NP:Greatest Dead Novelist

[kelber at mindspring.com]

The great thing about BK (Brothers Karamazov, not Burger King!) is that Dostoevsky set out to write a definitive Christian novel, but somewhere along the way, he was hijacked by his own doubts; thus Ivan's eclipsing of Alyosha.  It becomes a novel about the unrequited longing for true faith of a man (Dostoevsky/Ivan) who's unable to abandon his own rationalism.    And it's wrapped up in a novel with an interesting plot and fascinating characters. 

Laura

-----Original Message-----
>From: jd <wescac at gmail.com>
>Sent: Sep 14, 2006 4:13 PM
>To: Dave Monroe <monropolitan at yahoo.com>
>Cc: kelber at mindspring.com, pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: Re: NP:Greatest Dead Novelist
>
>I would say Dostoevsky would certainly make the list.  Anna "greatest
>book ever written" (as some people say, I've not read it) Karenina
>would probably cause Tolstoy to be on it as well.  I'd say Gaddis,
>too.  It's so much harder to quantify the dead, if only because
>there's so many more of them and as soon as you say Dostoevsky then
>there's people quoting Homer (if you could count him a "writer") and
>Aristotle and any number of others.  Hell, the greatest dead writer's
>work probably hasn't survived to this era.  But I'm a pessimist.
>
>One thing I will say about Dostoevsky that would be an argument
>against him (even though I like him quite a bit) is - well, Brothers
>Karamazov.  He wanted Alyosha to be the hero of the book and yet for
>me he's a shadow to Ivan.  Dostoevsky so skillfully skewered religion
>through Ivan, intentionally, intending to use Alyosha to rise above
>that argument, but even he himself felt (if I remember correctly) that
>he failed, hence the unfinished (unstarted?) sequel-that-never-was
>(died before he had a chance to finish / start it, I would imagine
>"start" to be more accurate as I'd guess that an unfininshed
>manuscript would still be circulating these days had it existed).  I
>love Brothers Karamazov, but not necessarily for the reason he
>intendend people to love it.  Was there any tangible argument that
>overcame Ivan's, other than his deus-ex-machina-esque descent to
>madness?
>
>On 9/14/06, Dave Monroe <monropolitan at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> Not sure that I either do, can, or am qualified to,
>> but who are the other contenders?  Let me know ...
>>
>> --- kelber at mindspring.com wrote:
>>
>> > There's a fair amount of agreement on this list that
>> > Pynchon is the greatest living novelist.  But how
>> > about the greatest non-living novelist?  I vote
>> > vociferously for Dostoevsky.  Anyone disagree?
>>
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