dostoevsky - II

"Dostoevsky is finished. He will no longer write anything important." -- Nekrasov (1859)

“a sick, cruel talent” -- Nikolay Mikhailovsky (1882)

“a prophet of God,” a “mystical seer.” -- Vladimir Solvyov (1883)

“He lived in literature.” -- Konstantin Mochulsky

“the Shakespeare of the lunatic asylum” -- Count Melchoir de Vogue (1848-1910)

“Dostoevsky preaches the morality of the pariah, the morality of the slave.” -- Georg Brandes (1889)

“Russia’s evil genius,” -- Maxim Gorky (1905)

Thomas Mann described Dostoyevsky as “an author whose Christian sympathy is ordinarily devoted to human misery, sin, vice, the depths of lust and crime, rather than to nobility of body and soul” and Notes from Underground as “an awe- and terror-inspiring example of this sympathy.”

Turgenev once described Dostoyevsky as “the nastiest Christian he had ever met”.

Nietzsche was scornful of Dostoyevsky’s Christian stand and held him in contempt for his “morbid moral tortures,” his rejection of “proper pride”. He accused him of “sinning to enjoy the luxury of confession,” which Nietzsche considered a “degrading prostration.” Dostoyevsky was, in Nietzsche’s words, one of the victims of the “conscience-vivisection and self-crucifixion of two thousand years” of Christianity.

However, Nietzsche also described Dostoevsky as “the only psychologist from whom he had anything to learn.” (1887)

Edwin Muir states that “Dostoyevsky wrote of the unconscious as if it were conscious; that is in reality the reason why his characters seem ‘pathological’, while they are only visualized more clearly than any other figures in imaginative literature... He was in the rank in which we set Dante, Shakespeare and Goethe.”

Henry James described Dostoevsky’s works as “baggy monsters” and “fluid puddings”, with a profound “lack of composition” and a “defiance of economy and architecture.

Joseph Conrad called The Brothers Karamazov “... an impossible lump of valuable matter. It’s terrifically bad and impressive and exasperating. Moreover, I don’t know what Dostoevsky stands for or reveals, but I do know that he is too Russian for me. It sounds like some fierce mouthings of prehistoric ages.”

Nikolay Berdyaev (Prague, 1923) states matter-of-factly: “So great is the worth of Dostoevsky that to have produced him is by itself sufficient justification for the existence of the Russian people in the world: and he will bear witness for his country-men at the last judgement of the nations.”

Kenneth Rexroth describes Dostoyevsky as a “man of many messages, a man in whom the flesh was always troubled and sick and whose head was full of dying ideologies--at last the sun in the sky, the hot smell of a woman, the grass on the earth, the human meat on the bone, the farce of death” -- from his book Classics Revisited.

Henry Miller writes “When it comes to Emerson, Dostoievsky, Maeterlinck, Knut Hamsun, G. A. Henty, I know I shall never say my last word about them. A subject like The Grand Inquisator, for example, or The Eternal Husband--my favorite of all Dostoievsky’s works--would seem to demand separate books in themselves.” -- from his book The Books in my Life

Miller goes on to say that “Dostoievsky was human in that “all too human” sense of Nietzsche. He wrings our withers when he unrolls his scroll of life.” and “Dostoievsky had virtually to create God-- and what a Herculean task that was! Dostoievsky rose from the depths and, reaching the summit, retained something of the depths about him still.” and “Dostoievsky is chaos and fecundity. Humanity, with him, is but a vortex in the bubbling maelstrom.”

D. H. Lawrence: “He who gets nearer the sun is leader, the aristocrat of aristocrats, or he who, like Dostoievsky, gets nearest the moon of our non-being.”

D. H. Lawrence: “I don’t like Dostoevsky. He is like the rat, slithering along in hate, in the shadows, and in order to belong to the light, professing love, all love.” He also thinks that Dostoevsky, “mixing God and Sadism,” is “foul.”

Hermann Hesse in 1920, professed his fear of Dostoevsky’s “slavic murkiness.”

