Well, because he isn't an idiot, and in contrary to most non-idiot characters/persons, he isn't an idiot in a good way. (Forgive the pun).Quote:
Originally Posted by Danik 2016
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Well, because he isn't an idiot, and in contrary to most non-idiot characters/persons, he isn't an idiot in a good way. (Forgive the pun).Quote:
Originally Posted by Danik 2016
I think you mean Prince Myshkin, the protagonist.
But Prince Myushkin *is* an idiot, unlike Rogozhin. I meant Rogozhin.Quote:
Originally Posted by Danik 2016
If I were to apply such a general adjective to a character, I would say Prince Myushkin is a good character, and in a way, all other non-idiots are non-idiots because they're missing something that he has, they're worse than him. However, IMO, his character is impractical, or mythical (pardon me my limited English vocabulary). For me, Rogozhin is the non-idiot that is not worse than the idiot. This, along with the fact that he is in the same setting that has the idiot and all the other unusual characters of the work, makes him one of my favorite characters.
I see Entenado. Unfortunatelly I read "The Idiot", as mosts classics, a long time ago, so I don´t remember the details of the novel. The one thing I remember is that Rogozhin and Myshkin get very close, in a complex dostoyevskian way, and that Rogozhin ends by killing the woman he is obsessed with. Anyway he wouldn´t stand out for me as an intelligent character.
On impulse I would rather think of the detective Porfiry of Crime and Punishment as an intelligent Dostoyeski character.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_and_Punishment
He is not one of the main characters of the book. But he achieves his aim in making the murder confess in a very peculiar way.
Father: Remember that nice boy next door, Raskolnikov?
Boris: Yeah.
Father: He killed two ladies.
Boris: What a nasty story.
Father: Bobak told it to me. He heard it from one of the Karamazov brothers.
Boris: He must have been possessed.
Father: Well, he was a raw youth.
Boris: Raw youth, he was an idiot!
Father: He acted assaulted and injured.
Boris: I heard he was a gambler.
Father: You know, he could be your double!
Boris: Really, how novel.
--Woody Allen, Love and Death
Great suggestion, EE. Rogozhin is a complicated and well made character, and Myshkin, of course, is one of the great characters of literature. There seems to be a strong opposing duality to them. But if Myshkin (as most believe) is a Christ figure, then who does that make Rogozhin, the anti-Myshkin? The implications of that question make the final scene (where they are in the sack together) a shocking one. It's a great book.Quote:
Originally Posted by El Entenado
The Idiot is also a sentimental favorite of mine because it was the subject of the first literary discussion I had on this site. I was new and everyone was ignoring me, but this really nice lady named Gladys decided to talk with me about Myshkin and Rogozhin. As I remember, Gladys thought Myshkin was a straight-out (that is, non-ironic) Christ figure, while I was pointing out that a lot of people near him end up get ting destroyed. She threw some proof texts at me and I threw some Pauline theology back at her. No one conceded. Gladys still pops in sometimes (though rarely), but she has never had much else to say to me. I've always hoped there were no hard feelings over the debate (it can be hard to tell sometimes). I really do appreciate her kindness to me when I was new.
Here is the thread if you are interested in reading it or even continuing the discussion. If not, don't worry about it. I just thought you might want to talk about Rogozhin. (The conversation with Gladys starts on page 2).
http://www.online-literature.com/for...42#post1273742
Thanks for providing that interesting thread, PB, in fact I was hoping that a more recent reader of The Idiot than myself would chime in.
I have never read theology but what stands out for me about some of the greatest characters of Dostoyevski is there quest for a deeper meaning of what it means to be human. It´s a religion above religions, a goodness above conventional ethics or a moral far above moralities. I don´t know if I am using the right words, but whatever it is, it can´t be put in ortodox straightjackets. Maybe his most ambicious book in this sense is The Brother Karamazow, my favorite on.
