Today we will begin our fresh start in this brand new discussion. If you subscribe to discussions, you will have to change it within the next few days before we archive Part I.

I can't wait to hear your reaction to Chapter I of Book Seven. Excuse me, but I found this very serious, unexpected turn of events ...amusing. Perhaps it is because of the ponderous preceding chapters.

" At today's papal Mass, a crowd estimated at between 40,000 and 150,000 from across the former Soviet Union -- far less than the 350,000 organizers had expected -- patiently waited hours for a glimpse of the pope. Rosy-cheeked girls wore long white dresses, undaunted by the muddy field, as their parents wondered at an event that would have been unthinkable during Soviet rule.

"Even when there was persecution and they wouldn't let us pray, I prayed," said Maria Djyc, a retiree. "But this, we didn't dream of." Pope in the Ukraine

A quibble about Dos' technique: I wish he could have juggled plot and theme together, rather than the either/or he gave us. It was either plot or religion/philosophy. But, as Joan said, we are back into the story!

Marvelle

I already see a connection to the Inquisitor and to Ivan's words in the chapters on the disillusionment that accompanied the "odor of corruption". Henry, I too was impressed with Fr. Paissy...as he dispells the devil in his words to Ferapont:

"Go away. It's not for man to judge, but for God."
"Go, and do not trouble the flock."
"Go away, I command you."

Quite complex, as Nellie says...a plump, rosy, Russian beauty, proud, insolent...and yet Alyosha sees her altogether differently this time. Does he now see that the world is not black/white, good/evil...but that there is good in every single person and that loving that person will bring forth the best in each one? Hey, that's a huge lesson for him to learn in one encounter. Is this the "armor that will protect him from temptation"...even while she is sitting on his knee trying to seduce him?



Don't know how Marilyn would have carried off the role, Faith...she was so much more vulnerable and needly than Grushenka. Maybe her years in NY with Lee Strasburg would have prepared her for the shrewd Grushenka, but I'm not sure. Maria Schell got the role. Did anyone see it? I wonder if that is available in the Video stores. It would be fun to watch......after we finish reading the novel. Don't want a casting director to alter the Grushenka on the little stage in my mind Why does she want to ruin Alyosha? Since she is leading quite a chaste life, contrary to what we had been led to believe, she will make an exception in this case in order to ruin the priest in Alyosha.

And when does Grushenka decide Alyosha is her conscience? It seems she resented him for witnessing her behavior with Katerina the previous day. Is this when she decided he was her conscience, mirroring her despicable behavior? She seems to resent his purity, his innocence, naivete?

Maryal, I forgot that...that Grushenka is the daughter of a deacon, a cleric of sorts. SHe must have had some exposure to the Biblical stories that Zosima was talking about. Is she an example of the SEED, the GRAIN of WHEAT planted in the young, that promises to bring forth fruit at a later time?

Henry, I had forgotten that the book came about as a result of "the author's rubbings of the inscriptions on the famous Hagia Sophia in Istanbul...in fact, I'm not sure I ever knew it, but promise to keep it in mind when I feel the urge to demand logic from Dostoevsky from here on.

"The last chapter, Cana of Galilee, is the most significant in the whole book, perhaps even in the whole novel. With this posting I am finished with the monastery. There will be nothing more about the monastery.

**One small nota bene in any case:for heaven's sake don't imagine that I could permit myself in my work, even the slightest doubt in the miraculous efficacy of reliques. The matter concerns only the reliques of the defunct monk Zosima, but that is something completely different. A commotion similar to the one I described once occurred on Mt. Athos and is briefly related with touching naivete in the "Pilgrimages" of Monk Parfeny. (???)

PS. ...I particularly beg you to proofread the legend of the little onion carefully. That is a gem, taken down by me from a peasant woman, and of course published for the first time. At least I have never heard it until now."

This brief account of Abbot Paul's life and struggles is based on Monk Parfeny's Narrative of Travels in Russia, Moldavia, Turkey and the Holy Land, part 4, § 161, pages 235-42, which was published in Russian in Moscow, 1856. Monk Parfeny says he heard some of these things from Fr. Paul himself, saw some of them with his own eyes and learned of others from Fr. Paul's disciples.

Three years later his grave was opened and his remains were found to be graced with sanctity. His bones were golden like beeswax and gave off a pleasant fragrance. They were placed in the monastery charnel house and his skull was put in its proper place, bearing the inscription: Priest monk Paul the Russian.

For Alyosha to have been listening to Fr. Paissy's reading of the Cana miracle, fallen asleep as if in a trance seeing Zosima, receiving his "commission", waking up a new man, with new resolve ...Dos. wants us to look upon this as a miracle, not merely as a dream, Maryal?

I think that the "odor of corruption" was the stimulus, the real miracle that drove Alyosha from the monastery, that brought him to Grushenka to experience first-hand the power that was within all the time...the power of love. All men, including the sinner. To me the lesson, is that no matter how base, evil and corrupt a person, there is something good within. Some little onion that person has given just once in his life ...that will be his salvation. Of course, giving the one onion is not enough, all by itself. Remember the old hag.

Hasn't your understanding of Grushenka changed dramatically from this one encounter with Alyosha. Think if the odor had never driven him out of the monastery? Could Alyosha have been much of an Apostle of Zosima's words? Did the dream make the message crystal clear to him Alyosha? Is that the miracle?

elizabeth, it is comforting to hear from our precious lurkers now and again. I regard Mortimer Adler as the patron saint here in Great Books, checking with him before each selection...no wonder he brought you out to say hello. Are you reading along with us? The action begins in earnest this coming week as we leave the monastery behind.

Three different links:

A 15th century Zosima


St. Herman, meanwhile, had been living by the river Onega. There he was approached by a young monk, Zosimas, who was in search of a spiritual instructor. St. Herman told him about Solovki and they decided to go there together. The night of their arrival Zosima had a vision of a magnificent church in the air; at the same time, the entire area appeared bathed in light.

When St, Zosimas was appointed abbot of the new community, one of his first undertakings was to have the relics of St. Sabbatius transferred to the island. This was done in 1465, thirty years after the Saint's repose; the relics were found to be incorrupt.

General information on elders and reference to Dostoevsky's prototypes
Hesychasm was imported further into Russian culture by a professor at the Novgorod seminary. Tikhon of Zadonsk (1724-1783) retired to seclusion at Zadonsk in 1769, influenced by a Lutheran mystic Johan Arndt. He is one of the models for Father Zosima in Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov (1880).

Perhaps the most revered of the 19th-century startsi is Seraphim of Sarov (1759-1833). From 1794 to 1825 he lived alone first as a forest hermit, then as a recluse in a cell. For one period of 1000 days he never sat down. In 1825 he opened his cell to the pious.



The Optina Monastery at Kozelsk played a major role in disseminating the ideals of the startsi. Starets Leonid Nagolkin (1786-1841) and Macary Ivanov (1788-1860) attracted numerous followers. Starets Macary collaborated with the Slavophil writers A.S. Khomiakov (1804-1860) and Ivan Kireevsky (1806-1856). These writers proclaimed the mission of Russian Orthodoxy to resist Western European influences then permeating Russian society.

Starets Amvrosy Grenkov (1812-1891) of Optina is thought to be the other model for Dostoevsky's Father Zosima (in The Brothers). The novelist frequently visited the monastery. His depiction of Father Zosima and of Alyosha Karamazov's devotion to him, made Russian Elders familiar to secular readers.

Through the novels of Dostoevsky and 20th century Russian thinkers in the West, like Sergei Bulgakov (1871-1944), the ideal of self-giving practiced by the Russian Elders has entered contemporary Western Christian spirituality.

TWO UNDERSTANDINGS of CHRISTIANITY THIS IS WORTH THREE MINUTES OF YOUR TIME! I PROMISE!

...that he would go to Samsenov, assuming that her patron would realize that he was over the hill and would wish to help him win Grushenka from his father....unbelievable!

...that he would get to Mme. Khoklahov, to borrow money to pay her friend, Katerina, though a very amusing scene, did make some sense. How much would she be willing to pay to separate Katerina and Dmitri? Not much it seems. I still don't understand her interest in the Ivan-Katerina-Dmitri triangle, but she doesn't seem to grasp the importance of his request, nor does she seem to care whether he repays Katerina or not.

...that he would go to his father expecting to get the 3000 rubles that belonged to him, makes NO sense. He goes to Karamazov to see if Grushenka is with him. But will he be accused of going to steal the money? He knows from Smerdy that K. plans to give that money to his "little chicken". What irony!

"Notes~
Very little is known about Zosimus. It is inferred that he was in the Eastern Roman Empire because he wrote in Greek and used Greek sources. It is commonly accepted as a work of the early sixth century.

