In a recent conversation with a friend, he reflected on reading The Brothers Karamazov:
I used to think that I wanted to be a lot like Alyosha (who doesn't?).
But I am definitely much more of an Ivan.
I admit now to being less familiar with the book than I should have been (I'd read Crime and Punishment in high school and liked it well enough that I should have known this Dostoevsky work as well), and had to go do some research. I decided it was high time to read this after I found a synopsis of characters.
My friend knows me too well, it seems. Alyosha, the younger, kinder, more innocent and earnest in his faith and love is who I think most of us would like to be. Like my friend, though, I think I've fallen more into the role of the intellectual, cold and academically-minded Ivan. These characters, in a way, represent both the best and worst parts of my dissertation: a study driven by faith, hunger for knowledge and wisdom, and academic study of human development and identity. It's also about trying not to parse every piece to death, making identity and love some sort of rubric or formula, but that nagging worry in the back of my mind that either I lose something academic by assuming bits and pieces about faith, or I lose faith and the wonder of it all by approaching it wholly academically.
Maybe it's in trying to maintain the spirit of Alyosha's approach while being in Ivan's intellectual sphere that I can maintain some semblance of balance and feel fulfilled in this work. Only time (and more writing) will tell.
I think it's time to start reading The Brothers Karamazov and seeing what I can learn from one of my favorite Russian novelists, while I keep transcribing recent interviews.
No comments:
Post a Comment