Russian Lit:

Saturday, October 5, 2013

Russian Lit:

#1 The Idiot:

I wanted to write about Dostoyevsky, (The Idiot), but it didn't seem to fit on any of my other pages, really, not the Language page (since I didn't actally read it po-Russkiy---wish I did, but maybe in the future!!)  I didn't fit the East-Meets-West page since it's not really about that, the way Pelevin is.   So time for a new page.

First I read an ancient copy, that was my father's.  It's copyrighted 1935, ironically has a red cover, but more like a faded Nantucket Red, not a rich Russian Red, at least now, since it's so old. In bad shape, but,  rather beautiful in its age--старые красивые красные.  Those word mean, respectively, old, beautiful, red.

It has always  interested me that the words for beautiful and red are so close in Russian: as if red itself is beautiful.  And, even though their flag has changed, red is still the color of Russia.  Hands down-- кроваво- красный .    (Blood Red).

My father: who is NOT a reader at all---I've never seen him read more than a newspaper, and even that fairly rarely...  more a TV guy, sports, mostly.

I love this book.  I would put it in my top 10, maybe even top 5--it definitely overshadows Crime and Punishment.   Here's what I am all about:  interesting characters with intense depth.  It's what draws me to Shakespeare, in particular Hamlet, which I like more for Hamlet himself rather than the plot twists.  Same with  Faulkner, Crime and Punishment and Raskolnikov:  I like figuring him out more than the story line, which is better than most, I must admit.  Better than Shakespeare's sometimes silly devices, which he has usually borrowed, anyway.  Myshkin, Nastasya, Aglaia, the generals, are some of the most interesting characters in literature.

This sick obsession/fascination I have with other people's souls has gotten me into much trouble in real life.  Has gotten me into romances and friendships I shouldn't have touched with a ten foot pole, (as the saying goes).  I'm one of those people who tends to stand too close to the fire, znaewb.  Some people are so predictable--but others, oh, boy--they are for me.   Often, though, they turn out to be scary--full of malice, which their depth is used to mask, perhaps is the actual reason for the layers???   Most of my choices were for the sorts of people it takes years to decipher--most of my code-breaking love ended up discovering people with extreme darkness at the bottom.

At least 3 of these were ultimately too much for me to bear.   I lost my love for them.  Ne znaio--I am continuing to learn that there is more to heaven and earth than is dreamt in my own philosophies.  One thing for sure, there are no easy, clearcut answers to how the world works, how the soul abides.  One individual is not a template for another.

I like to think I do this because I am still searching.  I think maybe someone is going to teach me something new about life, a way to help me do the things that feed my soul.  It helps me avoid ruts and cliche thinking.  It expands me,  makes me bigger..haha: some girls are bigger...

For example.  This book has an epileptic protagonist.   Everyone knows Dostoyevsky himself was epileptic. Incidentally, I avoided this book for many years precisely because of that ...I didn't want to relive the nightmare of my years in the wrath of an angry epileptic.  I actually did tons of reading on the subject, trying to understand what was going on--why he behaved as he did--well past our divorce, when he spent years trying to poison my life from afar.  How could he be so angry for so long, even after his life had moved on (he remarried 3 months after our divorce)?  My explanation was the Black and White morality the psychology books described as the epileptics' rigid mindset:  They(it is said) have a tendency to react to life with polarity: love or hate--little in between.  I had crossed from love object to hate object.

Ha--wonder if this is connected.  Apparently Dostoyevski reports having "ecstatic" auras prior to seizure--a rare thing, since most epileptics have the opposite: extremely unpleasant "warning" auras before they seize.  I am very familiar with this as  my ex had the latter type.  Maybe this explains the difference in life approach.

So, my guess is the unpleasant auras made my ex, and most epileptics, feel as if their lives were out of their control, hence making them more insistent on controlling the world around them as a counter weight, a protection.  It must be a terrible feeling--and my poor ex had maybe 16 years of life without this problem--it was a blow to the head that activated his epilepsy, and I suspect several more afterwards (he was inclined to irrational fights that he couldn't explain the reason for).  The years free from seizures must have made the reality of the condition worse.  I didn't understand what was happening at the time, but he had times of blanking out which made him extremely angry.

 Once in college, when we were walking back to  his house after drinking beer and eating pizza with friends, we were all laughing about something stupid.  I don't remember what.  It was in the middle of that extreme winter of 1978-9:  there was deep snow on the ground in Northern Illinois for months: our cars were buried up to the windows, which was bad for the old DeathMobile, as we called it, because  it had had its drivers-side window punched out, which was replaced with plastic.   I recall having to sweep a big pile of snow off the seat once when we were trying to see if it would start, which of course, it didn't.

 It was an old, early 70's Plymouth Fury, bought for $2-300 second-hand, and even in good weather it often needed a jump.  We often drove it to Chicago;  Florida, even, once!  Miraculous!  Playing mix-tapes on its stereo-worth-more-than-the car:  David Bowie, The Cars,  Bruce Springsteen and Jimmy Buffet (his favorite), Doc Watson, Steve Miller, Asleep At the Wheel,ELO,  the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Procol Harum, The Stones, Janis Joplin,Jerry Jeff Walker,  Pink Floyd, Leo Kottke, Tom Petty's early stuff like "Break Down", the Doors--the Doors are especially spooky on those long, grey cold drives (no heater) to Chicago through empty winter fields...he was an amateur DJ at the college station, and I, well, I was what I've always been..We made the tapes together.

So, back to pizza and beer--due to the car's state, we were walking in the deep snow.

 It wasn't far--a few blocks, now compressed to two in my memory.  Cue the laughter, but suddenly he stopped still in his tracks.  Got a confused, angry look on his face.  Started hurling curse words at me.  What? I couldn't figure out why.  Me, Marsh, and his wife were about 20 feet up the sidewalk  from him, alone.  Suddenly, with a weird high pitched scream, he took off his boot and heaved it at me.  It was so heavy and big I could actually catch it, but then I turned to Marsh and Cathodray, near tears, what was going on?  They looked as upset and confused as me.  Then came the other boot.  His coat, his hat, flannel shirt. pants, t-shirt--soon he was standing there completely naked in front of all of us .  Then he took off, nude, running away from us down the street.  We had no idea where he was going, but his duplex was in that direction.  He was crying.  So was I. I picked up his clothes in a jumbled bundle.  Catho and Marsh took me into their house, which still had a fake silver Christmas tree up,  a sad, ironic touch.  Later, I went to his duplex and found him passed out  face down on a couch filled with empty pizza boxes--still naked, with the front door wide open, cold air blowing through the house.

  Myshkin is nothing like my ex.   Dostoyevsky doesn't seem like he could possibly be like my ex, considering how he has the capacity to project compassion in so many of his characters. ( i.e. Liars turn out to have soft, unselfish reasons for their lies--and are quite amusing.)  Whether  this is a Dostoyevsky mask, or not, I cannot say, but it feels true, and definitely nothing like what I experienced.

Later:  Here's the sort of thing this book makes me think of, rather stupidly, and ordinarily.  But it speaks to the way Dostoyevsky can  spin ordinary life into gold for me.

