Girl Detective

See, sometimes I surprise you, right? Have I ever included a decorating book before? I don’t think I have. And if you saw my house, you’d know why: because decorating is not a priority. It’s more like an expensive foreign country I dream of going to someday, if I can ever get the laundry done, my articles written, and my book groups prepped for. Oh, and if I could afford it.

Over a decade ago, when I worked for a department store, I tried to learn about furniture. One of the few things that took was that I liked the style of designer Barbary Barry, both in furniture and china. A helpful furniture salesman told me that Barry’s style was highly influenced by Eileen Gray. At the time I think I imagined reading up on these women, spelunking in furniture and antique stores, and somehow living in a grownup’s house. Instead, we had a kid, I resigned that job to stay home with him, then we had his brother. And now my sofabed upholstery is hemmed with masking tape. (Hey, at least it’s hemmed, right?) My swivel chairs jingle tantalizingly when they’re shifted. (What’s inside there? Legos? Quarters? The earring I lost three years ago?) But still, a girl can dream. And so, I borrowed Around Beauty by Barbara Barry from the library.

And a lovely book it is. Heavy, with rich photographs on thick paper. With nice, large, accessible text that I didn’t expect to read, but somehow found myself halfway through the book without even noticing, though appreciating and continuing on. Barry shares anecdotes and photos from particular clients, her life, and her own home. She writes about her creative process, and the things that inspire her. I wished for a few more photos of interiors and fewer (hey, just realized as I was typing that that “a few less of” isn’t grammatically correct!) of California flora. I wished for perhaps more solid detail on her life. For example, when she writes that she knew someone in a past life, she’s using metaphor, right? But this is a lovely, diverting book, the kind that is pretty inside and out. A perfect coffee table book. For those of you who have a coffee table, and would buy a book to put on it.

Me, I’m taking this back to the library tomorrow.

I’m trying to balance my Brothers Karamazov summer read with shorter, funner books. During my Shelf Discovery reading project last year, I never got back to Louise Fitzhugh’s classic Harriet the Spy, but she’s waited patiently, so I recently pulled her off the shelf.

It was a joy to meet up with Harriet again, she of the notebook, spy clothes of jeans and sweatshirt, and capital letter observations, many of which are hilarious, but many of which also are thoughtless and cruel, and these two things aren’t exclusive.

THIS IS INCREDIBLE. COULD OLE GOLLY HAVE A FAMILY? i NEVER THOUGHT ABOUT IT. HOW COULD OLE GOLLY HAVE A MOTHER AND FATHER? SHE’S TOO OLD FOR ONE THING AND SHE’S NEVER SAID ONE WORD ABOUT THEM AND I’VE KNOWN HER SINCE I WAS BORN. ALSO SHE DOESN’T GET ANY LETTERS. THINK ABOUT THIS. THIS MIGHT BE IMPORTANT. (13)

Other than Harriet, my other favorite character was her nurse/caretaker Ole Golly. Interestingly (spookily?) Ole Golly quotes from Dostoievsky on page 22:

Love all God’s creation, the whole and every grain of sand in it. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love.

Which is from section (g) in Book VI, Chapter 3 “From Talks and Homilies of the Elder Zosima” of Brothers Karamazov. WHICH I JUST HAPPENED TO BE READING AT THE SAME TIME. Odds on that, please?

Alas, Ole Golly and Harriet part ways, and without her guidance, Harriet gets into trouble when her school friends discover what she’s been writing. They ostracize her, in a section of the book that was painfully easy for me to remember/empathize with. Gah. Middle school. It’s one of the reasons I chose a K-8 school for my boys.

The book is odd, in that it doesn’t follow a clear crisis/realization/redemption outline. By the end of the book, it wasn’t clear to me that Harriet was much the wiser about WHY everyone had been so hurt by what she’d written. But she also refused to conform, and did not become domesticated, which is a far more important conclusion to me. A little self insight is better than none, even if she was still perhaps too callous by the end, especially of her treatment of the family cook, and those of different socio-economic class around her. Then again, she’s 11. The upshot for me: still overly dense/cruel (Asperger-y, unempathetic?) by the end, but improved, and without caving in and becoming something not herself. Odd, funny, sad, and good, it’s also an intriguing look at the upper class of NYC in the 50’s/60’s.

Who’s still with me? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

(That joke will never not be funny to me.)

I had so much trouble making it through Book V that after I finished I plowed right on through the shorter Book VI so I wouldn’t get behind. I still haven’t fallen in love with reading this, so I think it’s better for me to read it at the start of the week then at the end of it.

