Irwin Weil - Crime and Punishment

my name is Cheryl Babcock I serve Chautauqua as vice president and Emily and Richard Schmucker chair for education it is my pleasure to welcome you to this afternoon's Chautauqua literary and scientific circle roundtable discussion dr. wilds residency this week is supported by the Edward L Anderson jr. foundation this fund is provided by edge to saans Stephen Dave so and so please join me in thanking the Anderson family for their outstanding support of Chautauqua today we welcome dr. Erwin while professor emeritus of Slavic Languages and literature's at Northwestern University to discuss Fyodor Dostoevsky's classic novel crime and punishment Dostoyevsky wrote crime and punishment in 1866 and due to his own experiences of imprisonment and tragedy he understood desperation and expressed passionate emotion in his writing crime and punishment tells of Raskolnikov a talented student who believes that his level of intellect must allow him to morally transcend societal law he reasons to murder a st. Petersburg pawnbroker in order to test this theory and despite his beliefs of intellectual superiority he has difficulty dealing with the mental punishments he feels after committing the crime Dostoyevsky was a pioneer of suspenseful writing and is widely considered one of the greatest if not the greatest Russian novelist of all time dr. Erwin while preeminent scholar in Russian literature's has served as this week's scholar in residence describing crime and punishment is probably the most powerful learning experience I've had in my life dr. Weil is known for fostering United States and Russian relations his participation in founding the internationalist see Asian of teachers of Russian and Russian literature helped with the intellectual breakdown of the iron curtain between the United States and the USSR during the Cold War he holds degrees from the University of Chicago and Harvard University and is joined at Chautauqua this week with his wife Vivian so we're very pleased to have both of them when we get to the question and answer section dr. Weil is hoping that someone will stand up and disagree with him but I will wonder whether anyone would will have the courage to do so so ladies and gentlemen readers and writers lifelong learners Chautauqua nough Soviet exchange please join me in welcoming dr. Erwin while to discuss Fyodor Dostoevsky's crime and punishment well first of all I would like thank you for that wonderful introduction and also very interesting approach to crime and punishments I'm very happy to be here today both my wife and I have had a wonderful experience that she talked what it's our first time and believe me you mood me you'll get a good press in the next 40 minutes or so I'd like to try to tell you something about a very very complex novel you understand that a Russian novel doesn't get started till page 1000 anyway but I'll do my best to get you at least somewhat into it I suppose it's nothing but a blatant cliche to say that this the f key is one of the most important and worldwide popular writers of modern times it seems to me you have to go back to the Renaissance or perhaps the late 18th early 19th century to find any writers at all in other cultures who would be the equivalent of the kind of power that he brought to literature although as a matter of fact if you look at the Russian tradition he was writing at a time when the Russian culture was enormous ly productive in many many different ways but most especially in literature stop to think of the 1860s you very correctly very correctly said that crime and punishment was written 1865 in 1866 and in that one decade there-there was produced the fathers and sons by true genius crime and punishment by Dostoevsky and Warren piece by Tolstoy I challenge you to show me another era in literature wednet II with the exception of the ancient Greeks were such powerful such a large number of powerful works have been produced in such a short time is really remarkable thing now you have to remember that this was done in a country where at least the Slavic portion of this population in those days that was most of the population ninety percent of the people were slaves mind you this change in 1861 but for a good part of the sixteen above a good part of the 19th century it was a country that basically built on slavery with an aristocracy and some other classes that lived on top of it now mind you it did change in 1861 at least a change legally although the question of course then became what happened to the land but how is it that this wonderfully powerful culture is built on the basis of this kind of a country this is something you've takes a lot of thoughts and a lot of research and we might think about now as you probably know this dsg is enormous ly popular and enormously influential on contemporary writers especially in this country in England it would be a small number of people I think you wouldn't shall I say cotton after this they have ski if you stop to think about prominent writers like Philip Roth like northern Miller this is key had an enormous impact still there are people who are very much opposed to this they have ski as a matter of fact if you go to Russia you'll find no small number of such people such an eminent scholar and teacher and writer as Vladimir Nabokov the author of Lolita had this to say about this they f ski the producer of elephantine platitudes how's that for a direct criticism furthermore if you take a look at the statements of a well-known writer named I say maxim gorky what he said was the stay yes key is an evil genius whom people should not read why on earth will there be this divergence of opinion well I'm not here to give the complete answers to any literary questions but it seems to me that the problem is that this they yes keep probes at things and it inquires into things that we don't exactly find comfortable to be probes there are all kinds of issues that we like to hide from ourselves or distort from ourselves for all kinds of self-serving purposes and what this DFG does is cut like a knife or maybe like a razor through these problems and I'm pretty sure that's why he's widely widely light not quite so widely but still not in significantly enormous Lee disliked but one thing I don't think you will find and that is anyone who's indifferent I have yet to find someone who's attending in contact with the stay of his work who's indifferent to it so what are we talking about here we're talking about writer who first of all inherited a magnificent language and by the way at the very end I want to give you just a taste of that language I realized that most people here don't speak Russian but you'll hear I think the music of the language and of course there were there was Pushkin they were spell toy is this toy yes Keith Chekhov there are many other writers that took advantage I was Pushkin of course in a certain sense who put the thing together and the inheritance fell in the hands of people like this to have ski well what are we talking about when we talk about the crime and punishment we're