have changed mouses, run the scan disk, defragmented. (Have you ever sat and watched the defragmentor put your drive back where it belongs? Mesmerizing!) The only thing left to do is to dump a lot of files in case there is something corrupt hiding within...if it happens again!

    But I can read your posts and each one brings more understanding of what Dos. is trying so hard to tell us in these two chapters. With your help, I finally believe that we will be ready to return to the story line in Book Seven on Monday, Nellie!


    Faith, I do believe that if all believed and behaved as you do, loving everyone, loving the universe and expecting nothing in return, then we would realize the utopia and enjoy "heaven on earth." Do you think most people go through the steps you have described through the course of their lives? Dos. seems to believe the future of Russian lies in her children. What of her Seniors? Yes, I'll agree, you did describe it with much more economy, though not quite as dramatically as Dos. would have done.


    Like, Barbara, I'm afraid I have a hard time believing that everyone, even the majority would ever achieve this level of active love in order (and in time) to expect the realization of such an earthly paradise.



    (I've been thinking about the buffoon and mockery for a while, Barb. I feel that most who behave as buffoons are doing so for a reason...acting out, usually against something or someone...so I can see a buffoon such as Kamaramazov disguising his negative feelings towards the Church, the Church fathers whom he perceives as acting as judges of his wicked ways.) Another AHA moment ~ Something Betty said a few days ago about the hoped for fruit when one dies to self. The question was ~ is the fruit always for the good/welfare of man/humankind ...or can it be for the salvation of one's own soul in Dostoevsky's utopia? Betty ~ "They are halves of the whole, aren't they? One and the same?" Well, of course! I see that now. At first Mikhail's story left that in doubt. He seemed to be seeking his own peace of mind and there seemed to be no societal benefit to the brotherhood of man. I thought of you Betty while reading about the seed later bearing fruit...the "boy" certainly had an early example of unconditional love directed at him. That seed may yet bear fruit! Don't give up. And the active love ...loving everyone, expecting nothing in return - that seems to be the key to happiness doesn't it? What a hold these children have on our hearts. It is only when we let go (how do you do that?), expecting nothing, that they can turn back to you. Love everyone and expect nothing in return. What a simple, yet huge lesson!



    I had an AHA! moment. Faith when reading of your comparison of the Saul/Paul conversion with those in Chapter II.

    "Zosima was aware of his brother's love and spirituality and he had obviously had a background in the church teachings in his home... His internalization of his brothers devotion and spirituality was there all along and the circumstance snapped him into a realization that he was on the wrong road and must change. And he did."


    This seems to be what Zosima is exhorting the monk, the priest to do...plant the seed of faith in the young...read them Bible stories and these will stay with them all their lives. More seed...seemingly dying as the youth turns to worldly adventures, forgetting the seed within. But later, much later the seed will bear fruit.

    Henry, a new word on me! anagnorisis ~ is it a little epiphany, a sudden realization of something that lies within that suddenly comes to the surface? A sprouting of the hidden grain of wheat?

    I had the same botanical obstacle as you did, Henry. I saw a grain of wheat, lying on the roadside, no roots, dying, and couldn't imagine a worse change for healthy, fruit-bearing shoots. I think we need to think of the acorn, sending forth shoots, and then dying, no longer an acorn...

    I liked your example of Markel's anagnorisis, and when he begins to talk funny..."Markel says one day is all any man needs, if he gives up his contentious competition with other men and goes 'straight to the garden, walk and play there, love, appreciate.'" Hey, isn't that Zosima's whole point? The world is a place of joy and wonder. Not a vale of tears in preparation for a heavenly reward in the afterlife. Markel sends Zosima out to play in the world, Zosima sends Alyosha out in the same way. The world was created to enjoy! Now this truly was a controversial stance for an Elder to be supporting! No wonder other monks are appalled! But Dos likes the idea. He believes the idea will satisfy the needs of the Russian people...immediate reward here on earth. Just love one another, share, and everyone will be free to plany and enjoy!