Wondering: Is the Grand Inquisitor chapter like The Council of Elrond? My husband said he got stuck on that chapter in LoTR the first couple times he read it, but then came to appreciate it later. That is, until Hugo Weaving was cast as Elrond, and about that, he is still bitter. (It came up when we re-watched Captain America last week.) Does Grand Inquisitor get better on better acquaintance? I thought I might try to re-read it, but have not yet worked up the gumption to do so.

Book V ended with Fyodor Pavlovich convinced that Grushenka was coming to visit him, though discerning minds suspect something entirely different is coming. Alas, whatever it is, we will have to wait AGAIN for it, because we’re back with the elder monk Zosima.

Ch 1 The Elder Zosima and His Visitors. Listeners gather at his deathbed. I particularly liked the description of this man:

quiet and taciturn, rarely speaking to anyone, the humblest of the humble, who had the look of a man who has been permanently frightened by something great and awesome that was more than his mind could sustain. (283)

Zosima says to Alyosha that he was worried about Dmitri, and that A reminds him of his own brother. Narrator interjects to say the upcoming pages are from Alexei.

Ch 2 Biographical Information of Zosima. a. He had an older brother who became holy and died. b. Zosima went into the military. c. Zosima became worldly, loved a girl but was rejected, challenged his rival to a duel, then didn’t shoot, to the consternation of many. Perhaps the time of the Decembrist uprising, so there’s your soundtrack for this part of the novel. d. Z was visited by a man who he urged to tell the truth about a dark past.

Ch 3 Talks and Homilies.Was anyone else spooked by this in e.?

the world is becoming more and more united, is being formed into brotherly communion, by the shortening of distances, by the transmitting of thoughts through the air. (313)

He then goes on to say the unity is an illusion, and that “they live only for mutual envy, for pleasure-seeking and self-display.” That science makes people worldly and that monks aren’t disconnected, but rather MORE connected.

f. A Dickensian tirade against abuse of children, especially in factories. Servants and masters are equal.

g. Prayer is good. Then, Dostoevysky finishes this segment with what sounds a lot like a personal statement of philosophy/theology:

Much on earth is concealed from us, but in place of it we have been granted a secret, mysterious sense of our living bond with the other world, with the higher heavenly world, and the roots of our thoughts and feelings are not here but in other worlds. That is why philosophers say it is impossible on earth to conceive the essence of things. God took seeds from other worlds and sowed them on this earth, and raised up his garden; and everything that could sprout sprouted, but it lives and grows only through its sense of being in touch with other mysterious worlds; if this sense is weakened or destroyed in you, that which has grown up in your dies. Then you become indifferent to life, and even come to hate it. So I think. (320).

On retyping this, I am strongly reminded of Battlestar Galactica. I am also reminded of the final chapter of The Screwtape Letters (as I was by Ivan’s confession in Chapter 4 Rebellion from Book V last week.):

when he saw them he knew that he had always known them and realised what part each one of them had played at many an hour in his life when he had supposed himself alone, so that now he could say to them, one by one, not ‘Who ARE you?” but “So it was YOU all the time.” All that they were and said at this meeting woke memories. The dim consciousness of friends about him which had haunted his solitudes from infancy was now at last explained, that central music in every pure experience which had always just evaded memory was now at least recovered.

h. again, everyone is equal. all are guilty (except children.)

i. Z speaks of heaven and hell, says to pity suicides though the church forbids it, then narrator jumps back in to say that the listeners were then shocked when Z suddenly died. Also, something is coming in the next book that is “unexpected…strange, disturbing, and bewildering”

Will we FINALLY get to what’s been foreshadowed for so long? Join me here next week. Same bat time, same bat channel…

Boy howdy, have I gotten behind on blogging. I blame summer vacation and round-the-clock kid caring. Or, if I’m honest, I blame myself. Either way, I’m rather slower on the writing than I’d like.

Hey, lookie, I made a strawberry rhubarb pie yesterday, and it didn’t suck. So, that was one of the things I was doing when I wasn’t writing. I might need to practice my pie crust, cause it didn’t come out as well as I would have liked. You know, I’ll practice pie crust in all my free time.

Anyhoo, in reading related news, here’s what happened:

The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis. For one of my book groups. Thought this was would be a fun fast read. Not fun, not fast. Made me furrow my brow, think, and after I was done, re-read it and take notes and think some more. I read this in my 20’s and found it fast and fun. Is this what growing older does–makes me see how serious and complicated this slim book (and this short life) really is?

One of the many things that stuck out was a new denizen of Hell declaring: I spent most of my life doing neither what I ought nor what I liked. (Ch XXII). And then it goes one to describe pretty exactly what it feels like to while away time on Facebook. Very aware of trying to do either what I ought or what I like, not Nothing with a capital N. And try to strike a balance between those. That’s all. Nothing big, really.

