Or possibly The Devils...or even Demons. A 🌹by etcetera, right? At any rate, I'm really feeling a Neal Stephenson pull, specifically to The Baroque Cycle, but I'm also thinking #1☀ might want to read that one with me, so I'm going to leave that on the shelf (so to speak, as many of my bookshelf are not on shelves at the moment) and go for something else. But what? So many choices. I thought about doing The Great When, Alan Moore's new novel...but I took a peek at that and TBH, it didn't look like a 🍵 I wanted to quaff at the moment. So. Well, I don't hate to leave things unfinished, and I have three DDR projects hanging fire as of this writing: The Complete Kafka, The Complete Dostoyevsky, and The Collected Essays of T.H. Huxley.
So I thought I'd have another go at Dostoyevsky.
And next up on the uncompleted list was Бесы...aka Demons, The Possessed, or The Devils. Per the picture above, I have book book copies of the last two. The Constance Garnett one (Faces Hand version) purports to include "A HITHERTO SUPRESSED CHAPTER", so I'm thinking that is The One. Although I am kind of fond of the formality of the David Magarshack translation. Have a look:
DM says, "Before describing the extraordinary events which took place so recently in our town, hitherto not remarkable for anything in particular, I find it necessary, since I am not a skilled writer, to go back a little and begin with certain biographical details concerning our talented and greatly esteemed Stepan Trofimovich Verkhovensky. I hope these details will serve as an introduction to the social and political chronicle of our town, while the story I have in mind to relate will come later."
CG says, "In undertaking to describe the recent and strange incidents in our town, till lately wrapped in uneventful obscurity, I find myself forced in absence of literary skill to begin my story rather far back, that is to say, with certain biographical details concerning that talented and highly esteemed gentleman, Stepan Trofimovich Verkhovensky. I trust that these details may at least serve as an introduction, while my projected story itself will come later."
Well, 🍅 or 🍅, I suppose.
So it's
The salient details:
(1) published in 1963
(2) xiv + 736 = 750 pages
(3) about 25 days' worth of reading
(4) my copy is an LFPL discard
Okie dokie.
Day 1 (DDRD 2,545) October 19, 2024
Hey...48 years ago today I arrived at Ft. Dix, New Jersey for Basic Training. That was no easy day, man.
Read to page 20. It didn't pull me in, but it wasn't a slog, either. That's good enough for me. For now, anyone.
In the Forward, Avrahm Yarmolinsky, who makes the seemingly required insulting comments on Dostoyevsky's work ("only partially successful," "exaggerated, distorted, anachronistic"), also seems to call Dostoyevsky a Fascist: "In some respects Dostoyevsky's emotional nationalism and racialism anticipate the Fascist philosophy of our own day." (v)
WTF? Who hires these guys to write introductions like this? And who the hell is Avrahm Yarmolinsky, anyway?
Well, no way to answer the first question, but as to the second, the (slim) Wikipedia entry on Avrahm includes the phrase, "and the husband of Babette Deutsch." (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avrahm_Yarmolinsky) Well, God bless her, but I think anytime the phrase, the husband of or the wife of or the whatever of appears in a bio, it probably means that the person who is the subject of the entry is not that famous. On top of that, I for one have never heard of Babette Deutsch, so the fact that she is invoked would seem to imply that our man Avrahm is pretty far down The List, ya feel me? Just sayin'.
P.S. I am waaaaaaaaaay overdue to read some Karl Ove Knausgård.
Day 2 (DDRD 2,546) October 20, 2024
Read to page 50. Starting to slip into gear, so even though it hasn't caught me up yet, neither us it a chore. Got to admit that I'm still thinking hard about
Meanwhile:
"...Christianity has failed to understand women...." (35)
Day 3 (DDRD 2,547) October 21, 2024
Read to page 80. Still neither chore nor delight.
"...set the most insignificant nonentity to sell miserable tickets at a railway station, and the nonentity will at once feel privileged to look down on you like a Jupiter.... (54)
"Do you go for a four-mile walk every day as the doctor told you to?" (55) Four miles being pretty close to 10,000 steps, so I guess THAT's been around for awhile.
Stepan Trofimovich Verkhovensky, 53, is supposed to marry 20 year old Darya Pavlovna Shatova (Dasha). Well...hard not to take THAT personally. One of the commentaries I read online suggested that Dash a was comparable to Sonya in Crime and Punishment. Hmpf. I'll have to jeep an eye on that.
Day 4 (DDRD 2,548) October 22, 2024
Read to page 110.
Woke up this morning and my first thought upon awakening was, "I'm going to read some My Struggle. Sorry about that. Fyodor. (But I still read my thirty Possessed pages first.)
