The Idiot by Dostoevsky discussion
Book Two
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Book Two, Chapters 1-2
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Tracy
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Jan 27, 2018 07:53PM
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Chapter one is mostly narration. For some reason, Dostoevsky has skipped six months and is catching us up with a summary of events pertaining to our characters. It's not clear why Myshkin goes away and returns six months later (he may have had to return to Switzerland to deal with the inheritance - but maybe he's decided that spending time with such volatile people as Nastassya and Rogozhin isn't good for his soul!) but in any case, he's entering their world again.
Dostoevsky gives us the impression that he was not fully conscious of his own feelings and motives when out of the blue he writes Aglaya - and signed it "fraternally yours" (at least in Avsey - I wonder if he uses a brotherly term in other translations). That does mean he's perceiving a platonic brotherly attitude toward to her.
He also says that he "needs" her, which is quite a strong statement to make given his short acquaintance with her, and without any clarification of this unexpected need.
Aglaya's laughing reaction is hard to fathom too. But her perception that she's not real to him is accurate - he hardly knows her.
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Eternal spring must be in the air, because now a lot of our characters are focused on marriage.
Myshkin seems to have made a big impression on the Epanchins - Lizabeta is very fond of Myshkin but very moody in regard to him (Dostoevsky is giving us a number of moody, somewhat unstable females). General Epanchin is so interested in him (why?) that he has him under surveillance. Apparently he has some real concern for the Prince and doesn't believe him competent enough to handle his inheritance well. And indeed he's unbusinesslike, and quick to give what he has away.
These characters act in unexpected ways. I wouldn't have expected greedy, vain Ganya to return the money. And why is he crying bitterly? Because it's so difficult for him to part with it?
It is difficult to tell whether Dostoevsky is consciously creating characters who surprise us and are difficult to grasp, or he is doing a spotty job sometimes of portraying them. We don't get much clarification of the motive or feelings - and the "why" behind some of their actions.
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Myshkin didn't have to return to see Lebedev, who doesn't have many appealing qualities. Leb's wearing old ragged clothes when he has newer clothes suggests that he's trying to give the impression that he's poor and needy - in order to get pity, or money, or both. And a nephew even warns Myshkin about Leb's lies.
Leb's wife has recently died, however, so he is probably not doing well. And maybe he's seeking some companionship - he asks the Prince to stay at his house. It's unclear whether this is as a guest or paid lodger. (Where has the Prince been living anyway?).
Leb suddenly appears religious and is acting odd - praying for the dead mistress of Louis XV who was guillotined, rather than his own wife. Like the Prince, he is preoccupied with another fallen woman, here, and also the guillotine and death.
Some of Dostoevsky's characters are preoccupied with death. And the fact that Myshkin has a headache - a symptom rarely mentioned in novels leads me to believe that he might soon be having an epileptic attack.
Tracy wrote: "I'm going to continue to post occasionally although we're having almost no dialogue, for which I was hoping. But given that I take notes on my reading and plan to teach The Idiot later in the year,..."Ah, ah, take it easy. According to our plan we should have read TI2:1-2 this week and I have problems if you want to go ahead faster as I also have Anna Karenina and Ken Wilber to read and my main project this spring - How to managed Fake News will be very intensive next week. But I am reading The Idiot.
Chapter 2:1 does not tell us much what is happening. Maybe it will be revealed later on.
Myshkin's emotions for Aglaya are mysterious. In my (Swedish) translation he signs his letter with "Your brother Prince Myshkin".
(Do we have to learn Russian in order to understand Dostoyevsky?)
Chapter 2:2 is typical for Dostoyevsky - an almost burlesque event with Lebedev as the main actor. He is another of Ds complex characters always trying to cheat everybody and at the same time humiliating himself. Another one is the lazy, mocking young man.
What you experience the short second before you will die (you believe) is occurring again in the story of madame Dubarry. Here in another version. D is never going to forget his own experience.
As many other of D's characters Lev is a type of person I don't think I have met very often. Persons around me are more civilized as the characters in AK.
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(How to Manage Fake News sounds like a very worthwhile project --- I'd like to hear more, maybe by email).
You wrote "(Do we have to learn Russian in order to understand Dostoyevsky?)". I doubt that this is a serious question, but you are aware too that different choices of words have different implications. In this case, fraternal means brotherly so there's not much difference. But there is the subtlety of fraternally yours suggesting "like a brother" - not as strong - rather than "your brother."
I paid attention to it because I thought it was important to understand how Myshkin is perceiving his relationship to Aglaya.
About translation - the first female translator of the Odyssey into English (and there are 61 translations into ENGLISH alone!), Emily Wilson, gave a talk last week here in Massachusetts on Homer's Odyssey and the Art of Translation. She showed four different passages from the book, comparing her own translation to about ten other translations from the past 60 years, explaining why she translated words the way she did, in contrast to how some other translators translated them. It was interesting to note the different shades not only of meaning but also VALUE JUDGMENT in the translations (and I will add, the somewhat misogynist choices of words by some of the male translators - e.g. for the maids who slept with the suitors - "filthy sluts", "whores" "dishonored women").
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That is probably true for most of us discussing books online, right? Rogozhin, Lebedev and Nastasya are not likely to join us.
But not only are there some people in the most civilized areas who are ruled more by self-interest and lower emotions than morality and sincerity, very primitive forces have seemed to be unleashed again in the world during the past few decades.
Don't you think that occasionally most of us experience some of the "less civilized" emotions and motives that Dostoevsky portrays - that we just learn to manage them, or repress them? And we can also project them onto others if we do experience them but deny them.
Dostoevsky influenced Freud and probably Jung as well. He really does portray selves ruled by the id, our shadow selves.