Molly Bloom from Ulysses is an amazing creation - or presentation. She's there throughout in Bloom's head and in converstions and comments from others (kind of early locker room talk.) Then she bursts out right at the end in one chapter-long single sentence, and shows she is so much more than we have been led to expect. She knows more, has experienced more and has more native understanding than all the other 'more educated' characters put together.
Or is Joyce saying everyone has their own remarkable internal persona that no one else can know.
Oops, just interrupted a "The Idiot" discussion (which I haven't read) My favourite Dostoevsky characters are Sonya's family in Crime and Punishment, simply because they don't keep their troubles behind their front door like we English, with our precious dignity, tend to do - nothing deeper than that. They have a kind of brash openness that I admire. Which probably says more about me than the book.
One of the peculiar things about Dostoyevsky is the way his characters are so rational and contemplative in inner dialogues, but In groups they just go nuts on each other. Such pyrotechnics also happen in The Brothers K and especially in The Idiot's parties from hell. Maybe it's a Russian thing.Quote:
Originally Posted by prendrelemick
Speaking of Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov is a great character, though not especially likable (I didn't like him anyway). But he is immensely believable as an angry and clueless 20-something. Dostoyevsky's genius is to take his his vividness and make it insane beyond what one could normally understand. That's what gives the novel its punch. It's horrible to be there when the ladies die, but it is just so believable.
I also like Molly Bloom. I didn´t read the novel(if I ever do I´ll consider it a special feat) but I was promptly attracted to that intense last chapter.Quote:
Originally Posted by prendrelemick
I also like Sonya`s family as a group (and there is her father, Marmeladow) and Sonya herself.
And it seems that Dostoyevski was much influenced by Dickens in his portrayal of urban characters. In an earlier novel, Humiliated and Insulted, he criates his own "Little Nell",setting her in the harsh Russian context of adolescent prostituition.
The Marmeladows remind me of the Darbyfields, (Tess of the D'urbervilles) and Sonya is like Tess. not sure which came first.
I think it is time I read some more Dostoyevsky. I could never make up my mind about Raskolnikov - which I am sure was what Dostoyevsky was after. I could not get past the pointless brutal murders he committed as an interllectual exercise for many chapters afterwards.
There was a film called "The Rope" with James Stewart where something similar happened, but there the murderers were arrogant and unlikeable, whereas Raskolnikov is mostly a decent chap. However as James Stewart points out the moment you opt to commit murder you fail the test of being an outstanding human being.
Thanks for the link. Being trapped in a story of Kafka right now, I really appreciate finding so much information about something I'm interested in, condensed in one place.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pompey Bum
I'm no educated man on literature and analysis of text, but I just wanted to voice what I thought about the book when I was reading it. Please bear with it. I'm too lazy to put "what came to my mind is" before each following sentence that I write, but you can assume it's there.
Myushkin is said to be a Christ figure. He is, in a way, the perfect man. One who has neither hatred nor vengeance. I will refer to him as the idiot, you may as well read that as Christ or The Perfect Man. What I never understood is Rogozhin being considered to be antagonist of the story. If anything, he is part of the "protagonist". The idiot can't exist without Rogozhin. Not in the sense that darkness is impossible without light, but rather in the sense that there is no saltwater without, well, salt and water.
Rogozhin was based on a criminal, if I'm not mistaken. In The Idiot, the narrator analyses the characters by their inherent characteristics, put out of context. The book is set in an inverted world on the whole, idiocy turns into elegance, eloquence turns into superficiality, and desire turns into hypocrisy.
Rogozhin is the unhappy child of the era. He is the one who loves what the idiot pities and others abuse. He drops his chains and jewels, and goes to any lengths to do the bidding of the loved/pitied/abused. Even though, as we read in the magnificent final act of the book, he can't manage the last and ultimate request of the loved/pitied/abused without the help of the idiot.
--
I figure that my views may be radically different from what's accepted and understood about the work, and, to be honest, I have no meta-information about Dosyovesky, as I've only read his books. However I really wanted to share what I think about the work and see what you think about it.