I just went outside, thinking I'd read under our big ol' carrotwood tree.  Problem: The neglected cushions on the swing are gross with rain, decayed leaves, and whatever else stuff grows outside.  Evidence of my choosing to do other activities in my free time over bourgeois housekeeping.  So I sigh, untangle the hose, drag them to the driveway in the sun, and start hosing them down.  A conversation starts:

Jerry(My Dad):  What happened to these? How long have they been out here? Haw? (He squinches up his nose like he's reading fine print...stares at the cushion,genuinely perplexed, problem-solving-- not looking  at me).

Me: (knowing what's coming) I have no idea.  Does it really matter?

Jer: Of course it matters!  It's the whole point!  How long?  (He's persistent, boy.  More nose-squinching...)  Haw?  (His "Huh", sounds more like a honk because he does it through his nose, midwestern style--kinda funny when you dissect it---)

Me: (Silencio--plus I am burning a hole in the ground with my eyes, near his feet. Go away, I'm thinking)

Jer: We-hell!  I guess you're too embarrassed to tell me.  How long?

Me:  No, I'm not.  I just don't want to get into a big "thing" for an hour about cushions.  (Mind Your Own Business, I'm thinking, but don't say--It's not your house --stop worrying, this won't kill me--I don't say)---

Jer: You have to take them inside, you know, when you're not using them, to avoid this.  That's what we always do in Alton.  I know you've seen me do it.

Me:  I know, Dad.  I know what I SHOULD do.  Obviously, you have no sense of how crazy my life is, how much time my job takes, or you wouldn't bring this up.  Plus, it rains so randomly here, not once-in-awhile-all-day like Illinois.

Jer: (with a smart-ass harrump): Oh, I guess I never worked.   Well, I hope you can see this only takes a simple five minutes to accomplish.  I'm sure you can take fivesimpleminutes from your busy schedule.

Me:  Yes, I am aware of that, but I usually like to use my precious down time for other things, like play music, read.  I don't want to spend all my free time taking care of my house.

Jer: (Contemptuous/ incredulous snort) That's obvious. (Looking down, not at me...shakes his head judgmentally)-- Wasting money....

Me:  Yes, I know.  $40.00 each at Target, to be precise. I'm the one who bought them, not you.   I can afford it.  I'll get new ones soon.  These are five years old, anyway.

Jer:  Jeezuz!  They are getting ruined!     You complain about Katie..

(he looks quite anxious, as if he's trying to prevent American value decay)

Me: Florida weather ruins anything outdoors--it's exhausting keeping it all up.  You have no idea because you don't live here.  Nothing lasts here like it does in Illinois. The sun..

Jer:  I don't have to live in Florida to know you can't leave cushions outdoors for months at a time!  Mine look just like the day we bought them.

Me:  I doubt that's true, but I'm sure they look better than these.

Jer:  It's simple common sense.

Me: (With a return smart ass harrump) Yes, it is that..if that's what you care about.  I don't.

Jer: (Agast) Well, excuse me, Ms. Importance.... too  smart for common sense.  If you don't care...  Here, let me do it, haw?  You go in and read a book.

I give up, because I know he really does all this to be useful, and to help.  And because things like unkempt cushions really do make him feel anxious.   In an hour he'll come in, all sunburned, wet and dirty,  displaying some well-scrubbed cushions, (that will look bad again in the next month I will leave them outside;), looking like the house dog bringing home a dead bird for praise.

BTW, "Jer" is what my sisters and I called my dad behind his back when we wanted to make fun of him.  "Jer" rhymes with hair.  Mom calls him this disparagingly, too, but to his face.  He gets very little respect in his  own home, but it is the trail he leaves.  He gives little.  I often feel bad about this.

Now, of course this conversation didn't really happen: I was just playing it in my head as I was hosing down my cushions--imagining what pa would say based on thousands of other conversations we've had about my ineptitude at middle class life.   It rather amuses me to get fake angry at him, instead of the dumb cushions.  This is what Dostoyevsky reminds me of..the funny little mind clashes that exist all over his stories.  Real.  Of course, this one is not nearly as good as one of his...

Here is evidence of the wide imagination gulf between Fyodor and me;

Among my favorite episodes in The Idiot:

• Towards the end of the book, two older gentleman, Gen. Ivolgin and his drinking pal Lebedyev have a break in their friendship.  Both have a tendency to appear to tell stretchers, in Mark Twain style, like the celebrated jumping frog.  Lies, to be blunt, but most of their lies almost seem to be for fun, perhaps  mixed with a bit of pride.  Anyway, Dostoyevsky makes their lies fun, and wins them sympathy rather than contempt.

  You know the drill: drunks sit at a bar, their tongues loosen, fantasies get mixed with reality--I may have been guilty of this once or twice, I am sure...sometimes just to make my drinking partner feel my love...but here's some of the reasons these two droogies "break up":  Lebedyev, who the reader senses, like his friend, strays from the truth occasionally, tells a seeming false story about getting his leg shot off, that he had it buried under a nice monument, and has prayers said over it annually--all this while appearing to have two perfectly functioning legs!  (except when he is dead drunk, I imagine).  His friend Ivolgin is so insulted, especially by the explanation that he has some famous carpenter make a wooden leg that is undetectable from a real one--that he has a "last straw" moment...relationship over! 

 He tells an equally over the top story about being Napoleon's page,  and,  at 10, being instrumental in the major turning points of Waterloo history--that he almost ended in exile with the famous man...well, I am laughing even as I am typing at the mock-pathos Dostoyevsky has been brilliant at creating.  It so reminds me of The Walrus and the Carpenter's poem in Alice In Wonderland!:a favorite.  It is often described as a mock-tragedy.  So are the general's stories, except Dostoyevsky winds these characters up at the end to be more or less tragic, in spite of the humor:

The Walrus and the Carpenter

      Were walking close at hand;

They wept like anything to see

      Such quantities of sand:

If this were only cleared away,'

      They said, it would be grand!'

If seven maids with seven mops

      Swept it for half a year,

Do you suppose,' the Walrus said,

      That they could get it clear?'

I doubt it,' said the Carpenter,

      And shed a bitter tear.

O Oysters, come and walk with us!'

      The Walrus did beseech.

A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk,

      Along the briny beach:

We cannot do with more than four,

      To give a hand to each.'

The eldest Oyster looked at him,

      But never a word he said:

The eldest Oyster winked his eye,

      And shook his heavy head —

Meaning to say he did not choose

      To leave the oyster-bed.

But four young Oysters hurried up,

      All eager for the treat:

Their coats were brushed, their faces washed,

      Their shoes were clean and neat —

And this was odd, because, you know,

      They hadn't any feet.

Four other Oysters followed them,

      And yet another four;

And thick and fast they came at last,

      And more, and more, and more —

All hopping through the frothy waves,

      And scrambling to the shore.

The Walrus and the Carpenter

      Walked on a mile or so,

And then they rested on a rock

      Conveniently low:

And all the little Oysters stood

      And waited in a row.

The time has come,' the Walrus said,

      To talk of many things:

Of shoes — and ships — and sealing-wax —

      Of cabbages — and kings —

And why the sea is boiling hot —

      And whether pigs have wings.'

But wait a bit,' the Oysters cried,

      Before we have our chat;

For some of us are out of breath,

      And all of us are fat!'

No hurry!' said the Carpenter.

      They thanked him much for that.