looking at the ideas and the actions of an intelligent and passionate student in the russian imperial capital of saint petersburg as thus the FQ described it one of the most abstract planned and fantastical cities in the entire world because of its canal system some of the other writers said come to our frozen northern Venice this young man as a student I really should say a former student because he's left the university at this point he's living in enormous poverty and poverty is an issue that this the FT has delved into very very deeply as a matter of fact his very first published novel which gave him enormous fame among literate population of Russia was called poor folk and he investigated poverty as something which exposes the genuine nature of human being no clothes no fancy speech no fancy possessions simply the human personality if you want to get to that you might take a look at poverty that's what he's saying this young man is full of ambition to serve and benefit the entire world well I doubt that there's anybody here who would say that's a bad ambition and it may be a little bit arrogant and pompous but still the idea of extraordinary ambition to serve and benefit the entire world it's a wonderful thing the world can use a little bit of benefit to get there but he was also imbued with a strange idea well I'm really misstating I wish I could say was a strange idea but if you look at the 20th century you'll find many hideous perversions of the idea that caused a huge suffering and huge tragedies human beings is imbued with the idea of becoming a super man that perhaps you're aware of the fact that in German this would be ubermensch and you know who's talking about the ubermensch in' was the man named adolf hitler and then of course since there was the ubermensch there were also the winter mention that is people who are not the exalted race and of course for these people life would become hideous so he's imbued with the idea of becoming a super man who's beneficent intentions memories trying to help the whole world who's beneficent intentions give him the rights to boldly step across the legal and moral limits of a civilized society and the civilized civilization to become a and that here I'm quoting part a part of crime and punishment to become a latter-day not Napoleon who unhesitatingly carried out a massacre in Paris abandoned an army in Egypt and lost 500,000 men in Russia and what was that compared the ambitions of a Napoleon it's the difference between a and again this is a very rush I'm translating of course a very Russian expression the difference between a god man and a man God now of course the god man I'm sure you all understand was Jesus Christ and of course if you take seriously the teachings of the Christian Church of various sects and divisions their intention is beneficence and with loving kindness toward the entire world but what is the man God as I said like he was the god man I think that's what I said the man God is the one well his Napoleon is Muhammed is La Cerebus are the those creatures who took they get arrogate unto themselves the right to do anything they wanted to because they were pounding a new idea which would which would resurrect the world the title of the novel in Russian really gets to this in some ways that the English title doesn't in English is called crime and punishment in Russian if police Lucania in Macca's Anya now knock as Anya does mean punishment I don't think of any other way to translate pistou Pena however is an interesting word because to piece in Russian is to take a step and stoop grania of course turns it into a noun and Priya has the idea of a cross something so what it is is a stepping across and literally stepping across of course the moral and legal limits of a society a man who dares to step across those limits well sometimes we call a criminal and in a few times we also call a hero or sometimes we call him a criminal while he's alive he or she that is well he or she is alive but when they're dead we make statues too because they will who brought a new idea to civilization raskolnikov's head is full of this kind of talk and of course that's one side his character now this the f ski you know surly it is I think I mentioned to you already he wrote a novel called poor folk in those days nobody had any idea who he was and it made him famous overnight and now again you have to understand it's not the whole population most of the population consists of the illiterate peasants but among those people who were literate relatively small maybe no more than four or five percent of the population he was enormous ly popular at that point because he had been praised by one of the greatest critics of the day a man named Belinsky and brilliance he praised him because he thought that this DES key was calling for sympathy to poor people something that Polanski really believed should take place in Russia but Belinsky and many of his cohorts were deeply disappointed by Dostoevsky 'he's next story which was a story called the double in russian divine ich because in this story and it's a strange story even today when we know a lot where we have not more ideas about psychology than they had in those days because it concerns and then then go Yadkin which in Russian means a naked who is a struggling bureaucrat who has a temerity to fall in love with a woman who's in a class way above himself and who drives himself so crazy that he thinks he sees or maybe he does see it's not quite clear a man who was exactly well I guess today we would say his clone this is he becomes gay a teen status tree that's got can senior and this man becomes golovkin Bloodshy that is Goliath King junior and they're absolutely indistinguishable and the Alaskan junior is a terrible prankster and pretty soon he's doing all kinds of horrible things that people think it's really glad can senior but it's really you follow me and pretty soon he's actually druvan absolutely crazy it ends up with him on the way to the insane asylum bilinski couldn't make head or tail and what the devil was he trying to talk about as a matter of fact today that has become a very popular store a popular subject to be studied through this story not only in courses in literature but courses in law and courses in psychology and so on today we take a much more tolerant view of these views than they did in those days but this idea of the double is something that carries through everything that the CFD subsequently writes and most especially in this novel because on the one side is this harsh arrogant overwhelming ambition idea dynamic of Raskolnikov but on the other side there's another there's another side that's very sympathetic very soft very charitable and after all he does want to bring the beneficence of the world well he decides he decides that he is going to get enough material goods and enough money to start him off in a career which will be enormously helpful to the world and how is he going to do this he is going to murder an old woman not exactly an old woman she is sort of it's not quite the same but sort of what we would