This afternoon my daughter made a confession: the first time she read The Brothers Karamazov Fyodor Pavlovich's behavior in "The Old Buffoon" chapter reminded her of her grandmother's.
I nodded. I'd experienced a frisson reading that chapter myself. Of course, neither of us had any idea at the time that she was in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease.
We then proceeded to discuss how the be- the- center- of- attention- no- matter- how- big- an- ass- you- make- of- yourself gene had skipped me (for the most part), rendering me an Ivan, the observer in the family.
And then we agreed that all those Russians seemed awfully Southern.
My son, nearing the end of Part Three, is dead certain he knows who the murderer is.
With any luck, we'll be finished by the weekend.
A bang, not a whimper
Two months into L.'s retirement, and I'm finished with the stockpiling of books. No more book purchases! Or at least, no purcha...
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(See also Musee des Beaux Arts ) As far as mental anguish goes, the old painters were no fools. They understood how the mind, the freakiest ...
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When I finished Kevin Brockmeier's A Brief History of the Dead last spring I immediately did a search to see if the Coca-Cola Corp. had...
How wonderful to have this kind of family reading experience!
ReplyDeleteThat's what I was going to say, Dorothy!
ReplyDeleteE is reading that right now, coincidentally. But it looks so huge and daunting I don't think I could do it. Just yesterday, he put down the book, turned to me and said, "I don't think you would like this book."
What made him think you wouldn't like it, Renee?
ReplyDeleteThe size is daunting and I'll admit if I ever read it again I'm skipping certain sections (sorry, Father Zosima), but it's all in all it's worth the time it takes.
And it certainly WAS a delight when my daughter came home after exams and wanted to read it again with her brother and me. For awhile you couldn't go anywhere in the house without stumbling over someone reading the Brothers K.
Ahh. Russian Lit. It is like a big, massive (and I mean massive) stone in my path. Can I even finish War & Peace (which I don't considering tough going...). Maybe I better go and read him now!
ReplyDeleteYou may find you prefer Dostoyevsky to Tolstoy, Danielle.
ReplyDeleteAnd I've said it before but War and Peace makes an excellent bathroom book since most of the chapters are fairly short. :)