A loaf of bread,' the Walrus said,

      Is what we chiefly need:

Pepper and vinegar besides

      Are very good indeed —

Now if you're ready, Oysters dear,

      We can begin to feed.'

But not on us!' the Oysters cried,

      Turning a little blue.

After such kindness, that would be

      A dismal thing to do!'

The night is fine,' the Walrus said.

      Do you admire the view?

It was so kind of you to come!

      And you are very nice!'

The Carpenter said nothing but

      Cut us another slice:

I wish you were not quite so deaf —

      I've had to ask you twice!'

It seems a shame,' the Walrus said,

      To play them such a trick,

After we've brought them out so far,

      And made them trot so quick!'

The Carpenter said nothing but

      The butter's spread too thick!'

I weep for you,' the Walrus said:

      I deeply sympathize.'

With sobs and tears he sorted out

      Those of the largest size,

Holding his pocket-handkerchief

      Before his streaming eyes.

O Oysters,' said the Carpenter,

      You've had a pleasant run!

Shall we be trotting home again?'

      But answer came there none —

And this was scarcely odd, because

      They'd eaten every one."

Yeah, ol' Ivolgin and Lebedyev can really talk up a storm of shoes, and ships, and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings, and why the sea is boiling hot, and whether pigs have wings. While they have their oysters and eat them, too, crying as they do. Such fun.  The other aspect of their break-up had to do with a purse and $400 rubles.  It is almost impossible to ascertain the truth in that episode--who was zooming who.

• Another great episode: Myshkin's card game with Aglaia that immediately precedes their "engagement?"   Myshkin beats Aglaia at the card game "Fools", even catches her cheating!  (Sidenote: I am convinced this must translate as Duraka, the same card game Daniel and Evgeny taught me last year, and is great fun!)  Anyway, Aglaia gets mad, throws the prince out stating she never wants to see him again, but then later shows remorse by sending him a hedgehog  (again I see Alice and her porcupine crochet balls--how coincidental is that!!)  The hedgehog makes Myshkin very happy, and the details of the purchase are equally amusing.

• Then there is the episode with the dubious "engagement" party, that really isn't one.   It "isn't"  because Aglaia hasn't yet made up her mind how pure the prince's love for her is. The point is supposed to introduce Myshkin to society, and is probably the episode that gets closest to satire of the Russian aristocracy.  But not totally, because that is never entirely Dostoyevsky's aim, IMO.  Myshkin has been warned to be careful, and you sense he is more concerned with damaging the Epanchins' status than his own, although he's certainly concerned about what would best please Aglaia.  By the way, it's not entirely clear what will please her--maybe she wants the introduction to blow up, for her amusement, perhaps because she chafes against the phoniness of the convention, perhaps she interprets his nerves with the intensity of his feelings for her.

        Regardless, she  sabotages his performance by predicting he will break her mother's expensive, rare vase.  This reads to Myshkin as the ultimate failure, so he spends the night avoiding it.  Of   course, in the end he does, rather spectacularly...a mini-tragedy within the tragedy, but the Epanchins are much more generous about it, then we are led to believe they will be.   I have to assume the writers of The Matrix were familiar with this story--when the Oracle tells Neo he will break the vase, and he does.  The Oracle says something like, would you have broken it if i hadn't mentioned it?

The real center of this episode is when Mishkin goes off, in what seems to all concerned, including the reader, a huge diatribe against the Catholic Church...I'm assuming this is a faux pas because  Russian court was so enamored of the French in those days, who were Catholics, that this would be an unsympathetic stance in this company.  also he has a "fit"--all the nightmares came today.Yet, it ultimately didn't ruin Myshkin!

All of these are so much better than my  story...

But, ultimately, I think what makes this book so very interesting, through its diamond-faceted characters,  is its attempts to define the undefinable: the nature of love, and in particular, romantic love.  Or at least the tragedy stems from  romantic love's lack of consummation.  The tragedy of the story seems to be that no character appears to achieve this, on earth, anyway.  There's a lot of love of various kinds all over the book: male friendships, familial love, sexual lust, pitying love, sympathetic love--it's more of a lovefest than Woodstock.  The biggest question I have is--does Dostoyevsky agree with Yevgeny Pavlovitch (my book's spelling) that Myshkin never really loved Aglaia or Nastasya?  Does that mean Rogozhin in his craziness, is the only true lover?  I don't agree with that conclusion.  What about Aglaia insisting on an exclusionary love?  Hmm.  It's going to take me a while to sort out my feelings on this:  actually, I know what I feel about it, but to articulate? Woo-boy.

I take some of that back, especially about Rogozhin.  After rereading the ending intently,  I do not consider his love of Nastasya selfish: in fact, I question that he killed her, although he took the blame.. Back to that idea about never knowing what is truly in the heart of another--- what any individual's tragedy truly has at his/her  heart.

I think Aglaia is rather spoiled and inexperienced to think that love needs to be so exclusionary.  That was what her big confrontation was all about.  She wanted to be the only.  That need was the catalyst for most of the tragedy .   Maybe it might help to use the Greek categories of love:  agape, eros, filial,  etc.   Myshkin most often might be coming at love from the agape point of view--his love tends to be sacrificial at times.  Roghozhin's is more passionate and erotic, I suppose...

So I finally finished:  this is an ending as soul-searing as that Tarkovsky film.  I knew I loved Dostoyevsky for a reason...the ending is far and away one of the greatest  of all literature..it makes that breast-milk scene in Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath seem pale and tepid in comparison.  And I have had the most mesmerizing and satisfying conversations about this story, especially its ending: the universe has blessed me with the most brilliant and thoughtful friends!  and it makes me want to give a soul kiss to the computer age for its obscure gifts, in spite of the potential 1000 perversions it can unleash on the human race...I am wrung out writing about this.  But.  I am in love....with these characters.

I think, ultimately, the reason this book affects me so much is it is echoing a deep concern I feel somewhere buried inside myself:  this fear that there is no match, that there will never be a complete match, that fills the love emptiness, the final craving.   Some come awfully, temptingly, damnably, heart-achingly close, like Myshkin's two.  And sometimes the fates just keep stringing us along, pushing us off the true path---waiting for the climax where they sever the thread, navsegda.

#2 Oct 19, 2013: Roadside Picnic--

I read this book for its affiliation with, what I think I can somewhat confidently say, is my favorite film...or, correction.  My favorite moment in a film.  Stalker--Tarkovsky.   The ending.  I used to have other, American, British films that were favorites.

It is true that this book, plot-wise, is different than the movie.  The book is tougher, of the more noir characteristic of the hardboiled adventurer, loner.  Sam Spade, Rick Blaine of the Fabulous Rick's---where we are shocked, shocked! that gambling is going on!  in America--Humphrey  Bogart--like Shuckhart, is immune to the opinions of others, logical, but with some tragic bottom of emotional clarity, a man's man, as is said-----funny that Russia and America admire the same sort of tough, loner heroes.  I have always loved that sort of man.     Walking their own path:Natty Bumpo--listening to the universe, rather than the rules.

I am 52% through, and there is much more plot in the book than movie...I am in the mood to go walkies, however...

Oct 23:  Done.  Great Book.   Great idea.  More later.  

Later:  Here's from my goodreads review:  I thought I wrote more and with a better capture.  Eh.