    Joan Pearson
    June 22, 2001 - 05:13 pm
    I think Alyosha does a fine enough job as an evangelist in Chapter II, describing the life of Zosima, and the Old Testament verses that prepare the way for his death. I find so many similarities between Zosima and Christ, beginning with the simple monks/apostles gathered around him on his last day.

    But the Conversations and Exhortations in Chapter III require discipline, don't they? In some ways, they seem to be explaining further the three conversion stories from the preceding chapters by filling us in on previous conversations Zos. has had with his followers. I think it is important to go through them since they contain the striking new ideas Zos/Dos. were trying to put forth regarding the brotherhood of man and active love. Just like Christ! Except Zos is preaching HEAVEN ON EARTH, if man would only carry out the simple precepts of loving one's neighbor. Some of the his ideas in this chapter got my attention...such as those on suicides, hell-fire, animals. There were probably many more revolutionary ideas to the people of the time, that didn't jump off the pages because they don't seem so extreme today. But they must have shocked the monks and the people at this time in Russia's history.

    I was curious to see what Dos. himself was thinking when he wrote these two chapters, and so I turned to the Norton Critical Edition for futher information.


  • From an essay by Nathan Rosen:
    "By adding the sermon, did Dostoevsky intend to strengthen the refutation (to the Grand Inquisitor) he had made in the three stories?
    At first glance the answer would seem to be no."


  • Dos. writes to his editor:
    "Even though I'm in full agreement wit the ideas he (Zosima) expresses, if I had to express them personally with my own voice I would have done so in a different form, in different words.


    I have take this person, a figure from the old Russian monks and saints...in deep humility, he holds limitless naive hopes for the future of the Russia>"


  • Are we to conclude that Dostoevesky agrees with the lessons from the mouth of Zosima, but in his attempt to put them into the mouth of this priest, his beliefs do not sound as sophisticated or even as convincing as did Ivan's arguments as the Grand Inquisitor?

    More from Nathan Rosen:

    "To make the Russian monk as imaginatively powerful as the Grand Inquisitor, Dos. would have had to make the conversions of Markel, Zosima and the mysterious stranger psychologically plausible. (Did he?)

    By transferring our attention from the Grand Inquisitor to the novel as a whole, we have restored a necessary balance. No longer is Ivan seen as the hero of the novel. The hero is the spirit of God acting through all the Karamazovs." (ALL) OF THEM?



    The Grand Inquisitor story was simply that. An idea Ivan had for a poem, perhaps just a conversational starting point which Ivan could use to get some words of wisdom or at least understanding, from Alyosha. But Zosima's response in his Conversations & Exhortations are part of the story, or at least they lead us back into the story and Alyosha's response to Zosima's death and what he does as an Apostle with the words he has so carefully recorded.

    FaithP
    June 22, 2001 - 07:28 pm
    Joan after reading your post it occurred to me that there is a clue to why the Children are so terribly important in Dos/Zos and Ivan's story. The child must have a somewhat loving infantcy, good enough love and good enough family and teaching of the cultural "taboos" that will leave a picture in the mind of what is necessary to overcome suffering here on this earth. For an example I could not have overcome the effects of my trauma if I were never given any picture of life but evil and pain and suffering- if I had not at the same time had love and a good enough mother and father, a good enough education, and exposure to love in various context's. Therefore I had the basic psychic tools.Still it took a long life to learn to use the tools.

    And that I think is what Dos wanted for his Russia. From everyone who had anything to do with children. Each of the Karmazov's had some basic love from some people such as Grigory and the old mother in law and other "fostering" parents to give them a base for their spirituality. These children did not spring to adulthood with a genetic concept of spirituality. They learned it. And there are a lot of people in this country saying "Hey wake up America. What are we doing to the children" I do not think it takes one kind of Monk or Church or Temple etc at all. It takes a societal caring, a whole tribe actively loving, eh. Faith

    Joan Pearson
    June 22, 2001 - 08:22 pm
    Reading your post, dear Faith, there's hope for Smerdy! He had Grigory and Marfa in his life from the very first, giving example, planting seeds... What do you think?

    I think YOU turned out to be a super special person! Thanks mom and dad ...and to the village! A real example of what Zosima is preaching!