call a pawnbroker that is she accepts all the valuable pieces from people who need money she gives them maybe half of what it's worth she makes them pay back the loan with interest if they don't pay it back she has the right to sell this is something that we're familiar with of course with the idea of the pawn shop and she's not a very attractive person chicken-like neck and here that's full of oil and old shawl it's torn she's he's tempted to say this is not a human being this is a louse this is a bush the world would not be unhappy if she were to be eliminated well I suppose that's one way of looking at older people yeah a few of a few of us might take objection to that on the other hand this is a human being what happens when you de hue manizer Minh being I don't care what they look like I don't care what impression lay upon you this is well what shall I say oh no no furthermore she has a sister her name is Alyona Ivanovna by the way you understand in Russian when I say something like Yvonne LaDonna that means her father's first name is Yvonne and since she's a woman it's Yvonne Ivana if she had a brother would be one of each don't don't be confused by this in the old days in Russia used to refer to people by their name and patronymic yvonne ivanovitch that meant yvonne the son of a man named Yvonne if it were if it were let's say Samara Ivanovna there would be a woman who was the daughter of a father named Yvonne that's that's not really very difficult so this a your new violin that has a sister named Lisa yet Yvonne Levin and she's quite different she's really rather attractive woman although she's very meek very humble completely under the thumb of her sister but nobody would call her a voice I think even Raskolnikov would say she's a totally innocent and reasonably attractive person well and of course many of the people who criticize this novel and came out said well this isn't real people aren't like this what about this theory of dehumanization what about the idea that there are certain super people who have the right to do anything with one dimension does that ring a bell about certain things that happened in the 20th century is that ring a bell about the hideous tragedies that happened in the 1930s through the end of 1945 under the Nazis and what about the murders in the Soviet Union what about the idea that we have the right to murder anybody we want to first of all we have a right to murder anybody who's opposed to our system who's opposed the fact that we want to create a paradise on earth and as a matter of fact not only anybody who tries to oppose it but anybody who might try to oppose it who even who looks or from his background might just possibly be somebody who would do something we can get rid of them too as Lenin said it one of this is the one of his telegrams I want you to hang him I don't care if I did anything else hang him show her show her we were Rosario's this is no joke the idea of the humanization you understand and when this the FG is accused of exaggerating this or for that matter being terribly unfair to the people on the left of his day because he turned into a very conservative man yes he was being unfair I think objectively you can only say that but was this an in an improper prediction about what was going to happen in the future was he not innocent searches it's a profit of exactly what was going to happen in the twentieth century so much of the horror of this novel is not only the novel itself but of what human beings became exactly in a way it's not exactly in a way very close to the way that this they F key predicted it well so here we have a would be Superman would be superior man who is out to commit a murder how do you commit a murder is anybody here kill of anybody anti g-d's a very famous French critic and sub perhaps some of you recognize his name once said about this they Fe when he read this he said sit Dostoevsky I taks katrinka this Dostoevsky as he killed somebody because the way he describes it makes you believe he actually must have seen something like this perhaps even participated in it now of course this would be superior man this would be Bromwich believes that although normally when criminals commit a criminal act particularly something like murder as sort of a madness takes over and they don't quite know what they're doing and this is one of the reasons it often it's not very hard to track down what they do because they leave all kinds of clues not even realizing they're doing it I'm sorry am I talking to you is what I'm saying comprehensible yeah so no but the Raskolnikov is deeply convinced that this does not apply to him he's way too intelligent for that he can keep himself totally under control now as a matter of fact he has a hideous dream right before he's going to commit it a dream maybe some of you have heard about this read about it where as a young boy he vision he he is the witness to a person drunken people out of a tavern beating to death a porn egg they even beat the NAG across the eyes it's awful it's horrible and the description has dragged out in such a way that you shudder when you read it eventually he hits the horse over the head with a heavier iron bar and completely kills as benefit doesn't even call him a horse he calls on a nag - is the word in Russian and when you know it's a nightmare and when he wakes up from the nightmare and undoubtedly you've all here at one time or another experience the nightmare you know that you often wake up at the the height of the horror of the dream when he wakes up he suddenly believes that he's overcome the desire to kill her it's a vile business it's an awful business what on earth tempted need to get into something so terrible is this but that doesn't last long because first of all he looks after the neva river outside and he sees the slanting you understand this is summertime in st. Petersburg in July where they have what they call White Nights where the Sun barely is very close to the Arctic Circle so at 12 o'clock midnight the bun Sun barely goes beneath the surface of the horizon before it comes up again you have to have heavy curtains if you want to sleep in the darkness he sees these the red rays matter of fact he's seen these red rays come to the windows of the old woman where he's made a charge sort of a trial run that to case the place and then he sees it again as he looks at the river and as he does this he overhears some Russian saying that he's a vieta the sister of the woman who's intending to kill is going to be away from the apartment from seven o'clock the next night in other words chance puts in his way the obviously the opportunity to do what he was going to do and it turns out he's not going to get a good part from that and as if that isn't enough when he has to get the axe that he's going to use the killer if it turns out that the axe is not available in the place where he thought it would be but there's another room that's completely open where he can grab the axe he makes a loop and his coat puts it under his coat so it's completely concealed everything works out by chance and