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Xerxes
Joined: 10 Jan 2006
Location: Down a certain (rabbit) hole, apparently
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 Posted: Sat May 13, 2006 11:51 pm Post subject: |
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| Don Gately wrote: |
[...]Regardless, let me say this: I in no way accept the Grand Inquisitor as a critique of the Orthodox Church in particular. Rather I would say the Grand Inquisitor is a Nietzsche-esque indictment of any and all organized religion, i.e., "I like Jesus fine, it's his friends I have a problem with."
Dostoyevsky believed in sobernost, he believed that the rural and agrarian values of the Russian peasants were the best barometer for how suffering and faith could somehow redeem the human condition. He did not believe in intellectualizing sprituality, he was once famously quoted as saying "If I were to find that reality excluded Jesus, I would choose Jesus." All of this is illustrated by how Dostoyevsky first came to Christianity, personal study of the New Testament while imprisoned in Siberia. He did not avail himself of clergy, nor did he have the opportunity to. His interaction with the spiritual was of a man in seclusion studying the scriptures and trying to apply what had happened in his life to those teachings.
Both The Grand Inquisitor and The Idiot are satires of how intellectualism can lead us further away from a relationship from God, in The Grand Inquisitor in particular a rational and logical argument eventually leads to the condemnation of God for granting humanity the freedom of action. However this line of thought is in no way unique to the circumstances of Russia or the Orthodox Church at the time, but rather is true of all institutionalized approaches to spirituality. Dostoyevesky wrote of his personal experience, it was a book called Crime and Punishment. The Brothers Karamazov is not about Russia but rather a sweeping, existential comment on the condition of all humanity. That's why it updates so well in attempts like the recent The Brother's K by David James Duncan.
To say the Grand Inquisitor is talking about conditions specific to Russia at the time of Dostoyevsky, I would say, sells Dostoyevsky short. Is it relevant to that period of history? Yes. But that is because it is relevant to all periods of history, and I would say this was the writer's ambition even as he took pen to paper. He wanted to write something bigger than his own experience, something bigger than Crime and Punishment. |
Donny, I am in between classes again, but I must say that the bolded parts above are assertions I've heard before and Dostoyevsky being a Nihilist is about as original an idea as Jesus being Christ. I will provide evidence of your plagiarism tonight, maybe I might get lucky and cite the exact article you got your brilliance from, although it wouldn't take a genius to string along a series of extant ideas on a particular writer. The ideas that you offer are all extant assertions. If you were to submit that drivel of plagiarized unoriginal ideas to a professor as your own, you would be expelled from your community college faster than you can say Associate Degree.
In fact, there is not one original idea in your whole statement about Dostoyevsky: Nietzsche influence, being a sobernost, exalting the rural and agrarian experience, lone Ranger study of the Bible in Siberia as basis for his later writing, his condemning God for "granting humanity the freedom of action," his personal experience for fodder for Crime and Punishment, Brothers K being a sweeping "existential" condemnation for all of humanity. I even bet you that the David James Duncan reference or the Jesus citation is not even yours. Proof is only a google search away.
Can you wait until tonight or you just wanna fess up now and save yourself the very public humiliation of having to back paddle and get a sock to post or visit this "deplorable forum" again?
I would have you read Harry Potter and have an original thought about that rather than straining yourself to search for and pirate other people's ideas to pass off as your own.
I am serious about that list of ideas that are not your own. The whole reason that I had an fairly heated discussion about those points with my professor was because they were the canonical thoughts that I thought were not necessarily right. It might as well be all of that, but the generalizations that are made with such leaps of logic are not as well founded as the simple poke of humor that Dostoyevsky is having at Catholicism�s sake.
Dostoyevsky criticizes Catholicism in particular with very specific references and circumstances that he sets up in Brothers K, and the circumstances that I will cite are not the usual plagiarized, Cliff-Notes versions of such observations. I will show you your plagiarized idea sources, and for fair measure will offer my ideas and offer you the same opportunity to see if I steal other people's ideas with the flick of a google or wiki search, as you do yours. |
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Noureli
Joined: 14 Oct 2005
Location: Nowhere but Here
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| Posted: Sun May 14, 2006 12:37 am Post subject: |
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| 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez |
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riley
Joined: 08 Feb 2003
Location: where creditors can find me
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| Posted: Sun May 14, 2006 1:42 am Post subject: |
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Tried it and tried it, but could not get into 100 years of Solitude.
As for what is good literature and the whole brouhaha, I personally don't take offense over Don or Flotsam/Jetsam's opinions at all and think anyone who does needs to chill out and read a good book. Oh, wait, that's what started this whole mess. |
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Don Gately
Joined: 20 Mar 2006
Location: In a basement taking a severe beating
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| Posted: Sun May 14, 2006 2:55 am Post subject: |
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| Xerxes wrote: |
| Yes, you could make that statement that I plagiarize the oft discussed issue... |
So... you're saying I win? |
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Hans Blix
Joined: 31 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Sun May 14, 2006 3:07 am Post subject: |
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reading 'a suitable boy', or '50's india for dummies' which some people'd probably call it. despite many stylistic faults, it's interesting and a page-turner, as it oughta be for its bulk. the poetry's nice.
while no novel is flawless, i think what beaver says about moby d isn't enough to sink it.
tolstoy famously tore shakespeare apart for insulting his readers among other things and billy s is still standing. sometimes good sentences and ideas, so long as they really are good, are enough to carry a work.
in the same way, war and peace has got hundreds of problems but like they say about wagner, it has brilliant moments.
also read 'the luzhin defence' and was a little let down. maybe i'm thick, but nabokov is so much stronger in short stories. |
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