His themes are the decline of paganism and the barbarisation of the empire - both of which caused the "fall" of the empire.Nea Historia (New History) is probably entitled in the sense of a new interpretation: I intend to show how they [the Romans] lost it [the empire] in an equally short time by their own crimes. It is thus a polemical history. Moreover, he was divorced in time and space from these British events of the late fourth and early-fifth centuries. He tends to confuse persons and events; he has been described as both moon-struck and muddle-headed by EA Thompson. Book Six is believed to an unfinished and unrevised draft - at least one historian has suggested that Zosimus died in the midst of compiling it.

Nevertheless these entries are useful confirmation of the Gallic Chronicle entry for 410. Constantine's tyranny spanned the years 407-411; it is likely that the attack occurred late rather than early in this period but from Zosimus we can be no more precise." Zosimus

Faith, do you suppose you consider Dmitri the "hero", albeit a tragic hero, because he exhibits more human traits than Alyosha? I've seen nothing that hints he is less than an honorable man ...except that hot head of his...and the drinking. There was an interesting article in the newspaper last week about the Russians and vodka...let me find it. You have to wonder if not for the vodka how much of Dmitri's bad behavior could have been avoided...

"Discussion of the books is a big part of the learning process. “Solitary reading is as horrible as solitary drinking.”

The only emotion she expresses is fear at the sight of Dmitri. By the end of this chapter, she seems to indicate that she loves him. What changes her mind about him?

Jo, I like your explanation as to why G. is playing with her boy-toy, Kalganov. He reminds her of her own youthful innocence in some ways too, don't you think? I was a bit worried throughout this scene that she would throw herself at Kalganov, (in Dmitri's presence), trying to recapture her lost youth. Who is Kalganov, by the way? Is he the young man who was with Pyotr Miusov in Zosima's cell in Book I? I remember the name, but am not attaching a face...

This whole chapter...a great movie scene, don't you think? Will make a note to look for it in the video. It is comedy again. How does Dos. manage to incorporate these humorous scenes into what I've always thought of as a heavy Russian novel? Was Crime and Punishment like this? Was high comedy interspersed amidst the angst?

December 8, 1879

Again I am terribly at fault toward you and the Russian Herald" the ninth Book of the Karamzovs that I so positively promised for December - I cannot send in December. The reason is - I have workied so hard I have become ill, that the them o the book (A Preliminary Investigation) has stretched out and become more complex, and mainly, mainly- that this book has turned out for me to be one of the most important in the novel and demands (I can see it) such careful polishing that if I shortened it or messed it up I would harm myself as a writer now and forever. And even the idea of my novel would suffer and it is dear to me.

Everyone is reading my novel. I receive letters abut it, the young are reading it, high society reads it, critics praise or abuse it, and I have never had such success, to judge by the effect it has made. That is why I want to finish it well.

"...I originally wanted to limit myself to a judicial inquiry at the trial. But discussing the matter with a certain prosecutor who has wide experience, I suddenly noticed that a whole part of our criminal trials, an extremely curious and extremely hobbling part (a sore spot of our criminal trials) would disappear completely without a trace, from the novel.. That part of the trial is called The Preliminary Investigation, with it's old-fashioned routine and new abstraction in the figures of our young advocates, district attorneys, etc.

...Moreover, I will mark Mitya Karamazov's character even more strongly: he purifies his heart and conscience under the threat of misfortune and false accusation. He accepts punishment in his heart not for what he has done, but for being so dissipated that he could have, and wanted to commit the crime..."

"I think Kalganov was perhaps enthralled with some notions of the perfectibility of human nature, which he might have received from a variety of sources. We are living his disillusionment. "

I like your interpretation(s) of Mitya's dream. He underwent a rebirth through the torments and one of them was certainly his fear of having killed Grigory. This fear brought back the memory of being a babe himself in elderly Grigory's care and that of his wife. By undergoing torments, dreaming of a babe in an 'old' woman's arms, Mitya may feel that he has a new life waiting for him and a second chance to be a better man.

Having been brought so low, Mitya now sees and feels the suffering of others. He has gone beyond his basically sensual identity to something else -- the soul, I think, although I can't see Mitya abandoning the physical. Would this make him higher up the ladder to salvation than Aloysha? I don't know, but I do see Mitya as becoming a more complete human being.

Perhaps it is better to think that he has added a dimension to his character and Mitya can enter into active love. He not only sees himself as the suffering babe but others as well. He wants to alleviate this suffering and I believe this is empathy rather than pity. Pity is demeaning since it separates people into "us" and "them" while Mitya sees himself and humanity together in the'babe.'

Henry, I appreciate your comment "I think what most of us do is just find something that interests us and jump in. It's the only method of testing a hunch." I am one of those people who discovers what I'm thinking by writing things out and then revising my words/thoughts along with the help of friends.

--Marvelle

"He felt a passion of pity, he wanted to do something for them all and he wanted to do it at once, regardless of all obstacles with all the Karamazov recklessness."

"His face was in reality, by no means "hideous", on the contrary, it was rather attractive, with a fair, pale skin, freckled."

"What interests me particulary in your letter is that you love children, have lived among children a great deal, and do so even now.
Here then is my request. I have conceived and will soon start writing a large novel where , among other things, children, particularly youngsters aged approximately seven to fifteen, will play a great role. Many children will be introduced. I am studying them and have studied them all my life, and love them dearly, and have children myself." * But the observations of a man like yourself would be very valuable to me. So write me about children-everything you know"(hahaha, that strikes me as being such a funny request to write to a teacher!) "Both about Petersburg childern and Elizavetgrad children, and about whatever you know. (Incidents, habits, answers, sayings, and puns, traits, relation to the family, misdeeds and innocence. their nature and the teacher, Latin, etc., etc., -in short, all you know."

* Dostoevsky's little 3 year-old son, Alyosha died three months after he wrote this letter from a "sudden attack of epilepsy."

The other thing I notice as I reread the goose story is the shared guilt. Zosima's idea that everyone is guilty for the sins of others comes up again. Kolya is just as guilty as Smerdy of putting a child or a peasant up to a prank that will of course cause suffering to an animal. Smerdy has an excuse (his miserable life)...but what motivates Kolya to trick the peasant into breaking that goose's neck? He is as unfeeling as Smerdy! (I still can't imagine how Smerdy knows these boys.)

Kolya sends mixed messages regarding his feelings about the peasants.

"I'm always on the side of peasantry, you know."
"I like talking to the peasants."
"We've dropped behind the peasants, you know."
"I believe in the people amd am always glad to give them their due, but I am not for spoiling them."
"So I turned to the fool..., he looked at me quite stupidly...

What I most admire about Dos is his psychological knowledge of people and how he is able to represent many sides to a character, both good and bad, such as Kolya. First, Alyosha's analysis of Kolya in Chapter VI "Precocity" which may mirrors Dos' analysis:

"...nearly all clever people now are fearfully afraid of being ridiculous, and that makes them unhappy. . . . The devil has taken the form of that vanity and entered into the whole generation . . . . You are like everyone else (only) you are not ashamed to confess to something bad and even ridiculous. And people have even ceased to feel the impulse to self-critcism."

This is where I suddenly recognized Aloysha's ministry with the children because he knows they are Russia's future. He is a natural for this task since he treats children seriously, calms their fears, and listens to them.

Dos' tells and shows us the main characteristics of Kolya. Kola's mother was so devoted to him that at school the boys taunted him with being a 'mama's boy' but Kolya "could hold his own. . . (he was) resolute, agile, strong-willed, and of an audacious and enterprising temper. . . . (He was) very, very fond of mischief and not so much for the sake of mischief as for creating a sensation . . . . He was extremely vain. He knew how to make even his mother give way to him."

One of the most telling aspects of Kolya's nature is that while he loves his mother he dislikes "sheepish sentimentality" and he goes to extremes to hide his passions and feelings in public.

Kolya, true to his nature, would not admit to such sentimental action except to Ilyusha. I thought that the dog was Zhuchka/Perezvon because of the markings and the dog is "blind in one eye and the left ear is torn."

Was Kolya heartless? In his coldness to Ilyusha -- especially after the pin-dog incident -- yes, he was heartless. Does he feel remorse? Yes, certainly. As a child he is a little too fond of dramas and 'sensations.' One hopes that he has learned the lesson that sometimes sensations are inappropriate and even harmful.

I judged Ratty negatively in my previous post. Who knows, I may regret my statement later on in the book. Such is life in the world of Dos!

Henry, I love reading about Italy. My paternal grandparents came from Slovenia which at that time included Frujili, a section now of Italy. There is still debate about the language and culture of Slovenia, but many scholars believe that the ancients of northeastern Italy had a strong influence. I will look up the Barzini book "The Italians" at the library.