My translation is full of modern slang: gunslinger adventure guy lingo:


"That's the Zone for you. Come back with swag, a miracle; come back alive, success; come back with a bullet in your ass, good luck; and everything else is fate." Same industrial dream landscape as the movie---literally affected my dreams--green nature growing through abandoned metal cracks.

Here's a typical quote: "Fire, toxic gas, and bullets--these are only Earth perils. The Zone doesn't have those---

The noir hero, however, is not telling, in this book, of the parameters of this novel: he is merely the filter. I am not an automatic fan of sci-fi. I tend to stick to the Dystopic classics, or humorous Sci-fi like Douglas Adams. I'm not a reader of goggly-eyed alien monster tales that appear randomly at the foot of your bed, in your soup bowl, in the pit of your stomach. I think subconsciously I am thinking, okay, Mr. Sci-Fi writer-man, what makes you think the aliens view us as the enemy, want to eat us, destroy our lovely (?) culture, breed with us and mutate us into hideous forms?

This is precisely what the Strugatsys seem to be thinking as well. Their alien "pic-nic" Visitation could have merely been a thoughtless event, and there is no insight into any sort of philosophical reasons for it--at the end there is no answer to the question why, that I could see. The religious implications are likewise vague in a way I can respect--given that the universe is rarely thoughtful enough to answer our questions here in the real world. There is a crazy verisimilitude in this novel, both in and out of the Zone--and both places are mainly reflective of, as my partner in crime Leo X. said in his review, ourselves, a mirror. You are very wise, Leo. I will try to write more later....

It seems the Russian scientific mind views science in a less encapsulated way than American scientists are trained to do. America seems to want its scientists to be exclusive--math-minded, logic-oriented, never being silly or vulnerable enough to consider larger issues of life...the philosophical ramifications of a scientific phenomenon , the quality of life, even artistic aspects. I'm not saying individual American scientists avoid art and philosophy--just that it doesn't seem to be promoted in the general ranks, or in academia. There is a certain coldness. I say this as a one time science major. It strikes me as some sort of subtle pressure to always equate scientific objectivism with "progress", which I always found to be a rather narrow point of view.

Again, the Strugaskys escape this. Their contemplation is quite poetic, while still seeming realistic ..in fact, I wouldn't be at all surprised to find the events that occur in this book -------to actually happen-----someday. It just seems that close to the truth to me. Even with an obviously noir leading man.

#3 Moscow To the End of The Line:

Why didn't I post this here?  I wrote about it in two other places--will repost, for convenience.  Here it is from the Soma page:

Last night I stayed up until 3 a.m. reading a book called (po-Angleskiy) Moscow to the End of the Line.  How does it relate to this topic?  Self-medication.  It's a rather beautifully written, mad story.  A guy who is clearly an alcoholic, a dreamer who has a vivid imagination, gets on a train to see a girl (and his young son?  If there is a relation of the boy  to the girl, I missed it) who has become the Garden of Eden for him, on Fridays.  I love his description of the girl as someone you must breathe in.

At first, his imagination, his intelligence and fine sensibilities and sensitivities are masked by his obsession with obtaining alcohol, enough to keep the dreams flowing in a positive direction in his head.  I know what he means.  He has it down to a science--has amounts calculated down to the grams of what he needs, and when, how much food to offset nausea, and his rather hilarious descriptives of his various cocktails of concoctions --again which he has down to a science.  Some of the recipes are quite mad, involving things I would regard rather as poison or at the very least undrinkable, like shoe polish, bug killer, eau de cologne, athletic foot powder???---desperate items of  desperate  men in desperate times.
 Of course it all ends tragically.

The tragedy evolves most poignantly when he becomes Scheherazade, the master story teller.  It's there, when he has an opportunity to share his gifts of imagination, curiosity and intelligence on the train with his fellow travelers.  You have to wonder, did he really see the foreign places, or is his imagination just that good, the gift of reading?  His loss will be felt.

It again makes me feel sad for the burdens of creative and imaginative people.

Jan 27:  I can't believe I've never written about Bulgakov here, neither Master and Margarita,  or "Morphine"!  I will have to remedy that..sometime.

#4 August 31:  Night Watch (Ночнои Дозор) by Sergei Lukyanenko (Сергий Лукьяненко)  

 I do not understand how in the West we do not hear about these great Russian writers.  What conspiracy blocks this?

So, this book is sort of in the vein of Sci-Fi futuristic/ or is it contemporary? fantasy.  One part Harry Potter For Adults, one part James Bond, another part H.G. Wells or Ray Bradbury.

  In it, there are two forces, sort of comparable to the Blake/ Eastern point of view--forces of Darkness and Light.  Since the narrator is a Light Other, we side with them, although the story occasionally makes you consider that perhaps the other side has its valid point of view as well?  It's just this sort of thing that makes me appreciate the Russian mind, (well, of course there are others who also run in this depth), but it seems their best writers don't  view the world in a simplistic mash-up of good vs. evil morality --there are subtle shades of grey to always be considered if one is really trying hard to do the right thing and find centered happiness, rather than the cheap and greasy fix.

The "Others" (Иные) have powers beyond the human--powers to kill, to heal--conversely, it is the Light Others that have the power to kill, and part of the plot is trying to figure out why this makes sense.  Others have some sort of mind reading, aura reading abilities--a sort of supersonic/visual 8th sense, I want to say, to understand the core of others--other Others, and humans as well.  This way, they can make more incisive moral decisions, and sometimes more dire decisions.  The Light Others are the unselfish--trying to save others, save the world, in a way.--they are, ironically, known collectively as the Night Watch, because night is when the Dark Others need to be watched--hence the book title.

The Dark Others are motivated by self-serving interests (maybe think Ayn Rand?), and , as Anton, the narrator points out, ideals of ultimate freedom. The two sides have this sort of status quo, ancient pact that the acts of each side keeps in balance--a sort of weird tribute to Hammurabi's code of an eye for an eye.  It's interesting that Anton seems to be able to objectively explain the perspective of the other side, even though they are trying to kill him--that they have a quest for personal, individual freedom, that, if framed correctly, actually seems like a morally superior motive.  The Night Watch, the Light side, however, seems to be endeavoring for the greater good, especially in protecting the lives of ordinary folks who don't even realize the game is on.

There is some sort of battle between light and dark for the souls of Others to choose sides, and numbers seem to somehow matter.  Yet, Anton seems to tell us, in a way that sounds true, for his world and even our ordinary one, that the game will never be won by either side, will never be over.  It's the constant struggle against the other that seems important.  To Anton, and, hopefully to the anticipated reader, there is a side of right--the Light side.  So again, the difference between the Russians and modern American critically acclaimed writers, is the fact that the Americans seem to gloss over any real answers to the perpetual, universal questions they love to agonize over.  The meaning of Life.  The 21st Century American author rarely has the guts to proclaim a side--just seems to want to point out his/her intelligence of recognizing the paradoxes and counterpoints of life. David Foster Wallace and The House of Leaves author come to mind as cases in point.  For me, they miss the ultimate existential message that a modern person must create his own moral circle of boundaries, which is not the same idea as "because there is no ready made circle, the one you draw isn't real."

