Monday, August 31, 2009

The Brothers Karamazov (10)

Fyodor Dostoyevsky. 1879/1880. New York: Airmont Publishing Co. 1966.


Why read it? First, it’s a mystery. Who killed Fyodor Karamazov? He deserved it. He was a tyrant. Plot: “An old profligate, Fyodor Karamazov, is murdered and his eldest son is tried and convicted for the crime; all the sons of the Karamazov family, however, each In his own way, feel complicity and the need to atone for their part in the death of the old man.” p. 7. “The ‘punishment’ that comes to each of the brothers involved in the crime against their father is self-realization.” p, 9. [Introduction. O. H. Rudzik.]


Sample quotes and ideas:

“Why can I not say that you accuse my client, simply because you have no one else to accuse?” p. 667.


“Despair and penitence are two very different things.” p. 669.


“What troubles me and makes me indignant is that of all the mass of facts heaped up by the prosecution against the prisoner, there is not a single one certain and irrefutable…. Yet the unhappy man is to be ruined by the accumulation of these facts.” p. 670.


“…the father is not merely who begets the child, but he who begets it and does his duty by it.” p. 673.


“…the Russian court does not exist for the punishment only, but also for the salvation of the criminal.” p. 676.


“If I’d been in the defense lawyer’s place, I should simply have said straight out: ‘He murdered him, but he is not guilty….’ ” p. 680.


“You must know that there is nothing higher and stronger and more wholesome and good for life in the future than some good memory…but some good, sacred memory, preserved from childhood, is perhaps the best education…and, if one has only one good memory left in one’s heart, even that may sometime be the means of saving us…. Perhaps that one memory may keep him from great evil and he will reflect and say, ‘Yes, I was good and brave and honest then.’ ”


Comment: What I appreciated in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov is the complexity of character and the idea that it is not just the murderer who has killed, but the many people who are complicit in the murder, even if not consciously.


The theme has been repeated at later times. I once directed a play, The Remarkable Incident at Carson’s Corners, by Reginald Rose. A railing breaks and a young boy falls to his death. As the play unfolds, it becomes clear that just about everybody connected with the school was, in some way, part of the cause of that boy’s death. In Stephen Crane’s short story “The Blue Hotel,” the Swede is killed in a fight with a gambler, but his death is the result of a number of different people who contributed to it, including the Swede who was killed, even if few of them recognized their role. RayS.


Next blog: Crossing the Threshold of Hope by Pope John Paul II.

Friday, August 28, 2009

The Brothers Karamazov (9)

Fyodor Dostoyevsky. 1879/1880. New York: Airmont Publishing Co. 1966.


Why read it? First, it’s a mystery. Who killed Fyodor Karamazov? He deserved it. He was a tyrant. Plot: “An old profligate, Fyodor Karamazov, is murdered and his eldest son is tried and convicted for the crime; all the sons of the Karamazov family, however, each In his own way, feel complicity and the need to atone for their part in the death of the old man.” p. 7. “The ‘punishment’ that comes to each of the brothers involved in the crime against their father is self-realization.” p, 9. [Introduction. O. H. Rudzik.]


Sample quotes and ideas:

“I plead guilty to drunkenness and dissipation…to idleness and debauchery…but I am not guilty of the death of that old man, my enemy and my father.” p. 599.


The servant Grigory’s description of the scene at the dinner-table when Dmitri had burst in and beaten his father, threatening to come back to kill him, made a sinister impression on the court, especially as the old servant’s composure in telling it, his parsimony of words and peculiar phraseology were as effective as eloquence.” p. 601.


Ivan: “He [Smerdyakov] murdered him and I incited him to do it…. Who doesn’t desire his father’s death?” p. 621.


“He [Fyodor Karamazov] was an example of everything that is opposed to civic duty, of the most complete and malignant individualism” p. 630.


“…Karamazov character…capable of combining the most incongruous contradictions, and capable of the greatest heights and the greatest depths…two extremes at the same moment, or they are miserable and dissatisfied and their existence is incomplete…. Wide, wide as Mother Russia, they include everything and put up with everything.” p. 633.


“…there is an overwhelming chain of evidence against the prisoner, and at the same time not one fact that will stand criticism, if it is examined separately.” p. 656.