Day 5 (DDRD 2,549) October 23, 2024
Read to page 140. With a little help from Jet.
"God is the pain of the fear of death." (114)
"God is a concept by which we measure our pain." John Lennon
Hmmm.
I started the day (4:30 am) with My Struggle. Couldn't help myself. And most of the pages I read were about a New Year's Eve party, with (naturlich) a great deal of focus on 12:00. When my Kindke ran out of power is switched over to The Possessed, wherein a moment ago I read this:
It's a small world after all.
Day 6 (DDRD 2,550) October 24, 2024
Read to page 170. Hmmm. Hate to say it, but...kind of boring.
Day 7 (DDRD 2,551) October 25, 2024
Read to page 200. And another boring thirty pages. Come on, FD, you can do better than this. I might try switching to the other translation for a session, just to see if that helps.
Day 8 (DDRD 2,552) October 26, 2024
Read to page 230...which is page 234 in the DM version.
I'm not sure how much difference switching translations made...so i think I'll give it another go tomorrow.
I picked up my other version of this book--The Devils, translated by David Magarshack--to see if Constance Garnett's rendition could be causing my apathy for this novel. After a few pages, I read this:
"...genuine grief sometimes turns even fools into wise men...for a time, of course...." (209)
And then I went back to see how Constance did it:
"...even fools are by genuine sorrow turned into wise men... only for a short time. Of course...." (203)
Well. That's a little awkward, CG. Think I'll stick with DM for a bit and see how it goes.
Day 9 (DDRD 2,553) October 27, 2024
Read to page 265. (still DM version). Reading seemed to go a bit better today...a little theological argument formed much of it, and I'm always down for that.
Also, the conversation/argument between Shatov and Stavrogin reminded me a lot of Raskolnikov and Svidrigailov, which is a good thing.
"Man's unhappy because he doesn't know that he's happy. Only because of that. That's all--that's all! He who finds out will become happy at once--that very minute." (243)
Here's a big thought:
"The purpose of the whole evolution of a nation, in every people and at every period of its existence, is solely the pursuit of God, their God, their very own God, and faith in Him as in the only true one. God is the synthetic personality of the whole people, taken from its beginning to its end." (256)
This more or less becomes an argument for every nation having its own unique God...though it seems to me that you could argue that these aren't different Gods, but differing views of the one God.
"...atheism is still healthier than Roman Catholicism." (258) Yowza!
Day 10 (DDRD 2,554) October 28, 2024
Read to page 298 (DM version). The duel was actually pretty exciting. And f course I'm always down for a crazy person. So today's reading was a notch above okay.
Day 11 (DDRD 2,555) October 29, 2024
Read to page 331 (DM version).
"...religion is necessary in order to brutalize the people." (318)
Constance?
"...you know perfectly well that you need religion to brutalise the people." (320)
Hmm. Not much difference, but I'm giving the edge to DM again.
The last bit of this section, in which a group of louts crashes a crime scene and mocks a young suicide, was really disturbing. Sometimes it's hard not to hate human beings, and wonder at God's choice to spare Niah and Company from the flood (so to speak--I don't take this story as history...or even true).
Day 12 (DDRD 2,556) October 30, 2024
Read to page 362 (DM).
Semyon Yakovlevich, a "holy fool," says "Kick her in the ____, in the ____!"... and the narrator notes that he " addresses himself to her with an extremely indecent word." (338) I wanted to see how Constance had handled that, so I switched over to her translation, and found, "Out with the ____, out with the ____...." (341) Neither of which seems very appropriate for a monk, but those are quite different takes, aren't they? I think somebody took some license here.
Day 13 (DDRD 2,557) 🎃 October 31, 2024 🎃
Hmmm. Day 13...and on the 31st? There's something happening here, and what it is ain't exac-a-ly clear.
Read to page 394. You know, the reading is going along okay, and there are some entrancing moments here and there, but I really have a very clear idea of what is going on in this story...other than people sniping at each other. That seems like a bad sign.
"...the easiest way in which a Russian could be won over is by telling him frankly that he has a right to be dishonorable." (389)
Well...it's not just Russians, is it?
Day 14 (DDRD 2,558) November 1, 2024
Read to page 450. Hmm. Didn't actually mean to read that far. Wish I could say it was absorption that accounted for the extra pages, but actually up it was because I marked the wrong endpoint for my thirty. Somedays it just be like that.
Day 15 (DDRD 2,559) November 2, 2024
Read to page 450.
Why oh why do these motherfuckers insist on not translating the French phrases that erupt throughout this novel? If it's meant to accentuate verisimilitude, fine, but would it kill them to throw in a fucking footnote? Very irritating, and my life is too short to Google translate...there are a hell of a lot of French phrases here. 😕
Day 16 (DDRD 2,560) November 3, 2024
Read to page 480.