I'm now reading the Russian original (with much help), and I just ran into this great idea that explains the feeling of layers this world creates.  Anton must hide temporarily, because the Dark Ones want to kill him, or something, for balance.  He therefore switches bodies with a female Light One, Olga, another major character in the story.  In this form he must spend time with the woman he is, as the story explains--"destined to love"  which also implies "condemned"  (what my translation says).  Some of this complication has t do with the extra long ability to live that the Others possess, but also has to do with variance in status.  So here's the cool idea:

"Destiny is polyvariable."  or по-Русский:  "Судьба поливариантна."  
Well, that allows for the old Christian based nugget of free will for morality, to make things more stressful, more agonizing.  More intellectually stimulating. More sad--there will always be something, some one, some experience, left behind.


September 15:  I'm now in the Third Book, section, really, of Night Watch, and it's beginning to develop into the kind of subject I like in a book.  Here, the Night Watch characters are having vacation together, but there is tension due to some romance complications.  Anton, the main character loves Svetlana, who is being groomed to be a top,top sorceress who will vastly outrank Anton--therefore making their relationship potentially difficult if not downright impossible.   So they are sort of taking it as a star-crossed, toscinated love affair.  I just made that word up for English to stand in for the Russian one we don't have-(((.  тоска.  Anton is third -grade, low ranking, but with great instincts, insight, and intuition.  I'm not  sure how that is different from having high grade magic powers in this book, but apparently it's different, at least at this point in the book.  There's also another female character, Olga, who was once great, but was punished by being made into an owl...who trains Sveta. She has some chemistry with Anton as well, so that means two high powered women have a thing for him.  He's a cool guy that I would like as well .  There's gonna be something about some magic chalk that I haven't figured out yet.  It's in the movie too, but I'm not clear on its depth of meaning--It feels like I'm missing something.

September 22:  I am finished, and I am feeling those Dostoyevsky-like glacial pipelines of soul that send me as only the Russians can.  This is not goodreads, so I'm not going to avoid spoilers:  if you want to read this book without knowing the details, the ending, I suggest you stop now, because I plan on indulging my every whim.

Finishing this book brings on the тоска  in me, once again, although I'm not sure if I've often felt it this strongly:  possibly when I read the poet Mayakovsky, and  felt terrible that the fates  никогда allowed our meeting--kept us alone and apart.  Perhaps when I listen to Zemfira, I come close to feeling this lonely longing.  There are possibly only so many fully intense souls to meet in any given expanse of life.

The Russians:  they dig into my soul and kill me a little: make me feel unsatisfied with my place in the world.   How can I be--- so that I have something surrounding me more like that--that agedness,  history, primitiveness and sensitivity, that well of  the centrality, plummeting to the core of human experience?

I am sure I have some of this dark blood in me somehow--centuries old, buried,  and awakened.

 I'm not fooling myself---there are plenty of Russian citizens who stay on the surface and live a silly existence.  But, somehow their culture produces these--burning coals.

Anton is one.  His take on love increases my breath.  The ending of this story just makes me feel helpless.    His ability to target what is important in life, in the face of a bottomless pit of obstacles , to think and reason with his senses/heart/feelings, is just plain inspirational to me.  His faith in love---there is nothing else to say.  This is how to do it.  You believe.  You believe it all will come, that you are in your right, that the gods really are on your side because of how clear and pure your feelings: of commitment, of compassion, of fairness, of worthiness.

Anton (this is my interpretation)  recognizes that even the supposed "good-guys",  the Night Watch
and head honcho Gessar, have gotten too caught up in the game, lost the true light.  They don't want to be the ones to upset the balance, so they keep inventing these games--inevitably harmless compared to how they appear, that are just endless, needless. pointless tests.  Their sense of mission, of meaning, is dying, washing away in minor applause and self-satisfaction. But Gessar always pulls up in the end, with a surprisingly sensible rationale for the test he created.  Mostly harmless.

You only stay in, if you live to play the game, keep the balance---this is what Anton figures out.  There's a certain satisfaction to being recognized, being "Other", but are there levels of otherness?  Some seem to think so, but I think Anton has discovered the falseness of that climb--through 6th, 4th, 3rd, 2nd-level magicianship--it all could be as empty as a fake Navy commendation. ))

So, like ol' Timothy Leary once said:  Tune in, Turn on, and Drop Out.  Or at least be willing to do this.  Where's the loss?  Fake Acclaim, fame and fortune....is that more important than love?  I am always suspicious these days of things with numbers, urging you to climb up a ladder, to get yourself recognition (in someone else's structure), when I should just concentrate on making myself more like myself.

Oh, but there's this messy bit---saving the world, the poor sad humans.  Giving them a better world.
Should your love, your feelings, your personal needs be more important than the rest of the goddamned pathetic world---that needs you, needs your great otherness, since no one else seems as altruistic as you?  Or is this a false dilemma?  Hubris?  Will you ever know if you improved things?

The thing is--is there really a better world for the ordinary folk?  Was Communism, during the Soviet State?  Was Hitler's grand vision a utopia?? xa.  What would have happened if everyone died, and is that actually bad?  Then it turns out, the boss--?? But, I still want to know why Olga had to become an owl.  I suppose it's better than being sent to the twilight forever.

So.  You go--with what you know.  Love.  Anton doesn't believe in a better human world.  And it's the one way to keep his last bit of humanity, anyway.

I know, you can convince yourself--that the loving feeling is mistaken identity--wrong person(s), wrong instinct.    Or you can just go with it and believe it's all-powerful--because it is.  And doesn't need to be limited in any way.  It's your love.

September 24:

простóр .

This is a new Russian word I just learned under a lesson headed "Untranslatable Russian Words."

It means, or so the website says:  open, wide-open, without limit, implying the seemingly limitless expanse of the Russian landscape, landmass, therefore, freedom.  Infinity.

Yes, so I think this gets at why I have a homelike feeling about Russia, because my hometown in Illinois felt like that--couldn't feel the end markers of it.  Well, Moscow in the city doesn't feel so much like that.  But, movies outside or showing the city limits do.  I like that. 

St. Petersburg, Florida, is the opposite, in a grid, very flat and platted out, with no edges to escape from--I've never felt comfortable here.

 Январь 12, 2015: Two things:  I restarted Day Watch (Дневной Дозор)  and had a friend send me an electronic copy of Ночной Дозор, the original, in Russian, which I will try to read next.  If things keep going as they are, I will (unexpectedly!) be done with Day Watch by the weekend.  Unexpectedly, because in the first 80 pages or so, I didn't like it as much, felt disappointed with the narrator--a young beautiful Dark Other witch who seems spoiled and selfish, Alisha, who was the object of -love?_ for the Dark leader, Zabulon,  and who was just recovering from a punishment for being greedy.   I suppose I didn't like her so much for her rather persistent and boring self interest and sense of entitlement.

But, POW!  The writer set me up for the conflict of all conflicts.  Besides loving Zabulon (for his power? his complication?  his??)  she falls in love, not knowing who it is she was falling for, when she was in a near human-like state, without her powers.  Turns out her man is a total good guy, a very Light Other, an eagle scout, practically.  (And a Nautilus loving, excellent guitar player))))).
Just another Romeo and Juliet, star-crossed lover scenario--but!  How will this work?? Will love win?
How did this Russian dude, Lukyanenko, hook me once again??  And how did they leave this part out of the movie??  Too hard to portray, I suppose.