I looked them up:Quote:
Originally Posted by prendrelemick
Crime and Punishment-1866
Tess-1891
Both families are large and destitute, the head of the family is a drunkard and in both cases the girls have to support their families. Sonya has to work as a prostitute and Tess is seduced by the false cousin. Both are strong women.
Raskolnikov might have been a decent chap at the outset but lack of money and to much brooding turn him into a criminal. But Dostoievsky devises for him an end of repentance, redemption and a life with Sonya.
Hardy is more pessimistic. Alex is Tess´hubris, who prevents her to be happy with her (stone) Angel, until she finally kills him (Alex) and is sentenced to death for it.
I think - or thought at the time I read it many years ago, that Roskolnikov was having a mental crisis or breakdown of some type that he eventually gets over with the help of sonya. I suspect this is a huge over simplification born of my desire to have an explanation. I suppose he "represents" some thing or other integral to mankind.
I started reading "The Idiot" last night by the way.
Oh, you are welcome. And this is just a site for readers who want to talk about what they read. Your voice is as valid as anyone else's.Quote:
Originally Posted by El Entenado
Well, I don't think Myshkin is meant to be Jesus on a symbolic level. And The Idiot certainly isn't a retelling of the Gospel. It's more like speculative literature: what would happen if a man of Christ-like compassion and perfect innocence and humility were to appear in (what was for Dostoyevsky) today's world? What would people think of him? How would he interact with the world? Who would he be drawn to and how would they react to him? Would his mission be a successful one? So Isee Myshkin as a kind of a Christ figure even if he is not exactly a symbol. He also follows the Russian Orthodox tradition of the divine fool. And as I am writing this, it occurs to me that he may even be related to the kind of world-rejecting/world-rejected hyper-consciousness Dostoyevsky talks about in Notes From the Underground. Maybe that was Myshkin's problem. Maybe he was Jesus Christ as the Underground Man. But nicer.Quote:
Originally Posted by El Entenado
They are an opposed duality. Myshkin's pure and spiritual love for Nastassya (I believe it is more than pity) implies the existence of Rogozhin's passionate and possessive love for her. But I think it is more like the darkness and light in your example. Here is saltwater, but if there was not also freshwater, saltwater and freshwater would not even be categories. Everything would just be water. But as it is, salt water and fresh water constitute two sides of the same coin--an opposed duality. The shocking thing about The Idiot is that by the last scene, the Christ-Satan/Myshkin-Rogozhin duality looks awfully chummy. I don't want to say more because Prendrelemick is still reading the book, but I think talk about it with Gladys in the link I gave above.Quote:
Originally Posted by El Entenado
I don´t think it is a simplification, it is viewing the characters from another perspective.Quote:
Originally Posted by prendrelemick
If you come to think of it most of Dostoiyevskis great characters are having "a mental crisis or breakdown of some type" or are on the brink of it. Ironically his own illness enabled him
to create these unforgetable psychologically over refined characters which seem to transit perpetually between heaven and hell. They also are, in my opinion, one of the last forcefully instance of a 19C sensibility.
I once tried to imagine Dostoievsky characters at a breakfast table saying common place things like: "Can you pass me the butter please"?. It somehow would not work.
I think you will enjoy The Idiot. I think it is one of it´s greatest.
There is also a great Kurosava film on it. It is sow emphatic that one forgets that the director and the actors are Japanese and not Russian.
Yes, I am enjoying The Idiot a great deal. Sometimes I think we spend too much time searching for meaning and symbols in a book and forget to enjoy it. The Idiot is a great read, funny, accessible -a real pleasure. Dostoyevski is a great advocate of "show don't tell". One thing I have noticed is that so far the women seem to have a monopoly on intellegence and insight. So far the prince has been a device to open everyone up for our inspection, but I think he is about to take on a role of his own.
So far as I remember he lives more the lives of others than his own, as you observed. He gets deeply entangled with the people he meets. He is a sort of catalyst.