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    June 23, 2001 - 12:15 am
    To me the story of Mikhail brings up the problem of Justice. Retribution, making the criminal pay for his crime. This prompts the question if everyone should receive exactly the same amount of justice and punishment. Does a servant deserve more or less justice than the noblemen. We are still grappling with equality of applied justice dependent on the economics of being poor in the justice system.

    Are laws just - what is the essence of justice - is the best of our intention to do wrong without paying the penalty as compared to, being wronged without the power of revenge.

    Plato says the reason we practice justice is, the desire for undue gain which every organism by nature pursues as a good, but the law forcibly sidetracks us to honor equality.

    The freedom to do wrong is described in this parable.
    There is a shepherd during an earthquake who marvels at the chasm, climbs down and finds a corpse with a ring that he puts on. Later, sitting among others, he happens to twist the ring and finds himself invisible. When he realizes with a twist he can become visible or invisible he arranges to be the Kings messenger. He than has the choice, he could take peoples property, enter houses, have any women he wanted, kill anyone, free men from prison, do anything that would make him god like among men. If others knew he chose not to take advantage of his invisibility they would consider him foolish and miserable - they would praise him in public, deceiving one another for fear of being wronged themselves.


    The position to do right regardless of visibility begs us to look at altruism. Acting morally as an obligation - or - taking another’s interests as important or even more important than our own. Considering the Golden Rule, acting with another’s interests at heart then, how do we frame acting from self-interest.

    Another story;
    Lincoln in a coach passing a mud slide ordered the carriage to stop as he saved the piglets the sow was trying to save. When it was suggested to him that he acted altruistically he said no, he acted with the very essence of selfishness. He would have no peace of mind all day and would not sleep that night if he left the suffering old sow as he would worry over those piglets.
    Love of society is not the same as having regard for the good of society. Acting on our desire does not make an action selfish. That all actions are in some sense based on our desires but, at times our desires are to serve someone else’s interest. Therefore, if equality is basic to justice than how do we measure the equality of intent.

    We try to level the playing field by making laws and covenants defining what is just. The essence of justice is really only something between the best and the worst. As much as I would prefer it - Justice is not an ideal. It is a negotiated statement that moves with our ever learning regard for the good of society. Often that learning is prompted by the courage of a few.

    Henry Misbach
    June 23, 2001 - 07:36 am
    Barbara, I trust you've seen a newspaper by now. If not, turn on CNN, or even pull up your equivalent of Netscape, and I don't see any way you can avoid it.

    Before getting back to that, I beg yours and Joan's and Hats' etc. indulgence for another little story. I recall a history professor who taught the history of Europe from 1500 to the present. One student told me that if you followed three guidelines, you could not fail his test. The British are always right. The Germans are always wrong. The middle class is always rising, anywhere except Russia.

    Back in the Middle Ages (early, 6th century maybe) they had what has come to be called virgeld, literally, man-money. A high-up noble was worth more, if any harm came to him, than a peasant. It is really hard for us, in our time, to adjust to the idea that long after we abandoned that way of thinking, Russia was still thrall to it. This is why later, we're going to find a certain noble less than thrilled with the idea of going away to America. He will gain some things--but he surely knows that, by the late 19th century, he can kiss any supposed benefits that flow from being landed nobility goodbye. De Tocqueville has been out some 3-4 decades by this time.

    We still have the virgeld idea, in a certain sense. In my state, they try to apply it to state troopers. The deterrent value of the death penalty (to other perps, not the original one) is by now very hard to defend.

    Dos takes a line on children that probably was quite startling in its day. Again, read your newpaper if you think we now understand children. Dos suggests we treat them as full-fledged people (through Zosima), not as a low grade of servant.

    The traditional approach to child rearing used to be to demand absolute obedience to all authority figures. Make them push their chairs all the way up after dining (just one example). When I was a pre-teen, a kid I didn't know was lured out of his private school to his death. All anyone had to do was question. At 7, I'd have to admit that I might not have questioned, but all any adult had to do was call the parents and check the woman's story. Happened in my hometown. Boy was kidnapped and murdered. Neither perp, a man and woman, survived another year. The both got the gas chamber. Some of the ransom money was never found. Has kidnapping stopped?