of course this the FSK I think is making a statement here that fate that human fate sometimes intervenes in human life in a way that nobody can predict and well those who have read the novel know that there's an awful scene near the end of the first part of the novel where he ascends the stairs of the building and by the way if you go to Petersburg there's a tour called in steps of this they have ski where you can follow step by step exactly where where Raskolnikov went because I did this day esky identifies it he doesn't give the actual names of the streets but they know where it was so he goes up he rings the bell in the door and of course when you hear that bell ring you think I'd Macbeth remember hear it not Duncan for it is a knell that summons either heaven or hell that that bill which is you know in a concentric round circle of metal it gets smaller and smaller really get to the bill it gives a particular sound the old woman opens the door she's suspicious he's been there once before depands something now he has a phoney thing that's going to be hard for her to open and of course as she does this he takes an axe and was the blunt end of the axes crashes over her head and fountain of blood it's one of the most awful scenes you really feel that you're envisioning a genuine murder he takes the key to the trunk he grabs the stuff out of it he stuffs in his pockets and he goes back in the room where he where she did committed the murder and what do you think there stands he's a yachtie he'd walk worked in the open door he had forgotten even to close the door and this was the man who thought he was in complete control the situation and in their most hideous scene with a sharp end of the axe and she's so humble she doesn't know how to oppose it he brings it down over her skull it's terrible it's terrible so of course naturally he tries to flee but as he goes out the door he hear steps coming up the stairway there you have the apartment so he goes back in the door sheffster door puts it on what's the the love the the metal thing in the eye the hook and the eye that's the word I'm looking for these days the words don't come quite so freely he put the hook in the eye and here he is standing on this side of the door and on the other side of the door or these two people come up say hey you know what time where I come on open the damn door they shake the door and it rattles like hell because it's on the hook and suddenly they wait a minute uh there's got to be somebody there if she had gone out she would have locked the door with the key and wouldn't rattle like that somebody's in there hey I own the other way are you dare to your sleep person come on wake up open the door nothing happened oh something's wrong one says look caught you stay here and I'll go down and get help well cook stands there for a minute or two but he has a sense that something weird is going on and he goes away which gives us corny cough the chance to slip out never chance slip out the door head down the stairs but as he's heading down the stairs people are coming up the stairs well if they let him go by that's not going to be any help because they're going to recognize him this is very very dangerous and just as he gets to the second floor and they're very close he realizes that a place where painters were painting a suddenly empty because the painters involved with silly little argument between them he sneaks in that door and they go past and he's safe he walks out the door and he comes back to his apart to his room I started to say apartment it's more like a closet than a room and it takes all the stuff out of his pockets puts it in the wall and then begins of course the terrible tortures that he goes through heading realised he's committed a hideous crime and the first place he's done an awful thing and the second place the law is not going to look on this very kindly now there are all kinds of things that are happening I wonder I really want to leave time for your question so I'm going to try to keep this down as shortly as I can which means of course I have to go through a very complicated model novel very fast it can only talk about certain things but we're talking here the stay yes keys original intention actually when set out to write this novel was write write a novel called pian kiya well the word P an Li in Russian means drunkard in pianning ki is typical of the Russian language you can turn it into a diminutive Canon ki is a dear little drunkard just like Tatiana is the woman's name but yeah that's that's a nice woman you're close to anthony chika and tanyusha and tanya tucker oh boy you can do all kinds of things that diminutives in russian that's not so easy to do an anklet mind you of course richard becomes dick robert becomes Bob Janet Janet becomes Jan we do have such a thing's diminish but that's the way the Russian language has it so he has the problem of how to get rid of this stuff and eventually he's first ideas to throw it in the canals in the water but it will float away that wouldn't be any good he finds a place behind the fence that sort of fenced off from from the street there's a big stone there which he manages to pull up and hides under the stone which means of course it even if it's found nobody could connect it with him and then he comes out so there's a relationship first of all to the drunkards because he he comes in contact with a drunken named Marmeladov noticed the name the sweet sticky named Marmeladov and this is the wonderfully sympathetic part of the novel which makes you have sympathy with people first of all who were poor and second who can't help themselves with a terrible obsession of alcohol but this drunkard also has a daughter and it's rather horrible because of course when he empties the house of money in order to get his alcohol there's nothing left to feed the children and there are three children on that plan there they're gonna starve to death they don't have some money so what the stepmother does a woman whom he's married as a second marriage because his first wife died she goes to his natural daughter her real name is Sofia which you'll notice means son softly soft like wisdom and Greek she's called Sonja and he says she says her look you have to go out you have to go out and bring in money and you understand what he's telling her he's telling that she has to turn to prostitution of all people that tinted lovely young woman suddenly forced into prostitution because his terrible drunkard has has drunken up the money of the family this is one side of Raskolnikov's character because she's going to be a kind of redemptive personality in relation to him and then there is a man named Laurie guile oh by the way the name probably is that we're not quite sure about this is probably derived from a battle where the Russian Orthodox force is lost and the non-christian people won this probably where the name comes from now sweet regal life has been accused by Carla's mother of having done a terrible thing to Raskolnikov sister having subjected her to sexual advances which she is a poor young girl who was a