Well, NOW we're dancing with the Big Boys. It's the biggest work yet (working chronologically), it's a book I've not read previously, and I've got it in a Constance Garnett translation (still chipping away at that massive The Complete Novels that I bought for Kindle for 99¢ (plus tax). So the trifecta.
By the way: Ежедневное молитвенное чтение seems to be Russian for Daily Devotional Reading...or Емч amongst comrades.
Day 1 (DDRD 2,256) January 4, 2024
Read to page 1137.
"I have observed that in a confined space even thought is cramped; When I was brooding over a future novel I liked to walk up and down the room. By the way, I always like better brooding over my works and dreaming how they should be written than actually writing them. And this really is not from laziness. Why is it?" (1106)
After reading that (↑) on the first page of this pieve, I had to go Wikipedia-ing. Was this a novel or a bit of autobiography? Well, ostensibly it's a novel. But I'm going to guess (even at this early date) that it leans hard into Dostoyevsky's life. Time will tell. And do will I.
The narrator describes a shopkeeper's daughter as "a little German miss with flaxen curls, very much like a white mouse." (1110) Um...what? Time for a translation check.
And...I got nothing. All I could find was the same phrase. I did, however, find this:
Dostoyevsky’s portrait by Vallotton Felix
This edition, edited by Olga Shartse for Foreign Languages Publishing House Moscow, has some truly astonishing illustrations... Like woodcuts which were prepared while the artist was in the grip of a nightmare. I hyperbole thee not. Check this out:
Brrrr. You can check out the rest on Internet Archive (for free), by the way.
Meanwhile, back in the States:
This--
"If I was ever happy it was not in the first intoxicating moment of my success, but before I had ever read or shown anyone my manuscript; in those long nights spent in exalted hopes and dreams and passionate love of my work, when I was living with my fancies, with the characters I had myself created, as though they were my family, as though they were real people; I loved them, I rejoiced and grieved with them, and sometimes shed genuine tears over my artless hero." (1134)
--is a perfect description of the inside of my daughter Jacqueline's head. I have sometimes referred to her as a novelist who doesn't use paper. But her characters are so well defined that when I'm out shopping, I'll often see something and think, "Oh, Nellie would love that!" Even funnier, I suppose, us that I sometimes buy the thing and give to Jacqueline to give to Nellie. (Nellie is always polite and grateful.)
Day 2 (DDRD 2,257) January 5, 2024
Read to page 1168.
Day 3 (DDRD 2,258) January 6, 2024
Read to page 1197. Hmm. 90 pages in, and this book seems to keep slipping away from me. There will be something poignant, then a vast drift of Not Very Interesting. Ah, well, it could be worse. (🌧)
Day 4 (DDRD 2,259) January 7, 2024
Read to page 1227. Hmm, 330 pages to go. Seems like a very long haul from where I'm standing right now.
Day 5 (DDRD 2,260) January 8, 2024
Read to page 1257. The little orphan girl Elena is an interesting character...and since she was in most of today's pages, the reading was a bit easier and more captivating.
P.S. Joe had basketball practice. Read to page 1277.
Day 6 (DDRD 2,261) January 9, 2024
Read to page 1307. I thought that this description of Elena--
"It’s quite uncanny; she’s not like a human being." (1304)
--was pretty awesome.
Day 7 (DDRD 2,262) January 10, 2024
Read to page 1339.
Oh. Elena is now Nellie. Jacqueline would be pleased to hear of this.
Day 8 (DDRD 2,263) January 11, 2024
Read to page 1370.
"Love always passes, but incompatibility remains for ever." (1342)
Yep.
Whilst reading this morning, I was also checking out Morning Joe on the side. Usually I muted on commercials and read, but during one bleed-over they were talking about a Republican fracas with Hunter Biden while I read this line: "...I have weighed every word you uttered, every expression of your face, and I’m certain that it has all been a pretence, a sham, a mean, insulting and unworthy farce...." Well, you know: "A connecting principle / Linked to the invisible / Almost imperceptible / Something inexpressible / Science insusceptible / Logic so inflexible / Causally connectable...." *
* "Synchronicity Part I" by Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner
Day 9 (DDRD 2,264) January 12, 2024
Read to page 1400.
I've been aware of the large number of typographical errors in this ebook from the get-go, but it really got to me today...maybe because I woke up at 3:30 am with no hope if further sleep and so commenced reading. At any rate, I don't understand how so many errors are allowed to exist in an e-text. It would take so little effort to clean them alk up. Hell, I'll do it for $100. Are you listening, Amazon? Alexa? Is there anybody OUT THERE?
Day 10 (DDRD 2,265) January 13, 2024
Read to page 1431.
"...the greatest achievement is for a man to know how to restrict himself to a secondary role in life." (1417-1418)
Well...I think I got that one down Are there bonus points for tertiaries?
"...at the root of all human virtues lies the completest egoism...." (1430)
Day 11 (DDRD 2,266) January 14, 2024
Read to page 1461. Less than 100 pages to go.
On page 1431 there's A reference to a tailor named Ivan Skornyagin. As soon as I read it, I thought, "That's the name of the band, boys: Ivan Skornyagin.
Also, this:
"How often I have walked up and down the room with the unconscious desire for someone to insult me or to utter some word that I could interpret as an insult in order to vent my anger upon someone. Women, venting their anger in that way, begin to cry, shedding the most genuine tears, and the more emotional of them even go into hysterics. It’s a very simple and everyday experience, and happens most often when there is some other, often a secret, grief in the heart, to which one longs to give utterance but cannot." (1445)
It's not funny because it's true. We all have hammers in our heads. Were all looking for nails.
Day 12 (DDRD 2,267) ML👑January 15, 2024👑LM
Read to page 1492. Hard, hard slog today. In fact, didn't get to page 1492 until 8:30 pm.
Day 13 (DDRD 2,268) January 16, 2024
Read to page 1522. And another hard hard slog with a late (7:52 pm) finish. Sigh. One more day.
Day 14 (DDRD 2,269) January 17, 2024
Read to page 1557, The End.
Speaking of overkill...
"“She is here, near my heart again!” he cried. “Oh Lord, I thank Thee for all, for all, for Thy wrath and for Thy mercy!...And for Thy sun which is shining upon us again after the storm! For all this minute I thank Thee! Oh, we may be insulted and injured, but we’re together again, and now the proud and haughty who have insulted and injured us may triumph! Let them throw stones at us! Have no fear, Natasha... We will go hand in hand and I will say to them, ‘This is my darling, this is my beloved daughter, my innocent daughter whom you have insulted and injured, but whom I love and bless for ever and ever!’” (1525)
I just did a search of the entire text, and the phrase " insulted and injured" occurs about 300 times in this novel. Well. That's (as they say in the vernacular) extra.
And speaking of "typos" (more accurately "scanos," but I can't see that catching on), this one--
"'Mere is my mother?' she cried once more, stretching out her trembling hands to us." (1526)
--is making me think it's time to quit this Kindle omnibus and find a book not translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. I mean...for fuck's sake, kids.
“She’s very fond of flowers. Do you know what? Let us prepare for her tomorrow when she wakes up a welcome with towers such as she and that Heinrich prepared for her mother, as she described today..." (1544)
Sheesh.
There were some excellent moments in this book, and the ending was quite poignant, but all in all I'd say this is amongst Dostoyevsky's lesser works, and I'd suggest skipping it unless you're an anal retentive, OCD reader like me. There are better things to spend your time and energy on. 😞
(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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