I read this one a long, long time ago, and I'm sorry to say that I don't remember anything about it, not even if I liked it or not. xxii + 660 = 682 pages...with the novel itself clicking in at 640 pages. So I'm thinking 23 days.
And of course I had to start nibbling on it right away (February 21, thus Day 0), and found this interesting bit in Linda J. Ivanits' Introduction:
"Does Myshkin represent a new Don Quixote or a Christ for contemporary Russia?" (ix)
Day 1 (DDRD 2,305) February 22, 2024
Read to page 14.
So today I started The Idiot, the story of Prince Myshkin, and this appeared in my Facebook feed:
Day 2 (DDRD 2,306) February 23, 2024
Read to page 44. Not really grabbing me yet, but I do like Prince Myshkin.
Day 3 (DDRD 2,307) February 24, 2024
Read to page 74.
In some ways, this seems like the thumbnail sketch version of The Brothers Karamazov. Marie is very much like Stinking Lizaveta, Prince Myshkin seems very much like Alyosha. At any rate, I'm sorry to say that this far in the story still hasn't grabbed me, and I feel like I'm just pushing this big boulder up a steep hill.
Interesting perspective: "One can tell a child everything, anything. I have often been struck by the fact that parents know their children so little. They should not conceal so much from them. How well even little children understand that their parents conceal things from them, because they consider them too young to understand!" (69)
Day 4 (DDRD 2,308) February 25, 2024
Read to page 110.
Day 5 (DDRD 2,309) February 26, 2024
Read to page 140. With 520 pages to go, there's plenty of time for my mind to change, but as of this moment I do not like this book very much. We seem to be stumbling from one meaningless conversation to another, with no guiding light, no goal, no purpose. And even worse, there is nothing beautiful or even noteworthy about Dostoyevsky's language. It is, in fact, banal. I can switch to a different translation and see if that helps at all, I suppose.
Day 6 (DDRD 2,310) February 27, 2024
Read to page "170." I switched over to the Constance Garnett translation for today...thus the " " as the page numbers were different, but I read to the same point that 170 would be. And? Well, it wasn't any better. Maybe ill have another go at it tomorrow.
Day 7 (DDRD 2,311) February 28, 2024
Read to page "200."
I went to my friends at IMDb to see if (1) there was a filmed version of The Idiot and (2) if so, who they got to play Nastasya Filipovna.
I found three versions: from 1951, A Japanese version directed by Akira Kurosawa; from 1958, A Russian version; and from 2003, A Russian tv mini-series. Here are the respective Nastayas:
All perfectly fine looking women...especially Lidiya... but none quite fit my idea of a woman so beautiful that it made you woozy to be in her presence.
I was thinking that Charlotte Kemp Muhl would be a good pick:
She makes me woozy, anyway.
General Ardalion Alexandrovitch Ivolgin says that he is "the victim...of an 'unbounded trust in the nobility of the human heart.'”
I think that's the new epitaph. Here lies etc. Yep.
Meanwhile, back in the States...."I am conscious of an irresistible desire to remind you of my existence...."
Day 8 (DDRD 2,312) February 29, 2024
Read to page "230."
When I was a little kid, I used to look out the back window of the car and watch the line in the road, and as long as it was unbroken, I would sing, "Where will it end? Where will it end?" Etcetera. I'm thinking about that song s I continue to read this book.
 |
| Public Domain |
Day 9 (DDRD 2,313) March 1, 2024
Read to page "261."
Constance says, "Compassion is the chief law of human existence."
Henry & Olga say, "Compassion is the chief and perhaps the only law of human existence." (241)
Hmmm. I like the latter better, but really...it's a bit overly optimistic, isn't it? I'm calling this one for Constance... though I'd like to see the original Russian, if you please. Just to be sure. As if the would do me any good.
Day 10 (DDRD 2,314) March 2, 2024
Read to page 291. No quotes. I'm back to the Henry & Olga translation. Not out of disatisfaction with Constance, but out of the desire to hold a real book in my hands again. Even one I don't particularly like. Sigh. 369 🍼of 🍻 on the wall....
A line from Waiting for Godot occurs to me:
"This is becoming really insignificant."
Day 11 (DDRD 2,315) March 3, 2024
Read to page 321. Tough hill to climb today. 339 to go...so almost at the halfway point.
Sigh.
Day 12 (DDRD 2,316) March 4, 2024
Read to page 351. 🏔
Day 13 (DDRD 2,317) March 5, 2024
Read to page 381. 🏔🏔🏔 A VERY hard read, in part because I got sick, but also because I just don't like this book (it pains me to say).
I checked out a review on reddit, just to see if anyone else found this book less than spectacular, and r/books had this to say: "...most of the scenes seemed pretty inconsequential. As someone else on this subreddit said, the book felt like a daytime soap opera. I especially disliked how overly dramatic the female characters are and how they freak out and storm off in practically every scene. Overall, the labor of reading these 650 pages was not really worth it, but I slugged though because I wasn't gonna put it down after reading~400 pages. Anyone else feel the same about this book?"
Yep.
Day 14 (DDRD 2,318) March 6, 2024
Read to page 411. You know, it don't come easy.
As a matter of fact, I actually started wondering if I really want to stay on this All Of Dostoyevsky's Fiction path I've been treading for the past 4 months. 249 pages of this (8 days), and then...can I count on Demons and The Adolescent being better? You know, there are a lot of other things I've been wanting to read....