-- Marvelle

I suspect that an older and hopefully wiser Kolya would have had a prominent place in the book that was planned to follow the Brothers K but that is only a suspicion.

-- Marvelle

The different ways of striking Church bells in Russian Orthodoxy
"Perezvon" ("Chain-Peal") This is the striking of each bell several times beginning with the largest bell and proceeding to the smallest bell. This chain is repeated as long as necessary. This is used before any Blessing of Water"

That is a good point, Maryal, that Kolya is intelligent but at 13 is not emotionally mature. I can't condemn his traits now but if he were an adult...?

Adults who feel inadequate -- of lacking qualities or talent -- can overreach themselves defensively. They can become sarcastic and bullies as a shield against the world. Despite the fact that I understand the cause of their actions, I dislike such people and shun their company. (I take my cue from native cultures who shun these distastful, sometimes evil, personalities.) Bad behavior is tedious, boring, unattractive and sarcastic bullies not worth my time. Is this your reaction Joan? Is this why you dislike Kolya? I can't feel that way about him yet. Kolya as an adult bully is another matter.

Kolya at 13 is trying for the scientific and abstract approach to life and that is dangerous as well as emotionally and spiritually deadening. The one contact Kolya has with his father is through his father's collection of books. These books have influenced him and not always positively. I wonder about the books and what their selection says about the father. Are they all revolutionary and scientific?

Alyosha is the perfect father-substitute since he accepts Kolya, listens to him, and has patience. Kolya the child has many good qualities, including I still say a good heart and fondness for Ilyusha. Kolya swaggers about yet Alyosha sees the timidity and self-critical nature underneath the thin layer of bluster. Alyosha may be the influence on Kolya that is needed.

Kolya may yet learn that self-control does not mean avoiding a display of emotion and that total control of others is wrong; he could listen to his heart and not just his head. He has a lot of growing up to do. There is a lot of potential in Kolya, both good and bad.

Yes, there are a lot of widows and wives without husbands. I hadn't really thought of that before. Why would that be? The State (shades of control and bullying!) which censors, jails, banishes and even executes radicals? The difficulties of earning a living that takes an early toll on the Russian men of that time, and which is true today also? Other reasons?

-- Marvelle

A bully who becomes a leader at whatever stage in life is very admirable and this is what I'm hoping Kolya will become. (Here I'm talking as if he is REAL! That is the power of Dos' writing.)

-- Marvelle

Kolya to Alyosha, "Medicine's a fraud. Doctors are rogues ~ a whole crew of quacks...collectively a useless institution."

Katerina has sent for him for "another object", which we find in Book 11 is to take part in Dmitri's defense...his "aberration". Is he supposed to be a psychiatrist? He's there while in town to see Dmitri, (maybe Smerdy too?), at great expense to Katerina. She sends him to Ilyusha.

He thinks there must be some mistake as he regards laundry hanging on a line in the corner of the room...afraid to take off his big bearskin coat, "squeamish, looking almost angry, disgusted."

After examining Ilusha, he announces that he can't do anything for him. "I'm not God." He adds that Ily. should be taken to Syracuse, and the other family members should take the waters elsewhere. "That is the answer of medical science."

Hmmmm, things don't look good for Dmitri, if this man is supposed to provide his defense. An "aberration". It sounds like the plea will be temporary insanity to me. I don't think that Dmitri will consent to use this as a defense though. The guy is innocent, but guilty of wishing his father dead. He will accept the punishment for the death of his father because he wished him dead and is therefore guilty.

It sounds as if the planned defense will be that all crime is permissable when one is temporarily upset. This is close to Ivan's earlier statement...if you don't believe in immortality, there is no crime. Dimitri believes in immortality...

Grushenka, ill for five weeks (unconscious for one whole week!) ~ vows to maked things "hot" for Katerina at the trial. What is this about? Why is she still furious with her? Grushenka won! What can she do to Katerina at the trial?

Mme. K, also ailing, swollen foot, "lounging in 'fascinating dishabille". Rakitin squeezed her hand and her foot began to swell! hahaha! Maryal, I agree, Dos. had such fun with this character...comic relief! I look forward to the movie when we are through. She indicates that Mitaya's defense will the the "aberration" and that he will be convicted and sent to Siberia. Her testimony should prove damaging.

Lise - another ailing female...but what's this? She walks? Is this a Zosima miracle, Marvelle asks? Does anyone else know she's walking? What dreadful secret is she keeping? Why is Ivan visiting her? I cannot begin to imagine how she became involved, but she clearly knows something!

Katerina - she appears strong, she's the one who has sent for the doctor who "finds mad men", but she is anguishing over her testimony at the trial...knowing that she has the power to save or convict Dmitri. She begs Ivan to make up her mind for her. What can this mysterious document be that she has in her possession? Why does Dmitri fear her testimony? She' so upset, I'll bet that she's ill by morning!

Dostoyevsky was out of favor during much of the Stalinist period because he was an outspoken foe of socialism and fervent Christian. Yet abroad, his reputation continued to grow. He was seen as a prophet of the evils which followed in the wake of the Bolshevik Revolution, as a psychologist who anticipated many of the most striking discoveries of Sigmund Freud, and as a welcome challenger to the pervasive celebration of modernity so characteristic of the period 1850-1960. Despite his anti-modernism, Dostoyevsky still speaks directly to many readers in ways that most of his contemporaries do not. In post-Communist Russia he is again celebrated as a national treasure, just as he is revered as a classic abroad. Dostoevsky ...anti-modernism

Thanks Joan, for the research. It does seem that psychology wasn't a separate profession during Dos' time which is what I wondered. So it didn't require any special training to qualify as a 'brain' doctor. However, the doctor in Brothers K shows that certain fashionable MDs specialized in the delicate nervous systems of the upper class. They, unlike Ilyusha, could afford to be told to take their vapors to the baths in Italy or wherever.

The doctor didn't know much about practical medicine and was hopeless at treating the seriously ill Ilyusha. I certainly don't have a good feeling about his 'other' patient that he was originally sent to see. Will Madame's secondhand theory of an aberration hold?

Thankfully, doctors now are better qualified then what we see in this book. Dos' fictional doctor is a far cry from today's MDs and psychologists (yet even today many experts argue that psych. is not a science.)

-- Marvelle

You summation of the "professional psychology" in Dos' novel helps clarify things for me. I remember how my professors in psych classes always brought up the old debate with a slight bemusement -- "is it or is it not a science." Maybe its doctors like the one Dos presented to us and the 'bad air' theorists that have caused such widespread mistrust.

Dmitri believes that through Rakitin's newspaper he can spread his 'new man' message. Also, because of the talks, these new ideas are reinforced within Mitya. That way he wont lose the ecstasy and belief. I think that's why Mitya sees Ratty in prison.

He intends that Ratty will be his messenger rather than a convert (whatever Mitya's initial hope for the other man). However, we all know that Ratty can't be trusted to say anything straight.

-- Marvelle

"Throughout, Dos seems to hold his day's practicioners of medicine of any sort in the heartiest disdain."

I watched the telly last week and there was a show called "Big Brother 2" which is swarming with narcissists. The worst call themselves 'Chill Town' and they are self-centered, destructive, and childishly selfish. Ratty would feel at home.

--Marvelle

I found out that Skotoprigonyevsky is fictious but was modeled after Staraya Russa, the third major town in the Novgorod region. Dos lived in the town for long periods in his last years of life and it was there that he wrote the greater part of The Brothers K. There is a Dos Museum in town.

According to the encyclopedia, Staraya Russa is in the west near Lake Llmen. Its a health resort with salt springs and mud baths. I checked out recent conditions of the town and the economy is based on food processing plants (stockyards!) and the soil is clay, often wet and swampy. Maybe Dos went there for the (healthful) baths?

1910 Photos of Staraya Russa

-- Marvelle

"If they drive God from the earth, we shall shelter him in the underground. One cannot exist in prison without God. For whom is man going to love then? To whom will he sing the hymn."

This is one of writing's more famous quotes and I began to see it was Gogol creating that familiar deja vu feeling, a sense of an echo, when I read Brothers K. Something I always enjoy in great writing is the expert use of metaphor, symbolis, and allusions. It adds layers of meaning to a work.

Right about the time of Smerdy's guitar playing, our fearless discussion leaders asked where Smerdy learned this behavior. At the time I thought he was imitating the upper classes but I read back into the book until I came to another source. Pater K loaned Smerdy the Gogol book "Evenings at the Farm Near Dikan'ka," a collection of short stories which had elements of Ukranian folklore. Smerdy read the book, 10 pages of history, and then read no more from that bookcase. Rather than being uninterested, Smerdy had absorbed what he needed. What he absorbed was dangerous and it was here that Smerdy began to 'contemplate' as Dos tells us (Book 3 Chap 7).