Dostoyevsky's women, in general, usually seem a cut above the men. His male protagonists tend to be struggling with alignment issues and often act very erratically, to put it mildly, as a result. Raskolnikov's sister Dunya, for example, is just as intelligent and accurate a thinker as he is, but she gets there without the double murder and extreme overemphasis on self... reflection? Of course Dosto himself was a pretty impatient and erratic guy (while his wife Anna was, to my knowledge, calm and reasonable), so it's probably something of a self-insert on his part.Quote:
Originally Posted by prendrelemick
haha, that's always how I considered it.Quote:
One of the peculiar things about Dostoyevsky is the way his characters are so rational and contemplative in inner dialogues, but In groups they just go nuts on each other. Such pyrotechnics also happen in The Brothers K and especially in The Idiot's parties from hell. Maybe it's a Russian thing.
It's a great point about Raskolnikov's sister. She embodies all the strong and positive aspects of him. Their mother mentions a strong physical resemblance, and Razumihin tells her that she and her brother have highly similar personalities. She takes charge of her own life (as when she rejects Luzhin's snares), and she is tough in a crisis (as when Svidrigailov tries to rape her). You don't hear much about Dounia as a proto-feminist character, but I think she is a very modern woman.Quote:
Originally Posted by Clopin
Obviously that's not the case for all Dostoyevsky's women. Sonia is strong in her own way, but she is constantly described as confused or overwhelmed in the face of crises. I suppose you could say she was tenacious, especially in the epilogue, but how realistic was her loyalty (especially since Svidrigailov had already pulled her out of prostitution)? Sonia reminded me a little too much of a Dickens virgin (she even has a sylphic body like Little Dorrit); but at least Dostoyevsky had the realism to make Sonia a prostitute. God knows what she would have been in a Dickens novel--maybe a flower girl or a rag peddler. I only see Sonia as (a little) unrealistic as Raskolnikov's girlfriend. On the other hand, Dounia marries Razumihin, who is a little too convenient a male character (cheerfully industrious, willing to sacrifice, loyal to people he doesn't know all that well). So maybe Dostoyevsky could only handle one entirely realistic partner per relationship. That would still be one more than Dickens was usually able to manage.
I wonder the worth of adding to a thread almost 7yrs old, but who knows...
unfortunately I cant describe her since its been so many years since ive read the book, but I remember being very attracted to agnes, david Copperfield's second wife.
and I loved hazel from watership down and his wise and brave leadership throughout all the rabbits trials and tribulations.
and maybe jack reacher from all the lee child stories. apart from being a physical beast of a fellow, and despite his desires to live a quiet solitary life after leaving the military, he never fails to do "right" when he finds himself in the midst of some grievous "wrong."
Yes, I'd say it is still a good topic, so it is worth it.
I agree with your choices of Agnes and Hazel. They were both great characters. I did not read Lee Child so I cannot comment on Jack Reacher.
Having grown up in Brooklyn, NY I have always been fascinated by the way New Yorkers are portrayed on cinema, TV, and on literature. Perhaps the greatest NY character ever portrayed in literature was the Mose who was based on a real life character.
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/i...gVxP2hh_NS8w&s
https://www.google.com/search?q=the+...hrome&ie=UTF-8
He might be said to be a trickster --- one moment he is a heel, another moment later he is a hero. He was featured in Ned Buntline's stories of NYC. While Buntline's many books are not readily available in libraries or bookstores, his influence on literature and cinema remain after all these years.
One character that emerged from Buntline's writings was a Chuck Connors (no, not the rifleman):
https://mcnyblog.files.wordpress.com...-276.jpg?w=210
https://blog.mcny.org/2016/05/24/you...-of-chinatown/
Years later there were the Bowery Boys/East Side Kids which featured Muggs McGinnis/Slip Mahoney:
https://wearysloth.com/Gallery/2017/G/6750.jpg
I have watched so many movies which featured this great trickster who often misquoted Shakespeare, caused trouble, got into innumerable fights, rarely worked and almost never earned an honest buck, but who had a heart of gold and would give the shirt off his back to help a friend in need. Very contradictory character. But that's the way New Yorkers often were.
By the way, similar characters can be found in Stephen Crane's Bowery Tales.