    I was not taught that way(authoritarian), so I say, only somewhat in jest, that I didn't have proper upbringing. I still remember having a young man pull up by me on a pleasant spring morning while I was walking to school and offer me a ride. He claimed to know someone in my family. I was probably about 9 or 10 years old. I sent him on his way, even though he smiled and gave me a slightly vexed look that I didn't seem to know or trust him. That I had been taught: if not the one, not the other. A little disobedience can last a lifetime.

    FaithP
    June 23, 2001 - 08:37 am
    That is true Henry, "Read your newspaper if you think we understand children," . But understanding children is not all it takes really, loving and caring for children is what it takes including seeking help for them when they show depression or special problems as children or adults. Why was there no intervention for that Texas mother? An M.D. or perhaps the husband could have called for more help outside, maybe he was ashamed of his wife's condition, at the very least he could have been home with her taking care of the children while she was so obviously sick. A little understanding of her special problems from husband, family,neighbors, society, would have saved those children. fp

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    June 23, 2001 - 09:36 am
    Whew Faith you figured out what story is high on the list to today's discussion -

    Justice - equality of intent hmmmm

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    June 23, 2001 - 11:37 am
    mmm I wonder if it is numbers that grabs the attention of the media - to me the abused child in the closet is more tragic - the aftermath will visit her again and again throughout her life, where as the mother in Houstin may have stunned folks - something I learned some years back that the hospitals in Boston use as their benchmark - whenever a child is suspect of child abuse, look at the mother as an abused women. They have discovered it goes hand in glove.

    As to Dostoevsky as dramatic as his child stories are some of them I think were the blown up images representing the Russian's fear of enemies to Russia. Remember WW2 and how fearful the stories were of oriental people - I still remember my grandmother cautioning me not to go near a Chinese Laundry since they take children and boil them to make the special starch that they use to make their ironed shirts so stiff.

    The book indicates most of the stories were newspaper accounts - we still have journalists reporting with their own bias intack.

    It is great that your experience Henry falls in line with the topical rules taught to most children, don't trust a stranger - some children experience publicly and in their homes what most teachers of child precautions are still at a lose how to prevent.

    Joan Pearson
    June 23, 2001 - 04:42 pm
    What is striking to me is that the same concerns we have about today's children concerned Dostoevsky! But I do think that the Houston mother drowning the five children falls into a different category than the neglect and abuse that we read about so much in the paper. Zosima tells us in his sermons that we must paticularly not be the judge others...that we are each such a criminal as the one standing in judgement. Only when we admit that are we in a position to judge. That's asking a lot, isn't it. He's asking that we love the sinner, as he is the one most in need of love. Isn't that what the husband of the Houston mother is doing? It seems to be just that love that is confounding his critics!

    Personally, I don't understand her reaction after she killed the children. She was able to telephone her husband, the police. It wasn't as if she was in a state of shock. I must say that if I were that woman and had done such a thing, I wouldn't be here talking about it on the phone. I'd have taken myself out too! Most of these cases where the mother suffers PMS, she doesn't want to live, doesn't want the children to be left behind without a mother, so she attempts to kill herself and all of them. To me, that woman was killing herself as she killed those babies. I just don't understand any of it. Can't judge, can't blame. Must accept the guilt and blame for all sin myself first. Sheeeeeeeeesh!

    Zosima had some some controversial thoughts regarding suicide. This is such a painful subject for those of us who have close family or friends who have died in such a way, I hesitate to bring it up here, but it will come up again in the novel, and Zosima's position is quite different from those of his Church. Can it be that he understands that a suicide is most often the result of a mental disturbance? And so does not accept it as sin? But he seems to be saying no matter what reason a person commits this act, he is still worthy of love and prayer. Zosima says:
    "But woe to those who have destroyed themselves on earth, woe to the suicides. I think there can be no one unhappier than they. We are told that it is a sin to pray to God for them, and outwardly the Church rejects them, as it were, but in the secret of my soul I think that one may pray for them as well. Christ will not be angered by love. Within myself, all my life, I have prayed for them, I confess it to you, fathers and teachers, and still pray every day."