This Gogol influence is still pertinent in the book because it continues from beginning to end and you can see many allusions to Gogol's work as well as to Gogol himself. Gogol was the inspiration for the writers of realism even though his tales -- including 'Overcoat' and 'The Nose' -- were often fantastical. His works protested slavery, tyranny, inequality, and injustice. His dark humor had an enormous destructive power.

Dostoevsky took many of Gogol's ideas and techniques and turned them into his own unique style -- shifting narrators, doubles, topsy-turvy worlds, searching for the very origins of evil, and the physical manifestation of the Devil.

Portrait of Nikolay Gogol

Biography of Gogol

One of the Gogol Stories that Smerdy Read

I've read much of Gogol but not "Evenings ..." so I had to find this book and read it. His works outside of "Evenings" such as 'The Overcoat' are, of course, well known. 'The Nose,' which is a very peculiar story, actually was made into an opera by Dmitri Shostakovich. This I've never seen but it has to be a strange opera. As Alf said, "Good Lord! Is anyone normal in this story?"

-- Marvelle

It doesn't appear as if our cast of characters is suffering from smallpox.  Smallpox is a highly contagious viral disease.  As ugly as they all appear, there's been no mention of any pustules (the pox) on their being. I just thought of something.  Remember when Father Z's body lay decomposing and foul smelling?  I remember thinking at the time, that the mention of this was in reference to the foul, offensive nature of man.  Could Dos be portraying our characters to be afflicted with different ailments, seizures, temperatures and various maladies to depict the fact that man is contaminated and miserable?  Is he saying that man is unsound and "plagued" with an unwholesome blight- a contamination of all different sorts?  He has truly shown impurity in epidemic proportions with the likes of Ratty, smerdy and a few others.

Whatever you may say
I shall go far away.
Life will be bright and gay
In the city far away.
I shall not grieve,
I shall not grieve at all
I don't intend to grieve at all.

Alf sees the odor of Zosima's body as a Dos reference to the foul, offensive nature of man while Joan says that the village's sick people suffer a spirtual shortcoming but that Zosima's odor of corruption was very different. My perspective focuses on the physical rather than the spiritual.

Whether a miracle could, did, or did not happen is not up to me to decide. Points to consider about that "odor of corruption":

-- Zosima died in the height of summer

-- his body was placed in a casket (no chance of a breeze within that casket)

-- the casket was in a closed, stuffy room (remember, the windows were tightly shut)

-- throngs of people loitered within that room

So the room temperature would increase dramatically.

In addition, Zosima was a relatively inactive old man, with a past history of drinking(?). All of these conditions naturally accelerate decomposition of the body. This "odor of corruption" is only a natural process of life into death. Zosima shouldn't be judged by his society merely on the state of his dead body.

At the same time, I agree with Alf's thoughts about the symbolic meaning of a decaying body. Both the spiritual and physical could easily have been intended by Dos. As we know by now, Dos is able to convey multiple meanings. I think he wanted there to be unanswerable mysteries to his story just as there is mystery in our own day-to-day lives.

Yikes! Henry, we were posting at the same time about the weather (sort of). Well we had very different subjects.

-- Marvelle

What I found interesting in this portrayal of the Devil was the contrast between his humanity with the portrayal of the Demon of the Grand Inquisitor scene where Ivan plays the Devil's advocate! Here we find Ivan trembling in fear before this demon in peasant's garb!

Odors, stink, stench, corruption......the stinking stockyard /food-rendering town, references again to the stinking Lizaveta and Smerdy's cochroach-infested sickroom, filthy bedding, dressing gown and ...euuuwwww his used handkerchief!

Marvelle's analysis of natural reasons why Zosima's body began to reek...makes perfect sense. But to the folks looking for a miracle, sweet perfume as Maryal describes, odor signified corruption of the spirit. That's what I sense in Smerdy's sickroom.

To me, the Zosima miracle was the absence of odor when Alyosha returned to the cell. Given the environment, his body quickly decayed for all those physical reasons Marvelle describes, but such decay never reverses itself...rather it accelerates and the stench becomes overbearing. A little night air would have done little to stop it. Wasn't this a miracle?

I was amazed at the care Dos. took in presenting Smerdy's stinky room...even the tint of blue shade, (sky-blue) of the peeling wallpaper in his sickroom! For some reason I thought of Dos, who supposedly was ill much of the time he worked on these chapters...I thought of him lying there in his bed, staring at the peeling sky-blue wallpaper in his own room.

But you may have other ideas as to why Dos. took such pains to describe the detail in Smerdy's room?

I noted his impressionable nature first when he read Gogol's book of short stories followed by a period of ominous contemplation. It is here that I think Pater K's murder was half-way formed by Smerdy. Then Ivan gave subconsciously his stamp of approval with the saying "all is permitted."

Take a look at the story "A May Evening" which prompted Smerdy to go courting with a guitar. There is more then just courting in the Gogol story. In "May" a young man, a Cossack, plays a guitar while courting his young love who lives with her old, widowed father. The father disapproves of the young man's intent to marry his daughter, Hahn, and the Cossack tells her of the old man's disapproval.

Then suddenly the whole tone of the Gogol story undergoes a change. The Cossack tells Hahn a folktale about the nearby boarded up house next to a dark woods and the former occupants -- a beloved daughter, her old father, and his new young wife. There is jealousy, attempted murder, the girl is disinherited by her father, turned out of the house, and reduced to poverty. She kills herself.

This is the Cossack's folktale. Then he -- shade of the devil -- leaves Hahn to consider the supposed moral of the tale. Alone, Hahn looks at the boarded up house and a 'great fiery ball rose slowly from the shadows, and seemed to fill the earth with a triumphant splendor.' This fiery ball seems to me to be the devil's triumph as a murderous idea is formed in Hahn's mind.

This is only one of the stories in the Gogol book. Another one is called "The Lost Letter."

I think Smerdy was influenced by the Gogol book and by Ivan's declaration of "all is permitted." He was even puzzled that Ivan denies, all too weakly, his own collusion. Dos had even brought the devil to Ivan and probably Smerdy (Ivan's double?) who was looking up French words.

Of course the Brothers K permits multiple interpretations just as in everyday life!

-- Marvelle

"Oh no; there are people of deep feeling who have been somehow - crushed. Buffoonery in them is a form of resentful irony against those to whom they daren't speak the truth from having been for years humiliated and intimidated by them."

On the symbolic side, Smerdy's suicide might relate to his being Ivan's double. In order for Ivan to become a 'new man,' as with Dmitri, the earlier man must be overcome. As the new Ivan gains strenth, the previous Ivan (and Smerdy his double) must cease to exist.

-- Marvelle

Gogol is referenced in many parts of Brothers K (among other writers) but has the strongest link with Smerdy and Ivan. Of course Gogol was a great influence on Dos but did Dos entirely approve of Gogol's writing? Gogol decided that his own work was evil after he came under the influence of an eccentric monk. (Ths monk I think was the model for the holy fool Father Ferapont.) Gogol destroyed his last work and starved himself to death. I think we see the two sides of Gogol and his art in the combined personalities of Smerdy and Ivan. Faith, the double has haunted me too while I read Brothers K. So hard to put into words.

I'm trying to figure this out as I write. I feel that understanding Smerdy and Ivan is linked to Gogol. Right now this understanding is just beyond my grasp. What was Dos' final analysis of Gogol?

I loved the nose incident which caused the devil so much trouble. Ivan asks the devil if he ever failed in tempting holy fools, did he ever get his nose pulled. The devil responds with the wandering nose tale (lack of rank) and how the unfortunate man, whose nose deserted him, eventually shot himself. Was this how the devil (in Ivan's mind) revealed that Smerdy committed suicide? Why then this story of the loss of rank and how does it fit in with the climax of Smerdy and Ivan's problems?

Is revenge a part of the reason for Smerdy's suicide as Nellie suggests? It would certainly fit in with Smerdy's viciousness.

Also, as Joan asks, what caused Ivan to change from "everything is permitted?" Why does he go mad? I remember earmarking the page of Ivan's first headache. Maybe there lies an answer. I don't know. I'm thinking aloud -- in writing -- again. These bits of thought need to be pulled together. I'm so disorganized tonight.

-- Marvelle

" From Saint Isaac the Syrian: "As a handful of sand thrown into the ocean, so are the sins of all flesh as compared with the mind of God."

"Just as a strongly flowing fountain is not blocked up by a handful of earth, so the compassion of the Creator is not overcome by the wickedness of his creatures."

"Someone who bears a grudge while he prays is like a person who sows in the sea and expects to reap a harvest."

Gogol wears a series of neurotic masks, speaking indirectly through bizarre, twisted characters, who lived in the lower reaches of Russian society. They often take the "worm's eye view" of the confident, bored world set forth by Pushkin, Lermontov, and other writers of the earlier generation.

