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The Brothers Karamazov
p756 [Ivan tells Alyosha about his visitor.] “And you are convinced that there has been someone here?” asked Alyosha.
“Yes, on that sofa in the corner... And he is myself, Alyosha. All that’s base in me, all that’s mean and contemptible. Yes, I am a romantic. He guessed it... He told me a great deal that was true about myself, though. I would never have admitted it to myself. Do you know, Alyosha,” Ivan added in an intensely earnest and confidential tone. “I would be awfully glad to think that it was he and not I.”
“He has worn you out,” said Alyosha, looking compassionately at his brother.
“He’s been teasing me. And you know he does it so cleverly, so cleverly. ‘Conscience! What is conscience! I make it up for myself. Why am I tormented by it? From habit. From the universal habit of mankind for seven thousand years. So let us give it up, and we shall be gods.’ It was he who said that, it was he who said that!”
“And not you, not you?” Alyosha could not help crying, looking at his brother. “Never mind him, anyway; forget him. And let him take with him all that you curse now and never come back!”
...
p758 [Alyosha] ...As he fell asleep he prayed for Dmitri and Ivan. He began to understand Ivan’s illness. “The agony of proud determination. Conscience!” God, in whom Ivan disbelieved, and His truth were gaining mastery over his heart, which still refused to submit. “Yes,” the thought floated through Alyosha’s mind. “Yes, if Smerdyakov is dead, no one will believe Ivan’s evidence; but he will go and testify anyway.” Alyosha smiled softly [?!?]. “God will conquer!” he thought. “Ivan will either rise up in the light of truth, or . . . he’ll perish in hate, revenging on himself and on everyone his having served a cause he does not believe in,” Alyosha added bitterly. And again he prayed for Ivan.
Isn’t it curious that the word “conscience” contains the word “science,” meaning knowledge? The notion that Ivan’s visiting devil was an aspect of himself, an aspect eager to tell him the things he didn’t want to hear, is not so far from my idea that the Hindu goddesses represent aspects of the feminine. That “God” is really the best of us and the “devil” the worst, is also not far from the notion that we create both in our own image. It also explains why people are always creating religions to validate their personal tendencies -- too often for pedophilia and the like. And it explains why religions are not universal since not all people are the same.
Bookshelf
(This content would have been more at home in my After Ryecroft blog, but I guess it will fit here, as a sort of distraction before the trial.)
I’ve written about the cafes I frequent, but mostly I’m at home. Across from the Ikea chair in which I’ve written (or at least published) most (all) of these blog posts, is a bookshelf I’ve had since I was a child in Boulder, Colorado. I helped stain and varnish this piece of furniture when it first arrived at our house. On the lower shelf, right and left sections, is my encyclopedia from those Boulder years, which I’ve written about before. But on the top shelf, at the moment, is most of my large format fiction. (My small format fiction is in another bookcase.)
My apartment is full of books. If you walked into my apartment that particular shelf would not necessarily attract your attention (though it actually should given its central location. I believe that on a feng shui bagua, it would be in the position for “wealth” -- which is why I have a gold lamp sitting on it). There is a bookshelf to the right full of military history that you (to your regret, I imagine) would think was equally important -- and I can’t dispute that -- and to the left is a shelf of the non-fiction authors that I swear by. And yet that shelf of fiction...
From this distance, across my small room, what catches your eye, because of the dust cover, is A Suitable Boy, by Vikram Seth (an amazing book); the older translation of Remembrance of Things Past by Proust; the Tales of the City volumes by Armistead Maupin; and then two volumes of Pynchon, of which I’ve read only one, Vineland. Less prominent is a Sci Fi title -- Child of Fortune by Norman Spinrad -- and several volumes by David Lodge (Paradise News and Nice Work) and Tides of War and Last of the Amazons by Steven Pressfield. And I just noticed three Martha Grimes mysteries in the Richard Jury series.
It’s worth noting that there are a number of books here that I have never read: The First Man in Rome by Colleen McCullough, Mason & Dixon by Pynchon, Ulysses by James Joyce.
Sitting in the middle of these books, of course, is Mann -- my 1948 edition of Doctor Faustus and the new edition of The Magic Mountain I bought at Powell’s in Portland.
From Pynchon to Mann, with Lodge and Maupin and Seth in between (speaking figuratively), it is amazing how my life is encapsulated in this shelf of books.
Though I could say the same for the non-fiction shelf to the left, but I would have to move over to the sofa to get the same view.
Jump to Next: TBK. Bk XII. 6, 12. & Architecture old and new
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