To be concluded.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

The Brothers Karamazov (8)

Fyodor Dostoyevsky. 1879/1880. New York: Airmont Publishing Co. 1966.


Why read it? First, it’s a mystery. Who killed Fyodor Karamazov? He deserved it. He was a tyrant. Plot: “An old profligate, Fyodor Karamazov, is murdered and his eldest son is tried and convicted for the crime; all the sons of the Karamazov family, however, each In his own way, feel complicity and the need to atone for their part in the death of the old man.” p. 7. “The ‘punishment’ that comes to each of the brothers involved in the crime against their father is self-realization.” p, 9. [Introduction. O. H. Rudzik.]


The family? A group of people who work to help and support each other? Or a disjointed group of individuals with distinctly different personalities and motives? “…emergence into light of the hurtful hostility felt by all sons to all fathers, by all men to all imposed authority.” p. 10. [Introduction. O. H. Rudzik.]


A study of character—symbolic of the essential traits of the Russian people? All the brothers’ personalities combine to compose a single complex human being?


Sample quotes and ideas:

“And so I want to prove to your face this evening that you are the only real murderer in the whole affair and I am not the real murderer, though I did kill him.” p. 567.


“I’ve tried all the medical faculty: They can diagnose beautifully, they have the whole of your disease at their finger-tips, but they’ve no idea how to cure you.” p. 579.


“There was an enthusiastic little medical student here; ‘You may die,’ said he, ‘but you’ll know perfectly what disease you are dying of.’ ” p. 580.


“Without suffering what would be the pleasure of life…. [It] would be transformed into an endless church service; it would be holy, but tedious.” p. 581.


“A soon as men have all of them denied God—and I believe that period, analogous with geological periods, will come to pass—the old conception of the universe will fall of itself… and what’s more the old morality, and everything will begin anew; men will unite to take from life all it can give, but only for joy and happiness in the present world…from hour to hour extending his conquest of nature infinitely by his will and his science, men will feel such lofty joy from hour to hour in doing it that it will make up for all his old dreams of the joys of heaven; everyone will know that he is mortal and will accept death proudly and serenely like a god.” p. 587.


To be continued.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

The Brothers Karamazov (7)

Fyodor Dostoyevsky. 1879/1880. New York: Airmont Publishing Co. 1966.


Why read it? First, it’s a mystery. Who killed Fyodor Karamazov? He deserved it. He was a tyrant. Plot: “An old profligate, Fyodor Karamazov, is murdered and his eldest son is tried and convicted for the crime; all the sons of the Karamazov family, however, each In his own way, feel complicity and the need to atone for their part in the death of the old man.” p. 7. “The ‘punishment’ that comes to each of the brothers involved in the crime against their father is self-realization.” p, 9. [Introduction. O. H. Rudzik.]


The family? A group of people who work to help and support each other? Or a disjointed group of individuals with distinctly different personalities and motives? “…emergence into light of the hurtful hostility felt by all sons to all fathers, by all men to all imposed authority.” p. 10. [Introduction. O. H. Rudzik.]


A study of character—symbolic of the essential traits of the Russian people? All the brothers’ personalities combine to compose a single complex human being?


Sample quotes and ideas:

“For no one can judge a criminal, until he recognizes that he is just such a criminal as the man standing before him.” p.291.


Of Father Zossima: “His teaching was false; he taught that life is a great joy and not a vale of tears.” p. 301.


“He began quietly praying, but he soon felt that he was praying almost mechanically.” p. 325.


“ ‘What terrible tragedies real life contrives for people,’ said Mitya in complete despair.” p. 340.


“You see, I understand, gentlemen, that there are terrible facts against me in this business…. I told everyone that I’d kill him, and now, all of a sudden, he’s been killed. So it must have been me.” p. 417.


“When he is sober, he is a fool; when he is drunk, he is a wise man.” p. 422.


“But listen, for the last time, I am not guilty of my father’s blood…. I accept my punishment not because I killed him but because I meant to kill him….” p. 561.


“But many quite irrelevant and inappropriate thoughts sometimes occur even to a prisoner when he is being led out to execution.” p. 462.


Isn’t every one constantly being or seeming ridiculous?” p. 502.


“You wouldn’t believe, Alexey, how I want to live now, what a thirst for existence and consciousness has sprung up in me within these peeling walls…be able to say and to repeat to myself every moment, ‘I exist.’ ” p. 535.


