Demons – Final Thoughts

[This post also marks my completion of Volume 4 (of 5) of Frank’s biography. Of course, volume 5 appears longer than volumes 1 and 2 combined, so who knows when/if I’ll finish?] “Now read me another passage. . . . About the pigs,” [Stepan] said suddenly. “What?” asked Sofya Matveyevna [a villager whose hose the … Continue reading Demons – Final Thoughts →

Demons – Part Three

“… I declared everything had happened to the highest degree by chance, through people who, though perhaps of a certain inclination, had very little awareness, were drunk, and had already lost the thread. I am still of that opinion.” (540) The narrator is describing a singular event and how he later testified - but this … Continue reading Demons – Part Three →

Demons – Part Two

: "...this town here is like the devil took and shook it from a sack" (Fedya the Convict - p. 260) This post discussed Part Two of "Demons" - I'll follow up with Part Three when I've finished. Let me start by saying that the second reading of this book as been far, FAR more … Continue reading Demons – Part Two →

Demons – Part One

This is the kind of book you need to be really, really attentive to in order not to get lost. I read it two summers ago and spent most of that time thoroughly confused, with only the barest notion of the characters or the plot. I'm thinking that as I read it again I'll be … Continue reading Demons – Part One →

The Eternal Husband

As compared with The Idiot, this book was way, way easier to understand. As opposed to the 15+ randomly related cast of characters, most of the main action of this (also much shorter) novella takes place between two principal characters: Valchaninov, an almost 40 urbane Petersburg bachelor, and Pavlov Pavlovich, a provincial official and serial … Continue reading The Eternal Husband →

The Idiot

The Idiot "... We feel that we must limit ourselves to the simple statement of facts, as far as possible without special explanations, and for a very simple reason: because we ourselves, in many cases, have difficulty explaining what happened" (The Idiot, trans. Peaver and Volokhonsky, 573) So writes the on-again off-again omniscient narrator towards … Continue reading The Idiot →

All Things Shining, part one

So, I was looking for something to read on the beach last week (other than student papers), and I decided to go with All Things Shining, by Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Dorrance Kelly. Many things were shining that day, so it seemed like a good choice. Actually, with its mix of history, philosophy and literature, … Continue reading All Things Shining, part one →

The City and the Suburbs – Part 1

A while back I threatened to write a three-part series about three great albums that feel thematically connected: Sonic Youth’s Daydream Nation, the Smashing Pumpkins’ Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, and Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs. So here goes. Daydream Nation I remember vividly the first time I ever listened to this – I was … Continue reading The City and the Suburbs – Part 1 →

Reading Aloud

After my students too the AP English exam in May, I had some extra time, and wanted to try something new. We're supposed to read The Great Gatsby during the junior course, and, now having read that book something like 10 times, I wanted to mix it up a bit. What I decided to do … Continue reading Reading Aloud →

The Oxbow Incident

There is a possible world very close to ours, differing ever so slightly, in which I drowned yesterday on the Oxbow river in Portland, OR. Here's what happened. I was with my friends Margaret and Hector--we had been rafting together before, and were actually lamenting how calm the river seemed. This would make it difficult … Continue reading The Oxbow Incident →