fiction files redux discussion
This topic is about
Crime and Punishment
Group Reads
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Crime and Punishment and Conversation (Pevear and Volokhonsky trans.)
This sounds good! I just wish it was taking place a month later, but oh well...
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Very cool! I will break out my copy from the book shelf.
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Doesn't reading Crime and Punishment count as wedding planning? wokka wokka
Try the veal. I'll be here all week.
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“We're always thinking of eternity as an idea that cannot be understood, something immense. But why must it be? What if, instead of all this, you suddenly find just a little room there, something like a village bath-house, grimy, and spiders in every corner, and that's all eternity is. Sometimes, you know, I can't help feeling that that's what it is.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment
An interesting read before October...
http://community.middlebury.edu/~beye...
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And for those who might be on the fence about jumping in...
Here are a few thoughts from different authors that might help tip the balance…
One of the most intriguing links I found was Cynthia Ozick’s comparison of Dostoevsky’s Roskolnikov with the Unabomber.
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1997...
In the Daily Mail, Ian Rankin, not only called it one of the greatest literary crime novels (the title of his article), but “one of the greatest novels ever to emerge from Russia.”
The Guardian, never one to shy away from overreaching, insists it is one of “1000 novels everyone must read”! Everyone, sir.
The Christian Science Monitor pegged it at #24 on its 100 Best Books of all time
There are other lists and other reasons…. Care to share yours?
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I am in. Starting with Garnett but will switch to Pevear & Volonshky.
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Anybody out there read Russian? I was astonished the the number of times "shame" was used and was wondering if it is the same word in Russian...
And, Brian, you're right about the Biblical references... I was also intrigued by this tidbit from the translator's intro: "his name comes from the word raskolnik meaning 'schismatic' one who has broken away from the body of the Church but is also split off from himself." in Biblical terms "Satan" literally means "divider" and if there was ever a guy constantly divided between how he thinks, feels and acts, Raskolnikov is the dude.
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About the name Raskolnikov, I found this interesting little piece... 'Raskolnikov really loves people, or, maybe, Raskolnikov really hates people. Oh the confusion! The very root of his name is "raskol," which means "schism" or "split." Razumihin tells Dounia and Pulcheria, "It's as though he were alternating between two characters" (3.2.32). In fact the number two is closely associated with Raskolnikov. When we first meet Raskolnikov, he hasn't eaten in "two days." At the pawnbroker's house there are "two gates" and "two courtyards." He last wrote his mom "two months" ago. He meets the abused drunk girl in the park at "two" in the afternoon.'...... and the twos go on. Look out for them.
Now for an interesting essay that starts with the first sentence of the book and examines the importance of the last word of that sentence... "At the beginning of July, during an extremely hot spell, towards evening, a young man left the closet he rented from tenants in S------y Lane, walked out to the street, and slowly, as if indecisively, headed for the K-------n Bridge"... check out this essay... http://www.utoronto.ca/tsq/DS/03/145....
Now back to Petersburg...
(I really want a vodka or 5, but have been troubled with a sinus infection. It's more fun reading C&P with a drink!)
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I find it endlessly fascinating how sixty years old is used as an ancient age in novels. I can understand it in this, as perhaps in Dostoevsky's time, life expectancy wasn't that great. But I notice this even in modern novels and it really perplexes me. I know plenty of 60+ year olds who have plenty of strength and vitality. "Sixty" is just not that old anymore!
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Now time for more reading... 'That' is about to happen...
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message 27:
by
Brian, just a child's imagination
(last edited Sep 27, 2013 06:11AM)
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rated it 5 stars
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How far would you go to secure what you think might be the ideal life? What if someone really didn't deserve to live? How would you know if this person really didn't deserve to live? If there were no religions, would our morals make us decide? Would we give a shit? Should we give a shit? Does religion and moral teachings influence our decisions? Why? Damn it, WHY???? If there is nothing after this life should we care???? If we had no money, no food, and was drunk? WTF. Should we care. Let's do 'that'.
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Don't worry. I'm not killing anyone... I think. Thanks Kerry for making me think before bedtime.
Come on people... Crime AND Punishment. Pour a vodka and let's get existential.
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He keeps SAYING that it (his dissolute, impoverished life) is all about the MONEY (hence that rant about his sister's marriage proposition), but clearly something else is at work here.
