Arian > Recent Status Updates

‘Individual kindness will always remain, because it is a need of the personality, a living need for the direct influence of one personality on another. (…) How can you know, Bakhmutov, what significance this communication between one personality and another may have in the fate of the personality that is communicated with?….

Without a doubt, Ippolit is the most tragic character I have ever read. In his 'NECESSARY EXPLANATION' (which I suspect is his suicide note) writes about 'the idea that it was not worth living for a few weeks (..) and that the first moment that this thought penetrated me completely and directly was at the very same moment when it occurred to me to sample life for the last time, and I wanted to see people and trees...

I'll admit that I've read too much without updating my progress (it's gotten so good). Rogozhin and the Prince meet for the first time since 'you made an attempt on my life', says Myshkin. The Prince reaffirms Rogozhin, saying, 'the only Rogozhin I remember is the one with whom I exchanged crosses as a brother that day; I wrote that to you in my letter yesterday, so that you'd stop thinking about all that delirium'.

I really enjoyed reading Keller's confession to the Prince. Keller says to the Prince after he revealed his true motive 'by means of tears', 'Well, that's how to flabbergast a man completely! For pity's sake, Prince: such simple-heartedness, such innocence as were unheard of even in the golden age, and then suddenly you pierce a man through like an arrow, with such profound psychology of observation.'

'Yes, nature is given to mocking! Why does she create the very finest beings just in order to mock them? Was it she who made it so that (...) she destined him to say things on account of which so much blood was shed that it it were shed all at once people would probably have drowned in it? Oh, it's good that I am dying! I would also probably have uttered some horrible lie, nature would have betrayed me like that!'

A man claiming to be the rightful heir to the prince's fortune declares his 'human right, a natural one; the right of common sense and the voice of conscience, and even though this right of ours is not written down in any rotten human code of law, a decent and honest man is obliged to remain a decent and honest man even on those points that aren't written down in the law books.'

During a discussion among the Yepanchin sisters and a few others, Aglaya Ivanovna refers to a 12th-Century tradition where a knight devoted himself to a noble lady, 'that even if later she became a thief, he would still be bound to believe in her and break a lance for her pure beauty.' This comes after Koyla refers to Ganya as the 'poor knight' to (presumably) Nastasya Fillipovna.

Dostoyevsky uses an orientalist myth. 'that is the very second that was not long enough for water to be spilled from the epileptic Mahomet's overturned water-jug, though in that very second he was able to survey all the habitations of Allah' to describe the timelessness of an epileptic premotion the Prince suffers, 'freezing Rogozhin to the spot and thus saved the prince from the inevitable blow of the knife'.

Rogozhin says, 'when you're not there in front of me, I at once feel malice towards you, Lev Nikolayevich. These last three months, when I haven't seen you, I've felt bitter towards you every moment, by God, I have. I could've gone and poisoned you! It was like that. Now you've scarcely been sitting with me for quarter of an hour, yet all my malice is passing, and you're as dear to me as you used to be'.

Another on capital punishment, 'she began to shout: "Encore un moment, monsieur le bourreau, encore un moment!" and for that moment, perhaps, the Lord will forgive her, because a misere worse than that is impossible to imagine for a human soul. Do you know what the word misere means? Well, that is the very personification of misere'.

The narrator for Part 2 is almost a new character of its own. Our man on the ground (!) who happens to have observed the events of Part 1 and is informing the reader of what went down in the interim, but with a noticeable gap in knowledge.

An 'ephemeral, romantic, indecent, but also colourful and original' evening closes part 1, with Nastasya Filippovna riding off with Rogozhin and rejecting the prince's proposal — after he'd already rejected Ganya's on her behalf. Ganya's vanity shows when he turns away from the 100,000 roubles she throws in the fire, wanting to 'feast my eyes on your soul as you crawl into the fire for my money'. BRAVO BRAVO BRAVO!!

Ferdyshchenko has been the lone star in this extract! He seems to me an honest man (I'm reserving any conclusive judgement until the very end of the book). By his proposed petite jeu, Nastasya's turn to deliver an anecdote to her guests involved the prince in deciding for her on whether she should marry Ganya or not. The prince said no! Bravo EVERYBODY!

Prince Myshkin stands before Nastaya Filippovna’s front door for ‘business’ that the reader knows nothing of. Ganya is pretty funny!

Apologies for the hiatus. I’ve been slaving away at work and too upset about it to do anything else.