I did find it very funny when Screwtape got so angry he changed into a centipede.

The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood. Oh, so THIS is what I was missing when I didn’t like Oryx and Crake. HERE are the fully realized female characters, who have Bechdel-test passing conversations. Like a puzzle piece that expands on Oryx and Crake, which I felt compelled to re-read immediately.

Oryx and Crake was so much better after having read Year of the Flood. Plus, I noticed this time that Jimmy/Snowman, a marketing and word guy, was put in charge of the care and schooling of a bunch of new creatures, which illustrates one of my personal theories, which is that marketing and religion are bound up in one another. They’re both about fear of death, but one is more about distraction, the other (depending on which flavor) about struggling to understand it. (Have I mentioned before that my undergrad degree was in marketing, and my grad degree in religion?)

Sweet Tooth v 6: Wild Game. A satisfying end to an engaging comic-book series. A good story, well illustrated and well ended, which goes a long way to mitigating my disappointment in the end of the ongoing series.

Death Comes to Pemberley. Because I was intrigued that Jenna Louise Coleman of Dr. Who was cast as Lydia, and Matthew Rhys of The Americans was cast as Mr. Darcy, which was much better news to me than the bizarre news that Vincent Kartheiser (aka Pete Campbell) is Darcy in the Guthrie Theater’s Pride and Prejudice stage adaptation. That is just wrong.

So, Death Comes to Pemberley. Austen fan fiction, which is a no-no in my book, but by P.D. James, a hugely respected English mystery author. I thought that sounded promising, even though many people I trusted were lukewarm on the book. I read along at a thumping pace and was having a grand time till I got to within spitting distance of the end, and WHAM. Everything that had been working–clever treatment of old characters, introduction of new ones, clues dropped for mystery–hit a wall. Hugely overcomplicated explanation of the mystery that went on so long that I ceased caring, then capped by a long convo between Mr. and Mrs. Darcy that had all been included in ways before, and might be theoretically significant but, woo, was it dull. So, I agree with everyone who said “it was only OK” except that it was more like “it was great till it wasn’t, then it really kind of sucked at the end, which made me question the investment I’d made in the whole book.” Can’t recommend.

But my disappointment in that was helped by reading two smashing good graphic novels in a row.

Heck by Zander Cannon is about a former high school hero who discovers a gateway to hell in his basement, then starts a business to convene with dead loved ones. There’s a tiny mummy sidekick named Elliott and a nice girl (or is she?) named Amy. Cannon’s Dante-an envisioning of Hell is an entertaining landscape, and Heck (short for Hector) is a good, noir-y hero. It’s available online at Double Barrel, but this hardcover edition by Top Shelf is really sweet.

Next was Crater XV by Kevin Cannon, who is the studiomate of the aforementioned Zander, but unrelated. It’s a sequel to Far Arden, which I liked, but this one I just loved. Army Shanks, a retired sea man from the Canadian Arctic, is back, here trying to help a young girl get to space. This story is woven with several others involving space travel, orphans, mistaken identity, evil plans, femme fatales, fake science missions, and I’m sure I’m forgetting some stuff. A fun read, often funny, sometimes sad, but at least not tragically so, like the end of Far Arden was.

I know both Kevin and Zander, and they’re good guys, so I’d probably recommend the books even if they were only OK. But they’re REALLY good. And the Top Shelf HCs are really sweet. So you should buy them, ‘k?

This week’s section, Book 5 of The Brothers Karamazov, was a hard read for me. I was slow to pick up the book, then felt slow as I was reading it. I had particular trouble with Chapter 5: The Grand Inquisitor. I can’t imagine I’m alone in that.

Ch 1: A Betrothal. Alexei goes to the Khokhlakov house. Mrs. K is tending to Katerina Ivanovna, who has fallen ill after Ivan’s departure. Lise and Alexei talk. She is doing wild swings between laughing and being serious, but admits her letter telling him of her love was not a joke. He knows. Mrs. K overhears this, is upset, but Alexei, continuing calm in the crazy-town-banana-pants world around him, just goes on his way to look for Dmitri, who he’s worried about.

Consider, what contempt can there be if we ourselves are just the same as he is, if everyone is just the same as he is? (217)

Ch 2: Smerdyakov with a Guitar. Alyosha looks for Dmitri, finds Smerdyakov, who says Ivan was going to meet Dmitri in a tavern. Ivan insists that Alexei dine with him.