Walter Kaufman refers to Notes From Underground, published in 1864, as one of the “most revolutionary and original works of world literature.” “The man whom Dostoevsky has created in this book [Notes From Underground] holds out for what traditional Christianity has called depravity; but he believes neither in original sin nor in God, and for him man’s self-will is not depravity: it is only perverse from the point of view of rationalists and others who value neat schemes above the rich texture of individuality.”

“To Dostoevsky belongs a place beside the Great Christian writers of world literature: Dante, Cervantes, Milton, Pascal. Like Dante, he passed through all the circles of human hell, one more terrible than the mediaeval hell of the Divine Comedy, and was not consumed in hell’s flame: his duca e maestro was not Virgil, but the “radiant image” of the Christ, love for whom was the greatest love of his whole life.” -- Konstantin Mochulsky

"Dostoevsky gives me more than any scientist, more than Gauss!" -- Einstein

"Notes from the Underground is the best overture for existentialism ever written." -- Walter Kaufmann, "Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre" (1956)

"Just as I have no ear for music, I have to my regret no ear for Dostoevsky the Prophet. The very best thing he ever wrote seems to me to be THE DOUBLE. It is [a] story... told very elaborately, in great, almost Joycean detail..., and in style intensely saturated with phonetic and rhythmical expressiveness... It is a perfect work of art, that story, but it hardly exists for the followers of Dostoevsky the Prophet, because it was written in the 1840s, long before his so-called great novels..." -- Vladimir Nabokov on "THE DOUBLE"


Some reactions to "THE DOUBLE" when it was first published...

"It is apparent at first glance that in The Double there is more creative talent and depth of thought than in Poor Folk. But meanwhile the consensus of St. Petersburg readers is that this novel is intolerably long-winded and therefore terribly boring..." -- Vissarion Belinsky

"In The Double, Dostoevsky's method and his love for psychological analysis are revealed in all their fullness and originality. In this work he has penetrated so deep into the human soul, has gazed so fearlessly and feelingly into the innermost workings of human emotions, thoughts, and affairs that the impression produced by reading The Double may be compared only with the experience of a man of inquiring mind who has penetrated into the chemical composition of matter." -- Valerian Maikov

"We do not understand how the author of Poor Folk, a tale that is nevertheless remarkable, could write The Double. It is a sin against artistic conscience, without which there cannot be true talent." -- S.P Shevyrev

"In this tale we now see not the influence of Gogol, but an imitation of him... In speaking of Mr. Dostoevsky's tale The Double, one can repeat the words which his Mr. Golyadkin often repeats: 'Dear, it's bad, bad! Dear, my case is pretty bad now! Oh, dear, so that's the turn my case has taken now!' Yes, indeed, it's bad and it's taken a bad turn." A.A. Grigor'ev: "The Double, in our humanly imperfect opinion, is a work that is pathological and therapeutic but by no means literary: it is a story of madness, analyzed, it is true, to the extreme, but, nevertheless, as repulsive as a dead body." -- K.S. Aksakov


And to "NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND" when it was first published...

"The hero tortures because he wants to, he likes to torture. There is neither reason nor purpose here, and, in the opinion of the author, they are not at all necessary, for absolute cruelty, cruelty an und fur sich (in and of itself) is interesting." -- Nikolai Mikhailovsky (on the underground man's treatment of Liza)

The underground man, through solitary observation of human nature and criticism of the utopian rationalists, attained a deep understanding of human imperfection as a law of nature and of history and became convinced that man, by his very essence, is an irrational, incomprehensible being, endowed in the act of creation with the capacity for suffering and rejoicing, and for profound emotional experience of his vicissitudes, but whose intellect has not been given the possibility of understanding and explaining the essence of man. In their reliance on reason, all rational sciences are equally powerless to unravel the secret of man. The understanding of man can come only through irrational, mystical penetration into the essence of things, that is, through religion. -- Vasily Rozanov (summary of views)

"[the author's very tormenting and barren... writing] clarifies nothing, does not exalt the positive in life, but, dwelling on the negative aspects only, fixes them in mind of man, always depicts him as helpless amid a chaos of dark forces, and can lead him to pessimism, mysticism, etc.... With the triumph of one who is insatiably taking vengeance for his personal misfortunes and sufferings and for the enthusiasms of his youth, Dostoevsky showed in the person of his hero to what lengths the individualists in the class of young people cut off from life in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries can go in their whining baseness..." -- Maxim Gorky

"Why part two is entitled 'Concerning Wet Snow' is a question that can be settled only in the light of journalistic innuendoes of the 1860s by writers who liked symbols, allusions to allusions, that kind of thing. The symbol perhaps is of purity becoming damp and dingy... After the great chapter 4... a false note is introduced with the appearance of that favorite figure of sentimental fiction, the noble prostitute, the fallen girl with the lofty heart. Liza, the young lady from Riga, is a literary dummy." -- Vladimir Nabokov


And to "CRIME & PUNISHMENT"...