But this potentially tragic and depressing view is nearly always slanted by Gogol's satire, his manic sense of the absurd and the grotestque.

In Gogol's world we suddenly see how much more complicated life can be; the dark side of the force looms in the background constantly and on occasion lurches forward to envelope us completely, to the sound of screaming laughter. Gogol prepares the way for Dostoevsky, who learned from him, but moved away from his lunatic humor and focused much more forcefully on the psychological analysis of crippled and embittered personalities. Dostoevsky, however, does continue and develop Gogol's concern about moral and religious values, and specifically shares the earlier writer's conviction that literature must carry a special burden, it must portray a quest for spiritual (Christian) salvation. http://www.gened.arizona.edu/atheneum/gogol.htm

Remember what the devil told Ivan in his Nightmare? "...hesitation, suspense, conflict between belief and disbelief -- is sometimes such torture to a conscientious man, such as you are, that it's better to hang oneself at once." So does Smerdy, the double for Ivan, feel that same torture? Was he torn between disbelief and belief? I can see this being the despair. He was confident that the court would never believe Ivan's accusation and was not worried on that account.

Now I understand about Gogol's "The Nose" and the devil's retelling of the story. It is about the lack of rank, of social position and this fear affected Ivan and Smerdy. More thoughts on this soon.

--Marvelle

We already know that Smerdy wants to be a gentleman. He doesn't have a social position which he feels he should have but Ivan's fear is more difficult to discover. First, go back to Ivan's first headache which highlights his fear of loss of social position/rank. This is in Book 3 Chap VIII "Over the Brandy" when Ivan during dinner, who was supposed to mediate between Dmitri and their father, gets angry at his father's apparent denial of Ivan's parentage (re his mother). ' "But she was my mother too, I believe, his mother. Was she not?" said Ivan, with uncontrolled anger and contempt. The old man shrank before his flashing eyes.'

In the following chapter (Chap IX The Sensualists): During that same dinner after a violent episode between Dmitri and Pater K, Ivan 'with a malignant grimace' says "One viper will devour the other. And serve them both right, too. . . . Of course I won't let him be murdered . . . . My head's begun to ache." This is where the conflict within Ivan begins, when he mentions the thought of murder. This is his struggle between good and evil.

Ivan's 2nd headache in Book 5 Pro and Contra

In Chapt V Ivan tells Alyosha the story of the Grand Inquisitor then as he walks away, Alyosha notices that Ivan is physically lopsided which stands symbolically for his moral wavering. Chap VI "For a While a Very Obscure One" is where we learn that Ivan has had many philosophical talks previously with Smerdy. Here is where Smerdy suggests the possibility of Pater K's death, that Ivan should leave town for a while, and a tacit 'agreement' is implied and accepted.

Chapt VII "It's Always Worthwhile Speaking to a Clever Man" -- alone after this latest conversation with Smerdy, Ivan "sat up late that night...there were no thoughts in his brain, but something very vague, and above all, intense excitement." He wanted to beat Smerdyakov without being able to say why just that "he loathed the lackey as one who had insulted him..." But Ivan also was "overcome by a sort of inexplicable humuliating terror... (and)his head ached and he was giddy. A feeling of hatred was rankling in his heart, as though he meant to avenge himself on someone." That someone I believe is his father and the vengence against a lifetime of neglect and the threat of being denied status as Pater K's son.

Ivan's headache then is the physical torment as a result of conflict between his conscience and the submerged desire for murder. This murderous thought starts when Pater K is so casual about Ivan's lineage. It is about the loss of rank which is important today but even more so in the Russia of Dos' time. (I justed learned that a man of illegitimate birth cannot fight a duel of honor because European society said that he had no honor to defend due to the nature of his birth. Shades of Smerdy!)

Smerdy understood Ivan's social pride very well. In Book Eleven, Chapter VIII "The Last Interview with Smerdykov": Smerdy tells Ivan that because he had Ivan's approval of the murder and theft "you would have protected me from others . . . . And when you got your inheritance you would have rewarded me when you were able, all the rest of your life. For you'd have received your inheritance through me, sir, seeing that if he (Pater K) had married Agrafena Alexandrovna, you wouldn't have had a cent."

This ties in to Ivan's anger at Pater K's forgetfulness of being his father. Pater K would easily disinherit him and Ivan had a lot of social pride. It also shows that Smerdy felt that he would be elevated socially by Ivan. So Ivan would not lose social rank and Smerdy would gain social rank.

Smerdy analyzes Ivan's character in this same chapter and this analysis also applies to Smerdy who is Ivan's double. "You are very clever, sir. You are fond of money, I know that, sir. You like to be respected, too, for you're very proud . . . you care most of all about living in undisturbed comfort, without having to bow to anyone --that's what you care most about. You won't want to spoil your life forever by taking such a disgrace on yourself."

So the devil's story of the young man who hanged himself because of loss of face (literally, without his nose) is about Smerdy's suicide and the social fears of both himself and Ivan. They are proud and need to have a place in society or they are nothing. That is what Gogol's story is about -- without rank in Russian society a man is nothing, he does not exist. What a harsh society! Are we today so much better?

The question is, why didn't Ivan kill himself? Did his decision to confess and save Dmitri, his brother and rival in love to Katerina -- did that mean a step forward toward morality, salvation, god . . .? Perhaps it means that he has begun to pay attention to his heart and not just his mind. In which case there is hope and with hope there is a future even for someone who still has to wrestle with the conflict between good and bad (which we all do).

I don't know about this reason for Ivan's will to live. Certainly he has suffered by his actions and continues to suffer in his tormented mind. He hasn't found peace. Is it just that his double, his other half, has died for the both of them? What else? I am confused about this last question of why someone commits suicide and others don't. Since I'm in a muddle here, I'll leave it to someone else who sees more clearly than I do. The one thing I'm sure about (well, pretty sure) is that the lesson of Gogol's "The Nose" is what motivated Ivan and Smerdy.

-- Marvelle

Faith, can you explain more about doubles within doubles? Sounds fascinating and important to Dos' book. Joan, loved the links to Gogol and information on the book in Smerdy's room. Could Dos have packed any more meaning, allusions, symbols, metaphors into his book?

-- Marvelle

Now from everyone's comments I also have a clearer picture of Smerdy who has become something more than just a vicious murderer. Smerdy had hopes and aspirations, he was lonely, he wanted to belong in society, he was financially poor and intellectually starved, he was ill and knew he was dying. Perhaps Smerdy's last impossible hope was Ivan who rejected him and his hideous crime.

Thinking of Smerdy's room now -- cockroaches rustling behind the torn blue wallpaper, dented samovar, the geraniums, Smerdy's spectacles, dirty handkerchief, and the saint's book as Grigory's memento -- thinking of Smerdy's room makes me sad.

-- Marvelle

"Listen, in dreams and especially in nightmares, from indigestion or anything, a man sometimes sees such artistic visions, such complex and real actuality, such events, even a whole world of events, woven into such a plot, with such unexpected details from the most exalted matters to the last button on a cuff, as I swear Leo Tolstoy could not write. Yet such dreams are sometimes seen not by writers, but by the most ordinary people..."

Joan says that Dos "portrays the battle for the human heart". How beautifully put. That's really what we're reading, this universal story of good and evil and all the in-betweens. (I hope there is a Tolstoy expert because I'd love to see Tolstoy's devil. I wonder if he speaks French.)

I agree that Dos had gone as far as he could with Smerdy. However, our indepth look at a peasant struggling against class injustice will be important later in the book. Seeing Smerdy's boxed-in situation, I don't wonder that the upper classes were frightened of the freed serfs.

-- Marvelle

August 10, 1880

I consider the 6th, 7th, and 8th chapters of Book 11 successful...Regarding the 9th chapter, (the Devil)...I really did not want to be eccentric. I am duty bound to tell you that I have gotten opinions from doctors (more than one) long ago. They confirm that not only similar nightmares but even hallucinations are possible before "brain fever."

My hero, of course, also sees hallucinations, but he confuses them with his nightmares. This is not only a physical (diseased) trait, when a man begins at times to stop differentiating between reality and the imagined (which has happened to everyone at least once a lifetime), but it is also a spirtiual trait, corresponding to the hero's character: denying the reality of the phantom, he insists on its reality when the phantom disappears. Tormented by disbelief, he (unconsciously) at th same time wishes that the phantom were something real and not a fantasy.

...forgive me my Devil, it's only a devil, a petty devil, and not Satan with "fallen wings." ...I don't think anything else my devil prattles would raise objections from the censor.

I think Ivan's spiritual state is adequately explained in the tenth and last chapter, and therefore the nightmare in the ninth is, too. I again repeat that I checked the medical condition with doctors.

