Category Archives: Books

The Many gods of the Brothers Karamazov

Books, Classic Books, Religious Quest in the Modern Age

In a way there are many gods in the novel The Brothers Karamazov. Is Fyodor Karamazov—the father of the 3, or perhaps 4, Karamazov brothers—God? He certainly is God-like. He is fickle, absurd, unreasonable, and demands adherents be faithful no matter what. Sounds a lot like God doesn’t it?  His former serf Gregory is faithful to him when faith has not been earned or deserved. As Dostoevsky explains about Fyodor Karamazov, “For some complex and subtle reasons, that he himself could not explain, he felt an urgent and pressing need to have someone loyal and trustworthy by him.” Again this sounds god-like. If he is a god, then, of course, his 3 or 4 sons, are all sons of God.

 

Because of the absolute loyalty,  the father liked his youngest son, Alyosha who “touched his very heart, by being there, seeing everything, and condemning nothing.” Remember he is the one who judges no one. Alyosha gave him “something he had never had before—a complete absence of contempt for him…he treated him with invariable kindness—and a completely genuine and sincere affection which Karamazov little deserved.” Of course he treated everyone that way. He was a near saint. Or you could say he was God-like.

Elder   Zosima is certainly god-like. As is Alyosha. But so is Karamazov. He is an absurd god. But in many respect the god of the bible is also absurd. The God of the Bible is the god who lets a small child freeze to death in a shed in a Russian winter. Ivan could not accept such a god.

Dmitri (also known as Mitya) is a god to Katerina. She bows down to him, as Elder Zosima bowed down to Fyodor Karamazov and Dmitri to Grushenka. In fact, Grushenka had father and son “conquered and lying at her feet.” Again a bit God-like.

Dmitri also treats Alyosha like a god. He confesses to Alyosha:

“I’ll make a clean breast of everything, for there must be someone who knows the whole truth. I’ve already told it to the angel in heaven and now I’ll tell it to the angel on earth. Because you are the angel on earth Alyosha.”

 

What are we to make of so many gods on this religious quest?

 

 

God’s Fools

Books, Classic Books, Religious Quest in the Modern Age

 

In the book The Brothers Karamazov, the monastery was where Alyosha, one of the three sons of the patriarch Fyodor Karamazov, was learning how to find light and love with the assistance of his mentor, the elder, Zosima, a near Saint. The elder lives in a small room in the monastery that was far from grandiose. It is not the Vatican. Nor the lavish home of American televangelists. As Dostoevsky described it, “The whole cell was rather small and drab-looking. It has only the most indispensable furniture, and even that was poor and crude.”

It is interesting that we learn a lot in a chapter of the novel titled, “The Old Buffoon.”  The elder Karamazov as invariably he does, acts like a buffoon.  And he is exactly that.  In fact, he introduced himself to Elder Zosima that way, and then acted the part with gusto. He refers to himself as “one of God’s fools,” and even says there may be an unholy spirit in me too, but it must be one of minor rank—if it were more important it would surely have chosen better quarters.”

Miusov also acted the part of the fool. As Dostoevsky said of Miusov, “He rated his own powers of judgment rather highly, a weakness which was excusable in him, since he was already past fifty, an age at which an intelligent, cultured man of the world of independent means acquires an exaggerated opinion of his own judgment, sometimes despite himself.” I guess I am lucky, not being a man of means nor cultured.

The three sons are each fools but each in their own way.

Is elder Zosima an old fool for living so simply? In the novel when elder Karamazov plays the buffoon to such an extent that his son Alyosha can’t stand to see his father acting so in front of his mentor Zosima. But the elder Zosima, echoing Christ with Mary Magdalene, throws himself at the feet of the Fyodor Karamazov the father. According to Rakitin, “That’s the way it always is with God’s fools: they’re liable to cross themselves at the sight of a tavern and then hurl stones at a church.”

But Zosima impressively treats the fool like a nobleman. There are many of God’s fools in the novel, sometimes in disguise.  Some of the fools are very intelligent. Wise men are harder to find. Isn’t it always like that?

The way to light and Love

Books, Classic Books, Fellow Feeing, Religious Quest in the Modern Age

In the novel The Brothers Karamazov, Alyosha, also called Alexei is the youngest son and least like the father. He is the most likeable of all the Karmazovs, and I might even say, the most God-like of the brothers Karamazov. He did that by being free of resentment. He was filled instead with compassion and fellow feeling that left no room for resentment. Unlike his father and his brothers, He “never held a grudge when someone offended him.” Instead he had fierce, frantic modesty, and chastity.” He was “in no sense a fanatic…he was not even a mystic.” As Dostoevsky said, “he refused to sit in judgement of others.” Or like Bob Dylan said, “he knows too much to argue or to judge.” Some of us, (I am looking in a mirror now) could learn a lot from Alyosha.