See?*
*New Yorkers often ended their sentences with the word see? when they spoke what was called "flash" way back in the 1840s until about WW I and just up to WW II.
One last thing:
NYC real life Bowery Boys from the 1840s and thereafter:
https://res.cloudinary.com/bloomsbur...0275985387.jpg
They were heavily involved in the infamous Astor Place Riots (1849) ~ a fascinating episode in NYC and American history.
quoting bounty: "I wonder the worth of adding to a thread almost 7yrs old, but who knows..."
quoting DATo: "Yes, I'd say it is still a good topic, so it is worth it."
Literature is a living thing and, more significantly, it is timeless. Thus, it is never too late to add to the exchange when it comes to literature.
More than once I've been described as being exceedingly eccentric. That's OK since, after all, I'm originally from Brooklyn. So naturally, I'm attracted to characters who, like myself, are just a bit out of the ordinary. One who fits this bill and is of my absolute favorites is Col Sellers:
https://live.staticflickr.com/4028/4...5c72ec1be7.jpg
https://th.bing.com/th/id/OIP.w3Q9BW...61&c=7&dpr=1.6
He appears in several different evolutions in a couple of Mark Twain's writings. Here he is portrayed by legendary actor John T Raymond who did an extensive tour as this character back in the 1870s. This as Sellers in the book The Gilded age (1873). Raymond died in 1887. Then, the character reappeared in Twain's American Claimant (1892). So sad that people were not able to watch Raymond portray him as he evolved and became even more eccentric.
The good Colonel and Mark Twain:
https://th.bing.com/th/id/OIP.qE4y2S...pr=1.3&pid=1.7
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cs8K3P-DpDs
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3179...79-h.htm#chap2
Colonel Mulberry Sellers—this was some days before he wrote his letter to Lord Rossmore—was seated in his “library,” which was also his “drawing-room” and was also his “picture gallery” and likewise his “work-shop.” Sometimes he called it by one of these names, sometimes by another, according to occasion and circumstance. He was constructing what seemed to be some kind of a frail mechanical toy; and was apparently very much interested in his work. He was a white-headed man, now, but otherwise he was as young, alert, buoyant, visionary and enterprising as ever. His loving old wife sat near by, contentedly knitting and thinking, with a cat asleep in her lap. The room was large, light, and had a comfortable look, in fact a home-like look, though the furniture was of a humble sort and not over abundant, and the knickknacks and things that go to adorn a living-room not plenty and not costly. But there were natural flowers, and there was an abstract and unclassifiable something about the place which betrayed the presence in the house of somebody with a happy taste and an effective touch ...
He’s a bit of a lug nut, but he’s our lug nut. Sergeant George Washington Hayduke, former Green Beret, has recently returned for Vietnam and is looking for his purpose in life when he falls in with a rag-tag group of folks on rafting trip in the Grand Canyon. They become The Monkey Wrench Gang, environmental activists, eco warriors, monkey wrenchers, that sort of thing:
Hayduke:
To “Monkey Wrench” something is to render an implement of progress useless by direct action, like dumping 5 pounds of sugar into the gas tank of a bulldozer.Quote:
My job is to save the f*cking wilderness. I don't know anything else worth saving. That's simple, right?
From The Monkey Wrench Gang, by Ed Abbey:
More about Hayduke:Quote:
If God meant this here bulldozer to live He wouldn't of filled its tank with diesel fuel.
Hayduke’s inner struggle:Quote:
Like so many American men, Hayduke loved guns, the touch of oil, the acrid smell of burnt powder, the taste of brass, bright copper alloys, good cutlery, all things well made and deadly.
Hayduke speaks:Quote:
Hayduke smelled something foul in all this. A smoldering bitterness warmed his heart and nerves; the slow fires of anger kept his cockles warm, his hackles rising. Hayduke burned. And he was not a patient man.