I suppose we're officially IN to the discussion now, so I'll ask a related question about R.'s notion of "Fate", how he overhears a conversation and wonders if that is "Fate" drawing him into the crime, rather than his own damn, rationalizing brain looking for excuses to commit what is actually in his heart (all along?) Is Fate in any way to blame?
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Nietzsche was obsessed with Dostoyevsky and quoted from him often in his letters. C&P was his personal favorite Dostoyevsky novel. There are many, many papers attempting to establish points of connection between the two, but as far as anyone can tell Dostoyevsky was completely unaware of Nietzsche and his work. Could it be that Nietzsche was quoting the scene in question?
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"in pointing out that Man cannot live by science alone, [Nietzsche] was already sounding the note of existential anguish which was to be echoed so insistently in the works of his philosophical successors of the twentieth century."
Nietzsche:
"Everything living needs to be enveloped in an aura of mystery; when one removes this protective covering, when one condemns a religion, an art or a genius to gravitate like a star without an atmosphere, then no one should any longer be surprised to see it quickly dry up and become unfruitful."
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So Nietzsche's biographer, Curtis Cate is writing about the last days of Nietzsche in the chapter "The Collapse" (pp. 549-551).
The philosopher was living in Turin in 1889 and beginning to act very erratically. Quoting the bio (though in oddly passive voice):
"the climax in his odd behaviour was soon reached with a strange incident that took place on one of Turin's streets. On seeing a cart-driver furiously beating his lagging nag, Nietzsche ran forward and flung his arms around the horse's neck. Exactly what happened thereafter we shall probably never know, for the first printed account of the incident did not appear until thirteen years later in an Italian newspaper. Bit someone, it seems, hurried over to 6 Via Carlo Alberto to I form David Fino that something had happened to il professore tedesco that a crowd had gathered, and could he come as quickly as possible and bring him 'home'?"
[it gets stranger....]
"The curious thing about this incident is the Nietzsche, during the previous May inTurin had imagined something of the sort as happening in the dead of winter. Suddenly in the middle of a letter to Reinhart von Seydlitz, he wrote that he had just imagined a tear-jerking scene, worthy of the moralité larmoyante Diderot had so rightly scorned, in which an old, brutal cart-driver stubbornly refused to give his thirsty horse the water it craved. And the poor maltreated horse, instead of protesting, had looked around and indicated that it was grateful, very grateful. Just what inspired this suddenly imagined scene, it is not easy to say..... One thing at any rate is certain. In throwing his arms around the sorry nag on a Turin street, Nietzsche who had endured so many humiliating slights and physical sufferings, was clearly identifying with this poor, maltreated creature."
Nietzsche is brought home to bed and will die not long after....
This is 1889... 33 years after Dostoevsky wrote a nearly identical scene which this philosopher, prior to his difficulties, must have read in Crime and Punishment.
Neat bit of literary detective work there.
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I. Meet Raskolikov and Alyona Ivanovna
II. "Happy Hour" with Marmeladov, the titular councillor (one of many councillors) as well as his wife and the daughter who has turned to prostitution, Sofya.
III. Meet Nastasya, the landlady's cook; and read the letter from R.'s mother
IV. While brooding over the letter, R. confronts the man over the drunk woman, then muses about his old classmate, Razumkhin.
V. His envy of Razumikhin is followed by the Dream of the Horse. We meet Lizaveta Ivanovna for the first time.
VI. The argument/rationalization for his crime as a "good deed", followed by his preparations.
VII. The Crime itself (in which Dostoevsky writes: "He was in full possession of his reason." which I find a wonderfully ironic line, since in many ways, he himself acts like a man possessed.)
Sadly, I'm not going to be able to make it for the start of this group discussion. I'm very sad about that. I've been trying to skim through the posts to see when (on which date) the discussion ends, but I might not be looking in the right place?I might be able to hurry up and catch up later if it is going to be taking place over a few weeks.
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Brian: Thanks for the heads up on the doublings. Alyona Ivanova ends up having "two crosses on the string, one of cypress and the other of brass, besides a little icon."
Biographical note: in Chapter VI of Part I, R. is on his way to Alyona Ivanova's flat and thinks:
"It must be the same for men being led out to execution -- their thoughts must cling to every object they meet on the way," flashed through his head, but only flashed, like lightning."
Dostoevsky would certainly know since, many years earlier, after being convicted of political sedition, he had been led out to be shot by firing squad. He and others were placed in front of the guns and at the last minute were given a reprieve.
(I also found the observation interesting for how quickly the thought 'flashed' like most thoughts that go through R.'s mind.)