 

What was his secret?  It wasn’t dogma. Or following rules. He had no need of either.  As Dostoevsky said, “he was just a boy who very early in life had come to love his fellow men.”  Simple but effective! As the author shows us in his novels, many men  claim to love their fellows but few are able to do that. Alyosha did go to a monastery but that was “simply because at one point that course had caught his imagination and he had become convinced that it was the ideal way to escape the darkness of the wicked world, a way that would lead him toward light and love.” This was his religious quest. He was as unencumbered by vows or rules as his Father was unencumbered by scruples. Near the end of the book Alyosha shows us that there is better way. But really the whole novel leads us there. I will get to that later in my posts on this book. I must meander there. There are no shortcuts to truth.

 

This is the genuine way of religion. This is the true faith of the religious quest. Religion without dogma. What a blessing that could be. Alyosha shows us the way by example.

 

The Brothers Karamazov: Abandoned by God

Books, Classic Books, existentialism, Religious Quest in the Modern Age

 

In the book The Brothers Karamazov the brothers have a most unusual father. The father feels no responsibility to the sons and virtually abandons them all to their own devices. In the first sentence of the novel, we learn that the father has died under “tragic and mysterious” circumstances so I am not giving much away when I suggest that the most likely suspects are his sons. And it could be anyone of them, even though only Dmitri is charged with his murder.

 

The father had 3 “legitimate” sons and one other son who works for the father as a servant.  We never learn for sure whether he is actually a son or not. In that first paragraph we also learn that the father is “wretched and depraved but also muddle-headed in a way that allows him to pull off all sorts of shady little financial deals and not much else.”

 

The problem between the father and at least one of the sons, Dmitri, is that both love the same woman. And they compete for her violently. Here is how the prosecutor put it in his summation to the jury: “it was an amazing and fatal coincidence that these two hearts should have been set afire simultaneously.” And this set off “a month of hopeless passion.”  And no one could be more passionate than the Karamazovs for it was that passion that set off “the idea of parricide.”  This is such a powerful idea that, as defense counsel said, “the idea of it shocks and impresses us so much that the inadequate proof seems adequate and the questionable facts cease to appear questionable.” The idea is like a magic elixir that can transform a substance into something foreign. The very idea of it can make the false true and the true false.

 

However, as dangerous as that may be, there is more. Dmitri’s brother Ivan so different from him, is the atheist brother who argues that if God does not exist “all is permitted.” In fact, it could be said that the very idea of a dead God is a magic elixir that could mean all is permitted. That is where his religion ended.  Yet as the  defense lawyer explains to the jury, Dmitri’s father was not a real father for he effectively abandoned his children, therefore it would not be a monstrous thing for a son to murder such a father. It would be understandable. The consequence to Dmitri as his legal counsel explains, is that “my client grew up under no one’s protection but God’s, which means that he grew up as wild animals.” That seems like a horrible indictment of God, but it also gives license to Dmitri. For as we all know, if our parents disappear, we are given permission, in practice to do anything. The same with an absent God. All is really permitted. This is a lesson we also learned at the funeral of the very young Ilyusha who has an absent mother, not in fact, but in reality, for she has lost her reason. His mother was as bad a mother as Dmitri’s father was a bad father..

 

Being abandoned by a parent is as devastating as being abandoned by God. And that is the crux of the enigma of the religious quest in this novel. Abandonment by God is central to the whole idea of the death of God which gripped philosophers starting in the 19th century.

That shocking idea was born in the writings of Dostoevsky and Nietzsche and then carried on by the existentialists.

Re-Reading the Brothers Karamazov

2024 Trip to South East United States, Books, Classic Books, Religious Quest in the Modern Age

 

 

 

A couple of years ago I started two projects. One was to re-read at least one great classic book  each year. As a result I have re-read Albert Camus’s book The Rebel, Joseph  Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. I also started a project I call Religious Quest in the Modern Age based on a course taught by University of Winnipeg Professor Carl Ridd in the 1970s. I heard a short version of it in 1972 on television. In it he covered some of the same books. Teh idea of such a quest, has  an inspiration to me for 50 years! Some of the books I am reading overlap both of these projects. This is one of them.

