Tag Archives: Fyodor Dostoevsky

putin: land of toska and dousha

Russians have always had a thread of excess, showing itself strong and clear against the somber texture of their existence. Extreme activity. Extreme laziness. Extreme appetite. The extremely excessive. The extravagant Slav temperament seems to be traced to all classes … Continue reading

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the sweet smell of excess

More Medvedev and Svetlana. This time they look a little better attired. Maybe the album graphics are more interesting than the album which was a bit of a dog. Why no mention for Leon Russell? What is he; chopped liver … Continue reading

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relating to the THIRD

Relating to the other. It sounds like a great idea. We are depersonalized and the concept of the face to face as opposed to human relationships seen through attempts to conceptualize the totality of being has a certain intuitive appeal … Continue reading

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reason to believe or be deceived: who’s zoomin’ who

The struggle between generations is one of the most obvious constants.The 1960’s were not unique in this sense, but were unique in terms of radical dissent and cultural innovation; an extreme form of alienation transformed from the typical peripheral experience … Continue reading

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RUNNING WITH LIONS:The Enigma of “The Idiot”

For all of them Henri Rousseau was the “venerable child” of art, the great primitive who lived and worked beyond the reach of damaging speculation and sophistication, at one with himself, original, as nature had made him. Conscious, deliberate action … Continue reading

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AN OBSESSION WITH UNREASON: Absolute and Faithless Doubt

Caravaggio has become the ultimate old master superstar; his only real rival is Vermeer. It was a great if sadly short career. Caravaggio’s work was an expression of awareness of the precariousness of a reason that can at any moment be compromised, … Continue reading

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BLAME IT ON INERTIA:TO STRAIGHTEN OR TO SLOUCH?

“To his dismay and frustration, he found himself unable to change. He persisted on a sinful course even though the force that originally set him on this course, his will, was no longer being exerted in that direction. Sinning out … Continue reading

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PENETRATING THE ILLUSIONS OF SELF: SHIVERING WITH SHAME

“In a 1937 broadcast entitled,” Craftsmanship,” Virginia Woolf seems to predict the ways that contemporary political movements and subsequent social changes have impacted on readers’ ability to discern meanings in her fiction inaccessible to previous generations. She writes that “words that are unintelligible … Continue reading

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A CASTLE, A KAFKA, CARTONS & CONRAD THE COMRADE

”The recurrence of linkages of one sort or another between Hitler and Kafka throughout “Hitler studies” is rather remarkable–and controversial. In addition to the D. M. Thomas character’s conjecture about the kinship of Kafka and Hitler as artists of the … Continue reading

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FAITH HEALERS AND TOUCHY-FEELERS

Russians have always had a centuries-long passion for the occult, and in times of social and political change  the paranormal mushroomed, with all manner of psychics, wizards and sorcerers popping up to offer so-called “magical services”, on a much grander, … Continue reading

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