governess on the estate found hard to resist eventually she's forced to leave her reputation is ruined because it lots of rumors go around this feed regal off if you read this letter through the mother sent is an awful guy a terrible guy and of course eventually swiggity guile off with his sensual desires and is the ugly part of his life turns out to be a kind of a double of the awful side of rest coordinate a double on one side just as Sonya with her almost angelic ways of doing things with her deep religious feelings and experiences with the New Testament so on she turns out to be the angelic side this you might say on one side is a devil on the other side is the angel on one side is a demonic double on the other side is angelic and then finally there is a character named Porfiry Petrovich they don't give him a last name because as you might guess it's his first name is poor theory his father name was Peter or pure Thor in Russian so his patronymic superior rich-poor theory is no fool he soon understands pretty well that well this Raskolnikov is a very suspicious character and eventually he becomes a particularly Effy recent article by Raskolnikov Nebraska Lee who has argued in print that there are certain superior people in the world who have the right to do what no one else has to do as a matter of fact they can even have a clean conscience when they engage in murder it fits pretty well some of the details that he learns about this crime so of course but fairly is a curious thing after all I'm sure there's nobody in this room who would say that murder of two innocent people is a good thing but in spite of that when you read it you have a certain sympathy with Raskolnikov but it is because there is a side of him that really attracts you now Porfiry very soon starts hinting to him in a rather nasty and sarcastic way I know pretty well what should be even winks at him when they talk about the murder of the old lady so of course you think that this is a fearful a fearful personality in relation to Raskolnikov but toward the end of the novel you begin to realize the per few T has seen in Rusco anacoth the other side of him and realizes that in spite of the fact that this man is criminally hideous crime nevertheless there's a hope that he could be well I use the word advisedly he could be resurrected both in the psychological sense and in the religious sense that there's something in him that is hopeful and that he poor fury would try to work things out so that would be possible to have a resurrection and of course that's really what the end of this novel is all about the novel ends with some hideous nightmares that svidrigaïlov goes through because again he's tried been trying to get through Raskolnikov sister dunia as a matter of fact at one point he traps her in a locked room and almost threatens to rape her so she pulls out a pistol as a matter of fact the pistol which he had given her when she had been on his estate and she fires at him and the bullet grazes his forehead and a few drops of blood come us at all is that the story well you gonna you're gonna help me to go to America what does he mean by America well you can sort of guess she said if you take one more step I will shoot he's alright and he takes another step and she pulls the trigger but this time the gun misses fire and he said well that's alright take your time I'll wait reload and and now she realizes it he takes one more step to her she couldn't help but kill him there was no way that the bullet wouldn't kill him and she throws the pistol and he's so moved by this he says so you really couldn't be with me you really couldn't see something good in me or unite your life with me she says no kisses here take the key quickly leave now it's interesting that this proud girl well young woman this proud young woman who was the brother of this would be Superman and I'm sorry who is the sister of this would be Superman brother well he's committed a murder and the murder of innocent people murdered you couldn't possibly approve she was in a position where I don't think any of us would have blamed her if she had shot the video guy if he was threatening to rape her now I know the self defense has become a very complex issue now in this country but in this particular situation I felt that any no matter what the legal rib morality would have been the legal reality would have been I don't think morally speaking anybody here would blame her but she chose not to so of course who is the stronger of the two they're both tremendously proud people almost like Napoleon but she has genuine true pride and of course turns out to be the stronger of the two and this is not unusual in this they ask you by the way well at the end we see sweetie Galef going through a hideous series of nightmares which if I were described to you you would get some of the sense of the the mastery that this the Eskie has over the human psyche and over the written page it's incredible how he brings you in and by the way it's been a hot time in Petersburg there's not a drop of water around and all of a sudden a huge thunderstorm and rain perhaps a rain of redemption perhaps a rain of something else takes place and in this rain CGI Lewis goes into a hotel he goes through these horrible nightmares and he realizes there's only one out for him he takes he makes his trip to America he goes out and commits suicide you understand for Dostoevsky America was a wonderful wonderful country of mechanics he says in another novel he says the Americans are wonderful mechanics they can do anything they want to do technology but you know something they have absolutely no soul well I'll leave it up to you to decide whether that's true or not but that was this they asked he's the picture of America and of course CD guy Levin taking this trip to America is ending his life now this could have been a bullet for Raskolnikov you understand as a matter of fact in some of Raskolnikov in some of the say F keys notebooks you'll see that one of the original plans was that Raskolnikov might end his life of the bullet but the bullet instead goes to speed regardless and the only solution for Raskolnikov is to confess and when he goes to the police station to confess and that is a little bit hesitant he's told that three dragula has committed suicide and in a certain sense this frees him to make the confession just as his intercourse with Sonja has convinced him to do that and he makes the confession there's an epilogue to the novel which has been violently criticized I doubt if there's been as much commentary on anything in any literary product as there's been on this epilogue and most people say look this epilogue was a mistake the novel should have ended with his confession because in the epilogue Raskolnikov is morally resurrected but how could this in this whole Marvel where you get this whole complex character how all of a sudden could this possibly happen now I think a critic whom I very much admire in a way has untangled this what shall I say complex problem or criticism his name is Professor Joseph Frank he was a professor