Philosophically, though, this gets at all my questions, once again.  When I realized it was pushing me there once again,(pp. 143-44+)  I threw the damned thing down on the tile floor, unable to continue until I had a good long think.   Stop being in my life--I wanted to tell this wad of paper.  It's not sex.  It's not joint household maintenance, bringing up children, obligations...

The book says, "It is Power."  How is that in Russian?   как сказать?  Это сила.   Even more terrifying, in Russian--force, strength--from where?  It's going to force a manifestation of one's true self--now that is truly scary.  Can't I hide a little longer?

Февраль 19:  So, I feel like I never really finished this thought  about the Alisa part of Day Watch.  She dies, I suppose, as Others do..sent permanently to the Twilight.  At least that's what I think happened-the question is why?  Почему?   I have to write down this line that kept cycling through my brain on a parallel plane as I was reading this section...Извините ...because it is Hamlet once again.  It's from the "play within a play" scene.  Hamlet says to Ophelia, when she praises his understanding of the dumb-show: "I could interpret between you and your love, if I could see the puppets dallying."  Hamlet and Ophelia both die alone and without understanding each other because of "words, words, words."  They both have been feeling the real thing, but couldn't communicate it to each other.

That's what I think happens with Alisa and Igor.  They love, for real.  But they don't speak the same language--one dark, only knowing how to talk about her own freedom, personal feelings, the light seeming to address some higher something.  So, she dies.  My big question is, what does Zabulon have to do with her death?  If he's so open-minded about not feeling jealous, would he kill her for disloyalty to himself?  Maybe he would, if replaced for  a soul match, but was she his soul match?  Or Igor hers?  So much uncertainty in the Twilight.   But after the tribunal, there is a possible answer to Zabulon's position.  He can do it because he doesn't need anyone.  Ultimate freedom, I suppose, and not very human.

There's that twilight understanding, the ability to read each other's thoughts, emotions.  In a simpler world (or book), this would have solved everyone's problem, because there would be a clear understanding of what each Other meant--a solid fact of understanding-"It's real love, stupid!", even if we are talking something as fleeting as emotions. A solid wall of emotion, thick as concrete.  But this is a Russian novel, and the deeper you go, the more gray the twilight becomes--infinity swallows you with its lack of form.

This novel has a whole page of dialogue that I take to be the two lovers reading each other's minds--but you always get a sense that there's a deeper level--something bleeding off the edges of the words--that cannot be expressed so concretely.   So there is still misunderstanding, even with mind reading . Sometimes it's even hard in this section to guess whose words are whose--I wonder if this was done intentionally.

I did not finish this book as quickly as I thought.  I'm still in Part III now.  There's a reason, however: I'm spending lots of time reading Ночной Дозор, in Russian, very, very slowly.  It's a great experience, for several reasons--1) I'm getting the cadence.  2)  The slow reading is making me see additional depths in the story line.  Like Anton's mixed feelings about his vampire neighbors, who, in a more ordinary setting, would be lovely, salt of the earth, admirable people.  But trapped in Vampire bodies .  Like Alisa is trapped in a Dark Other body, and Igor and Anton in Light ones.  Can there ever be any understanding?  Everyone has rivers between them.  Not to mention, just in our real world, that great river of ultimate divide between male and female....

March 23:  I gotta get caught up on all my Night Watch, Day Watch, Twilight Watch reading on here before I forget the details.

Here's A piece to ponder from Russian Night Watch: 

Я протянул навстречу ладони, сложив их в Ксамади, знаке отрицания. It translates: I stretched out my hands folding the in the Xamadi, the sign of negation.  My friend sent me a picture of what this means, a magic gesture, maybe a curse?  He called it the spider sign, but couldn't really explain it.  I wonder if it has something to do with the movie ending of Night Watch.  Need to watch again.

I finished Day Watch, and have no more clarity about the story between Alisa and Igor, except to know the leaders of course had a hand in it--but for what purpose?    I now think of Alisa with much more sympathy.   Still need to go on to find out the truth, but the end of the book is more about Svetlana and Anton, who are apparently going to give birth to the anti-christ/ super magician or something.  Sveta loses her big powers, (as most of us do).

March 25:  I'm now  about 70?  pages into Twilight Watch, and simultaneously,  @ 110 for Ночной Дозор.  I'm learning Russian so much more deeply this way, especially since these books are full of dialogue.  I am missing a lot of the vocabulary, particularly verbs---always the most difficult part--but by repetition I am picking up much more of the language and its common use, in general.

Twilight thankfully goes back to Anton as protagonist.  He's older, married to Sveta, with a baby, (mother and child are, typical, at the dacha, in the first part of the book, hardly involved). He has this mission of finding a letter writer who claims a regular human is being turned into an Other, so Anton's basically trying to play detective by living where the letter came from.  I really love the portrait of where he's living for the mission.  He's in this supposedly luxurious high-rise apartment building, and it has some luxuries, but is also missing essentials for modern life, like toilets and other plumbing.  But, since the builders overestimated in their investment (Explaining the half-finish?)  the huge building --I'm guessing it has at least 15 floors if not more)  only has something like 8 occupants, and some have keys to the other flats, so they kind of have almost like a squatter's existence in the entire building.  It's like a giant metaphor for Moscow, corrupt with capitalism. My favorite character is the human bass player Anton comes upon one night, with a cool lifestyle--half-hippie, half-punk.   He may end up more important in the book, I'm sensing.  I like the mellow vibe of this book so far.

So, one of the ideas I'm getting out of Twilight Watch is a continued blending of the moral points of view between the Night and Day Watches.  In theory, the Night Watch members are "good" because they focus on maintaining the greater good.  Day Watch is self centered, concerned with their own individual purposes.  The old Truce or Treaty or whatever you want to call it, creates a balance, supposedly, but in actuality it just makes morality more muddy somehow.  Nothing truly gets accomplished, except maybe keeping the Day Watch from going out of control to suit themselves.  According to the ancient battle in the book, the powers of both Others are equal, and would have wiped themselves out totally if the war had continued.  But now since there's so much compromise involved, it's like no act seems purely good or evil, dark or light.  Everything swirls around in this mass of grayness that isn't very clear.

So, I've come to this epiphany, relating to the real world too.  Labels, rules, laws, commandments, moral platitudes--give no real clarity to morality--they just seem to, and are perhaps a crutch to make life easier for the lazy or confused.  Panacea--makes you feel good.  But, real morality only exists in the moment. It's not really a vacuum, because that moment encapsulates everything, every person, every cause and effect that surrounds it.  And how will you know it's right?  Know thyself, like old Socrates said.  I think it has something to do with your feelings, rather than logic, because logic just boxes everything up and misses the edges and eddies.  But it needs to involve EVERY emotion, not just the easiest, most gratuitous, most surface stuff. It's like a mini-world in a drop of water.  Find the nucleus.

April 19:  Finishing up Сумеречный Дозор (Twilight Watch). Some good lines towards the end I like:

"Don't teach your granddad how to make children."

"Why do you always have to become stronger than anyone else before you can permit yourself weakness?"

I also like the imagination behind the Gray prayer for vampires : It disables organic matter from rising from the grave/soil to obtain its own consciousness...
Emergent systems, anyone?