Ch 3: The Brothers Get Acquainted. Ivan shares his belief that he accepts God, but not God’s world. But

With one reservation: I have a childlike conviction that the sufferings will be healed and smoothed over, that the whole offensive comedy of human contradictions will disappear like a pitiful mirage, a vile concoction of man’s Euclidean mind, feeble and puny as an atom, and that ultimately, at the world’s finale, in the moment of eternal harmony, there will occur and be revealed something so precious that it will suffice for all hearts, to ally all indignation, to redeem all human villainy, all bloodshed, it will suffice not only to make forgiveness possible, but also to justify everything that has happened with men–let this, let all of it come true and be revealed, but I do not accept it and do not want to accept it! (235-6)

Ch 4: Rebellion. Ivan says, which made me laugh:

I must make an admission…I never could understand how it’s possible to love one’s neighbors. In my opinion, it is precisely one’s neighbors that one cannot possibly love. Perhaps if they weren’t so nigh…

Ivan goes on to specify that the reason he can’t accept God’s world is suffering, and particularly the suffering of small children. This is Ivan’s own attempt at Theodicy.

Ch 5: The Grand Inquisitor. Ivan narrates and explicates a poem he’s memorized from the 16th century about an Inquisitor who has killed heretics, meets Jesus (who’s visiting, rather like Henry V the night before the Battle of Agincourt), who’s performing miracles, and berates Jesus for not accepting the three temptations (winning over, dazzling by miracles, and overpowering). The inquisitor insists that people do not want to be free. Jesus kisses the inquisitor, who sets him free.

How about that 8+ page “paragraph”? Oh, for a little textual differentiation.

Alexei asks Ivan how he can accept something so depressing, then he kisses Ivan, who is pleased. (As Lise was in Ch 1 when Alexei kissed her; he’s the kissing bandit in this book.) He leaves initially to look for Dmitri, but gets distracted and heads back to the monastery.

Ch 6: A Rather Obscure One for the Moment. And once again, we are led down a side path, and I wonder WHEN WHEN WHEN will we ever meet up with Dmitri again, and be told what all this foreboding is about, though we probably know since we were told WAY BACK ON THE FIRST PAGE OF THE NOVEL that Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov (the father) dies a “dark and tragic death.” 265 pages in, and apparently it’s STILL not the “proper place.”

But anyhoo, Ch 6: Ivan has violent mood swings over the creepily behaving and passive aggressive Smerdyakov.

Ch 7: “It’s Always Interesting to Talk with an Intelligent Man” Ivan wavers on going to Chermashnya, as FP wants him to do, and urges him to do business with a man with a beard very much like the man Dmitri abused in Book 4. Smerdyakov says the cryptic words of the title to Ivan, then Ivan doesn’t go anyway. FP is convinced that Grushenka is FINALLY going to come to him for money, and the servants are drugged and unconscious, so are we FINALLY going to get his tragic death?

Alas, Book VI is about Zosima, so again, Dostoevsky gives us the Heisman, and we are DENIED.

Lots of theology, rather less of the insane people behaving insanely.

What did everyone else think?

Sorry, but I haven’t quite been able to get up to speed on Brothers karamazov and the post. Coming today (I hope.) Wow, Chapter 5 of Book 5, The Grand Inquisitor. Woooo. Feeling a little dizzy after that one.

Welcome back to our section-a-week reading of Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. We just finished week 4, book 4, which puts us about a quarter of the way through the book. Woo hoo! Apologies for the lateness of this post. This is my super busy week of the summer, with 3 kid activities a day. If I make it through this week, I think I’ll be OK.

Disclaimer: I am reading BK for the first time, and this is not (as you’ll soon see) a rigorously academic discussion of it.

In the “From the Author” section that opens the book, Dostoevsky asks himself what’s so notable about Alexei to make him the hero of the book. The answer is pretty clear to me by book four. Alexei is the only sane character in the book. He might also be the only one who doesn’t shout all the time, requiring multiple exclamation points. All the other characters are loud, and shout-y, and act capriciously, with mood swings that have to be read to be believed. But not Alexei. He just wanders among them, sometimes confused, always tolerant. He’s a good listener and well liked. Doestoevsky’s right in that these don’t seem exemplary. UNTIL HE’S SHOWN IN THE MIDST OF A BUNCH OF BAT$H1T CRAZY PEOPLE.

So in this week’s Book IV: Strains, the adventures of Alexei are as follows:

Ch 1 Father Ferapont (who then is not even discussed till the end of his chapter.) Zosima wakes and preaches ramblingly to Alyosha and others. I had trouble with this phrase: “his voice, though weak, was still quite firm.” Weak and firm are opposites. Quiet and firm would have worked better for me. Mostly Z says to love one another. Shocking. The monks are awaiting a miracle. Then we shift to Father Ferapont, who fasts, says little, is grumpy and either very holy or very crazy. or perhaps ingesting too many forest mushrooms. This made me laugh:

today he announced that a fool would visit me and ask improper questions.