"Raskolnikov lived his true life when he was lying on the sofa in his room, deliberating not at all about the old woman, nor even as to whether it is or is not permissible at the will of one man to wipe from the face of the earth another, unnecessary and harmful, man, but whether he ought to live in Petersburg or not, whether he ought to accept money from his mother or not, and on other questions not at all relating to the old woman. And then -- in that region quite independent of animal activities -- the question of whether he would or would not kill the old woman was decided. The question was decided... when he was doing nothing and was only thinking, when only his consciousness was active: and in that consciousness tiny, tiny alterations were taking place. It is at such times that one needs the greatest clearness to decide correctly the questions that have arisen, and it is just then that one glass of beer, or one cigarette, may prevent the solution of the question, may postpone the decision, stifle the voice of conscience and prompt a decision of the question in favor of the lower, animal nature -- as was the case with Raskolnikov. Tiny, tiny alterations -- but on them depend the most immense and terrible consequences." -- Leo Tolstoy on Dostoevsky's Raskolnikov


Source: http://www.kiosek.com/dostoevsky/quotations.html

vademecum

Every time I go away
I only can see your face
When I leave just for a while
all I can see is your adorable smile

When I go
I miss you so
My heart beats too slow
But when your here
I have no fear
and now all I can hear..

is your cute laugh
I want to go back..
I see your small nose
Your so warm hearted, I bet it glows
I see Your red cheeks
You look so sweet.
When you look at me
all I can see
are those eyes
makes my brain fry

You are my sweetheart
My darling
My love
My little dumpling
I dont want to be away
from all the pet words we make any day

When we are apart
I have no heart
Im lathargic like an old fart
When I go
I miss you so
My heart beats too slow
But when your here
I have no fear
and all I can hear..

is the way you talk with me
The way you walk with me
The way you turn my frown
all the way upside-down
and how you can comfort me
when I need to be
In a caring souls arms
Without a single sight of harm

So next time I go away
I'll pack you in my suitcase
Well be away, but together
and I want that forever.

Death ?

“We were meant to learn in our time together.”
-Jonathan Livingston Seagull

This quote is strange to say the least. It doesn’t give me something new to really think about but rather reminds me of one of my oldest fears: that of loss. When we are done learning, what happens? Do we split ways and go opposite directions? If that’s so, then what happens after I can learn no more from my mother, father, or friends? What is that opposite direction? Death, our continuing to live when our choices in life lead us separate ways, the loss of communication? Considering how clingy a person I am I don’t think I’d like to stop learning from a lot of people because quite personally I love them so much that I’d miss them when our time together was up. Which leads to a second argument: do we ever stop learning? The universe is so open-ended that it could be possible that if people stuck around only to be learned from that I could keep the people that I love the most around the longest, however humans are so close-minded that I suppose such a thing couldn’t be possible even if physics allowed. Humans, I understand are not siphons for the universe’s knowledge, which just returns the fear of loss and the anger that accompanies it. After all, one person can only know so much.
I lost a man who was as much a part of my family as my own parents. He was hit in a car accident. And it puts this quote into perspective. I only cried twice for the man: once when i was told what had happened and the second time at the funeral when I saw the coffin. Even in death he still was able to teach me which leads one to further question the context into which I put this quote. Are people truly gone after death? Is death a limiting factor in our ability to learn from one another, because he gave me more than just a father figure and a playmate for years; at his funeral I learned that I have more family that just the blood relatives and that I truly am important to some people and that I’m perhaps stronger than I first admitted to. I have very low self-esteem normally, which is why my new focus on fixing everything that I have come to hate about myself this year is such a massive turn around. It’s only ironic that I would attend my first funeral under such circumstances and that I come to such a conclusion, such as I most likely will not be the person to make all the changes in my life alone. Of course it certainly is not the quote alone that leads me to this conclusion but the experience which makes the quote worthwhile.

the book of mirdad

"Can you see the beauty of great literature, like The
Book of Mirdad? If you cannot see it, you are blind.
I have come across people who have not even heard the
name of The Book of Mirdad. If I am to make a list of the
great books, that will be the first. But to see the beauty
of it you will need a tremendous discipline."

