This picture reminds me of when one of the monks is trying to defend Zosima's stench by saying that in a different monastery they use the color of the bones to determine holiness instead of the smell.
"Oh my dear fellow monks. So many lie, more to themselves than each other. They know the lies for what they are, but they say them anyway. If only they knew. We should all bow to each other! My dear Alyosha, such grief! The tears are good to wash away the sorrow. Soon they will cease and sweet Alyosha will be once again anew. Father Paisy will be a mentor to him as I know he has already discovered Alyosha deep within his heart as he always has been. Not a mentor within the monastery for Alyosha has work to do."
I don't know why I wrote that, but as I started reading the book for this week and finding that my guess at what would happen when Zosima died came true I wondered what Zosima would say about his fellow monks. The sheer number of monks that took up against Zosima in death does surprise me somewhat. I guess fear and superstition has always had a place in human history as it still does.
The other aspect of the book this week that jumped out at me was of course the section on Grushenka. I thought Dostoyevsky was continuing on his theme of completely turning around a character from what was previously described to us about them. I mean she does say herself that she did plan on ruining Alyosha or however she put it about swallowing him whole or something to that affect. She is flawed, as everyone is, but I got the sense before this revelation that she wasn't all that nice of a person, and she was pretty much a nuisance. I mostly based this opinion on the episode with Katerina, because lets face it... she was a classic jerk. Not that it was all one sided, but it didn't do much for my opinion of her. The fact that It was Fyodor and Dmitry who were going after her too said something. After this reading, I find her to be more of the classic Dostoyevsky romantic than a jerk. She can still be a a nuisance though when she wants to be, but shes aware of that and apparently will admit to it.
As I was reading I my attention was distracted by something so I half closed the book with my finger holding the page, so I wouldn't lose my place. As I turned back to the book I realized we are about smack dab in the middle. It makes sense seeing as we are mid-term now, but it gives me mixed emotions about the story. I half can't believe we have been reading for weeks and are only half way through. The other half though is starting to appreciate the story and the characters more. Whereas the random character descriptions were once annoying I find them almost welcome. (Key word "almost"). They give me an insight into a character. It's like Dostoyevsky is teaching us the old saying about not judging a book by its cover even if he is the one that gives us the glimpse of the cover at first and we don't know that we are going to get to read the first chapter later on. Oh Dostoyevsky... your a tricky one, but again you are somewhat growing on me (key word "somewhat").
One last note: The narrator, who I heard to be Dostoyevsky during this reading, mentions again the fact that Alyosha is the hero. Actually the wording he uses on page 426, "the principal, though also future, hero of my tale," got me thinking. He used the word "principal." I've been, perhaps unfairly, focusing on the fact that Alyosha is supposed to be the hero. He doesn't have to be the only one in this story. I don't think he is either. I wonder what will happen next.
4 comments:
Lots of interesting stuff here! Another great visual...and a very intriguing and fascinating imagined utterance you wrote down there!
I'm curious: did you notice the same degree of theatricality in this encounter with Grushenka as we saw earlier when she was at Katerina Ivanovna's? More or less? I ask this without expecting or hoping for a particular answer (or with any sort of professorial "fishing" so to speak, if you know what I mean...). But I'm wondering if there is a difference, that it might suggest why we see Grushenka in a somewhat different light in the Onion chapter.
Haha, let's see if we can get that "almost" and "somewhat" turned into "wholeheartedly" and "altogether"! :>) He certainly has ended up doing that with a lot of readers--though I can't make any guarantees it will happen with everyone.
By the way, your observations re the narrator at the end of your post remind me that I found pp. 437-440 (that is, the first few pages of "The Right Moment" chapter) to be very reminiscent of the tone (and rhetorical movement, with all of the anticipated questioning from readers and his attempts to provide answers, etc.) of the "From the Author" section that the novel began with. One almost senses that the author and/or narrator is trying both to forgive Alyosha and also beg forgiveness for himself from the readers!
I also was surprised at the pseudo mutiny that occurred amongst the religious and secular (from both the monastery and the town). Like you said, people can be more superstitious than spiritual if prompted, as we see here. They seem to forget their faith and reverence for a man they believed to be near to God and saint-like while living on earth. But once an odd occurrence--a stench--happens, all their previous pious words and actions were nulled and voided. It was extremely odd, because honestly I didn't see what the big deal was. It was almost humorous how the whole town was in an uproar because of it. Yet again, Dostoyevsky is living up to his reputation for being surprising and unpredictable in this chapter.
It just jumped out at me, from your comment, that there may be more than one hero in this story. I didn't notice when I did the reading that Dostoyevsky makes a hint at this, and to be honest, in reading the story, I was having a hard time finding where another hero would come from, but I like that possibility, so thank you for pointing that out.
As for what you said about not judging a book by its cover, I completely agree. For the most part, in this story, we are introduced to a character one way, while that character actually turns out to have a completely different personality or outlook on life, or you can at least see where that character is coming from so your view of them is not tainted. I completely see this in Grushenka. It is her past that has turned her into the person that she is now, and while that is no excuse for treating people the way Grushenka does, it does give some understanding to her, and in this reading, it seems she is actually anxious to change.
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