In Chapter 2 Alexei goes to his father’s, discusses the love entanglements that go far beyond a triangle, because we have both Katerina and Grushenka and two of the three legit Karamazov brothers plus their father. Love pentagon? I may need to try and map this, perhaps with a ven diagram. Alyosha kisses him goodbye, which seems to startle Fyodor.

In Chapter 3 he comes across some schoolboys who are tormenting a sickly kid. A tries to intervene, and for his trouble the sickly kid throws a rock at him and bites his finger to the bone. Most people would be annoyed, but Alexei is merely confused.

Chapter 4, At the Khokhlakov’s (having just re-watched Arrested Development, this name always makes me think of the family’s chicken dances. Hmm. Bluths and Karamazovs. Maybe not so different. Anyhoo.)

Lise acts strangely to Alexei, though perhaps not if we remember she’s an adolescent who seems embarrassed by her mom. They worry about his injured finger.

In Chapter 5, he visits with KI and Ivan in the drawing room, and finally is so exasperated by their duplicity that he calls them out and everyone gets very huffy. KI asks him to give some cash to a man who Dmitri had offended.

In Chapter 6 and 7, we learn the man is the father of the boy who attacked Alexei earlier. Dmitri humiliated him publicly. His wife is ill, as is one of his daughters, the son is now ill, and he refuses the money out of pride.

I’m finding the book enjoyable enough to read, but I think I’m still getting my sea legs with its Russian-ness. I’m not yet having fun with it, and I sense that potential here. Perhaps just wishful thinking? Then again, I’m really having fun with these recaps, so I think I’m on my way.

What did everyone else think?

Here’s how I’m reading the book. I read another book Monday through Friday, set aside the weekend for Brothers K, then after I’m finished with the book, check in with the summary at Schoop.com to make sure I got the broad strokes. My fave note this week was from Book 3 Chapter 5 Confession. ‘Heels Up”:

Complicated much?

Book 3, at 71 pages, is our longest so far, and it was a doozy. I was struck by how so much of the book is drunk men shouting at one another. These Russians are certainly not buttoned down and quiet and Victorian like the characters of Dickens and Austen. Dostoevsky is certainly succeeding in his goal of having a characteristically Russian book (though whether it’s a “true” portrait we can’t know.)

Ready for a whirlwind summary?

Book III The Sensualists

chapter 1: In the Servant’s Quarters

Grigory and Marfa have a happy marriage. They had a child with 6 fingers who died. The night of the burial, they heard cries, and found a girl and newborn in their bathhouse.

Chapter 2: Stinking Lizaveta (which this band took the name of)

The birth mother is called Stinking Lizaveta, a beloved town oddity, holy fool, ascetic and mute. When she becomes pregnant, the father is rumored to be Fyodor Pavlovich, and he doesn’t disavow the rumors (though neither does he explicitly confirm them, though we wouldn’t believe him if he did as he’s such a liar). Grigori, the all-father to FP’s sons (or supposed ones) brings him up, calls him Smerdyakov (son of stinking one)

Chapter 3 4 and 5. Alyosha goes to visit Katerina Ivanovna, encounters Dmitri hiding out waiting to ambush Grushenka, and a very long confession by Dmitri begins. KI’s father got into financial trouble, D said he’d bail him out if KI “came to him” She did, he didn’t actually abuse her, but she was shamed by the memory. He did bail them out, the father died. Then D got entangled with Grushenka and spent 3000 roubles that KI had entrusted to him.

Chapter 6: Detour to Smerdyakov, beloved by FP, sullen and mean, and now an epileptic chef.

Chapter 7: Disputation: Argument about denouncing God. Smerkyakov is provocative.

Ch. 8: Over the Cognac: Much drunken shouting. Alyosha begins to have a shrieking fit (still not certain how this is different from epileptic one?) FP says it’s like his mother. Ivan says, she was my mother too. Has FP just forgotten?

Ch 9: The Sensualists. Dmitri beats up FP and exhorts Alyosha (yet again) to go to KI.

Ch 10: The Two Together. Meaning KI and Grushenka. Creepy with intimations of girl-on-girl actions. KI enthuses about how lovely Grushenka is, then G shows herself as the liar/provocateur she is. KI cries, Alyosha leaves, and she gives him an envelope.

Ch 11: One More Ruined Reputation. Dmitri pretends to threaten Alyosha, then runs off saying foreboding words. At the monastery, Alyosha prays humbly, then reads the letter, in which Lise declares her love for him, which she says ruins her reputation, but he seems happy with, not troubled by.