I just recently re-read  one of the greatest novels I have ever read. It is The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky. It is a brilliant novel that is infused with a powerful religious quest by the main characters. All of them in very different ways. That makes it perfect for both projects.

The book is 936 pages long (with an introductory article) and very complicated. Often, I had to re-read lengthy passages to make sure I had caught on to what is going on. That makes for very slow reading. But it is very enjoyable reading. I feared It might take me half of our 3- month holiday to wade my way through it, making many of the books  dragged out to Arizona  unnecessary. I feared I would not get to them. But that was all fine. I could not have enjoyed  my reading more. It actually took me slightly less than a month to read even with the back and forth and making notes.

I originally read The Brothers Karamazov after or just after my first year of Law School in 1972. I decided that since I had such an all-consuming year trying to learn law and had married a lovely and wealthy young lady, Christiane Marie Jeanne Calvez, the year before, and she had a fantastic $600 in her account, that I should take advantage of this to take a summer off. I reached the daring conclusion that I should take the summer off instead of working and read Russian novels instead.  This probably struck her as insane, but she did not object even though we could have used the money. My bad.

That summer I read 3 of Dostoevsky’s long novels and it was an incredible experience. I recall intense dreams filled with startling Russian characters. And I loved it. And Christiane put up with it. She has frankly put up with a lot! I had worked for 5 years of University in which I studied intensely and figured I should take a lengthy break to avoid burn-out. It was one of the greatest experiences of my life. It was magnificent.

I know my wife wished I had learned more practical things like carpentry or plumbing, but I was focused on adventures of the mind. This year in 2024 it was a wonderful thing to re-experience. That is what re-reading classics is all about.

When I re-read the book in the winter of 2024 while in Arizona, I found it was everything I remembered and more. More than 50 years later I came to the book a very different person then I was the first time, a young man filled with piss and vinegar with a lot to learn. Now I am an old man mostly “vebrukt,” (broken) but unfortunately still with a lot to learn

And now I decided to re-read the greatest of those Russian novels. Perhaps even the greatest of all novels.  And once again, it was an astonishing experience. The novel is that good and I recommend everyone read it.  Do it now before it’s too late.

 

Pinching Zwieback: A review

Books, Mennonites

 

 

I know I am biased but my good friend Mitch Toews has written a very good novel. Or is it a very good collection of stories trying to be a novel?  It doesn’t matter. All you have to know is that to read it truly worth the trip.

 

I first got to know Mitch when we were both on a senior men’s basketball team. I was the mascot. Oddly, two members of that team have become writers.  The other is well-known Dave Bergen. Mitch may soon be just as well known. Sadly, both Mitch and Dave were much better basketball players than I was and also excellent writers. Some guys get all the breaks. Sometimes life is not fair.

 

Once a week through the thick and thin of winter the team drove to Winnipeg, though some like Dave Bergen lived in Winnipeg so did not have the benefit of participating in those wonderful road trips. On the way back home after a couple of “short ones” from the Nicolett Bar with its “Mega Parties” attended by about 3 or 4 customers in addition to our team, I remember Mitch would often regale us with stories.  Sitting in the car with our sweaty socks and smells of stale beer, Mitch would sometimes tell long stories that were told with minute details that gave them the luster of truth, even though they were obviously filled with outrageous lies. Trump-sized lies!  At best they had a whiff of the truth. I knew then, right away, that he was a wordsmith and should write. After all, lies are what fiction is all about. And Mitch was a master liar.

Now Mitch has proved I was right about that with his magnificent book Pinching Zwieback: Made up Stories from the Darp.“ [“Darp” is a small town.]

We have to forgive Mitch for his appropriation of Mennonite culture. He uses a sprinkling of Low-German words to give the book the tang of Mennonite, but he provides a set of definitions so even those unfamiliar with this glorious language will understand the word in the books.  But that is all right, he is allowed to appropriate from his own culture, even if he is an outlier. Or out liar?

 

I really liked the stories about Died Rich (Diedrich) Deutsch who was obviously modelled after another member of our team mates. Died Rich is befriended by Dr. Rempel who discovers “an infinity-sized loophole” from hell. Lucky guy. He is free to do what he wants. So he tries to start a new religion with Died Rich as his first convert.