    From the notes in the Pevear translation:
    "Suicide is considered among the greatest of sins, the Church forbids the burial of suicides by established rites and does not hold memorial servies for them. Zosima's broad notions of love and forgiveness are traced by some commentators to the teachings of St. Tikhon of Zadonsk (1724-83)."


    I need to know more about St. Tikhon. This subject fascinates me...the position of the Church and the burial of suicides. Is this still the Church stance?

    Joan Pearson
    June 23, 2001 - 05:00 pm
    What is striking to me is that the same concerns we have about today's children concerned Dostoevsky! But I do think that the Houston mother drowning the five children falls into a different category than the neglect and abuse that we read about so much in the paper. Zosima tells us in his sermons that we must paticularly not be the judge others...that we are each such a criminal as the one standing in judgement. Only when we admit that are we in a position to judge. That's asking a lot, isn't it. He's asking that we love the sinner, as he is the one most in need of love. Isn't that what the husband of the Houston mother is doing? It seems to be just that love that is confounding his critics!

    Personally, I don't understand her reaction after she killed the children. She was able to telephone her husband, the police. It wasn't as if she was in a state of shock. I must say that if I were that woman and had done such a thing, I wouldn't be here talking about it on the phone. I'd have taken myself out too! Most of these cases where the mother suffers PMS, she doesn't want to live, doesn't want the children to be left behind without a mother, so she attempts to kill herself and all of them. To me, that woman was killing herself as she killed those babies. I just don't understand any of it. Can't judge, can't blame. Must accept the guilt and blame for all sin myself first. Sheeeeeeeeesh!

    Zosima had some some controversial thoughts regarding suicide. This is such a painful subject for those of us who have close family or friends who have died in such a way, I hesitate to bring it up here, but it will come up again in the novel, and Zosima's position is quite different from those of his Church. Can it be that he understands that a suicide is most often the result of a mental disturbance? And so does not accept it as sin? But he seems to be saying no matter what reason a person commits this act, he is still worthy of love and prayer. Zosima says:
    "But woe to those who have destroyed themselves on earth, woe to the suicides. I think there can be no one unhappier than they. We are told that it is a sin to pray to God for them, and outwardly the Church rejects them, as it were, but in the secret of my soul I think that one may pray for them as well. Christ will not be angered by love. Within myself, all my life, I have prayed for them, I confess it to you, fathers and teachers, and still pray every day."


    From the notes in the Pevear translation:
    "Suicide is considered among the greatest of sins, the Church forbids the burial of suicides by established rites and does not hold memorial servies for them. Zosima's broad notions of love and forgiveness are traced by some commentators to the teachings of St. Tikhon of Zadonsk (1724-83)."


    I need to know more about St. Tikhon. This subject fascinates me...the position of the Church and the burial of suicides. Is this still the Church stance?

    This site on St. Tikhon does not speak specifically on suicide, but I can tell that Dostoevesky spent time reading the Spiritual Treasure by this man.

    Joan Pearson
    June 23, 2001 - 05:03 pm
    What is striking to me is that the same concerns we have about today's children concerned Dostoevsky! But I do think that the Houston mother drowning the five children falls into a different category than the neglect and abuse that we read about so much in the paper. Zosima tells us in his sermons that we must paticularly not be the judge others...that we are each such a criminal as the one standing in judgement. Only when we admit that are we in a position to judge. That's asking a lot, isn't it. He's asking that we love the sinner, as he is the one most in need of love. Isn't that what the husband of the Houston mother is doing? It seems to be just that love that is confounding his critics!

    Personally, I don't understand her reaction after she killed the children. She was able to telephone her husband, the police. It wasn't as if she was in a state of shock. I must say that if I were that woman and had done such a thing, I wouldn't be here talking about it on the phone. I'd have taken myself out too! Most of these cases where the mother suffers post partum depression, she doesn't want to live, doesn't want the children to be left behind without a mother, so she attempts to kill herself and all of them. To me, that woman was killing herself as she killed those babies. I just don't understand any of it. Can't judge, can't blame. Must accept the guilt and blame for all sin myself first. Sheeeeeeeeesh!

