The Human Spectrum
It was never my goal to put together a collection of horror stories, to overwhelm the reader. I was collecting the human. Dostoevsky asked the question: “How much of the human is there in a…
Tag: Fyodor Dostoevsky
Beautiful and Toxic Multitudes
Jewish because reading Dostoyevsky at 13 I write poems at restaurant tables Lower East Side, perfect delicatessen intellectual –Allen Ginsberg, Yiddishe Kopf Prompted by a recent tragedy, I turned again to the conclusion of Fyodor…
Gratitude/909
I spent the afternoon in Benton Park with exuberant Penny Smith who, last night, pulled out one of her notebooks, opened to a random page and found this advice she’d scribbled down during one of…
A Late Night Raid on Victor Terras’s A Karamazov Companion: Commentary on the Genesis, Language, and Style of Dostoevsky’s Novel/1
for Cami “I love Russia, Aliosha, I love the Russian God, though I am a scoundrel myself.” –Dmitry Karamazov So, maybe you’ve already taken the plunge back in Wisconsin, and are now immersed in “A…
The Good News of Translation, 3.17.2017
Opera excepted, I never asked myself, in those early years of reading literature in translation, what I was missing. It was as if I felt it were my job, as a passionate reader, to see…
Authors for Reading Alongside Svetlana Alexievich’s Secondhand Time
I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us. If the book we’re reading doesn’t wake us up with a blow on the head, what are we reading…
Note to a Friend Who Surprised Herself Last Month by Reading Ten Various Historical Critical Political Theological Books about Jesus
Dear Flannery Jesus Jee-zus Yesh Son o’ God Messiah Numero Uno Christ the King Son of Man Son of Mary and Joe Champion of the poor Pre-incarnation of Che Founder of the Church? Believer in…
On Book Six of The Brothers Karamazov
For Cab Yau Perhaps these will speak to you as we reconsider Dostoevsky’s masterpiece… “where we read truly, where the experience is to be that of meaning, we do so as if the text (the…
Mick and Fyodor at the Russian Tea Room (“Just Wanna See His Face”)
“We loved your novel on the Brothers In the early-70s Keith himself musta read it three times He wouldn’t shut up about it” “This pleases me!” “Yeah, he mostly loved Mitya But he was also…
Gratitude Journal/7
Dear Doc, Thank you for leaving voice messages for me. You may say three or four sentences, but your voice is always calming to me. (I trust that your voice has that same beneficent effect…