Whew! Book 4 for next week is shorter, at 50 pages. Are we on the verge of FP’s death, foretold on page 1?

What did everyone else think?

I bought Pride and Prejudice and Zombies right when it came out, then it sat on my shelf for years. The idea was amusing, but the slew of horror/classic mashups that followed made me less inclined to begin even the first one. Seeking a light read in between books of The Brothers Karamazov, I picked it up and enjoyed it.

Much of the prose is Austen’s own, which I thought would make for a fast read, given my familiarity with the text. For whatever reason, though, I did not fly through this. I was charmed and amused by the zombie twists that were woven into the text. I especially liked this book’s take on Elizabeth and Darcy’s meeting at the parsonage, and the reason Darcy gave for separating Bingley from Jane.

I was less enchanted with the overt sexual innuendos. It also departed from Austen’s text by doing a lot of ’splaining. What Austen leaves for the reader to infer, Grahame-Smith sometimes spells out. I think he also included some elements from the 1995 P & P miniseries that weren’t Austen’s own. These all made for a slower, less enjoyable romp than it might have been. Still, diverting and entertaining enough.

Book 2 of The Brothers Karamazov is “An Inappropriate Gathering” but would perhaps be better called a deeply uncomfortable one.

A quick summary of the chapters, which have a profusion (overabundance, perhaps?) of characters:

1: “They Arrive at the Monastery.” They are Fyodor Pavlovich (the father), Ivan (2nd of BKs), Pyotr Alexandrovitch (cousin of FPs 1st wife and helped care for all 3 BKs after their mothers’ deaths), and a relative of his, Kalganov. Not Dmitri. They are met by a landowner, Maximov, then invited to dinner.

2. “The Old Buffoon” They are joined by 2 other monks, 2 Fathers (Paissy and the librarian), a seminarian, Alyosha, and Zosima. FP talks and talks, Zosima is very kind to him, tells him to stop lying and better things will follow.

3. “Women of Faith” Zosima blesses women waiting for him, some of whom have traveled far.

4. “A Lady of Little Faith” A lady landholder has also come to thank Zosima for curing her lame daughter, Lise. Lise mocks Alyosha, says she has a message from Katerina Ivanovna to give him for Dmitri, and Zosima tells them that Alyosha will visit them.

5. “So Be It! So Be It!” A long, involved discussion of church, state, Ivan’s article and various arguments. Dmitri arrives.

6. “Why is Such a Man Alive?” Lots of bad behavior, though Dmitri is the first to be respectful to Zosima, who ends up bowing to him and touching his head to the floor, which alarms Dmitri and others.

7. “A Seminarist-Careerist” Zosima tells Alyosha he’ll have to leave the monastery. Alyosha meets Rakitin, another novice. Rakitin has much gossip: Dmitri is engaged to the respectable Katerina Ivanovna, but sleeping with Grushenka. Ivan is interested in KI now that Dmitri is wandering. And FP also likes Grushenka. Rakitin thinks Zosima’s bow to Dmitri presaged a crime.

8. “Scandal” The dinner with the father superior goes badly. FP said he wouldn’t come, he shows up, angers Miusov again and insults the monastery. All leave,with Maximov trying to go with FP and Ivan. Ivan becomes cold to FP.

I found Zosima to be most engaging, and FP most disturbing, as I’m sure the author intended. The talks on ecclesiastical courts, while probably politically timely when published, went on and on. Lots of women introduced, and it’s obviously the groundwork for what will unfold.

What did everyone else think?

My husband recommended Precinct 13 by Tate Halloway to me. He’s friends with the author and liked the book. I was skeptical. The cover features a pretty woman in leather, and it’s billed as a paranormal romance. Then again, these aren’t things my husband usually reads either, so I gave them both the benefit of the doubt. After a slow start, I was completely drawn in to this tale of a young woman coroner in Pierre, South Dakota.

Aside. Did you know that it’s pronounced PEER, not Pee AIR?

Anyhoo. the heroine, Alex, has run away from a bad boyfriend and a bad situation, but seems to have landed right smack in a doozy of a new one. Her new job has some strange aspects, and she can’t quite let go of the old boyfriend, no matter what she promised to a phalanx of shrinks. Magic, dragons, fairies, trolls, and lots more. This was a fast, fun, funny romp of a read. It was meant to be the first in a series which, alas, didn’t get picked up, but on its own its still well worth it.

Dotter of Her Father’s Eyes is an intriguing premise for a graphic memoir. The author, Mary Talbot, was the daughter of a Joycean scholar. She alternates between her coming-of-age story and that of Lucia, James Joyce’s daughter. It’s illustrated by Mary’s husband Bryan, an award winning English comic book creator. Both stories were involving and sad, but I felt the connection between them was strained, and that neither achieved a depth because both were being told.