    Zosima had some some controversial thoughts regarding suicide. This is such a painful subject for those of us who have close family or friends who have died in such a way, I hesitate to bring it up here, but it will come up again in the novel, and Zosima's position is quite different from those of his Church. Can it be that he understands that a suicide is most often the result of a mental disturbance? And so does not accept it as sin? But he seems to be saying no matter what reason a person commits this act, he is still worthy of love and prayer. Zosima says:
    "But woe to those who have destroyed themselves on earth, woe to the suicides. I think there can be no one unhappier than they. We are told that it is a sin to pray to God for them, and outwardly the Church rejects them, as it were, but in the secret of my soul I think that one may pray for them as well. Christ will not be angered by love. Within myself, all my life, I have prayed for them, I confess it to you, fathers and teachers, and still pray every day."


    From the notes in the Pevear translation:
    "Suicide is considered among the greatest of sins, the Church forbids the burial of suicides by established rites and does not hold memorial servies for them. Zosima's broad notions of love and forgiveness are traced by some commentators to the teachings of St. Tikhon of Zadonsk (1724-83)."


    I need to know more about St. Tikhon. This subject fascinates me...the position of the Church and the burial of suicides. Is this still the Church stance?

    This site on St. Tikhon does not speak specifically on suicide, but I can tell that Dostoevesky spent time reading the Spiritual Treasure by this man.
    "For love does not seek its own, it labors, sweats, watches to build up the brother: nothing is inconvenient to love, and by the help of God it turns the impossible into the possible .... Love believes and hopes .... It is ashamed of nothing. Without it, what is the use of prayer? What use are hymns and singing? What is the use of building and adorning churches? What is mortification of the flesh if the neighbor is not loved? Indeed, all are of no consequence .... As an animal cannot exist without bodily warmth, So no good deed can be alive without true love; it is only the pretence of a good deed."

    betty gregory
    June 23, 2001 - 05:49 pm
    My 2.5 cents, regarding Houston mother. Having just spent a year close to my youngest brother's family of infant and two toddlers....even when BOTH parents were present and the 3 children were being their normally good natured selves, it still was like a 3 ring circus. Watch out!! No, sweetie, you can't. Bring that to me, right now. Did you leave it in the car? Look in your pocket, honey. You just had a sandwich. Yes, you do remember. Ask Aunt Betty if it's all right. Hand that to me RIGHT NOW. And that's when everything was going well and no one crying or exhausted.

    This Houston mother had 5 stairstep small children. My main question is, if her post-partum depression was serious enough for her to be contemplating suicide after the birth of the TWO YEAR OLD, then please explain the existence of the 6 month old infant!! So, Barbara, I don't think you're off base at all, wondering about the FATHER'S totally disconnected comments. Women/parents who have normal ups and downs with raising 2 or 3 small ones would be in for incredible challenges raising five small children...and that is WITH a deep support system, etc., etc. Add depression, and in her case, psychotic depression (losing touch with reality...and taking medicine for same)....something awful was bound to happen.

    Joan, from what I'm guessing (how could we do anything else), her ability to reason or behave in any reality-based fashion must have been at zero. If she'd had any lucid thoughts left, she might have taken her own life also, or only. Or, she might have called the police and her husband to say, come get the kids because I'm having terrible thoughts.

    The one common element in post partum depression is guilt...thinking of oneself as unable to be a mother...at a time when everyone/society expects a woman to know how to do it and be happy doing it. Others who have thought of killing their children during post partum depression report that it felt like the best thing FOR the children, that life with her as a mother would have been worse. And, no, that's not supposed to make sense to us non-depressed, still rational folks. When depression is at its worst, there are no options to contemplate, every view is a dead-end and there are no reality checks.

    Joan Pearson
    June 23, 2001 - 08:13 pm
    The really sad part is what is in store for the mother. I did hear someone, an "expert" say that the usual reaction to post partum is NOT to kill the infant, but rather for the mother to harm herself. The Houston mother seems to have had other problems than just the post partum. Surely she'll get treatment. What then? When she realizes what she has done, if she hasn't done so already? I don't think that story is over.