-- Marvelle

Alf and Jo' s thoughts link, in my mind, our devil and Smerdy's fall and Ivan's redemption. Tolstoy's devil is another matter as Joan hinted.

Here is my theory based on info from the net and in my books:

Tolstoy is a model, maybe the primary model, for Father Ferapont. According to the following Tolstoy Biography he was an aristocrat plauged by debauchery, contracted veneral disease, gambled, married and had 13 children, underwent a religious conversion/crisis, and was excommunicated from the Orthodox Church.

Images of Leo Tolstoy

The devil appears in much of Tolstoy's work in many guises -- as a tempting woman hiding behind a door in the novella "Father Sergius," as a peasant mistress in "The Devil," and a devil sitting behind a stove in "How Much Land Does A Man Need?" and so on.

Works by Tolstoy

The devils are often a female temptress or greed of property. In the original text of "The Devil", translated to English, the preface is Matthew v. 28, 29, 30. In this story a rich landowner can't get rid of his lust for a peasant woman and he muses "Really she is -- a devil. Simply a devil. She has possessed herself of me against my own will. Kill? Yes, there are only two ways out: to kill my wife or her." So His lust is Her fault and the solution is to kill a woman. There are two variant endings to the story. In one he kills himself, in the other he kills a woman and is judged temporarily insane and has to perform church penance.

Another minor devil (chert means devil in Russian) is Tolstoy's secretary Vladimir Chertkov who denied Tolstoy's wife the right to see her dying husband in his last days.

Tolstoy once said "to consider (Christ) a God and pray to (Him), I esteem greatest blasphemy..." (R. F. Christian, 'Tolstoy: A Critical Introduction' 269). His contemporary Dos, who considered Anna Karinena to be a great work, realized "where Tolstoyian thought would lead -- to a Christianity without Christ." (quoted by George Steiner 'Tolstoy or Dostoevsky' 326).

Another contemporary was Anton Chekhov who, like Dos, had ambivalent feelings about Tolstoy. He admired the master writer but not the later religious philosopher. In a letter to A. S. Souvorin in 1894, Chekhov wrote:

"Tolstoy's morality has ceased to touch me . . . . I have peasant blood in my veins, and you won't astonish me with peasant virtues. . . . Something in me protests, reason and justice tell me that in the electricity and heat of love for man there is something greater than chastity and abstinence from meat. (But) it is not a matter of pro and con; the thing is that one way or another Tolstoy has passed for me."

Now, Dos and Chekhov are not denying the genius of Tolstoy in "Anna Karenina" and "Kreutzer Sonata" but they have no interest in the later Tolstoy. Although I see Tolstoy as Father Ferapont easily, I can also see him, in a small way, as Father Zosima -- the Zosima of 'love your enemies.' There had to be other and more important models for Zosima but its intriguing to think that the double of Zosima/Ferapont can also be Tolstoy/Tolstoy.

Remember this is theory only. I hope to hear other ideas.

-- Marvelle

-- Marvelle

Religious Variables in Mortality

There has been a lot of research suggesting that being religious is good for a person's health. Now, a study suggests that struggling with religious beliefs during an illness diminishes the chances of recovering.

Kenneth I. Pargament of Duke University and colleagues questioned and followed 596 older patients from 1996 to 1997. Patients who reported that they "felt alienated from or unloved by God and attributed their illness to the devil" had a 19 percent to 28 percent increase in the risk of dying, the researchers reported in the Aug. 13-27 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine. That was the case even after the researchers accounted for the patients' relative health, mental health and demographic status.

"To our knowledge, this is the first empirical study to identify religious variables that increase the risk of mortality," the researchers wrote.

The researchers speculated that there could be a variety of explanations for the findings. A religious struggle could somehow directly affect health, perhaps by affecting the immune system. Or it could be that people who would tend to have such struggles would also tend to have emotional or personality differences, or more stress, anxiety and depression.

"Expressions of dissatisfaction, confusion and discontent with God and religion are not normative in the United States. . . . Thus, individuals who voice religious dissatisfaction and discontent in the midst of their illnesses may alienate themselves from the support and caring of family, friends, clergy and health professionals," researchers wrote.

"Clearly, additional research is needed to examine these and other potential mediating variables," they wrote. "Further research is needed to determine whether interventions that reduce religious struggles might also improve medical prognosis."

-- Compiled from reports by Rob Stein

Illness and the Devil

I doubt that the peasants would see Mitya as a victim of circumstance. When they were slaves, peasants were generally thought to be of less value then the master's 'other' animals and they haven't been free long enough to forget their harsh treatment. During Mitya's torments, he was intentionally broken down bodily (naked before strangers/peasants, etc) until his concept of natural-born superiority was shaken. Now he appears in his smart outfit with black gloves? Not a smart move it he wants to win the jury. It isn't fair or right and has nothing to do with justice. I fear for Mitya except that he seems to want Siberia as a way to suffer towards salvation. It is such a Dostoevskyan idea to re-enact the original sacrifice for humanity.

-- Marvelle

"A peculiar fact...was that almost all the ladies, or, at least the vast majority of them, were on Mitya's side and in favor of his being acquitted."

"I imagine that even the ladies, who were so impationetly longing for the acquittal of the fascinating defendant, were at the same time, without exception, convinced of his guilt."

Fae, Fety is a big drawing card, isn't he? He's putting on quite a show. His biggest problem is his client, who continues the running commentary from the sidelines. I loved it when he broke down sobbying at Dr. Herzenstube's "pound of nuts" story - "I'm weeping now, German...you saintly man!"

What did you all think of the doctors' testimony? What effect do you think it had on the jury? Enough to acquit because of an aberration? Do you think this jury will buy the aberration defense?

Joan, the evidence is piling up? Maybe the moral judgment is piling up but not the "material evidence." (Dos' quotes) There is Pater K's blood stained dressing gown which proves he was injured but not necessarily by Mitya. Mitya's suicide pistol is irrelevent as 'proof' of murder. An empty envelope with its ribbon ties, and what does that prove? None of this is proof of murder.

Mitya's admission of hitting Grigory doesn't prove he murdered his father. Mitya's handkerchief, shirt and jacket with blood stains, and the brass pestle -- are all part of the Grigory incident with no link to Pater K except through imagination.

The imagination is prosecutor Ippy's weapon as he imagines, supposes, conjectures, guesses what happened, what Mitya's thoughts were and how Mitya prepared the murder. All of this proves the power of the imagination, if nothing else. The other weapon is the Karamazov nature which Ippy draws in creative detail for his audience and Mitya assists him by displaying it in court.

As for psychology -- The doctors cancel each other out but I don't think their testimony was ever intended to be taken seriously. In Dos' society, everyone can be, and is, an expert in psychology. It's used as a cheap, pretty toy which breaks easily but offers a few moments of fun.

-- Marvelle

Katya went into hysterics when Ivan "confessed" and she produces the letter to save Ivan the one she really loves. And what a wonderful chance for Katya to create a dramatic, romantic scene.

It was Katya's laceration, her pride, that caused the pretense of loving Mitya in the first place. As a martyr Katya would win social approval, attention and notoriety, by loving a scoundrel.

This martyrdom is a way to gain power and strike back at the man. Plus, Katya wouldn't have to marry due to her 'unrequited love' and could keep control of her estate which is not a small issue in a patriarchal society. Unfortunately, Ivan entered the picture and Katya may have sacrificed her madonna status and Mitya to save Ivan.

Revenge had to be another strong motive in revealing the letter but it isn't as simple as 'a woman scorned.' I think Dos is saying that personalities can become twisted -- Katya, Lise, Madame, the peasants -- if their freedom and opportunities are limited and if they're treated as inferiors. If such people are clever they frequently will subvert the power/social system however they can.

-- Marvelle

Today I'm taking time out to read the rest of the book. Dos has made the trial so alive that I hate to have it end. Can't wait to rent the video and see Brothers K in the flesh, so to speak.

-- Marvelle

Ippolit's speech, the chef d'oeurve of his life, he saw as his swan song!  Adieu, Mr. prosecutor.  This was his crowning glory, his last hurrah!  The narrator humorously tells us that "he put his whole heart and all the brain he had into his speech.  LOL. (He meets his maker nine months later.)
His speech IS fabulous and still true to this day.  We are desensitized to crime, aren't we?  Are we   cynical?  Are our moral principles shatered as he says?

Alf, the prosecutor really came alive, didn't he? I keep wondering at his description as he entered the courtroom...

"...particularly pale, almost green. His face seemed to have grown suddenly thinner, perhaps in a single night, for I had seen him looking as usual only two days before."

"No wonder that TROIKA for Russian is the symbol of national character: driving on TROIKA shows recklessness and fervor of Russian, allows to feel how boundless is Russia and to meditate on theme of unpredictable development of Russia.