Last Friends is the third book in Jane Gardam’s Old Filth trilogy, after that book and The Man in the Wooden Hat, both of which I loved. There’s also a related book of stories, The People on Privilege Hill. I have so loved those previous books and the characters in them that I had high expectations for this book. A small English country town has histories and people who are far more complicated than any of them suspect of one another.

I was happy to spend time with the characters again, but the plot seemed meandering instead of layered and complex as in the previous books. I got stuck several times on awkward sentences or plot inconsistencies. And yet, these were minor annoyances, because the world and the people in it that Gardam has created are so rich and real that I still counted myself as privileged to have spent time with them, and was sad to see them go for what is probably their final bow.

Oh, there are some drool-worthy photos of book stacks in Japan, for example:

Image: Twitter. Via.

But my favorite part is the brief last sentence:

While still an emerging art, the ultimate book stacking style would combine style and strength but also allow customers to actually pick a copy up so they can buy it.

I have been mulling for a while that I want to create stacks with my TBR books, not buy more shelves, but have the books be removable, at least one at a time, without it all tumbling down. My summer project? Or another brick on the road to hell? Only time will tell. I wouldn’t put money on it.

I started to write this, then got sucked into Facebook, and well, I’m not sure how much time has passed.

A friend lend me Come Closer by Sara Gran, and said that both she and her husband liked it. Since I know they often disagree significantly, I was intrigued, and then the book itself proved them out. It’s about a young woman who starts having personality problems and wonders if she’s becoming possessed by a demon. It’s a scary, fast but complex read, reminding me of Rosemary’s Baby and other classic horror stories without being overly gory as much modern horror is. Highly recommended.

Then, in a weird burst of synchronicity, I found two related articles online yesterday.

1. How a brain affliction can mimic possessions symptoms

and

2. How a doctor got in trouble for diagnosing possession

Apparently Boston is the crazytown bananapants of possessed/not possessed.

Wow, the descriptive clause in Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking does go on, doesn’t it?

For one of my book groups, Quiet was one I almost abandoned. I didn’t care for the author’s take on Rosa Parks’ story as she focuses more on Rosa as lone superhero than on Rosa as the superhero who inspired everyone else to be heroic. But I pressed on, and as the book goes beyond the sometimes trite stories and gets into some of the science, I found it very interesting. No surprise to learn that brainstorming in groups doesn’t work, or that persuasive talkers are more listened to even if they’re not right. By the end, this book had won me over so completely I kept bringing it up in conversations with friends and family. It’s overly reductive, and she protests for the amazingness of introverts (among which she counts herself) too much, and yet, it’s still a fascinating window into behavior and interaction. Highly recommended, with a grain of salt, if that makes sense.

I meant to read Jess Walter’s Financial Lives of the Poets for one of my book groups last year (or the year before, or the year before that; hard to say), but I couldn’t manage it, and didn’t get around to it by the time this year’s Tournament of Books happened, where Walter’s Beautiful Ruins was a candidate, so I ended up reading (and loving) that before this earlier one that had been sitting on my shelf. I attended a recent reading he did here in town, and that spurred me to have another go.

This is a WMFU novel, an acronym from the comments of this year’s Tournament of Books: White Male F-Up. Kind of like a bildungsroman, just taking place in a man’s thirties or so rather than in his teens. it reminded me a lot of another WMFU novel that I enjoyed, Jonathan Tropper’s This is Where I Leave You.

Here, Matt Prior the protagonist is married but having trouble financially and with his wife. This novel is firmly situated in the wake of the housing crash of last decade, and it explores what happens when balloon payments on shifty mortgages suddenly come due. But it’s a comedy, and so there are many different elements that get tossed in: infidelity, pot smoking, drug dealing, parenting, and more. I will never be able to think of the phrase “make good choices” in quite the same way. It was a fast fun read, with some laugh out loud moments. Recommended, though not as highly as Beautiful Ruins.

Welcome to The Brothers Karamazov Summer Readalong! Should I call it The Summer of K? BK? will always be associated with the Newark, Ohio Burger King, and KB are my initials, so perhaps we are best left to the name. We’ll be reading one of the novel’s 13 book sections a week.

What’s in a name, though? One of the many people I talked to about the book asked, “is it about a circus,” perhaps because of the title. I find it intriguing that only the Oxford World’s Classics version is called The Karamazov Brothers, which scans more regularly, though is certainly less familiar and distinct.

Then, what’s in a name? According to Pevear/Volokhonsky, the translators of my edition, the zee/zed of Karamazov is like zoo, not Mozart.