both at unfortunately like Joseph Frank he died as a matter of fact if you read the New York Times you saw his obituary not too long ago and it was quite a longer bitchu area by the way made quite a reputation he was a professor at Stanford and also a professor at Princeton he wrote a five volume biography and analysis of the cfc's life and work it's like this a little bit like a Russian novel but I do believe that it's a remarkable piece of work and he is a very penetrating in a very penetrating analysis done in a delightful style that's not abstract that's not pompous at all it's easy to read if you really want to read goodish good criticism about this de s key and you don't mind reading a lot of pages and take a look at Joseph Frank and what's this is what he has to say about the epilogue and I find it convincing he says what these critics tend to miss is that in the first part of the epilogue where the Raskolnikov is in a camp that after all this they ask you know something about he himself as a prisoner for four years if you know something else biography in the first part of it in the first 18 months Raskolnikov is a very sullen not very pleasant character that the others totally lends a matter of fact at one point they try to beat him up luckily a garden recedes and stops it furthermore Sonia has gone out with him to be faithful with him and he even to her he actually very I would say nasty way and this goes on for 18 months and as Frank puts it what he's doing there is to trying to work through this awful theory of his of the man god of the Superman in the trial he tried to make it make it seem like he did this out of poverty he was in terrible poverty didn't quite know what he was doing that's one of the reasons they gave him a life sentence and the reason was that poor fury stayed out of it but in this time he's trying to work through this awful thing and then he has a dream and of course this he has been absolute master of dreams and in the stream the whole world has become can everyone in the world has become convinced they are super people they know exactly what to do when they start to quarrel with each other and there's mass murder in his mess him the mess the chaos in the world and in this dream somehow he manages to work through to work that when I say to my work through what I mean is to get beyond this theory and realize that it leads at least have very bad consequences and then and only then does he turn into a man who has a moral resurrection but says this they have ski this is a subject another story I'll tell you at another time well even Frank admits if that's way too simple a solution to the problem but he says this epilogue is there for a purpose and a genuine purpose which serves the novel very well and I I'm convinced if some semi colleague were here they would argue with me very violently well what was that other story have you heard of The Brothers Karamazov if you haven't heard of it if you haven't read it take my advice take a look at it it's the short nine hundred page introduction to the story that he intended to tell and believe me he wasn't bluffing and if you look at his notebooks you'll see had quite extensive plans but something intervened he died and of course is rather hard to write a novel after you died I want to stop here there's so many things I could say and should have and would have liked to have said but what I really want to get is your honest reactions that's what I've done so please let me have the questions if you agree that's great if you disagree that's fine if you want to discuss something that's fine let me hear from you back when I read Dostoyevsky crime and punishment and the brothers karamazov the idiot the possessed all of them took the whole class one of the ways of reading this book that was recommended was seeing it was full of dualisms like the double and one way was to see the West and science as the source of all corruption and that his Redemption at the end is through Sophia Sonia the spirit so science versus religion so what just one quick note is that when I did a close reading I noticed that Sonia who starts out as a prostitute and is ultimately at virgin born becomes a prostitute her body in the novel disappears as a physical entity so there's that but would you comment on the dualisms a very sensitive very sensitive approach to the novel I think I would agree with you that this the S key is making a distinction between science and technology on the one hand and the spirit as it's revealed through the what they call pareve Slavia that's Eastern Orthodox Christian Church on the other and most especially of course for the figure of Jesus Christ I think you put your finger on something very important and this is certainly a dualism and if it is true of course it talks about the Crystal Palace which supposedly was a museum that showed everything was useful to the word by the way through gain you've said if it were burned Russia would lose nothing at the CFT was entirely pleased by that but I think it's possibly a mistake or at least an exaggeration to say that the technology part is necessarily associated with the West it's true that this the S key has some very harsh things to say about what you've read of course the brothers karamazov and you know what he says about the Grand Inquisitor in the Catholic Church and so on but the the people that the CFE is really struggling with are people in Russia who were have you read the fathers and sons if you get a chance take a late bite organge is much shorter by the way if these are not what Sergey Niall calls nihilus these are people who want to destroy everything in the world have a tabula rasa that is by the way I'm using a Marxist term they're a tabula rasa a scrape table on the basis which they will entirely new an entirely pure society and these are Russian people and boy they get to it in a way that nobody in the desk in the West would there you know with the rest and go to an extreme ain't kiddin around as you know so that it's not exactly the West furthermore the CS gives many praising things to say about the West he says the West is we we worship every grave in the West because in those grazers are buried Michelangelo Beethoven of the great creations of the West and his matter of fact in his room he had a picture by hole a famous picture by Holbein of Christ the resurrection of Christ so that I think it's possibly either a mistake or at least an exaggeration to say this is the West it's rather the spiritual sight of human beings as opposed to the side that says well we will make an ideal society by means of Technology oh no he said you're not gonna do it by sick nology you're only going to do it by one way and of course as far as this day yes geek was turned that way was the path to Christ as a matter of fact he's very often quoted a letter which he wrote to one of the wives of the Decembrist when he was on the way to Siberian prison he was given a copy of the New Testament which he held till the day he died and to this woman he later wrote a letter which has been quoted fifty thousand million times