 

 

  1. My favourite story though is “Without Spot or Wrinkle” in which 2 characters are clearly fictionalized versions of my great uncle Peter and Tante Suzie.  Matt’s father Hart owns a bakery and goes to the Credit Union for a loan. After all the business has one of the “ freshly printed chequebooks that makes money appear as if by magic—or possibly as some claim—in response to prayer.”  Hart notices the desk for the loans officers is “rectilinear and oppressively neat” telling us a lot about the community in which it is located.  As well, there is a plaque “that smells like money” where “A framed dollar bill looks down from the wall like a coat-of-arms.” It is a place with a stern “ Elizabeth Regina overseeing all.” In that image you know all you need to know about this institution. This is a place that only those who are not faint of heart should enter. It reminds me of the line by Bob Dylan, “Jack the Ripper sits at the head of the Chamber of Commerce selling road maps of the soul.”

 

When Hart admits to the account manager  he doesn’t attend church he knows his chance of getting the loan are sunk. When “Elizabeth Regina looks down, a savage smile on her green lips,” you know that smile is for Hart and he knows all he needs to know. When the account manager “closes the ledger with a soft thud…the neat rows of numbers seem to protest—the zeros calling out in open -mouthed desperation.” To no avail of course.

 

Fortunately, he finds a much more friendly banker down the street. Mr. Heid, no doubt modelled after kindly old T.G. Smith, ‘with a green-stained baseball” on his desk you which lets you know his chances are much better here. Hart has landed at a kinder, gentler, and smarter lender. Heid fortunately is not one of the so-called Christians. As Matt’s friend Peter Vogel said, “He has a firm hand on the idea of being fair—helping his neighbours no matter who or what he is. Not a church man that Heid, but he acts more like one than some others.”  Vogel has sharp words for the newer lenders like those at the Credit Union that “forget the old ways, those guys with their fine suits.”

 

I always knew Mitch would be a good writer. I just didn’t know how good. The stories whisper words of wisdom. The best kind of wisdom in a world in which we get too much of the other kind.  All of you should get out and buy this book. Immediately. This guy can write, a heck-of-a-lot better than he ever played basketball.

 

The Shortest History of Israel and Palestine

Books, Extremism, Hate, Polarization, War between Hamas Israel 2023, War Between Israel and Hamas

 

When the war between Hamas and Israel began I decided I must read a book about the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.  I read such a book quite a few years ago. I certainly needed a refresher. The read certainly was not refreshing however.

As a result, I read the book, The Shortest History of Israel and Palestine by Michael Scott-Baumann. From the blurbs on the cover it seemed to be an impartial view of that conflict. I think I made a good choice. Its a very good book.

What have I learned as a result of reading that book?  One main thing has become absolutely clear to me. That is that I have no idea who started the war or who started the current conflict either for that matter. So I had not learned who is right. But I am sure about one thing I am sure about Iwho is wrong.  Both sides are wrong! And they have been wrong over and over again.

 Mainly, they have been wrong because both sides have repeatedly acquiesced with what their extremists are doing in their name. And the result of that is clear. Turning over “your side” to your extremists is so ensure that peace has no chance. You can’t give peace a chance when you turn your case over to the extremists. And the same goes for the other side. No moderation; no peace. The extremists will make sure of that. Over and over again it seems that is exactly what they extremists want.

And if no side is right then the Buffalo Springfield are right when they sang:

 

“There’s battle lines being drawn

Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong”

 

An investment in Coyotes

2023 Grand Finale Tour, Books, desert, Nature

 

 

 

Late one afternoon in early January, soon after arriving in Arizona, I went for a lovely walk in San Tan Mountain Regional Park after purchasing an annual pass that allows unlimited walking through the desert. I bought the annual pass for about $70 even though we won’t be here for more than 3&1/2 months, it won’t take long for me to recoup my investment.

On my walk I listened to the incredible irrational exuberance of the coyotes. That is the true sound of the wild. I did not see them on this walk, but I did on others.

Edward Abbey is one of the finest interpreters of the Southeastern United States. His book, Desert Solitaire, about this region is a masterpiece. Everyone who wants to understand this place should read it. And then read it again. I will be referring to that book that I read before my second trip to this wonderland on this voyage of discovery.

Edward Abbey appreciated the wild. That meant he appreciated coyotes. This is what he said about them in that wonderful book:

“I have been honored by the serenade of a den of coyotes—a family perhaps—somewhere about a mile to the west of my camp. Weird unearthly song—like the legendary wail of banshees…Occult music is but a part of the coyote’s repertoire: they vary the program with more conventional howls, yelps, and barks when it pleases them to do so. Usually, they stop their singing and retire to the rocks, out of caution, soon after the sun comes up…We need coyotes, need them badly…As does the nation as a whole, for that matter. We need coyotes more than we need, let us say , more people, of whom we already have an extravagant surplus, or more domesticated dogs, which in all fairness could and should be ground up into hamburger and used as emergency coyote food, to raise their spirits and perhaps improve the tenor of their precious howling.”