Nikolay V. Gogol wrote about TROIKA: ...And what a Russian is there who doesn't love fast driving? How should his soul, that yearns to go off into a whirl, to go off on a fling, to say on occasion: "Devil take it all!"- how should his soul fail to love it? Is it nor a thing to be loved, when one can sense in it something exaltedly wondrous? (...) Eh, thou troika, thou that art a bird! Who conceived thee? ...
And art not thou, my Russia, soaring along even like a spirited, never-to-be-outdistanced troika?... Way to, then, Russia?... Give me the answer! But Russia gives none. With a wondrous ring does the jingle bell trill; the air, rent to shreds, thunders and turns to wind; all things on earth fly past and, eyeing it askance, all the other peoples and nations stand aside and give it the right of way.

Troika/Gogol

:"Can such a delicate, complex and psychological case be sumitted for decision to petty officials and even peasants?"

"What can an official, still more a peasant, understand in such an affair?"

Joan wonders if these particular peasants, during this period, can understand the nuances of psychology. The audience at the trial would say 'no'. Dos has reported some of them thinking, "can such a delicate, complex, psychological case be submitted for decision to petty officials and even peasants?" Yet how expert are the people in the audience? I think Dos is tweaking our noses, and he's telling us that everyone believes themselves to be psychology experts but that no one really is, not even the doctors.

I was not impressed by either Ippy or Fety. Ippy's case is not based on actual evidence but on fantasies of what he imagined might have happened. His speech is peppered with 'imagine, suppose, conjecture, what if' and he does various mind-readings to tell us Mitya's past thoughts. Except for the surprise letter, his case is based on supposition.

Fety should have shut up after he drilled holes in the prosecutor's airy evidence. Instead the last half of his speech is "so my client murdered his father. wasn't he justified?" Fety is solidly planting the idea that Mitya is a murderer. Why? Well, Dos needed another Grand Inquisitor to speak philosophically. Also, I believe that Fety wants his speech to be remembered and is less concerned with Mitya's acquittal. Fety is exploring the abstract idea of righteous murder rather than the particular accused individual. I wouldn't want to have as my defense attorney someone who says "my client is guilty but so what?"

Both attorneys are arguing morality and on strangely similar lines. Ippy says that Mitya represents the old Russian excess of temperament that is no longer acceptable. Fety says that Mitya is no better then he ought to be considering his past (Russia's past). Both lawyers appeal to the peasants standard of conservative behavior, the opposite of what they see as the libertine rich. No, I don't think well of Mitya's chances.

So the troika represents the national Russian character? I think it also symbolizes the 3 aspects of the Karamazov -- mind (Ivan), body (Mitya), and spirit (Alyosha). It is only when the 3 aspects are in mutual harmony and operate as one that the Russian state of the troika can advance through life. Otherwise, the State will be pulled apart by the three heedless horses.

I didn't read all the way through the book after all. I decided to be surprised by the remaining revelations which will probably cause me to change my mind. I will hazard the guess, however, that Mitya hasn't a chance of escaping conviction.

-- Marvelle

Also, I wanted to add that I feel Katya loves Ivan in her fashion, but Katya will always come first to Katya.

-- Marvelle

I'm glad I have you to chat with...gets my mind off of things ~ makes the time pass faster!

"There is a remarkable picture by the painter, Kramskoy, called Contemplation. There is forest in winter...a wandering peasant in a torn caftan. He stands as it were, lost in thought. Yet he is not thinking; he is "contemplating"... 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 dominated him during the period of contemplation.
...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, and perhaps do both. There are a great many contemplatives" among the peasantry. Well Smerdyakov was probably one of them, and he probably was greedily hoarding up his impressions, hardly knowing why."

Smerdy was lonely, outside society, poor, intellectually starved, ill and knew he was dying. Most of all he was lonely. When I wrote #252 I was struck by an image which I didn't include in the post but which stays with me -- Smerdy tried to discuss with Grigory where the first light came from and Grigory smacked him (if I remember) for being sacrilegious. Smerdy was hurt and turned sullen towards Grigory. He had better luck with Ivan and they had quite a conversation about the question of that first light. I still see Smerdy's first light.

When I wrote that Smerdy's "last impossible hope was Ivan who rejected him and his hideous crime" I meant that specifically the word 'his' applies to Smerdy and Ivan. And Smerdy was hurt because he cared about Ivan. (Funny, now that I think about it, I believe that Smerdy loved Ivan more than Katya loves him.)

Smerdy didn't like Mitya because Ivan spoke badly of Mitya. So Smerdy sided with his 'friend/brother' Ivan. Additionally, Mitya behaved as if Smerdy should be invisible. Aly was someone Smerdy didn't know and with different interests (Smerdy had already been smacked by the religious), but Ivan was a true intellectual who talked to Smerdy.

So why the note?

Remember that Smerdy believes that Ivan was a knowing partner in the murder. He was puzzled by Ivan's denial of any complicity and, as I wrote in #252, Ivan "rejected him and his hideous crime." Ivan even says that he is going to the police to inform on Smerdy. If Ivan goes, Smerdy would know that he'd be called in himself to talk to the police.

Smerdy kills himself, I believe, because he knows he is dying and probably hates to see his brain go fuzzy from the seizures, also because he realizes that his hope of a better life with Ivan's friendship and help is fantasy.

The suicide note is intended to calm Ivan's fear. Smerdy is saying 'Ivan, you didn't kill me just because of our last conversation about the murder and your rejection of our relationship. You are not personally at fault since I choose to kill myself. And now the police will never have a chance to talk to me and I won't have to tell them about your part in the (hideous) crime.'

This interpretation applies to both translations of the note:

"I'm going to put an end to myself of my own free will and choice, so as not to blame anybody."

"I destroy myself of my own will and inclination, not to blame anyone."

Smerdy was protecting Ivan and tells him so in that note.

-- Marvelle

I like the idea of the peasants holding dual views of Smerdy in their minds. They might accept Ippy and Fety's analysis of Smerdy but I guarantee that the idea of repentance would not have a place in their view of Smerdy or any peasant.

Jo, I think the mood of the times -- resentment against the upper classes -- woud make it very easy for Smerdy to convince authorities about someone else's guilt. Smerdy already did so well with authorities in shifting blame onto Mitya when previously questioned. He could do the same with Ivan. And would Ivan only have to deny his part in the murder? He'd deny in front of a peasant jury? Any peasants? He would't have a hope of being believed because they wouldn't want to believe him.

Yet I don't think Smerdy ever would voluntarily accuse Ivan, as he confirmed in his note. But Smerdy might not be able to avoid answering questions about Ivan. He didn't want to be in that position.

I'm not talking right or wrong here but only what I see from Smerdy's behavior. How was he to know that Ivan was mad with self-guilt and could not be comforted? Odd to say this about a murderer, but I believe that Smerdy tried to be an honorable gentleman with his last note.

-- Marvelle

Smerdy's fellow townsmen (the jury) would not see him as dull-witted. Remember, these are people who knew Smerdy or knew of him. They probably considered him eccentric and intellectual; some may have liked him and some not. Mitya is another matter. He is upper class and acts it even following his torments by the authorities. It is the town's peasants on the jury, and Mitya is the outsider here, however much he wishes to show his expansion of heart.

While Smerdy behaved the gentleman towards Ivan, he had no liking for Mitya and did not bother to save him, thus pronouncing his judgment against Mitya. Will the peasant jury also convict Mitya for wearing black gloves and being a Karamazov?

Joan, I'm excited for you and your family. I can imagine -- as Ippy says-- how breathless you must feel and tired and happy and wanting to see this child so much. I send my best wishes to all.

-- Marvelle

P.S. I think Hamlet would be an appropriate and interesting work to discuss following Brothers K. And we have at least one resident expert (Maryal) in the group. Could we play a little bit like SN is planning for "Mutiny on the Bounty"? Do we also read a non-fiction book or two? What movie version to watch? And?

The Odyssey, Othello, Jude the Obscure, Hard Times, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Portrait of the Artist, Absalom! Absalom!, Canterbury Tales, Animal Farm, The Brothers Karamazov

I mentioned "Hamlet" in response to question 4 in the headings. I've read other plays -- Macbeth, Twelfth Night, Tempest, Lear, all the Henrys, etc -- but never really studied Hamlet. Shakespeare was a bookworm like the rest of us and he often got ideas for plays from his readings. What inspired him to write Hamlet? Was it from reading a good ghost story? Nah, can't be. (Curiosity on my part about the discussions -- after the Odyssey, did you read Joyce's Ulysses?)

Nellie's book section was titled "A Judicial Error" and mine was "A Miscarriage of Justice." Do these titles mean the same thing? Anyone?