In other news, I've just read a bunch of "Dostoyevsky's Greatest Novels" lists, and every one of them included The Idiot. What the fucking fuckity fuck, man?
Day 15 (DDRD 2,319) March 7, 2024
Read to page 441.
Some true Truths today:
(1) "Oh, you may be certain that Columbus was happy not when he had discovered America but rather when he was just on the point of discovering it; you may be certain that his highest moment of happiness was perhaps three days before the discovery of the New World, when his mutinous crew in desperation almost turned back to Europe!" (412)
After Keats' "Ode on a Grecian Urn":
(2) "... people are created to torture one another." (413)
The reading was a bit better today...maybe because of the whole suicide thing. It's hard to make that kind of shit boring.
Day 16 (DDRD 2,320) March 8, 2024
Read to page 480. At very least, I might take a break from Dostoyevsky after this Idiot thing and read that big Handel opera book I got a couple of months back.
Day 17 (DDRD 2,321) March 9, 2024
Read to page 510. 150 pages to go.
Day 18 (DDRD 2,322) March 10, 2024
Read to page 550.
"...people are more ready to believe crude liars who are amusing than a man of worth and merit." (516)
Ain't that the truth.
Day 19 (DDRD 2,323) March 11, 2024
Read to page 580. 80 pages to go, then. Three days or less. Sigh. I think I'm definitely going to take a Dostoyevsky break after this. I do fear that I might not make it back, but at this point I'm just exhausted by disappointment in this novel. How is it possible that so many people regard this as not only one of Dostoyevsky's greatest, but as one of the greatest novels of all time?
There was a passage which lifted me out of my reading torpor for a moment. Not in a good way. It was the Prince's vitriolic diatribe against Catholicism. It's long, so I went for the Constance translation which I could easily copy and post (as opposed to the Henry & Olga translation, which I would have to copy word by word).
“It is not a Christian religion, in the first place,” said the latter, in extreme agitation, quite out of proportion to the necessity of the moment. “And in the second place, Roman Catholicism is, in my opinion, worse than Atheism itself. Yes — that is my opinion. Atheism only preaches a negation, but Romanism goes further; it preaches a disfigured, distorted Christ — it preaches Anti-Christ — I assure you, I swear it! This is my own personal conviction, and it has long distressed me. The Roman Catholic believes that the Church on earth cannot stand without universal temporal Power. He cries ‘non possumus!’ In my opinion the Roman Catholic religion is not a faith at all, but simply a continuation of the Roman Empire, and everything is subordinated to this idea — beginning with faith. The Pope has seized territories and an earthly throne, and has held them with the sword. And so the thing has gone on, only that to the sword they have added lying, intrigue, deceit, fanaticism, superstition, swindling; — they have played fast and loose with the most sacred and sincere feelings of men; — they have exchanged everything — everything for money, for base earthly power! And is this not the teaching of Anti-Christ? How could the upshot of all this be other than Atheism? Atheism is the child of Roman Catholicism — it proceeded from these Romans themselves, though perhaps they would not believe it. It grew and fattened on hatred of its parents; it is the progeny of their lies and spiritual feebleness. Atheism! In our country it is only among the upper classes that you find unbelievers; men who have lost the root or spirit of their faith; but abroad whole masses of the people are beginning to profess unbelief — at first because of the darkness and lies by which they were surrounded; but now out of fanaticism, out of loathing for the Church and Christianity!”
I was pretty shocked by all of that. Also, in searching for that bit, I did a search in my Kindle collection of All Of The Novels of Dostoyevsky and came across this bit from Demons: "...you believed that Roman Catholicism was not Christianity; you asserted that Rome proclaimed Christ subject to the third temptation of the devil. Announcing to all the world that Christ without an earthly kingdom cannot hold his ground upon earth, Catholicism by so doing proclaimed Antichrist and ruined the whole Western world. You pointed out that if France is in agonies now it’s simply the fault of Catholicism, for she has rejected the iniquitous God of Rome and has not found a new one."
And of course that slides right into place with the whole Grand Inquisitor scene from The Brothers Karamazov. Seems pretty clear that Dostoyevsky had a true hatred for Catholicism.
I find that very disappointing.
Day 20 (DDRD 2,324) March 12, 2024
Read to page 610. 50 pages to go.
Dostoyevsky has often shown a fondness for intrusive narrators, but so far as I've read, this one is by far the most intrusive. He not only bows into the frame to let you know he's there...he even discusses how he is telling the story. Is that why people regard The Idiot as experimental? Cuz if so...that's just bullshit. Lots of other writers were breaking and entering their stories before FD.
Why the hell do people like this fucking book???
Day 21 (DDRD 2,325) March 13, 2024
Read to page 660, aka The End.
Just couldn't face 30 pages of this straight out of the chute this morning, so I turned to the Afterword (pages 645 to 655). And almost immediately hit this: "The Idiot was...Dostoyevsky's personal favorite." (645) Holy shit, man.
Ho. Lee. Shit.
Later on, says, "there is no binding idea in The Idiot." (645) Hmpf. Seems to me that the definition of A novel is a collection if binding ideas. But what do I know.
If I were a rich man...deedle deedle deedle deedle deedle die....
At any rate, I'm through with it, will never go back to it, wish I had my 21 days spent on it back.
Time for a Dostoyevsky break.
(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
No comments:
Post a Comment