To be continued.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

The Brothers Karamazov (6)

Fyodor Dostoyevsky. 1879/1880. New York: Airmont Publishing Co. 1966.


Why read it? First, it’s a mystery. Who killed Fyodor Karamazov? He deserved it. He was a tyrant. Plot: “An old profligate, Fyodor Karamazov, is murdered and his eldest son is tried and convicted for the crime; all the sons of the Karamazov family, however, each in his own way, feel complicity and the need to atone for their part in the death of the old man.” p. 7.


“The ‘punishment’ that comes to each of the brothers involved in the crime against their father is self-realization.” p, 9. [Introduction. O. H. Rudzik.]


The family? A group of people who work to help and support each other? Or a disjointed group of individuals with distinctly different personalities and motives?


“…emergence into light of the hurtful hostility felt by all sons to all fathers, by all men to all imposed authority.” p. 10. [Introduction. O. H. Rudzik.]


A study of character—symbolic of the essential traits of the Russian people? All the brothers’ personalities combine to compose a single complex human being?


Sample quotes and ideas:

“Too, too well they know the value of complete submission, and until men know that, they will be unhappy.” p. 234.


“…and beyond the grave they will find nothing but death.” p. 235.


“Life will bring you many misfortunes, but you will find your happiness in them.” p. 257.


“…everyone is really responsible to all men for all men and for everything.” p. 260.


“The mild serenity of age takes the place of the riotous blood of youth.” p. 263.


“Every blade of grass, every insect, ant, and golden bee, all so marvelously know their path though they have not intelligence, they bear witness to the mystery of God and continually accomplish it themselves.” p. 265.


“…we don’t understand that life is heaven….” p. 270.


“…this terrible individualism must inevitably have an end, and all will understand how unnaturally they are separated from one another.” p. 275.


“…a man must set an example, and so draw men’s souls out of their solitude, and spur them to some act of brotherly love, that the great idea may not die.” p. 275.


“Interpreting freedom as the multiplication and rapid satisfaction of desires.” p. 284.


“They have succeeded in accumulating a greater mass of objects, but the joy in the world has grown less.” p. 285.


“Equality is to be found only in the spiritual dignity of man….” p. 286.


“And how many ideas there have been on earth in the history of man which were unthinkable ten years before they appeared…when their destined hour had come, they came forth and spread over the whole earth.” p. 288.


“Love all God’s creation, the whole and every grain of sand in it…every leaf, every ray of God’s light.” p. 289.


“My friends, pray to God for gladness.” p. 290.


“There is only one means of salvation; then take yourself and make yourself responsible for all men’s sins.” p. 290.


To be continued.

Monday, August 24, 2009

The Brothers Karamazov (5).

Fyodor Dostoyevsky. 1879/1880. New York: Airmont Publishing Co. 1966.


Why read it? First, it’s a mystery. Who killed Fyodor Karamazov? He deserved it. He was a tyrant. Plot: “An old profligate, Fyodor Karamazov, is murdered and his eldest son is tried and convicted for the crime; all the sons of the Karamazov family, however, each In his own way, feel complicity and the need to atone for their part in the death of the old man.” p. 7.


“The ‘punishment’ that comes to each of the brothers involved in the crime against their father is self-realization.” p, 9. [Introduction. O. H. Rudzik.]


The family? A group of people who work to help and support each other? Or a disjointed group of individuals with distinctly different personalities and motives? “…emergence into light of the hurtful hostility felt by all sons to all fathers, by all men to all imposed authority.” p. 10. [Introduction. O. H. Rudzik.]


A study of character—symbolic of the essential traits of the Russian people? All the brothers’ personalities combine to compose a single complex human being?


Sample quotes and ideas:

“One can love one’s neighbors in the abstract, or even at a distance, but at close quarters it’s almost impossible.” p. 215.


“Grown-up people have eaten the apple and know good and evil, and…they go on eating it still.” p. 215.


“People talk sometimes of bestial cruelty, but that’s a great injustice and insult to the beasts; a beast can never be so cruel as a man, so artistically cruel.” p. 216.


“I think if the devil doesn’t exist, but man has created him, he has created him in his own image and likeness.” p. 216.


“…the intoxication of cruelty….” p. 218.