And, why did I pick this translation? I’m reading it with a book group, so I find it best to go with the most readily available in stores, which is this one. The P/V version is even available in more than one edition/publisher. After some poking around, though, I think I might have preferred that Oxford edition. There are a couple times already in just 33 pages that the translation has “hiccuped” for me:

“he is a strange man, even an odd one.” (3) What’s the difference between strange and odd?

Then, among the translations, there’s disagreement on an adjective to describe the brothers’ father, Fyodor Pavlovich. Some choose muddleheaded (P/V, MacAndrew), McDuff, Avsey), others senseless (Garnett, and another, perhaps Oddo’s Norton?) I find scatterbrained perhaps more apt.

Hey, did you know there’s a 1958 film adaptation, and guess who’s the main character, Alexi?

SHATNER.

On to the book. Part I, Book One contains five chapters. We’re introduced to the depraved and scatterbrained father Fyodor Petrovich, his first and second wives, and most importantly, his three sons, of the title.

Dmitri, from the first marriage. A wild uneducated soldier who resents his lack of inheritance. Fights with FP.

Ivan, the elder son of the second marriage. Gloomy and a scholar, also resentful about living on handouts but gets along with FP.

Alexei, the youngest son, who is proclaimed the hero of the novel by Dostoevsky on page 3. Introverted, intelligent, religious, a peacemaker. Loved by his father, liked by Dmitri, but distant from Ivan.

The narrator tells us that FP dies a dark and tragic death, which he’ll discuss later. Several other times we’re told that we’ll be told things later. This book ends as the brothers, their father, and a relative of Dmitri’s mother plan a metting with a respected monastery elder, Alexei’s mentor Zosima. Alexei does not have a good feeling about the upcoming meeting.

Meet us back here in a week to discuss book two. What did everyone else think?

Nothing like flying by the seat of my pants, skin of my teeth, riding the ragged edge of disaster, la, la, la.

I’m reading Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov for one of my three book groups this summer, and I’d love it if you’d join me! I will even blog regularly so we can “talk” about it every week. I’m using the Pevear/Volokhonsky translation, but I bet any one would do as long as it’s divided into 13 books. Here’s the schedule. START NOW!

This Sunday, June 2, 2013: complete book 1. I’ll post to blog on Monday 6/3, and we can discuss in comments.

Sunday June 9, 2013, complete book 2. Discuss on Monday 6/10.

Sunday June 16, 2013 complete book 3. Discuss on Monday 6/17

Sunday June 23, complete book 4. Discuss on Monday 6/24

Sunday June 30 complete book 5. Discuss on Monday 7/1

Sunday July 7 complete book 6. Discuss Monday 7/8

Sunday July 14 complete book 7. Discuss Monday 7/15

Sunday July 21 complete book 8. Discuss Monday 7/22

Sunday July 28 complete book 9 Discuss Monday 7/29

Sunday August 4 complete book 10 Discuss Monday 8/5

Sunday August 11 complete book 11 Discuss Monday 8/12

Sunday August 18 complete book 12 Discuss Monday 8/19

Sunday August 25 complete book 13 and Introduction. Discuss Monday 8/26.

Books range from 20 pages long to 101, averaging 60. For this Sunday, it’s a mere 33 pages in my edition.

See? Totally do-able.

I found Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali a wildly uneven book, so my reaction falls between didn’t like (or, often hated) and it was OK. For me, effective memoirs are written by people with self insight and empathy, possibly leavened with humor. She’s writing about a difficult childhood and harsh reality for women abused in the name of Islam, so I’ll give her a pass that this book is humorless. But I find her lack of self-insight, her protestations of innocence in situations of obvious culpability, and her readiness to trot out other people’s horror stories in lieu of aforesaid self insight all pretty damning. The book is often poorly written with stunningly awkward transitions. Few if any other people stand out in the book because she is The Star. I found her disingenuous when claiming non-inflammatory intent when she over and over said incredibly outrageous things. This and other instances in the book led me not to believe her as a reliable narrator. Get thee to a therapist, I hope, to work out your childhood issues, especially with your father, and your inability to own your responsibility for your words and actions.

BUT, and it’s a huge BUT, she’s absolutely right that outrages against women and in general take place in the name of Allah, that this is sometimes (often?) ignored in the name of political correctness. She focuses more on this point at the end, so the book has a stronger finish that it does a beginning or middle.I found it unfortunate that she throws pretty much all of Islam under the bus in order to make this point. She makes an important argument, but one that is easier to dismiss because of the often offensive nonsense she surrounds it with.

This is a complicated book about complicated issues. It spurs me to find out more about Islam, but not by reading more of her writing.