****Note****This is out of time sequence, so I can keep the Watch Books together in one place***
***********************I am writing this section on January 5, 2016*********************

So, I finished Night Watch in Russian, and now I'm almost finished with Day Watch in Russian as well.

I'm at the point, in book 3 (about 90% in)  where Anton and Edgar are both on planes, trying to take the time to analyze all that's happened, both coming to the conclusion that there may be an attempt to raise the dead..

So, I suppose it's intended to hint at things to come for the next books.  The Dragon claw and all.
It seems to me that Anton keeps seeing beyond the Watches.  He seems to recognize, even if he's not one of the most powerful Others, that the polarity is artificial,  and mostly just a game between the two greats, Gesser and Zabulon, that really doesn't have as much moral substance as it seems on the surface.

Something that is repeatedly discombobulating me is the dissonance between the movies and books.  I watched Day Watch over the holidays again.  Besides the fact that most of the plot is actually from the first book, Night Watch, there's the very heavy-handed change of relationships, two big ones: the Father-son connection between Anton and Egor, that sets Egor up to be a sort of Anakin Skywalker-bitter child, due to his history, or lack there-of, with his father, Anton.  The second relationship change is the movie romance between Alisa and Kostya, Anton's vampire neighbor.

In the case of the Alisa-Kostya affair, I think it's not so bad, even if it's not as prettily done as in the book, where Alisa finds a Light Other to love named Igor, who then kills her.  Her enlightenment, however, can somewhat be viewed as having the same effect on the story, because in both she basically breaks ties with Zabulon, becomes more sympathetic as a result, and shows something about the seeming coldness of Zabulon.  He and Alisa are portrayed in the movie as sort of gaudy new Russian bandit types, unlike the grungier Night Watch people.   There must be something to the idea that Others can want to change sides or become more neutral, but they are trapped by their loyalties.  Its sort of a reflection of Nationalism and patriotism in the real world.

Ah, I find this interesting in this part of the story--that when the human world gets heated up with chaos and turmoil--say the World Wars, the Rise of Hitler, or Stalin--this feeds the Twilight, and allows either of the watches to make their crazy moves to change the world.  The millenium is being used in the story to fuel that=people's fears about the end times and what not. Anyway, Zabulon seems more willing to use his people like cold pawns in his hands. But some of the story fights that?  Like the artifice of the divide between the watches.  Which is mostly the difference of Zabulon's way and Gessar's.  Leaders determine values, yes?  Is there anything, for example, more or less moral in either democracy or socialism?  Or is it just how the ideology is used?

Jan 29:  I have only one chapter to go.  Just reached the part about all the chess-piece swapping, and once again, I'm seeing things in Russian I didn't see before because I read it too quickly and shallowly in English.  I'm seeing this time that the morality really is just a game element like chess.  Dark and light like the pieces of a chessboard rather than Devils and Angels.  I think I lose track of the players when I read too fast or too disjointedly.  I need to look up stuff about old Slavic/Nordic mythology, because it seems to be clear allusions here--like Siegfried and Regin?  And Fafnir.  Never ever looked into that much, all that old Wagner opera ring trilogies and what-not.   Now I've read about  it, there's just a lot of in -family fighting, betrayal and murder--like a Shakespeare tragedy!  But, it will probably indicate how The Watch books will turn out.

Feb 4, 2016:  I finished Day Watch по-русский!!!!!!   But this is about meaning, so I must write in English for speed and clarity.  The first time I read it, I was so caught up in the beauty of Alica and Igor's star-crossed love that I didn't focus on another final detail: Svetlana's  curse that no one will love Zabulon, and the inquisitor's rather cold assessment that he doesn't really need this...interesna.


April 19, 2015-
#5- Oblomov.  This is sort of cheating--I've been thinking about reading this Russian classic, Oblomov, which is supposed to be some sort of goad for the Russian Revolution, because it paints an archetypal picture of the useless aristocrat.  The plot is less than inviting--a dude that sleeps, eats, plans and dreams and does almost nothing all day. Russian Walter Mitty.  Commitment to a long read hasn't appealed to me.  But, I had the movie, copaceticly,  in my movie queue in Fandor, so I watched it.  I really liked it, so I might think about reading the book.  The trouble is, Oblomov, the lazy dreamer aristocrat, is a more sympathetic character than I expected, and heavily contrasted with his hard-working, German friend Stoltz.  I don't know if the film-maker was just less sympathetic to the Revolutionary spirit of hard work and solidarity than the author may have been--hard to tell unless I read the book, I suppose.  They both have their good and bad points, but Stoltz gets the girl, Olga, in the end, because, although Oblomov (Ilya) pulls himself out of his torpor for a bit, he can't quite get himself to make it through to a full courtship, giving up his dreamy life of nothing.  In the end, he's not particularly admirable.  But, sympathetic.

This story sorta gets under my skin because it reminds me--quite vividly, of people I know--two in particular.  And it is exactly the Oblomov behavior that these exhibit that irritates me most.

Laziness. Hiding in a dream world.  Literally spending most free time eating and sleeping.  
All the stupid Hamlet-like second guessing, rumination.  Leading to nothing.  Sympathetic and Sad.
The story makes it sound like this is the outcome of spoiling your children, and I suppose there is something to that.  Why do something when you can get away with doing nothing.  Not that I object to people enjoying life...oh, boy, this is getting complicated, and I cannot even begin to express what this is making me think about. Which I suppose makes it good.

#6-Chekov--"A Boring Story".  A friend, knowing my interest in Russian Lit and strange points of view, sent me an electronic copy of this story.  I read a decent amount of Chekov when I was younger  , including plays, but I'm afraid the details now escape me.  I just recall the overall feel, which somehow made The writer seem right in the room, sort of the way J.D. Salinger can do.   In spite of the title, in spite of its plot consisting of the minutiae of a seemingly well established and stable man, the story was interesting, mostly for this in-the-room immediacy Chekov produces.  It really gets into this guy's mind.  How to explain it?

The story seems almost like the precursor to the stream of consciousness form, because the narrator, who is a successful and well-loved professor-lecturer of medicine at a renown Russian university lets us know his secrets. By following his (Nikolay's) daily life and interior moods, you begin to realize he is not happy in spite of his success.  In fact, he seems to have all the things one would need to be satisfied; he made the career he wanted, he is passionate about his subject, is respected, revered, asked for advice, is an interesting person, had a passionate love affair that lead to marriage, lives a reasonably comfortable life, is helpful in his way.

It is his relationship with Katya, a sort of adopted daughter, that makes you feel his restless dis-satisfaction with life, which will lead to his ill health and death.  As the story goes, you understand he perceives  that all the people he associates with possibly look at him in..I can only explain it this way...a materialistic way.   For his name, his position, his status, the knowledge he has, the keeping together of a household.  Whether or not this is true doesn't seem to matter, as it is his perception which colors his moods, behavior, and action.  (It is with this insight that I am most impressed, as I think it is quite true about myself and my restlessness.) His wife he has lost a true connection with despite that fact that their love was once genuine--she worries too much and is much too absorbed in the material, he thinks.  He feels Katya is the only person he feels close to--and she is in many ways his opposite in everything--she is a passionate but failed actress, an unwed mother, disrespected by most of the family other than a contemporary of Nikolay's who seems to think of her romantically, unlike Nikolay.  By the end of the story he is spending much more time with her and her suitor than the family, even in spite of the gossip.