“…I recognize in all humility that I cannot understand why the world is arranged as it is; men are themselves to blame, I suppose; they were given Paradise, they wanted freedom…though they knew they would become unhappy, so there is no need to pity them.” p. 220.


“And if the sufferings of children go to swell the sum of sufferings which was necessary to pay for truth, then I protest that the truth is not worth such a price.” p. 222.


“Man was created a rebel; and how can rebels be happy?” p. 227.


“…the unsolved…contradictions of human nature.” p. 228.


“Feed men, and then ask of them virtue.” p. 229.


“For the secret of man’s being is not only to live but to have something to live for.” p. 230.


“…fearful burden of free choice.” p. 231.


“And men rejoiced that they were again led like sheep, and that the terrible gift [freedom] that had brought them such suffering, was, at last, lifted from their hearts.” p. 232.


“Oh, we shall persuade them that they will only become free when they renounce their freedom to us and submit to us.” p. 234.


To be continued.

Friday, August 21, 2009

The Brothers Karamazov (4).

Fyodor Dostoyevsky. 1879/1880. New York: Airmont Publishing Co. 1966.


Why read it? First, it’s a mystery. Who killed Fyodor Karamazov? He deserved it. He was a tyrant. Plot: “An old profligate, Fyodor Karamazov, is murdered and his eldest son is tried and convicted for the crime; all the sons of the Karamazov family, however, each In his own way, feel complicity and the need to atone for their part in the death of the old man.” p. 7.


“The ‘punishment’ that comes to each of the brothers involved in the crime against their father is self-realization.” p, 9. [Introduction. O. H. Rudzik.]


The family? A group of people who work to help and support each other? Or a disjointed group of individuals with distinctly different personalities and motives?


“…emergence into light of the hurtful hostility felt by all sons to all fathers, by all men to all imposed authority.” p. 10. [Introduction. O. H. Rudzik.]


A study of character—symbolic of the essential traits of the Russian people? All the brothers’ personalities combine to compose a single complex human being?


Sample quotes and ideas:

“Never trust a woman’s tears.” p. 177.


“Schoolboys are a merciless race, individually they are angels, but together, especially in schools, they are often merciless.” p. 186.


“And when he had poured out his heart, he felt ashamed at having shown me his inmost soul like that…began to hate me at once.” p. 195.


“The great thing now is to persuade him that he is on an equal footing with us, in spite of taking money from us.” p. 196.


“My brothers are destroying themselves…my father, too…and are destroying others with them…the primitive force of the Karamazovs.” p. 200.


“Can a Russian peasant be said to feel, in comparison with an educated man?” p. 203.


“…if I were struck by every horror of man’s disillusionment—still I should want to live and, having once tasted of the cup, I would not turn away from it till I had drained it.” p. 208.


“It’s a feature of the Karamazovs it’s true, that thirst for life regardless of everything….” p. 208.


“…and I go on living in spite of logic.” p. 208.


“Precious are the dead that lie there, every stone over them speaks of such burning life in the past, of such passionate faith in their work, their truth, their struggle and their science….” p. 209.


“…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.” p. 212.


“As for me, I’ve long resolved not to think whether man created God or God man.” p. 212.


“I believe in the underlying order and the meaning of life; I believe in the eternal harmony in which they say we shall one day be blended.” p. 213.


“It’s not that I don’t accept God, you must understand, it’s the world created by Him I don’t and cannot accept.” p. 213.


“…humiliating absurdity of human contradictions….” p. 213.


“…in the world’s finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, of all the blood they’ve shed, that it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify all that has happened with men.” p. 213.


“The stupider one is, the clearer one is.” p. 214.


“To my thinking, Christ-like love for men is a miracle impossible on earth; He was God…we are not gods.” p. 214.


To be continued.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

The Brothers Karamazov (3)

Fyodor Dostoyevsky. 1879/1880. New York: Airmont Publishing Co. 1966.


Why read it? First, it’s a mystery. Who killed Fyodor Karamazov? He deserved it. He was a tyrant. Plot: “An old profligate, Fyodor Karamazov, is murdered and his eldest son is tried and convicted for the crime; all the sons of the Karamazov family, however, each In his own way, feel complicity and the need to atone for their part in the death of the old man.” p. 7.