"Of course, no one has a right to expect from me, as the narrator, too exact an account concerning one point: for we are dealing with a mystery here, we are dealing with a woman." (467)
I find myself preoccupied with wondering, "How mdany pages to go? (Less than 200, btw).
Day 17 (DDRD 2,561) November 4, 2024
Read to page 510. And the beat goes on. Not awful, not boring, but not substantial, either. Fortunately, another five days ought to do it.
"...stupidity, like the greatest genius, is equally useful in shaping human destiny." (482)
Yep. Happy Election Day!
"...mankind can get along...without science, without bread, but without beauty it cannot carry on, for then there will be nothing more to do in the world.!" (483)
Day 18 (DDRD 2,562) November 5, 2024
Read to page 540. Four days to go.
Last night Jet jumped onto the footstool where I'd left my book and
That darned cat.
As I was examining the book to take stock of the damage--unbelievably the front and back covers are still attached. Barely--I noticed the cover illustration for the first time:
As my beloved Father Zoeller once said in a theology class, it's the pigs "doing a half gainer" into the lake. (Matthew 8:28-34,Luke 8:26-37)
Kinda strange.
I like that in a book.
Day 19 (DDRD 2,563) November 6, 2024
Read to page 560, then decided to switch back to the CG version, as (1) this book is now coming apart at the seams
and (2) I'm not THAT far from the end now (he said 😑), and the CG version has that "suppressed chapter" that this DM version doesn't have. And maybe also (3) I don't know that this translation is any better than CG's at this point. It's not as bad as The Idiot, but this book is definitely skippable, and no translation can turn it into a silk purse.
So from page 561 (DM) we go to page 575...and the chapter title of III 5 goes from "The Globe Trotter" to "A Wanderer."
And read from 575 to 585, which leaves 151 pages, so it's going to take an extra couple of days to finish now. Unless I start reading more pages per day...which doesn't seem likely.
"There was a thrill of extraordinary and unexpected feeling in his soul. Three years of separation, three years of the broken marriage had effaced nothing from his heart. And perhaps every day during those three years he had dreamed of her, of that beloved being who had once said to him, 'I love you.'" (579)
Ouch.
Day 20 (DDRD 2,564) November 7, 2024
Read to page 625. Actually got a bit interesting here, what with an unexpected murder and cover-up. Also a birthing scene which was pretty intense. 111 pages to go. I kind of feel like pounding those pages down so I can start on my Krasznahorkai book. 🤔
"...life is a neatly thing for a decent man..." (625)
Day 21 (DDRD 2,565) November 8, 2024
Read to page 665. I'm thinking 2 more days with some extra push will do it. And then...The Krasznahorkai Cometh.
Day 22 (DDRD 2,566) November 9, 2024
Read to page 688...which us actually The End...but now cometh 48 pages of DVD extras. Some of which I'll attempt to read today.
"...the mountains restrict both vision and thought." (684) *
When I read this line, I immediately thought, "I can use that for my ...Then There is no Mountain novel...which I stopped working on some time ago. I guess it's still twitchin' a mite. I doubt that anything will come if it, but hey, 67 isn't as old as it used to be, right?
Here's a puzzler: "...outright atheism is more to be respected than worldly indifference.... Say what you may, but the complete atheist stands on the penultimate step to most perfect faith (he may not take a further step), but the indifferent person has no faith whatever except a bad fear, and that but rarely, and only if he is sensitive." (698)
Say what???
On the next page, this is linked to the "lukewarm = spit the out," which helps to make sense of it...but how atheism is a step away from perfect faith eludes me. Insert your comments here, please.
ADDENDUM: had some wait time, read to 712.
* And C? "...the mountains restrict both vision and thought." Looks like somebody cooked somebody else's homework.
Day 23 (DDRD 2,567) November 10, 2024
Read to page 736...The End. The last 50 pages or so of this book the extra ge much better than the first 680 pages. I wouldn't recommend reading it unless you're as OCS / anal retentive as I am, but at least it wasn't painful to read...like The Idiot. Speaking of, that book really bothers me in retrospect. I keep thinking about how Dostoyevsky Saud that was his favorite of his books, and it makes me want to give it another go. Then I think about how I had to pull myself hand over hand through every page of that thing, and I know it'd be crazy to out myself through that.
Which probably means that I'll do it at some point. But not niw, that's for sure. Now it's Krasznahorkai time!
It's hard not to think of Svidrigailov while reading the letter left by Stavrogin. In fact, much if his story here seems to fit in with things Svidrigailov referred to...and the character of Stavrogin seems identical to Svid's.
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