    Zosima was on to something. Don't judge. Love the sinner. When we hear the husband express concern for his wife, we must try to understand his response.

    Dostoevsky is deeply concerned with children and the deep-rooted, long term problems that the abused, neglected child suffers. In another letter to his editor, he writes in 1879:
    Everything my hero says in the text is based on reality. All the anecdotes about children took place, existed, were published in the press, and I can cite the places. I invented nothing. The general who ran down the child with his hunting dogs and that whole incident is a real fact and was published last year. I think in the Archive, and was reprinted in many newspapers...

    ...In the text I sent there does not seem to be a single indecent word. There is only the bit about the tormentors who were raising a five-year-old child and smeared it with its feces because she didn't ask to be taken up during the night."



    Dostoevsky's character, Zosima, speaks for him when he spells out the responsibility we all have to the child, to all children.
    "If you pass by a small child in anger, using foul words, the child has seen you and you many have planted a bad seed in him and it may grow all because you did not restrain yourself before the child."


    And then:
    "Love children expecially, for they too are sinless like the angels; they live to soften and purify our hearts and as it were to guide us. Woe to him who offends a child!"


    To think that it is necessary at any time in history to warn adults to refrain from child abuse! But Dostoevsky is reacting to what is going on in his day. He also says that the future of Russia is her children. Isn't that the case in any place, at any time? Is Dos. preparing us for a certain child in the novel who is to represent Russia's hope for the future? Have we already met some of them. Ilyusha? Did I get his name right? An impressionable young boy, so concerned with truth and honor.

    Barbara St. Aubrey
    June 23, 2001 - 08:52 pm
    Yes Joan the book does say the stories were published in the newspapers of the day - I just wonder if some of the stories were blown out of proportion in the telling and retelling before Dostoevsky read them in the paper because they were committed by a feared enemy. I doubt that the paper had a corrispondent observing the Turks who blew babies our of mother's arms at close range. I don't doubt that unimaginable awful things happen and Dostoevsky did his work well getting us bleeding emotionally for the children we are helpless to protect. As in all great lit. it is his task to allow readers to relate these read happenings to the many children we know about or read about today that experience brutal abuse, knowing the reader is helpless to save them. That helpless feeling underlines our anguish for a loving, all knowing, all powerful God.

    And what Zosima suggests is the philosophy that I believe in and try to practice, although at times it takes me a bit getting there. To me he is saying that everything, event, person, happening, is a mirror to ourselves. That especially when something hits our buttons we need to look inward and locate what it is all about within ourselves. At times it is mirroring our own behavior and aspects of our own beliefs. Other times it is mirroring an experience that brought similar feelings and, this is an opportunity to relook at the experience so that we can put a bit more in place; come to terms or understand on a deeper level the damage the experience provided that needs healing.

    ALF
    June 24, 2001 - 10:46 am
    It is very difficult not to be the judge, the jury and the hangman  when hearing about such atrocities.  I wish that I had the kind, benevolent soul that Dos encourages.  It is nearly impossible not to pronounce sentence on a mother that drowned not 1 but 5 of her children.  To me that is cold blooded murder and may she rot in hell.  I know that that is an uncharitable thing to say and I pray for compassion and understanding in my own heart that has been numbed by this barbaric act.  Her husband and so called friends should join her there.  I absolutely hate it when people come out of the wood work , post facto, and denounce injustice  and pain when they've been right smack dab in the middle of it and have chosen to ignore this mother's malady.  After the fact they beat their breasts crying "mea culpa".  Obviously this is a sore point with me.  I've lived it and have no tolerence for any of these survivors.

    Dos says " If you can take upon yourself the crime
    of the criminal your heart is judging, take it at once, suffer for
    him yourself, and let him go without reproach.  What happens if one is unable to do that?  I can't!
     

    Marvelle
    June 24, 2001 - 12:00 pm
    I guess I'm in-between Alf and Barbara. I believe there is evil in the world. It is my responsibility to recognize evil and to choose to be good. If I am outraged at the murder of 5 children, however, I am not going to look inside myself to see why I am outraged. I am outraged because the act itself is evil.