Thanks, Hugh, will do. :) So is the group going to be reading one part per week?
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Great. Thanks Hugh!At least this group has motivated me to get the Pevear and Volokhonsky translation of the book.. ;)
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Has Dostoevsky created a character so appallingly dark that we watch him more in horror than with any hint of sympathy? Or does his constant brooding and "over-thinking" reveal some pathetic humanness that makes you sympathize with him? (To the latter point, I'd mention the very last line of Part One: "Bits and scraps of various thoughts kept swarming in his head; but he could not grasp any one of them, could not rest on any one, hard as he tried...")
Halfway thru 1st part and transitioning to Everyman ed. Initial thought is there is one overriding reason I read Dostoevsky are the magnificent monologues, usually which are self-indictments--opposite of an apology/-both tragic and comic. I refer here to Marmeladov. I haven't perceived much of a diff btw the translations, but then I was reading it on an IPhone, so my attention is probably off.
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I think one key to understanding Doestoevsky is to think about how he or how characters articulate the idea of forgiveness. He is deeply Christian, but forgiveness, not judgment, is his guiding category. There may be a psychological root in the last commutation of his sentence of death by firing squad, but there is no question his novels' always ask what can be forgiven.
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The second part of what D. is up (I think) to gets to what Robert mentioned: the idea of forgiveness. D.himself had returned from prison in Siberia for political writings (and meetings that raised a few eyebrows around the Czar). He was a guy massively in debt and an inveterate gambler. (One museum pleasure I recall was seeing a portion of one of his manuscript fragments on a scrap of paper with calculation of his gambling debts.)
As bizarrely pathetic as Marmeladov appears, I think D.'s sympathies are far more with the drunkard than with Raskolnikov. If there was ever a writer who believed the passage from Matthew 18:22-23, it's Dostoevsky:
Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”
Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times"
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Chapter 2: we meet Sofya who has turned to prostitution to financially support her family.
Chapter 3: R. get the letter from his mother and is infuriated to learn his sister is marrying a man for his money/position
Chapter 4: R. challenges the man trying to take advantage of the drunken woman, then after making quite the commotion, he turns away, seemingly indifferent.
Saying that R. has some issues dealing with women in Part I would be far beyond understatement.
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Fate... I think he truly wants to believe this but isn't capable. He is looking for excuses. And finding many in the process. This was a premeditated and well calculated crime. He was rational at times he needed to be. He's not stupid. He did think this through carefully and adjusted his plans when necessary.
Nietzsche was obsessed with Mr Dost and it seems C&P in particular. But whereas Nietzsche proclaimed there was no God, Dostoevsky believed in God and Christ but seemed very troubled by doubts. The horse incident is one of my all time unforgettable literary scenes. It appears to have been one of Nietzsche's too.
I walk Petersburg's streets with sympathy for Raskolnikov. I feel he is a troubled man. I still would like to know if there was a trigger to his madness. And since this is my second reading of the book, I remember holding his bloodied hand throughout the book wishing I could give him comfort.
About the ladies in the book... with maybe the exception of the pawnbroker, they all seem to sacrifice their life for the sake of the men. Is Dostoevsky thinking about his wife who stuck by him despite all of his vices and of course illness? I see the women in this book as being strong-willed, tough, and willing to do what they perceive is right for their own well-being... but to me sadly, more for the incompetent men in their lives.
The crime has been committed. Now comes the punishment... a punishment I believe he's been battling long before the crime.
This passage puzzles me... 'At which point he suddenly became interested in precisely why the people of all big cities are somehow especially inclined, not really out of necessity alone, to live and settle in precisely those parts of the city where there are neither gardens nor fountains, where there is filth and stench and all sorts of squalor. At which point he recalled his own walks through the Haymarket and came to himself for a moment. "What nonsense," he thought. "No, better not to think anything at all.' (Part 1, chapter VI)... Is it true? Why this sudden thought? It is the thought he had before thinking about what men being led to execution might think. Any thoughts?
(Later I'll try to post pictures of the places Raskolnikov walked around in his mental drunken state. This is one of the books that inspired my trip to Russia)
PS: posted after drinking half a liter of vodka. Sorry for the rambling structure. Just trying to get in the spirit. Forgive any grammatical errors... I love the Russians.
[Please note: We'll be using the translation by Pevear & Volokhonsky coz they're so damn good.]
Please join us for fun, conversation and plenty of existential angst with Raskolnikov and friends. BYOB