“The ‘punishment’ that comes to each of the brothers involved in the crime against their father is self-realization.” p, 9. [Introduction. O. H. Rudzik.]


The family? A group of people who work to help and support each other? Or a disjointed group of individuals with distinctly different personalities and motives?


“…emergence into light of the hurtful hostility felt by all sons to all fathers, by all men to all imposed authority.” p. 10. [Introduction. O. H. Rudzik.]


A study of character—symbolic of the essential traits of the Russian people? All the brothers’ personalities combine to compose a single complex human being?


Sample quotes and ideas:

“I always feel when I meet people that I am lower than all, and that they all take me for a buffoon; so I say let me play the buffoon, for you are, every one of you, stupider and lower than I.” p. 81.


“That’s the trouble, for everything in the world is a riddle.” p. 100.


“God and the devil are fighting…and the battlefield is the hearts of man.” p. 101.


“…to hell with all who pry into the human heart.” p. 107.


“…with fearful hatred—that hate which is only a hair’s breadth from love, from the maddest love.” p. 107.


“Brother, let me ask one thing more: has any man a right to look at other men and decide which is worthy to live?” p. 132.


“Connoisseurs of Russian beauty could have foretold with certainty that this fresh, still youthful, beauty would lose its harmony by the age of thirty…that the face would become puffy, and that wrinkles would very soon appear upon her forehead and round the eyes; the complexion would grow coarse and red perhaps—in fact, that it was the beauty of the moment, the fleeting beauty often met with in Russian women.” p. 138.


“…he seemed anxious before the moment of death to say everything he had not said in his life, and not simply for the sake of instructing them, but as though thirsting to share with all men and all creation his joy and ecstasy.” p. 149.


“Because we have come here and shut ourselves within these walls, we are no holier than those that are outside….” p. 149.


“For even those who have renounced Christianity and attack it, in their inmost being still follow the Christian idea, for hitherto neither their subtlety nor the ardor of their hearts has been able to create a higher ideal of men and of virtue than the ideal given by Christ of old.” p. 156.


“For I mean to go on in my sins to the end….” p. 158. “For sin is sweet, all abuse it, but all men live in it, only others do it on the sly, and I openly…and your paradise is not to my taste.” p. 158.


“I believe that I fall asleep and don’t wake up again, and that’s all.” p. 158.


To be continued.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

The Brothers Karamazov (2)

Fyodor Dostoyevsky. 1879/1880. New York: Airmont Publishing Co. 1966.


Why read it? First, it’s a mystery. Who killed Fyodor Karamazov? He deserved it. He was a tyrant. Plot: “An old profligate, Fyodor Karamazov, is murdered and his eldest son is tried and convicted for the crime; all the sons of the Karamazov family, however, each In his own way, feel complicity and the need to atone for their part in the death of the old man.” p. 7.


“The ‘punishment’ that comes to each of the brothers involved in the crime against their father is self-realization.” p, 9. [Introduction. O. H. Rudzik.]


The family? A group of people who work to help and support each other? Or a disjointed group of individuals with distinctly different personalities and motives? “…emergence into light of the hurtful hostility felt by all sons to all fathers, by all men to all imposed authority.” p. 10. [Introduction. O. H. Rudzik.]


A study of character—symbolic of the essential traits of the Russian people? All the brothers’ personalities combine to compose a single complex human being?


Sample Quotes and Ideas:

Fyodor: “But I have been lying…my whole life long, every day and hour of it…. I am a lie, and the father of lies.” p. 44.


To Fyodor: “You defile everything you touch.” p. 45.


“Lamentations comfort only by lacerating the heart still more…. Such grief does not desire consolation…feeds on the sense of its hopelessness…. Lamentations spring only from the constant craving to re-open the wound.” p. 47.


“Man cannot commit a sin so great as to exhaust the infinite love of God.” p. 50.


“For men are made for happiness, and anyone who is completely happy has a right to say to himself, ‘I am doing God’s will on Earth.’ ” p. 53.


“And if the patient whose wounds you are washing did not greet you with gratitude, but worried you with his whims, without valuing or remarking your charitable services, began abusing you and rudely commanding you, and complaining to the superior authorities of you (which often happens when people are in great suffering)…would you persevere in your love…?” p. 55.


“The more I love humanity in general, the less I love man in particular.” p. 55.


