.webp?h=8 "Top Hat (black) - Traditional. Classy. Elegant.")
To discuss your weekly readings of books, textbooks and papers.
I'm in part 5 of "Crime & Punishment", I'm currently doing a re-reading. The first time I read that book was 9 years ago, I remember the general plot but I had forgotten many details and there's a lot to the story I didn't understand on my first reading. I know Dostoevsky sometimes gets derided as a book for edgy young men but that's quite unfair considering how much influence he had on writers like Kafka, James Joyce, García Márquez, Mishima, Camus. And I think many miss the point that Dostoevsky critizes the nihilists (19th century edgelords) of his era. He can be quite a vicious satirist, there's a chapter where the proto commie Lebeziatnikov talks about how life in the commune will be and how marriage is outdated and how he's totally ok with cuckery and that he wishes being cucked if he ever gets married while Luzhin bursts in laughter while he monologues on a serious tone. Seriously, the guy vomited so many Rose twitter talking points, I guess there's nothing new under the sun.
Razumikhin is a chad just like I remembered him, he's the friend everyone wishes to have. Rodion is a pseudo-intellectual, he tries so hard to be edgy with his "extraordinary men not bounded to crime" manifesto believing himself as a sort of ubermensch, I love how Dostoevsky shreds his worldview as he suffers from guilt. I never read Brothers Karamazov but now I'm definitely going for it and add it to my reading list.
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I re-read Heart of Darkness but all the way through this time.
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Thoughts on Mr. Kurtz?
Apocalypse Now should be judged on its own merits but it was such a poor adaptation and Brando was as guilty as Coppola for that.
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Kurtz was interesting. Before reading the book I heard a lot of hype about how cool he is, so, like Marlow, I was super hyped to see the legend in the flesh. Yet his arrival had little fanfare (the attack on the steamboat was meant to prevent his arrival, it was not part of it) and the demigod was bedridden. His grand skills as an orator escaped him as he stared down death, weeping about his grand dreams he was soon to rudely wake from. He died afraid. Kurtz is often compared to Judge Holden from Blood Meridian and while I see the similarities, the two of them serve vastly different thematic purposes. The Judge has (seemingly) surpassed his own humanity, he says that he will never die. Kurtz has forgotten his humanity and is forced to face it, unprepared. The way characters speak of his thought process is like how people spoke of Alexander the Great, someone who always seems to see a bigger picture than the rest of us. Like Alexander, he died not in battle but of disease. The end of the book is a conversation between Marlow and Kurtz' fiance. Not once did Kurtz mention her. She saw the greatness in him, just like all others, and she loved him for it. She mentions how the pursuit of wealth was so important to him, which makes Marlow wonder if he had perhaps grown up poor. Marlow notices just how little he has heard of Kurtz before his career in the Congo. This makes me think of Jeffrey Skilling of Endron fame. Supposedly Skilling had a modest upbringing and was an unpopular nerd for much of his youth, but around the time he was hired by Endron, had reimagined himself as a larger-than-life business tycoon. This is also not unlike the story Elon Musk tells about himself. I think the point of Kurtz is that people focus too much on the "man" part of "great man." Behind the facade of omnipotence impressive leaders put up, they must struggle and die just like the rest of us. I like to imagine Kurtz loved his intended.
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Judge Holden is not human, he's a supernatural being, probably a demon while Kurtz is just a man.
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literally, I disagree on the supernatural Judge theory, and As omnicompetent as he is, I think he ultimately is a mortal man, and Thats what scares him so much, and Whatever exists without my knowledge exists without my consent. He is subject to the oldest, deepest human fear, the fear of the unknown
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Interesting take worth discussing.
!bookworms those of you who read Blood Meridian or participated of our Bookclub what do you think of Judge Holden?
I lean on the supernatural/heck spawn theory (he speaks several languages, fabricates gunpowder during an ambush, asserts the earth is millions of years old and doesn't age after 30 years).
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Speaking several languages was usual for educated men of the time and demonstrates how uneducated educated men of our time are
ok so Knowing how to make gunpowder isnt impossible either and it takes him a while to make it and they were luckly enough to be near a cave with guano
I just think it's funny that Believing that the earth is millions of years old starting coming totally into vogue during the 19th century
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The age of Earth was a controversial subject until the mid-20th century. Darwin's main struggle with the Theory of Evolution was the lack of geological record and the long timespan needed for complex species to evolve, at the time Lord Kelvin estimated the Earth was 20 million years old based on the time for the core to cool.
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I think the limitation was the age of the Sun actually. With no idea that nuclear reactions were even possible, they thought that all of the energy came from the gravitational collapse, and that's really not a lot of energy.
Regarding the Earth, wiki says
So not knowing about fission would only make them off by a factor of two or so.
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I feel like in this novel and No Country McCarthy personifies a certain geist using a character. Judge and Chigurh are both representative of the spirit of the times they are in. The Judge is McCarthy's take on the old west: colonial aspirations and the quest for knowledge but all sort of driven by a pointless, hedonistic bloodlust (or regular lust tbh)
Contrasted with Chigurh who is driven basically solely by money in the story
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Agree. Preternatural powers and inhuman evil
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Weird Al hasnt either
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Holy frick. He was almost fifty in "white and nerdy", 65 now.
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also like Yet again, hes immortal
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still unemployed then?
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When I was getting sober one of my friends in NA told me I looked like end of life Marlon Brando and suggested I dress up as Colonel Kurtz for Halloween.
My hair stopped growing when I was ~20 because I became kinda anorexic while using and then I temporarily blew up in weight when I stopped drugs.
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In Conrad's novella Mr. Kurtz is very thin due to poor nutrition and having spent years in the heart of the Congo.
Brando on the othe hand showed up fat at the set much to Coppola's chagrin.
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The virgin Francis Ford Coppola (contracted polio as a boy and become an artistic and demanding drama weirdo, went on in life to support politicians like Jerry Brown and Nancy Pelosi) vs the chad Marlon Brando (fricked anything that moved, drank and smoked profusely, grew fat and refused to memorize lines because his raw star power ensured he'd get roles anyway)
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Brandos interview asian corespondent Connie Chung was good, he didnt give a frick indeed
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Apocalypse Now is great until either the plantation or the brando scenes. Brando is a great actor but it just loses steam.
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Every time I reread hearts of darkness I appreciate it more. Great book.
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