Ежедневное молитвенное чтение: Емч
As with Notes From Underground, I've been down this road more than a few times, since I taught it to the AP senior classes I had for about 15 years. And despite that, I'm still very excited to read it again. This version was translated by Sydney Monas, of whom I've heard, but I don't think I've read him previously. We're looking at xix + 536 = 555 pages here, so 18 days or less.
Off to The Crystal Palace!
Day 1 (DDRD 2,282) January 30, 2024
Read to page 10. Feels good to be back in Raskólʹnikov Land, but the gears haven't started meshing smoothly yet. I'm wondering if it's me on Sydney.
Day 2 (DDRD 2,283) January 31, 2024
Read to page 40.
Whilst reading this morning, this line caught my attention:
"Since everybody has learned that Dunia is about to marry Peter Petrovich my credit has suddenly zoomed...." (37)
"Zoomed" is a word that took me by surprise. Especially coming from Raskilnikov's mom.
So I thought I'd check it against Constance. She said, "Now that everyone has heard that Dounia is to marry Pyotr Petrovitch, my credit has suddenly improved...." (2,113)
Hmm. "Zoomed" is better in an abstract sense...but is it something that our guy's mom would say? Some moms, sure...but Pulcheria Alexandrovna? It seems off. She's unimaginative and proper and shallow. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.) And "suddenly improved" seems much more fitting to her character.
Day 3 (DDRD 2,284) February 1, 2024
Read to page 110. Needless to say, we have meshing gears now.
Day 4 (DDRD 2,285) February 2, 2024
Read to page 140.
Day 5 (DDRD 2,286) February 3, 2024
Read to page 180...despite two hours on the road to and from Elizabethtown, two thirty minute basketball games three hours apart, and six hours way too stoned to read. Now THAT'S a spicey ah-meat-a-ball!
Day 6 (DDRD 2,287) February 4, 2024
Read to page 230. And another trip to Elizabethtown and back, and another basketball game (Joe's team won, btw). So yowza, I'm hitting almost 40 pages per day here...and completely without strain. This is such a powerful story.
Day 7 (DDRD 2,288) February 5, 2024
Read to page 272.
Thought this was interesting:
Sydney says, "I'll have to play the part of Lazarus for him too," he thought, turning pale, heart pounding, "and make it sound more natural, too." (237)
Constance says, “I shall have to pull a long face with him too," he thought, with a beating heart, and he turned white, "and do it naturally, too." (2360)
So I thought I'd have a look at one more translation, and I found one by Nicolas Pasternak Slater which said, "I'll have to sing Lazarus * with this one too," he thought, his face pale, his heart pounding. "And do it naturally." (218)
*
So it looks like Constance missed the boat on this Lazarus reference...which is kind if a bug fuckin' deal, since Lazarus is the superstructure of the whole novel.
Hmmm.
Day 8 (DDRD 2,289) February 6, 2024
Read to page 300. Which is well past the halfway point. And this continues to be an effortless... nay, an enTRANCing read.
I returned A Writer's Diary Volume 1 to the library. Sampled a few pages and knew that it would be a chore to read, so I'll settle for The Complete Fiction of Dostoyevsky rather than The Complete. 🐟 got to swim, 🐦 got to fly.
Day 9 (DDRD 2,290) February 7, 2024
Read to page 340.
"Oh, no! God will not permit it!" (306)
That's pretty much the whole shebang when you get to the bottom of things. Revulsion at the evil in the world implies that this is not the way that things should be. Implies that there is a better world...and even that there is an ideal world. Which of necessity, I think, implies a just, benevolent, loving God. Hence every cop is a criminal and all the sinners saints.
And then there's Lazarus.
Jacqueline and I have been reading from an Orthodox Bible my friend David gave me a long, long time ago. We're 1,400+ pages in, and since we only read a page per day...and we don't read more than five or six days a week...and we took a long break to read from a different Bible...I'd say we probably started at least six years ago. And my reading of Crime and Punishment is probably only going to take 15 days. So I was a little surprised when our reading yesterday brought us to the doorstep of the Lazarus story...since that had already been mentioned in C&P, and since I'd just alluded to its importance to the novel the day before yesterday.