The story ends in a way that reminds me of Edgar Allan Poe!  One exclamation, like "Montresor!"  Only it is, "Farewell, my treasure!"  referring, I assume to Katya.   His death makes his life seem practically meaningless, because he didn't act?  He seems to be a character who has been allowed insight into his own problems, has an inkling of what is important, but never seems to take the next step to get there.
I'm not entirely sure what Chekov is trying to say with this story--surely it is about what is important in life, and it certainly wasn't any of the things Nikolay already had.  He seems to distain art as an answer--N.  is not much of a patron, doesn't care, in particular, for Katya's passion.  He's a bit of a dried fish about this, in my eyes.  I think I should re-read the ending.

Okay, I reread it, and I think at the end he maybe decides he is happy, at least happier than Katya.  He's leaving his responsibilities to go to the Crimea.  He asks her repeatedly to have lunch with him, but she refuses.  She's unhappy about letters from the suitor, who it seems is declaring his feelings--I assume she does not return them.  She is begging him for advice for what to do with her life, and like before, with a student asking for a dissertation topic, he resents and resists this. She is the one who followed him, wants to know where he's going next--he is vague.  I don't entirely know what to make of this.  It really doesn't seem like a romantic relationship in any way--just one of those "two lost souls, swimming in a fishbowl" sort of things--the next closest thing.  Their relationship maybe has nowhere else to go?  But why can't they just hang out?  Bring on the Magical Realism...

September 20:  I am reading Dostoyevsky again,  this  time Notes From the Underground.  I'm thinking Sartre must have read this as inspiration for Nausea.   The narrator, who speaks in first person, does not develop any kind of plot, just like Nausea.  He's really just parsing the meaning of life, and rather desperate for meaning outside of science, and returns again and again to the concept of, well, free will, but he rather makes it seem perverse, that man proves his humanity by defying the rules of logic and science and harming himself, with ridiculous choices, over and over. I feel not just sympathetic, but a peculiar empathy for this position, which I rather feel I've done again and again to myself in my life.

 Just when I start to be physically comfortable--like I could just rest on my accomplishments, ride comfortably into the sunset--I decide I want some ridiculous other thing that will seriously jeopardize my life.  It's somehow proof of my trueness, my center--I don't know.  Me.  It's one thing to do this when you're young and resilient , another when you're closing in on the end of days--but at least this time I'm not carrying the weight of ones who are dependent on me. Or that soon will be true.

I really feel this narrative voice speaking to me--loudly.

September 24:  I am reading this so slowly, like maybe 3 pages per night, that I might as well be reading it in the original Russian.  But, it's that dense, if you really want to get into the depth of it.  Right now I'm reading this part about his definition of the Russian version of romanticism--the narrator seems to be claiming it's deeper, better, perhaps more human, than the Transcendental, French or German versions (Sorrows of Young Werther, and all that). It seems to do with practicality.   I think what he's getting at is the Russian romantic can lead a surface, practical life, yet still maintain a sense of depth and remain sort of tuned to life's beauty --not turning it off in some sort of false dilemma, as if the two cannot exist together.  It's an interesting observation, and maybe it even gets to the source of something about the Russian character I like so much...lemme see if I can internet a good quote....

eh--this will have to do: Russian Romanticism is “to see everything, and to see often incomparably more clearly than our very most positive minds do.”.  It upholds the idea of "The beautiful and the sublime" (my book's translation, others say "lofty"  but I like "sublime" better---it goes into your skin rather than up in the sky, far away), even if the Russian allows himself to succeed in the real world.  This is in direct contrast to the European Romantic, who seems to feel it is an either/or situation:  you choose antisocial , nonconformist behavior in order to maintain the sense of beauty, to live it daily.  If you don't you become the mindless, hard, practical drone--all reason, no beauty or depth, no acknowledgement of a fuller sense of life's mysteries. Or at least D. is claiming this.

I think there is much to this idea, and it is really, really interesting to me.  For all my love of Romanticism as a form of literature, I have avoided its origin, The Sorrows of Young Werther, because it has never appealed to me--like it verges on the melodramatic or something.  I know the plot--understand the sentiment. Werther commits suicide for love.

 Now, on the surface, this may seem a contradiction, for me, the great Morrissey- lover of self aggrandized melodrama.  But that is just the point--young Werther's point of view seems straight pathos, no cutting.  But Morrissey undercuts his with satire and self-parody, cutting the brilliant diamond of feeling with another angle, another view of human experience.  It really seems a deeper experience that way, less drippy, and maybe closer to Dostoyevski's take on the Russian romantic type.

Haha--one of my goodreads Friends, aussie Ian who has a good sense of humor, my musical taste, my age, my taste in lit too, and a very funny writer...pointed out that Morrissey did a cover of a Song based on Notes From the Underground, called something like "A Song From the Floorboards"  which he claims is closer to the original title (dunno haven't seen it, does that last word have the root пол?)

This of course amuses me as Morrissey and Dostoyevsky go together like toast and marmalade.
When I am less tired I will write something about the horrible little man who is the narrator of the Notes--he does some terrible things both egotistical and self-loathing by the end of the novella.

Febuary 10:  Started a new Russian book--this time I'm trying out reading them simultaneously--it's kinda short: 42 or 120+ pages, depending on which version you are addressing--.  Lessee if I can spell this correctly without messing up:

Бульгаков--Собачье Сердце.  Bulgakov's Heart of a Dog.  

So, the narrator is a stray dog, speaking in 1st person.  Of course, smarter than one might think--at one point he's explaining why it's possible he knows how to read.  To get fed, of course--funny what he calls the letter shapes.  It reminds me a little of Twain, humor-wise.  Well, right at the beginning, some jerk cook scalds him, making his time on the street more miserable.  But then , some seeming good Samaritan human, who may be a doctor?  Takes him home--that's where I am.  It seems a little ominous, not sure if it will turn out for the dog? More later.

So finished Heart of a Dog.  Overall, it was a little more difficult to read in Russian than the Night Watch books, but not as hard as Морфин, well, maybe that would be easier now too?     Doubtful.
I'm simultaneously still doing daily grammar practice, so, that helps some with the basics.  I'm sorta beginning to recognize, occasionally, when google translate is weak, but, I still make lots of grammar mistakes and have some trouble with the subtleties of endings and spelling.  Reading is easier.

I suppose I'm going to go for spoilers here--so watch out if you wanna read it fresh.  The dog was picked up for a reason, to do experiments to transplant some human pituitary glands into him, to make him sorta human (an ethical dilemma in the book) with disastrous results--especially since it was a bad pituitary.  Maybe this is where they got the idea to change the Frankenstein movies from the original Shelley plot?  Anyway, the  bigger message seems a criticism of the Bolshevik (The Big!) Revolution and its aftermath, as the doctor in the story has many problems with it, but he's not really perfect either--having not entirely thought through his crazy experiment.  I like Master and Margarita and Morphine better, really.  But, glad I read it--that's the test! The end was sorta flat, although there was plenty of suspense in the book about what was going to happen--half wondered if Bulgakov thought the communists were only a half-step better than animals in some places, with their pack mentality.  There was a sort of elitist feel to the educated ones in the story, but, is that inevitable?  True, even?  Maybe not in the US)))))--we hate education!