This extract covers the Great Pledge among the converts from Medina. The articles obligate them to ‘listen and obey in all difficulty and ease, to spend in plenty as well as in scarcity; to enjoin good and forbid evil; fear the censure of none; and to aid and protect the prophet ﷺ from anything they protect themselves, their spouses and children from.

Two historical extracts on Napoleon's negligence of Dalmatia in the 'reading of his correspondence with Marmont on the subject of the Illyrian provinces.' It is said that he 'ignored Marmont's letters altogether, and his exchequer grudged every halfpenny sent to Dalmatia.' The other, of the decaying morality of the Uskoks, who were originally of 'blameless character' turned into lawless pirates of the Adriatic sea.

Ganya, by exploiting the prince’s innocence, delivers a note to Aglaya, casting her as his only possible saviour from marrying Nastasya Filippovna as a ‘last attempt to save himself from perdition.’ ‘Do not be angry at the insolence of a desperate, a drowning man, for having dared to make a last attempt to save himself from perdition.’

The prince, revisiting capital punishment, 'but he says that nothing was so hard for him at the time as the incessant thought: "What if I didn't have to die? What if I could get my life back - what an infinity it would be! And it would all be mine! Then I would make each minute into a whole lifetime.." He said that this idea finally turned into such a fury that he wanted them to shoot him as quickly as possible.'

Dostoyevsky interrupts the flow of the narrative 'in order to establish, in the most straightforward and precise manner, the relations and circumstances that we find in General Yepanchin's household at the beginning of our tale.' This extract brings to the present a clear understanding of the context behind 'the incident' and Nastasya Filippovna's impending decision later this evening.

I suspect Ivan Fyodorvich is the most evil of Dostoyevsky's characters, and that he named him after himself. (I could be totally wrong about this, as there is very little evidence so early in the story to justify that judgement). The frequent interrupting of the prince just as he means to bring up his business for standing before the general is noteworthy. Dostoyevsky is delaying the revelation.

The story of the miraculous ascension through the seven heavens. Throughout his ascension, he encountered Jesus ﷺ (in the second heaven), Moses ﷺ (in the sixth heaven), and Abraham ﷺ (in the seventh heaven), until he was stood before God. 'Muhammad ﷺ on leaving, saw that Moses ﷺ began to weep.. he witnessed a man sent after him (Muhammad ﷺ) who was able to lead more of his people to paradise than he did himself.'

Prince Myshkin, on the capital punishment he witnessed in France says, 'perhaps the worst, most violent pain lies not in injuries, but in the fact that you know for certain that within the space of an hour, then ten minutes, then half a minute, then now, right at this moment -- your soul will fly out of your body, and you'll no longer be a human being, and that this is certain; the main thing is that it's certain. '

This extract details the prophet’s ﷺ persistence in his mission of openly preaching Islam. Damud Al-Azdi (one of the early converts) in response to listening to the prophet’s ﷺ speech says, ‘I have heard soothsayers, sorcerers and poets, but never have I experienced the sweetness of your words, they have the depth of the ocean.’ (Authentic narration).

West writes of Bishop Strossmayer of the Roman Catholic Church - and a pro-Croat - 'We regard him with suspicion, we look for the snake beneath the flower. All of us know what it is to be moon-struck by charmers and to misinterpret their charm as a promise... and all of us have found later that that charm made no promise and meant nothing, absolutely nothing. Hence the biographies of charmers...

So excited to read my first Dostoyevsky! William Mills Todd III writes an introduction, highlighting how Myshkin's honesty and compassion are tragically mismatched with the world's cynicism. The introduction also situates the novel within Dostoyevsky’s broader concerns about faith, beauty, and the failure of utopian ideals in a morally fragmented age.

This extract details Croatia’s internal struggle for free speech and a free press - notably against the Roman Catholic Church which had become predominantly Italian in the 20th century.

A heated debate between Valetta and Constantine.

My favourite extract so far. So so much to unpack. The highlighter has been in use more than ever before!

West’s written observation of the patients at the sanatorium is so so nuanced.

The Year of Grief, marked by the deaths of the Prophet's uncle Abu Talib and his wife Khadijah - a loss so profound that this year was described as one in which 'the Prophet ﷺ suffered successive calamities.'

This extract goes on to list the factors inspiring the patience and perseverance of the early Muslims, in spite of the torture and grief they constantly were burdened with.