HAYDUKE LIVES!Quote:
I piss on you from a considerable height
Movie and book The Third Man by Graham Greene:
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/vi...20241202062641
The ####### was as evil as they come. But he was a charmer, dressed well, had class, was articulate, enterprising, resourceful, funny as f**k, and memorable. He was killed by his childhood friend Holly Martins and he deserved to die for his evils.
But wait - did he really die as both the book and the movie showed?
Consider all this:
•We are told from the beginning of the movie that "this is Vienna, anything can happen".
•Baron Kurtz tells Holly, "I enjoy your books as anything can happen [in them]."
•The first one to greet Harry is the cat (9 lives?).
•Harry's shoes are wing tipped (meaning the Phoenix or multiple lives).
•Holly & Harry meet at the Ferris Wheel representing the endless circle of life.
•In the Ferris Wheel Harry tells Holly 'we can never hurt each other'.
•Holly is asked at the end, 'did you kill him?' and he says 'yes' but the body is not shown.
•At the second funeral for Harry, again, his body is not shown.
•3 or 4 years after the movie The Third Man reappears as a radio series with Harry narrative his own "death" and subsequent adventures.
•4 years after that Harry appears on European TV in modern day Europe having more adventures.
Thus, the anti hero Harry Lime was NOT killed in the end of the movie. He was wickedly evil. But he was so resourceful that he managed to escape and thrive for decades to come.
Definitely one of literature's most fascinating characters.
Have Gun Will Travel was one of television's greatest shows. This because of its fascinating leading character Clay Alexander better known as Paladin. Book by Frank G Robertson.
Paladin:
◆Graduate of West Point Academy
◆Civil War hero
◆Marksman
◆Professional boxer
◆High class detective & bounty hunter with strong, principled moral code
◆Wine and food connoisseur
◆Reads/write Chinese with much proficiency
◆Award winning hunter who captured and killed man eating tiger in Asia
◆World traveler
◆Bon vivant who dresses superbly well
◆Lady's man whom women find irresistible
Have gun will travel, reads the card of a man
A knight without armor in a savage land
His fast gun hire, heeds the calling wind
A soldier of fortune, is a man called --- Pal-a- din
Paladin, Paladin, where do you roam
Paladin, Paladin, far, far from home
He travels on to where ever he must
A chess knight of silver is his badge of trust
There are campfire legends that the plainsmen men sing
Of the man with the gun, of the man called --- Pal-a- din
Paladin, Paladin
Where do you roam?
Far from home
Far from home ...
Definitely one of American literature's greatest characters.
I recall now that I did discuss this book earlier however, I went more in depth this time to discuss the character of Paladin.
Happy May Day - Beltane to all.
I am reminded of Hawthorne's story The May Pole of Merry Mount:
https://www.google.com/search?q=The+...t=gws-wiz-serp
The story features my LEAST favorite character of all time: the bigoted and intolerant Governor Endicott. He is one guy I'd like to briefly put a choke hold on him and hopefully teach him to be more tolerant.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...erry_Mount.jpg
For you too, Poppins and thanks for the story and link, I'm going to read it later.
a perfect literary pull for Beltane! The May-Pole of Merry Mount is such a fascinating clash of joy and repression, light and shadow. Endicott really is the embodiment of cold, puritanical severity — the killjoy of killjoys. I can understand the chokehold impulse! Hawthorne’s brilliance is how he captures that moment in history when merriment itself was seen as a threat to order. It's a reminder that even joy can be revolutionary.
Thanks for sharing — now I want to reread it by the fire with a bit of mischief in mind.
quote,
Danik 2016
For you too, Poppins and thanks for the story and link, I'm going to read it later.
tonywalt
a perfect literary pull for Beltane! The May-Pole of Merry Mount is such a fascinating clash of joy and repression, light and shadow. Endicott really is the embodiment of cold, puritanical severity — the killjoy of killjoys. I can understand the chokehold impulse! Hawthorne’s brilliance is how he captures that moment in history when merriment itself was seen as a threat to order. It's a reminder that even joy can be revolutionary.
Thanks for sharing — now I want to reread it by the fire with a bit of mischief in mind.
💯 for both!