“In my dreams…I have often come to making enthusiastic schemes for the service of humanity….and yet I am incapable of living in the same room with any one for two days together…. As soon as anyone is near me, his personality disturbs my self-complacency and restricts my freedom…. I become hostile to people the moment they come close to me.” p. 55.


“…it has always happened that the more I detest men individually, the more ardent becomes my love for humanity.” p. 55.


“If you have been talking to me so sincerely, simply to gain approbation for your frankness….” p. 55.


“The…criminal, they say, rarely repents, for the very doctrines of today confirm him in the idea that his crime is not a crime, but only a reaction against an unjustly oppressive force.” p. 62.


“There is no virtue if there is no immortality.” p. 67.


“With old liars who have been acting all their lives there are moments when they enter so completely into their part that they tremble or shed tears of emotion in earnest, although at that very moment…they are able to whisper to themselves, ‘You know you are lying.. You’re acting now….’ ” p. 70.


“He is one of those who don’t want millions, but an answer to their questions.” p. 77.


Comment: Dostoevsky, the novelist of the complex personality. RayS.


To be continued.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

The Brothers Karamazov (1)

The Brothers Karamazov (1). Fyodor Dostoyevsky. 1879/1880. New York: Airmont Publishing Co. 1966.


Why read it? First, it’s a mystery. Who killed Fyodor Karamazov? He deserved it. He was a tyrant.


Plot: “An old profligate, Fyodor Karamazov, is murdered and his eldest son is tried and convicted for the crime; all the sons of the Karamazov family, however, each In his own way, feel complicity and the need to atone for their part in the death of the old man.” p. 7. “The ‘punishment’ that comes to each of the brothers involved in the crime against their father is self-realization.” p, 9. [Introduction. O. H. Rudzik.]


The family? A group of people who work to help and support each other? Or a disjointed group of individuals with distinctly different personalities and motives?


“…emergence into light of the hurtful hostility felt by all sons to all fathers, by all men to all imposed authority.” p. 10. [Introduction. O. H. Rudzik.]


A study of character—symbolic of the essential traits of the Russian people? All the brothers’ personalities combine to compose a single complex human being?


Sample Quotes and Ideas:

“Immediately after the elopement Adelaida Ivanovna discerned in a flash that she had no feeling for her husband but contempt. …rumor had it that Fyodor Pavlovitch did not beat his wife but was beaten by her.” p. 12.


“He [Fyodor Karamazov] completely abandoned the child of his marriage with Adelaida Ivanovna, not from malice, not because of his matrimonial grievances, but simply because he forgot him.” p. 13.


Fyodor Pavlovitch was all his life fond of acting, of suddenly playing an unexpected part, sometimes without any motive for doing so, and even to his direct disadvantage.” p. 14.


“At her [his second wife’s] death almost exactly the same thing happened to the two little boys as to their elder brother, Mitya…completely forgotten and abandoned by their father.” p. 17.


“There was something about him [Alyosha] which made one feel at once…that he did not care to be a judge of others—that he would never take it upon himself to criticize and would never condemn anyone for anything. He never resented an insult.” p. 22.


Fyodor to Alysosha: “I feel that you’re the only creature in the world who has not condemned me.” p. 27.


“Though these young men unhappily fail to understand that the sacrifice of life is, in many cases, the easiest of all sacrifices, and that to sacrifice, for instance, five or six years of their seething youth to hard and tedious study, if only to multiply ten-fold their powers of serving the truth and the cause they have set before them as their goal—such a sacrifice is utterly beyond the strength of many of them.” p. 28.


“When you choose an elder, you renounce your own will and yield it to him in complete submission, complete self-abnegation…this terrible school of abnegation is undertaken voluntarily, in the hope of self-conquest, of self-mastery, in order after a life of obedience, to attain perfect freedom, that is, from self; to escape the lot of those who have lived their whole life without finding their true selves in themselves.” p. 29.


“…he [the elder, Zossima] had acquired the keenest intuition and could tell from an unknown face what a newcomer wanted, and what was the suffering on his conscience…sometimes astounded and almost alarmed his visitors by his knowledge of their secrets before they had spoken a word.”


Comment by RayS. You can tell from these quotes that Dostoevsky is a serious philosophical novelist who explores his characters in complex detail. The reader turns the pages in order to follow the revelations of character. The novel is not easy reading.