Rather harsh words, but not entirely without merit. If you want to learn about the deserts of the American Southwest as I do, I strongly recommend Abbey’s book. And a walk in the desert. If you hear the coyotes your soul will be filled.

 

Huckleberry Finn and Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Books, Classic Books

 

Many people love the book Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe. It might be the most beloved book in America. Is it a better book than The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn? Are they comparable? If one is better than the other why is that?

 

Harriet Beecher Stowe who wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin is not averse to preaching and trying to persuade the reader how heinous slavery is. And she is completely right about that.  But Mark Twain was different. Twain said in the introduction to his book that no one should look for a moral or message in his novel. He was just telling stories he said. Yet in Twain’s book, as Azar Nafisi pointed out, “He does not play on our sentiments, but stirs our hearts in ways we had never imagined possible.”

 

Twain shows us the hideous underbelly of slavery and racism all without preaching. In fact, Huck himself speaks about how wicked it is to help a slave to escape. His conscience burns when he does it. He believes he is committing a sin that will lead him directly to hell. Yet he does it anyway. He forsakes his up bringing, his “conscience”, and everything be believes, for the sake of his black slave friend.

 

Stowe wanted to change the world through her ideas. Twain elicited ideas when they could lead to good stories and he did that by offering an alternative reality. And at this Twain was a genius. This is what great art is all about. This is why in my opinion Huck Finn is perhaps the greatest novel ever written and why Uncle Tom’s Cabin is a good book.

 

Sin is hard to Give up

Books, Classic Books, Religious Quest in the Modern Age

 

In the novel the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck is tormented by his actions in helping Jim escape from his rightful owner. He even considered doing the “right thing” and telling Miss Watson what he had done and deliver Jim back to her. He thought Jim might be better off as a slave near his family.

 

Huck gave up on that idea because no doubt Miss Watson would not accept anything from him because of Jim’s rascality and ungratefulness. After all, the slave should have been grateful, Huck thought, for having such a good master as Miss Watson. Miss Watson would likely sell Jim down the river again because “everybody naturally despises an ungrateful nigger.” After all,  Huck was also scared that everyone would find out that Huck had disgraced himself by helping Jim escape.  This is what he thought about that”

 

“And then think of me! It would get around that Huck Finn helped a nigger to get  his freedom; and if I was ever to see anybody from that town I’d be ready to get down and lick his boots for shame.”

 

But that was only the half of it.  After all he committed a sin. As Huck said,

 

“Well, I tried the best I could to kinder soften it up somehow for myself by saying I was brung up wicked, and so I wasn’t so much to blame, but something inside of me kept saying,  “There was the Sunday school, you couldn’t ‘a’ gone to it; and if you’d ‘a’ done it they’d ‘a’ learnt you there that people that acts as I’d been acting about the nigger goes to everlasting fire.”

Huck even tried prayer. On his knees filled with repentance for what he’d done. But he couldn’t do it:

“But the words wouldn’t come out. Why wouldn’t they come? warn’t no use to run and hide it from Him. Nor from me neither. I knew very well why they wouldn’t’ come. It was because my heart warn’t right’ it was because I warn’t square; it was because I was playing double. I was letting on to give up sin, but away inside of me I was holding on to the biggest one of all. I was trying to make my mouth say I would do the right thing and the clean thing and go and write to that nigger’s owner and tell where he was; but deep down in me I knowed it was a lie, and He knowed it. You can’t pray a lie.”

 

Helping Jim, Huck believed was a sin that would lead him to hell, yet he did anyway. Huck was greatly relieved when he realized this because he knew he had done a very bad thing.  As Huck said,

 

I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had felt so good in all my life, and I knowed I could pray now. But I didn’t do it straight of, but laid the paper down and set there thinking—thinking how good it was all this happened and so how near I come to being lost and going to hell. And I went on thinking over our trip down the river and and I see Jim before me all the time; in the day and in the night time, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we a-floating along  dark, talking’ singing, and laughing. But somehow I couldn’t seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but only the other kind

 

No matter what ideology he had been brought up with, Huck was able to break out of it. He just couldn’t be a supporter of slavery no matter how sinful he thought that made  him. His natural goodness burst through the chains of ideology. He was prepared to go to hell if necessary.