What I didn't realize at the time was that today's reading would actually put me on the spot where Sonia reads the Lazarus story to Raskolnikov:
And if that's not enough of a coincidence for you...add in the fact that I just happened to decide to read the complete fiction of Dostoyevsky a few weeks ago...and that I decided to re-read the books I'd already read...and that the speed of my reading, which is determined ad hoc, just happened to put me on THIS page on THIS day...and check out what I'll be reading to Jacqueline later today:
That's some very weird shit, isn't it?
Day 10 (DDRD 2,291) February 8, 2024
Read to page 400. Well, lookie there, 4 days (or less!) to go.
"Whoever is bold and dares has right on his side. Whoever can spit on the most people becomes their legislator, and whoever dares most has the most right! So it has been in the past, and so it will always be! Only a blind man can't see it!" (398)
Only a blind man...or a MAGA Republican.
Day 11 (DDRD 2,292) February 9, 2024
Read to page 440. Less than 100 to go now!
Day 12 (DDRD 2,293) February 10, 2024
Read to page 476. At coffee with C & M I found myself saying, "I'm starting to think that Crime and Punishment is better than The Brothers Karamazov. Which was blasphemy to C. But C&P is so much more focused, so entwined with metaphysical questions.... It's an amazingly powerful novel, even after a dozen+ readings.
Shirt it's I log says to Sonia, "... you're of use to others." (476) And I got the feeling that the reason he was determined to kill himself is because he finally realized that he was not, had not been, and would never be of use to others. Which might explain his last, altruistic acts: an attempt to be of use to others. But all he could do in the end us give away money. His usefulness went no further than that. How eviscerating would that realization be?
Day 13 (DDRD 2,294) February 11, 2024
Read to page 536, The End. Had a long wait for church. Quite the satisfying read.
(1) Leviathan 63 days, 729 pages
(2) Stalingrad 27 days, 982 pages
(3) Life and Fate 26 days, 880 pages
(4) The Second World War 34 + 32 + 40 + 43 + 31 + 32 days = 212 days, 4,379 pages
(5) Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming 10 days, 572 pages
(6) The Great Bridge 25 days, 636 pages
(7) The Path Between the Seas 29 days, 698 pages
(8) Blake: Prophet Against Empire, 23 days, 523 pages
(9) Jerusalem 61 days, 1,266 pages
(10) Voice of the Fire 9 days, 320 pages
(11) The Fountainhead 15 days, 720 pages
(13) The Pacific Trilogy: The Conquering Tide 28 days, 656 pages
(14) The Pacific Trilogy: Twilight of the Gods 31 days, 944 pages
(16) Toward Jazz 18 days, 224 pages
(17) The Worlds of Jazz 13 days, 279 pages
(18) To Be or Not...to Bop 14 days, 571 pages
(19) Kind of Blue 4 days, 224 pages
(20) Kind of Blue: Miles Davis and his Masterpiece: 5 days, 256 pages
(21) Miles: The Autobiography 16 days, 445 pages
(21) A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane's Signature Album: 8 days, 287 pages
(22) Ascension: John Coltrane and His Quest 8 days, 304 pages
(23) Living With Music: Ralph Ellison's Jazz Writings 11 days 325 pages
(25) Oliver Twist 16 days, 542 pages
(26) Nicholas Nickleby 27 days, 1,045 pages
(27) The Old Curiosity Shop 22 days, 753 pages
(28) Barnaby Rudge 24 days, 866 pages
(30) Martin Chuzzlewit 32 days, 1,045 pages
(31) American Notes 10 days, 324 pages
(32) Pictures From Italy 7 days, 211 pages
(33) Christmas Stories Volume I 10 days, 456 pages
(34) Christmas Stories Volume II 15 days, 472 pages
(1) Miscellaneous Papers Volume II 28 days (don't count, while reading BH), 494 pages
(2) Bleak House 37 days, 1,098 pages
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