Dostoyevsky on what is to be found in wine

Do you think, wine-merchant, that this bottle of yours brought me sweetness? Sorrow, sorrow I sought at its bottom, sorrow and tears, and I tasted it and found it…

– Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

A review of and thoughts on – The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Started “The Brothers Karamazov” then thought to myself – What in the world am I doing reading the words of a man so long dead? and stopped it again promptly. Picked it up again days later and ploughed through and I’m glad that I did. Disappointed that this book didn’t impress me with undeniable Greatness, but was merely good(ish). I felt it faffed for hundreds of pages, far too long overlong explanations and overwrought prose – not exactly a master stylist, this Dostoyevsky. Or perhaps I should be blaming his translators; I’ve heard good and bad things about Pevear and Volokhonsky – overhyped?

The psychology of the characters was explored reasonably well – but hysterical, all of them! Hysterical! Absolutely! But that’s not to say there weren’t moments of moving me (what else is Dostoevsky for?)

“And if the sick man whose sores you are cleaning does not respond immediately with gratitude, but, on the contrary, begins tormenting you with his whims, not appreciating and not noticing your philanthropic ministry, if he begins to shout at you, to make rude demands, even to complain to some sort of superiors (as often happens with people who are in pain) – what then? Will you go on loving, or not? And, imagine, the answer already came to me with a shudder: if there’s anything that would immediately cool my ‘active’ love for mankind, that one thing is ingratitude. In short, I work for pay and demand my pay at once, that is, praise and a return of love for my love. Otherwise I’m unable to love anyone!” – the visiting lady landowner, Madam Khoklakov, to the Elder Zosima.

The conflicting motivations of the doer-of-good are insightful (but I feel have been said better by others at this point).

“I love mankind,” he said, “but I am amazed at myself: the more I love mankind in general, the less I love people in particular, that is, individually, as separate persons… As soon as someone is there, close to me, his personality suppresses my self esteem and restricts my freedom… I become the enemy of people the moment they touch me.” – says the doctor in Elder Zosima’s story to the lady.

A few centimetres worth of papered thickness away there is my standout scene of the book, where a poor ex-captain-father reveals his suffering to the angelic Alyosha:

The rich ones – what do they know? In their whole lives they never sound such depths, and my Ilyushka, at that very moment in the square, sir, when he kissed his hand, at that very moment he went through the whole truth, sir. This truth, sir, entered into him and crushed him forever… When I learned that he was going alone against the whole class, and was challenging everyone, and that he was so bitter, that his heart was burning – I was afraid for him. Again we went for a walk. ‘Papa,’ he asked, ‘papa, is it true that the rich are stronger than anybody in the world?’ ‘Yes, Ilyusha,’ I said, ‘no one in the world is stronger than the rich.’ – The Captain to Alexei Fyodorovich Karamazov.

And, holding up both iridescent bills, which all the while, during the whole conversation, he had been holding by the corner between the thumb and index finger of his right hand, he suddenly seized them in some kind of rage, crumpled them, and clutched them tightly in his right fist. “See that, sir, see that?” he shrieked to Alyosha, pale and frenzied, and suddenly, raising his fist, he threw both crumpled bills with all his might on the sand… “There’s your money, sir!”… his whole figure presented a picture of inexplicable pride. “Report to those who sent you that the whiskbroom does not sell his honour, sir!”… And what would I tell my boy, if I took money from you for our disgrace?” 

A beautiful scene! Beaten down by Alyosha’s brother and so spurning the money to keep his pride! Perfect! But these are moments that are few and ultimately clumsily conveyed when they do appear.