where he says it's true I am a child of the 19th century a child of doubt a childhood disbelief a child of godlessness but there are certain moments in my life notice he says moments in his life he doesn't say the whole line there are certain moments in my life where I come to the conclusion and I deeply come to this kin inclusion that there is nothing more manly nothing more courageous nothing more profound and nothing more godlike than Jesus Christ and if it were to be proved that Christ does not lead to truth I would rather go with traced than with the truth the fact that he is willing to separate that his beloved Christ from the truth is of course I mean hits him a head like a hammer doesn't it but this is the science key it's always balanced on the one hand this belief on the other hand there's disbelief on the one hand there's a paradise on the other hand there's Hell on the one hand there's love and the other hand there's a place where it's impossible to love and of course you may remember as Isis or SEMA says that's what hell is hell is a place which is impossible to love so you read one taste ha ha now I've got it you turn the way I are you damn fool you're fat you're headed you didn't have it all on the contrary it's on the other side and to me this is what makes this awful so tremendously profound because this is human life human life is not simple human life doesn't go entirely in one direction unless you're some kind of a idiot I suppose and this this the Eskie captures this in the most powerful way and of course as I said in the very beginning I think one of the reasons some people don't like him because there are some things inside of us boy we don't want to bring out well at least I'm talking about myself maybe every all of your angels but you understand the problem well look you understand are there other questions gentlemen the green shirt was there first I believe oh yeah I'm sorry Hey I beg you from first of all I have acquired familial notoriety by calling the end of crime and punishment cute I I acquired notoriety in my family by calling the ending of crime and punishment cute the epilogue but cute but I really wanted to ask you to comment on the role of atheism in the novel on the role of atheism again a very good question and one that goes in many ways to the to the heart of the novel you remember that when Raskolnikov is talking to Sonja the narrator describes soweth Sonja as somebody who is full of it insatiable is the word insatiable compassion and of course this comes through her faith in God to her faith in the New Testament and her faith in the power of Jesus Christ now to Roscoe in yoga at least in the beginning this Heath this seems like a kind of idiocy there was a famous character in Russian life and in the Russian imagination called urology away it's probably translated as the fool in Christ if people who go around who say things that don't quite make sense their ragged their barefoot in a way they seem like total idiots and yet there's a an hour of holiness about them that it makes them both mad people and religious people at the same time and Raskolnikov has the intention have has the has an instant where he calls her well cuz your Giri is a masculine form Agassi called her your Raja VII which would be the feminine form and this of course is an indication toward atheism this is an indication toward disbelief in because after all if you're going to be a Superman you take over the the prerequisites of God you can do whatever you want to do on the other hand this has produced a terrible reality in his own life and it is Sonja who bring into brings him through religion to a recognition of this and this is done through her reading of the book of John which describes the resurrection of Lazarus remember that Lazarus is lying there dead and his family is mourning and one of them calls Jesus Christ and says I believe in you and I know that you can resurrect my son and Jesus says I am the I am the life and those who believe in me will have eternal life and he turns to Lazarus who is lying there and who stinks and it's very important if you've read The Brothers Karamazov if you know that's near dark off and sibility means think who stinks and this is important look you you can fool the eyes you can fool the ears you can even fool them out sometimes but she can't fool the nose if the nose tell you he stinks and he's been thinking for four days he's dead and this isn't some phony guy claiming to be a magician this is Jesus Christ and Jesus brings him back to life and of course when he's brought back to life they they roll back the stone from his grave and he arises and is once more alive and of course this is obviously a symbol of what she would like to see and at the very end of novel happens to rest to Raskolnikov now you notice the lifting of the stone remember where he hid the the stuff that he stole that was also under a stone so of course the lifting of that stone and were another placing and the lifting of that stone has a very deep symbolic significance and has much to do with a question that you raised so that atheism and belief for Dostoevsky are two opposite things that go very much together and if it's a conflict as a continuing conflict as a matter of fact in Russian I move this down because I was sort of anticipating that question anyway in the 20th century this is a real mouthful there is the say use vines to shift business bortnikov here that say use by in story she is abortion enough that is the union of the union of fighting godless people the aggressive people are going to prove to you that there's no God and I'll give you one guess what government was pushing that now of course traditionally in Russia there have been the Provost larvan Lea via Russia R that is the Russian Orthodox believers and of course a via Russia is one who believes in God now to be honest with you the first time I went to the Soviet Union which is 1960 of course I had read a great deal about atheism under the Communists and so on to my great surprise when I would have conversations with ordinary people obviously not government people but ordinary people within five minutes they would say of we D Russia do you believe in God can you imagine American conversation we did get no person with five monthly s if you believe in God and this was the Atheist godless Soviet Union I began to understand that under the surface of his atheism there lay a very very important religious I could talk at life about this I don't think too much time now now in crime and punishment again to relate myself to your question in crime and punishment you find this only in sections that you have to go to particular sections to see the evidence for what I've just been talking about well you've read it so you know what I'm talking about in the Brothers Karamazov of course this comes to the center of the stage and the brothers karamazov the whole novel is based on the distinction between atheism which is very powerful on the one hand and belief which is quietly but nevertheless definitely said you know that perhaps you've heard of