    There is so much power in evil, isn't there? Evil can harm the good in so many ways, using a gun, a knife, a word -- the instruments of evil are seemingly endless. How do we respond to it? A turning away? Associating only with the good? An eye for an eye? (I heard that if we practiced 'an eye for an eye', we'd all eventually go blind. Did I hear that here?) There is no perfect response and that is the paradox. That is the power of evil.



    The one thing I try to hold onto however is Frankl's identification of the last of human freedoms, the freedom to choose one's attitude in life. I wish I could maintain a harmonious attitude all the time. I am sometimes knocked off-balance, out of harmony with myself in reaction to a given situation, but then I (try to)regain my freedom by choosing my attitude. I suppose that is power of another kind.



    Some off-the-subject thoughts:



    Like Nellie I am waiting for the story to reappear. I don't hold out much hope for Book Seven because Dos still seems to be mired in the bog of philosophy and whose the saint? whose the holiest? sort of inquiry. Well, if not Book Seven, then maybe Eight.



    And isn't it amazing how Pater K seems to have dropped out of the book? He's on the sidelines now and I believe -- not having read this far into the book but I imagine it is so -- he will become a metaphoric gong that Dos and the brothers will strike against from time to time.



    Even Zosima may (must) pass over to the sidelines in order to let the story progress. I see the center of action as now being with the brothers and Smerdy. Perhaps the children will continue as the symbolic strand of hope that threads through this book?



    --Marvelle

    Henry Misbach
    June 24, 2001 - 01:22 pm
    Faith, I agree that the woman should have had help before it was too late. Most insurance plans pay for such and are glad to do it.

    I guess I stirred up a hornet's nest bringing that up. To me, the crime I can least tolerate is that in which the victim trusts and loves the perp, so it stood out to me, not only by numbers but by outrageousness, as the only really significant crime in Texas lately.

    But, when I say that we are no wiser than Dos, I mean that we are still just nibbling on the edge when it comes to internal states of mind. We have new terms, but we're only a little better on solutions, and most of them are chemically induced stopgap measures rather than real solutions.

    ALF
    June 24, 2001 - 01:26 pm
    You are absolutely correct Henry. Ahhh, the fraility of being a mere mortal.

    Joan Pearson
    June 24, 2001 - 02:16 pm
    Alf, Henry, perhaps that's why Dostovesky's dream for Heaven on Earth was not meant to be. The tenets of the new order are just too hard to accept without exception?

    Zosima calls on his followers to love the earth, love everything on it, including the sinner. No exceptions. It sounds so simple. Hmmmmmmm, Alf. Zosima's definition of hell may fit this case. No hell-fire for the Houston mother, the father. Dos/Zos defines hell as "the suffering of no longer being able to love." Sounds like "hell on earth" is what that mother (and father) have in store.

    Zosima counsels to strive toward Heaven on Earth. "Love it, love all living things, the plants, the stars, the birds, animals and all the people of the earth. Get on your knees and kiss the earth." What's he saying here? Marvelle, I like what you say about having the freedom to choose our attitudes. Zos is telling us to seize the day, strive for joy on earth, not a heaven in the sky, but right here, every day. Achievable only through loving the earth and its inhabitants. Including the sinner who may be doomed to "hell on earth". Pity the sinner. Are we up for the challenge, can we choose this attitude? Alyosha is among the believers. Let's see how he stands up to the test!

    I love what he says about loving animals. Sounds like St. Francis here, doesn't he?
    Love the animals: God has given them the rudiments of thought and joy untroubled.

    ...Man, do not pride yourself on superiority to the animals, they are without sin, and you, with your greatness, defile the earth ."


    I think we are ready to sail through the entire Book Seven this week. Marvelle, the story has begun...Alyosha enters the world, Grushenka makes a surprising appearance and we are easing right into the story. What oh what will Fyodor and Dmitri do when they learn of Grushenka's surprising decision? The action has begun! (at last!)

    ps. An onion, one little onion for the sinner? Read Book Seven! It will be interesting to hear what you think! And how it applies to the issues we have been discussing here.

    Joan Pearson
    June 24, 2001 - 04:11 pm


    Ease back into the story ~ HERE, Part II of the Discussion



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