My own preoccupation with the depiction of medicine in books brings us to the following passage:

The doctor was just coming out of the room, already wrapped up in his fur coat and with his hat on his head. His face was almost angry and squeamish, as if he were afraid of dirtying himself on something… “What can I do? I am not God,” the doctor replied in a casual, though habitually imposing, voice… “It no longer depends on me,” the doctor spoke impatiently, “but, however, hmm,” he suddenly paused, “if you could, for example… convey… your patient… at once and without the least delay… to Syracuse, then… as a result of the new, favourable climatic conditions… there might, perhaps, be…” “To Syracuse!” the captain cried, as if he still understood nothing… To Sicily! Good Lord, your Excellency,” the captain was at a loss. “But haven’t you seen?” he pointed to his surroundings with both his hands. “And mama, and the family?” “N-no, the family should go, not to Sicily, but to the Caucasus, in early spring… your daughter to the Caucasus, and your wife… after a course of treatments with the waters – also in the Caucasus, in view of her rheumatism… should immediately afterwards be conveyed to Paris, to the clinic of the psychiatrist Lepelletier, I can give you a note to him, and then there might, perhaps, be…” “Doctor, doctor! But don’t you see!” the captain again waved his hands, pointing in despair at the bare log walls of the entryway. “Ah, that is not my business,” the doctor grinned, “I have merely said what science can say to your questions about last measures. As for the rest… to my regret…” The care of the Moscow Doctor for Ilyusha the captain’s son.

My favourite line on medicine:

“I called on the entire medical profession: they diagnose beautifully, they tell you all that’s wrong with you one-two-three, but they can’t cure you… If your nose hurts, they send you to Paris: there’s a European specialist there, he treats noses. You go to Paris, he examines your nose: I can treat only your right nostril, he says, I don’t treat left nostrils, it’s not my specialty, but after me, go to Vienna, there’s a separate specialist there who will finish treating your left nostril.” – The Devil on doctors.

Not too great a deal has changed – just more mountains of evidence-based journals to plough through these days…

The exploration of religious belief felt staid, at least from a modern reader’s perspective. No great battle between deontological deities and secular humanism rages in my mind, what with god having been buried long ago. Maybe as a subject it would be more interesting to have been born in the thick of things.

The depiction of the devil – in Ivan’s mind or reality? – was charming:

“I sincerely love people – oh, so much of what has been said about me is slander! Here, when I move in with people from time to time, my life gets to be somewhat real, as it were, and I like that most of all… I walk about here and dream. I love to dream… Here I take on all your habits: I’ve come to love going to the public baths, can you imagine that? I love having a steam bath with merchants and priests. My dream is to become, but so that it’s final, irrevocable, some fat, two-hundred-and-fifty-pound merchant’s wife, and to believe everything she believes. My ideal is to go into a church and light a candle with a pure heart – by God, it’s true. That would put an end to my sufferings. I’ve also come to love getting medical treatment here: there was smallpox going around this spring, so I went to the foundling hospital and had myself inoculated against smallpox – if you only knew how pleased I was that day…” – The Devil to Ivan, a portrait.

“So they chose themselves a scapegoat, they made me write for the criticism section, and life came about. We understand this comedy: I, for instance, demand simply and directly that I be destroyed. No, they say, live, because without you there would be nothing. If everything on the earth were sensible, nothing would happen. Without you there would be no events, and there must be events. And so I serve grudgingly, for the sake of events, and I do the unreasonable on orders. People take this whole comedy for something serious, despite all of their undeniable intelligence. That is their tragedy. Well, they suffer, of course, but… still they live, they live really, not in fantasy; for suffering is life. Without suffering, what pleasure would there be in it – everything would turn into an endless prayer service: holy, but a bit dull. And me? I suffer, and still I do not live. I am an x in an indeterminate equation. I am some sort of ghost of life who has lost all ends and beginnings, and I’ve finally even forgotten what to call myself… I will repeat to you once more that I would give all of that life beyond the stars, all ranks and honours, only to be incarnated in the soul of a two-hundred and fifty pound merchant’s wife and light candles to God.”

I’ll end with a couple of short lines that, for some reason, shocked me with their appearance in the text. I don’t know if they’ll have quite the same effect here.

A Russian proverb, apparently in common use at the time. It might be the imperial tone which has stuck in the mind:

Thou art angry, Jupiter, therefore thou art wrong.

And the following simple image of laughter lingering:

“Ilyushechka, my little son. ‘Papa, papa, how he humiliated you!’ He said it by our stone. Now he’s dying, sir…” The captain suddenly burst into sobs and threw himself at the judge’s feet. He was quickly taken out amid the laughter of the public.

Sad, melodramatic parable.

A good book, although I think this one shows its age.