the famous chapter called the tale of the Grand Inquisitor where Jesus Christ comes back to earth resurrects a young girl who has just died in the families mourning and his arrest by the high priest by the grand inquisitor of the Christian Church because he says to Jesus you're running my religion and when this the X key by the way he dictated that to his wife and after he was finished she asked her what do you think of it anja she said oh it's wonderful marvelous she said look I don't want to hear that I want your honest opinion well to tell you the truth Vidya I don't know I didn't understand he said what do you mean you don't understand he began to explain it and she said the more explained to the less she understood when a very famous reactionary politician who was a great protector of this day asked a man named put bitterness Jeff read this chapter he said what are you doing I thought you were on my side and here you've made a powerful argument for atheism and this day FQ said listen I wanted to show those so-called atheists that I could make a better argument for atheism with my little finger than they could with their whole head but the whole rest of the novel is an answer to that this is what this desk you said well is that true is this to be taken seriously when you know that he's always playing around with you well there's a scene at the end of the novel that I swear you could read 10 times and miss because you know usually this day s Keys hitting you over the head like you like reskin have hits the old woman with a bat with a sledgehammer it's very seldom there's anything suppling Dostoevsky but Europe if you've read The Brothers Karamazov you know that the young boy Anusha dies at the end of the novel and I know sure one of the the religious of the brothers goes to say a sermon at the stone which will mark the place where he's buried now earlier in the novel the saintly man's Aseema whom Alyosha is worshipped a Yoshi is impatiently dying answer is impatiently waiting for the time that this holy man is going to die because he knows the genuinely holy people generally holy elders is this man is called die and sanctity where the ordinary person of course smells when they die these people don't smell well Hashima dies and two peoples original disbelief and then to their horror not only does it smell but it smells much faster and much sooner than other places than been in other cases well there's a realistic reason for this it's in a closed room in the summertime it's hot the man is old and probably a lot of sickness it's not surprising that he would stink more quickly than other corpses but that this would happen in contrast iosys hopes was a tremendous disappointment so much so that he ran out of the monastery he ran away from belief now eventually he was going to come back but this was a hideously traumatic experience in his life and it had much to do with the argument between religion and atheism now at the end of the novel Alyosha is giving a sermon at the Stone and in a very quiet sentence that you know with this task it's easy to overlook when you visit such a long novel he says strange to say the body of the young boy gave off no smell and of course it's just a hint that as a matter of fact there is some kind of redemption after afterlife and it said very very quietly and perhaps the fact that it said it was said quietly makes it more impressive and more powerful in this the s key statement so that in many many different ways what you described of course takes place very powerfully not only in crime and punishment but even more so in The Brothers Karamazov sorry not to talk so far my question has to do with shall we say the Russian Asst of this book I I couldn't help thinking about ein Ron and her and the character that she creates as as what she at least seems to believe as as the quintessential American who is who is not bothered by any any concerns of what's right and wrong and that sort of thing and here we have a character who is clearly Russian and can't behave like Iran's characters would behave because he has a conscience and becomes punished by that to what extent is this in your opinion a really picture of Russian Asst as opposed to the humankind broadly a very interesting question and you give me an excuse to do something that I've wanted to do that is to give you a little bit of taste of the Russian of course this is obviously huge exaggeration I mean in spite of the fact that this ascii says we have no soul I think I see a person or two in this audience that probably has a soul judging by the look on your face this year this the S key here is being a very extreme patriot of the Russians on the other hand it is true that there have been some expressions both in literature in philosophy in music in arts in the in poetry of a deep religious yen a deep expression of spirit in there in what's normally called the Russian soul but I think that's really the human soul of which Russian is often a wonderfully outstanding example of but partly the answer this I want to read to you three stanzas of a poem by Pushkin again as I said before I know you don't know Russian I wilt of course translate it for you but what I want you to do is to listen to the music see if you don't hear the music of this magnificent language it's a poem that he wrote very close to the time that he died in a duel it's called I've erected a monument to myself that human hands can't touch that monument of course is his poetry and his personality appomattox EBA Vaz Vigny Lucas Waldman pneumonias nazar a short Narodnaya tropi Bosnia wish on Livonia pokorny Alexandra's cover stop ah I have erected a monument to myself not to be touched by human hands the path leading up to it will not o be overgrown with grass it raised itself higher than the Alexandrine column in Petersburg that was the column the marking their victory over Napoleon II dog mm ooh banana roll dough statue svidaniya Nadia refurbished doll stove Moises Toki yak vez la Veolia Swoboda Emile escape action preserve all and long will I be beloved by my people that I aroused kind feelings with my lyre among my people that in my cruel century I made him to freedom and I asked for mercy to the Fallen its refers to the Decembrist for whom he has pardoned very new bores you o musa boot pollution a villainous trashes nutrients i have a looook leave it to premiere of 'no dushman in year a sporty of I looked saw you hear the music in that to the earth to the orders of God o muse the obedience don't be upset by insults don't demand the laurel wreath accept praise and slander with equanimity and never never argue with a fool this was one of the favorite poems of this day s key and maybe you can see why he was so attached to Pushkin as of course most Russians oh thank okay let's thank dr. Lyle and enjoy your evening thank you so much you

Channel: Chautauqua Institution

Views: 105,023

Rating: 4.8950968 out of 5

Keywords: Chautauqua Institution, CHQ, Crime And Punishment (Book)

Id: S9e4JK1v5dg

Length: 64min 18sec (3858 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 08 2013