- Osho ( The books i have loved session )


The book is beauty, sheer beauty!!

Dostoevsky - I

There is one fundamental power within the human being, one core desire that exhales all the use of language, signs… communications, and that is to become understood! The human mind is complicated, yet simple, thus making it twice as complicated. We use the method of metaphor and other linguistic maneuvers to steer our tongue, to better paint before our observers our thoughts and feelings; simply because our words, our whole language is poor. There are not enough words, and fewer that are learnt. How does one ever know what the other means through verbal communication, body language or elaborated scripts? In whatever sense, we attempt to reach out and provide meaning to others from our thoughts and feelings, there is always a certain portion that remains undelivered, indescribable and concealed within ourselves, giving a burdening effect over our shoulders: we find ourselves unfulfilled in unsuccessfully sharing parts of our mind and flesh into the person in question (whether it is a stranger or a beloved, a friend or foe.) Humans seek to show their gratitude, but also to make their gratitude understood (and by gratitude establish a foothold in another being’s territory). One can go by a lifetime without be able to reach out properly in the fullest extent of the will. Is one even truly familiar with oneself? Can at all one be understood by others? Can the simplest outbursts be clear to the person in question? If so I do not believe it will be through the means of verbal language as us civilized human beings are used to. Behind the forehead everything is uncertain. However, if a sentence is spoken instinctively and natural, more like a response to a sudden event, the message may be pure (of forethought), but the message itself will be as framing a panorama into a mere picture – however blissfully executed the painting or picture is, it could never match the sensation of actually _being there_. If conversation is spoken without forethought, it is as pure as a painting can be. Forethought and deliberation of one’s experience from sensation into spoken or written words, corrupts the picture – one must use the thoughts at the present moment to dawn into language! One drawback with this is that one can never be fully equipped with the desired words and frames at all time with oneself, thus a review may seem to be a necessity.

Receiving information from another person, depending on the value of the information (on how secretive, important, and laborious it is), and inasmuch depending on whom we receive this information from (a stranger, a friend, a colleague, a loved…) gives us certain meaning as the keepers of this information. If, one receives very uncommon information from someone rather close to mind (someone who is often thought of), one is immediately bestowed with the sense of self-worth, self-appreciation (sourced externally), and the aftermath of this is a prolonged contemplation, seeking every possible meaning and outcome in what known and even project hypothetical scenarios (often unrealistic and too much to the liking of the ego, thus discouraging from the original scientific excavation). How will the benefactor ever know, or more importantly understand, what dire or pleasant tidings given to the receiver? It is normally thought of the other way around: the benefactor of information is the one whom must carefully consider the value of the information to pass, the weight of trust towards the receiver, and the effects, and possible backfires of the information that is about to be transcribed. However, manipulators, or persons that aim to divert others, cleverly transcribe their information so that it leads the receiver into disarray. Also, there are times when we indifferently or in pretension of compassion, oblige information, but that too has its purpose, to uncover the colors of our shells. Where do we end? All the information we give (as benefactors) is always is of self-interest.

Where does that lead us? If all information we give is of self-interest, then all that makes our contemplation as receivers obsolete to a certain point (unless we modulate the information given and make use of it). The romantic spirit within us too easily, too many times, leads us astray, obliterating resources permanently and most, if not all, events occurred will be buried and specifically sheltered within the mind; not erased from memory, but put aside so that one must thoroughly conduct investigations (with exceptions of emotionally painstakingly haunting recordings that are connected with more than pure lust and desire). Nothing is absolute. Man is as unbalanced in his thought allocation as the world is in its economy and wealth.



Influenced from Dostoevsky's The Idiot.