To be continued.

Monday, August 17, 2009

The Magic Mountain (3). Thomas Mann.

Trans. H.T. Lowe-Porter Garden City, NY: International Collectors Library 1924 (1952).


Why Read It? Want to know what the hereafter will be like? In my opinion, Hans Castorp’s experience in the tuberculosis sanatorium was very much like the popular belief of life after death—life without time. On the mountain, time does not exist. Events repeat themselves. Experiences repeat themselves. The patients have satisfied appetites. All of the patients’ desires are met. Regularity and routine are the everyday, undeviating experiences. On the mountain, one floats over the real world down below, the world of accomplishment and achievement.


The basic plot of the novel is simple, but it requires 700+ pages to work it out. Hans Castorp decides to visit his cousin in a tuberculosis sanatorium on the mountain for three weeks. He soon shows symptoms of the disease and spends seven years there. Cured, he returns to the world below to fight for the German army in World War I. During his stay on the mountain, he encounters a humanist and a traditional believer in Christianity and their various arguments about the meaning of life take up considerable pages of abstract thought. Castorp studies biology and, therefore, life and gradually begins to develop his own personality, rather than being in the shadow of other, stronger personalities who at first dominate him with their thought. RayS.


Sample quotes and ideas:

“Man was essentially ailing, his state of unhealthiness was what made him man.” p. 465.


“The recklessness of death is in life, it would not be life without it….” p. 495.


“It is love, not reason, that is stronger than death.” p. 496.


“The invention of printing and the Reformation are and remain the two outstanding services of Central Europe to the cause of humanity.” p. 516.


“Speech is civilization itself…. It is silence which isolates.” p. 517.


“…it was again impossible to distinguish which side was in the right, where God stood and where the Devil….” p. 525.


“But it is more moral to lose your life than to save it.” p. 557.


“…one doesn’t know oneself, no one can know that precisely and certainly.” p. 593.


“Hans Castorp looked about him. He saw on every side the uncanny and the malign, and he knew what it was he saw: life without time, life without care or hope, life as depravity, assiduous stagnation: life as dead.” p. 626.


“…the overpowering melancholy that lay in eternity, forever turning on itself without permanence of direction at any given moment….” p. 629.


“He affronted you. But he did not insult you. There is a difference…. It was a matter of abstractions, and intellectual disagreement. On intellectual topics he could affront you, perhaps, but not insult you.” p. 697.


“The whole affair was in the intellectual sphere, and has nothing to do with the personal, and insult can only be personal. The intellectual can never be personal.” p. 697.


“…that even the simplest events always worked out differently from what one would have thought beforehand.” p. 701.


“ ‘Coward!’ Naphta shrieked; and with this human shriek confessing that it takes more courage to fire than be fired upon, raised his pistol in a way that had nothing to do with dueling and shot himself in the head.” p. 704.


“There are authors whose names are associated with a single great work, because they have been able to give themselves complete expression in it. Dante is the Divina Commedia, Cervantes is Don Quixote.” p. 717.


“But there are others—and I must count myself among them—whose single works do not possess this complete significance, being only parts of the whole which makes up the author’s lifework. And not only his life work, but actually his life itself, his personality.” p. 718.


“…it may be unfair to the single work to look at it by itself, disregarding its connection with the others, and not taking into account the frame of reference.” p. 718.


“A work of art must not be a task or an effort; it must not be undertaken against one’s will. It is meant to give pleasure, to entertain and enliven.” p. 722.


“What he comes to understand is that one must go through the deep experience of sickness and death to arrive at a higher sanity and health: in just the same way that one must have a knowledge of sin in order to find redemption.” p. 724.


“It is this notion of disease and death as a necessary route to knowledge, health and life that makes The Magic Mountain a novel of initiation. This description is not original with me. I got it recently from a critic and make use of it in discussing The Magic Mountain…because I consider it a mistake to think that the author himself is the best judge of his work.” p. 725.


Comment: What more can I say? Life on the “Magic Mountain” is a similar state to that which is usually thought of as the afterlife—if one is in Heaven. The experience is primarily intellectual. People interact and read and grow in understanding themselves and the world from which they have come. I suppose I am on shaky ground, but that’s how I interpret this novel. RayS.