-- Marvelle

Nov. 8, 1880

"I am sending off to the Russian Herald the concluding Epilogue of the Karamazovs, which ends the novel. Altogether 31 sheets and probably not more than 28 pages of the journal...

Well, and now the novel is finished! I worked on it for three years, published it for two-a great moment for me. Toward Christmas I want to issue a separate edition. It is in great demand, both here and by other book dealers in Russia. They've even sent money.
You will permit me not to bid you farewell. After all, I intend to live and write for another 20 years. Think kindly of me." *

I didn't think the Judge was being outrageously prejudicial in his instruction to the jury. "Be impartial, don't be influenced by the eloquence of the defense, but yet weigh the arguments. Remember that there is a great responsibility laid upon you."

I think the judge was saying 'don't discount the state's position against the defendant just because the prosecutor was inept, tripped over his own words, and lost track of what he was saying.' In the end, the slickness of Fety was no match against the passion of the underdog Ippy. Peasants, because of their history, would normally side with the underdog. Mitya never had a chance. I think the Miscarriage of Justice is an indictment of the entire judicial system, but Dos must have recognized that sometimes judgments have to be made.

As for Ulysses. I see what you're saying, Joan, about Ulysses but isn't it true of any complex work? Readers can become mired in minutiae and lose the book in the process. I'm just a reader, not a scholar, and so I stick to the basics when I first read any of Joyce's work. I found there is a strong 3-part rhythm to Ulysses composed of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. For instance --

Part 1 is the thesis of the artist Stephen at breakfast

Part 2 is the antithesis of the scientific Bloom at breakfast, separate but during the same time period

Part 3 is synthesis where they both finish breakfast, walk out into Dublin and their paths slightly cross

As the book progresses, they wander into tighter and tighter circles and the synthesis becomes more established. It is similar to the double themes of Gogol and Dos (Ivan and Smerdy) although with different novelistic results. If people did nothing more than read Ulysses 3 sections at a time, since these parts are interrelated, they won't get lost. At least it worked for me. All the rest, symbols and metaphors and body parts, etc, etc are nice but not essential for an initial read.

This is how I was able to finish Brothers K. I read for the emotional wallop first and then analyzed the minutiae later through the group discussions under the wonderful guidance of our leaders, Maryal and Joan. I could not have learned as much, or enjoyed Brothers K as much, without everyone's help.

Speaking of help, I see what Nellie is saying about how the extreme psychoanalysis can be a distraction, but maybe that's what Dos was saying too and that common sense may be the best approach to viewing the human heart.

Thanks to everyone for sharing the pleasure of Brothers K.

-- Marvelle

-- Marvelle

"I read for the emotional wallop first and then analyzed the minutiae later through the group discussions"

I found it amusing when Dmitri in his final words to the court

"I thank the prosecutor, he told me many things about myself I did not know, but it's not true that I killed my father."

But what is he saying to the jury? "Spare me, do not rob me of my God. I know myself,I shall rebel."

Loved the cartoon Joan, which fits this trial and Mitya's position perfectly. Can't open the Ulysses link & will try later today when the net starts behaving itself.

--Marvelle

Dos did die too early. He had so much more writing and living ahead of him. Still... I feel that as long as a writer is being read, he is never truly gone.

I know that Shakespeare died, Poe died at 40, Melville died a sad and forgotten man, Joyce was relatively young when he died. Even Homer died. Yet, when I talk about them or discuss their work, I frequently find myself speaking in the present tense. 'The author intends, he believes, he thinks....' In that respect I am more grateful than sad. Yes there is sadness for the loss of a human being but gratitude and joy for what we were given by a great writer.

Haven't we all felt at times as if we're having an intimate, private conversation with an author whose work touches something in us? If you have felt that, then you know that such authors are with us still.

-- Marvelle

I too agree with what you are saying about Dos.'s "thesis"- "that all are responsible for all others. That Love is the only salvation" and that "Alyosha's message about love and devotion to the youth at Ilyusha's gravesite demonstrating Dos's belief that if the youth of Russ are nurtured on the wisdom of Father Zossima, they will save Mother Russia".

But then I think of what is in store for Mother Russia in the years after Dostoevsky's death...and then think of conditions in his beloved country today. Where is that message of hope? Were Zosima's teachings nurtured according to Zossima's teachings? And what of Russia's youth today? What is their outlook and hope for the future? I'd like to do a little research today to find out something about this. Do you know what I'd really like to know? The response of Russian youth to Dostoevsky's Brothers K! I wonder what is to be found on the great Information highway about this?

The part that really got to me personally was Alyosha's message:...

"You must know that there is nothing higher and stronger and more wholesome and good for life in the future than some good memory, especially a memory of childhood, of home. People talk to you a great deal abut yor education, but some good, sacred memory preserved from childhood is perhaps the best education. If a man carries many such meomories with him into life, he is safe to the end of his days, and if one has only one good memory left in one's heart even that may sometime be the means of saving us..."

Later!

Well Joan, I bought the movie too but haven't viewed it. Not many movies are the equals of great books (a possible exception is Dr. Zhivago). Yul Brynner though might be a good choice. Wasn't he from the Russian Ukraine? Or am I wrong here? At least I have been warned so won't except too much.

The best books, like Brothers K, leave me wanting more. I know a book has touched me if I think of the characters as flesh-and-blood and stepping off the book's pages to continue their lives. That's how I see Aly and gang. Alf, could this be part of what you're feeling, was the ending incomplete, or...?

I wish Dos could have written the second book of the Brothers K. As Zosima would say, in his fervent wish that something would come to pass, So be it! if only in our own imaginations.

What about that illness, anyone?

-- Marvelle

Do your feelings remain the same about her, even after her final scene? If you understand her, will you share your thoughts?

Mitya gave Katya the gift of not blaming her which might be a form of active love. In her initial laceration (Bk 4 Ch 5), Katya cried that "Henceforward, I will never, never abandon him!" Then with great drama she publicly abandoned Mitya at the trial. Now that Mitya is going away -- labor camp or America -- Katya is free to remain loyal to Mitya's memory which she is unable to do in his actual presence. Katya's martyr status is secure and how relieved she must be! She even promises to save Mitya (meaning America?) but Grushenka feels, as I do, that Katya is playacting again. Grushenka says "Her proud lips spoke, not her heart."

I wonder if Mitya is seriously considering America. Escaping to America wasn't his idea. Dos feels that materialistic America is poison to the Russian soul.

What will Mitya choose? Will he run away to America and then return? Will Mitya, just grown into a new man, regress spiritually? Or will Mitya choose the Russian labor camp? I think that either choice gives Dos rich possibilities in character development and themes.

Dos ends the book with Aly and the schoolboys on a high note of great expectations and the possibility of spiritual rebirth not just for Mitya but for all of Russia. Kolya, aligned now with Alyosha not Ratty, is able to openly admit love. We know that Ilyusha will live on in the boys' hearts. The Karamazov reputation, representative of Russia itself, has undergone a metamorphis from selfish and impetuous to selfless and considerate. As in Maryal's wonderful post "Hurrah for Karamazov!" becomes "Hurrah for Dostoevsky!"

--Marvelle

~ Did you notice what Katya said to Alyosha when he was trying to persuade her to come to Dmitri's cell? "What if I'm seen?" To me that says it all about Katya.

~ Did you notice in the heading ...a publishers words- "all for sons hated him (Fyodor)." I'd been watching Alyosha, waiting to see some signs of hatred towards his father. Never did, did you?

Off! Will be looking for you when I get back to talk about what's next.

Later!

The most difficult for me were the heavy philosophical parts. I had to coast there and let others discuss philosophy in-depth.

One of the things I like most about the Brothers K is the way Dos lets you see a person one way, either good or bad, and later on he shows you another side to that person. He lures you into making a judgment that invariably turns out to be wrong. This technique of his teaches us to not judge so quickly which is a major message of the book. Dos couldn't do this if he weren't a master at character development.

I also like the unanswered questions because life is like that too, with a sense of incompletness. These questions revolve in my head even after I've shut the book and so the story of the brothers continues forever.

A third part of the book -- and this may be my favorite -- is how skillfully Dos uses symbols and metaphors like the troika. The troika isn't mentioned in the beginning of the book. Instead Dos constructs the story of the Russian country, the major event of the novel, and three brothers as the major players (who are not Pater K nor the questionable brother Smerdy). This construction eventually merges with the troika -- the carriage, a sense of danger, and three possibly heedless horses. I feel that the troika is a ribbon which ties the novel together.

I have the video and will watch it in the next couple of days. Will I be disappointed? I expect so since movies frequently simplify story, theme, and characters. Can't wait to compare notes with other movie-goers! Right now, let's share that grog in celebration of Dostoevsky, the Brothers Karamazov, and the successful completion of our journey into Russia!

-- Marvelle