Are they really as crazy as Dostoevsky makes them seem? Or is it just that Dostoevsky was somewhat crazy?
Russians
22 responses to “Russians”
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What are you reading?
Tolstoi’s aren’t so crazy, but then he was crazy.
AMDG -
Devils, formerly known as The Possessed. The only Tolstoy I’ve read is Anna Karenina, and that was forty years ago, so I don’t remember it very well at all. But I don’t remember it having this crazy quality. It’s true of Crime and Punishment and Brothers Karamazov as well.
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No, AK doesn’t have it either. It has that, “No, no, stop! Don’t do that!” quality.
AMDG -
Yes, I remember that sense from AK. The funniest thing is that I also read Devils around that time, and I have almost no memory at all of it. But I remember AK fairly substantially. Reading Devils now, I can see why much of it would have escaped me.
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Current events would suggest they are more as Dostoevsky describes and less as Tolstoy does. This is a shame.
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Yeah, that thought has been hovering around in the back of my mind.
Something else to think about: forty years or more ago I read a remark by W.H. Auden that has stuck with me ever since, to the effect that Americans and Russians are more like each other than either is like the English. -
I’m trying to think of whether or not I’ve ever met a Russian. I think not.
AMDG -
I think I’ll just prefer to be like the English and not be American or Russian. Reminds me of a funny anecdote — my wife and I were traveling and stopped in Grenada, Mississippi a while back. We walked across the street from the hotel to a Wal Mart for some provisions for the evening. While checking out the cashier asked us if we were from England. We still laugh about it to this day – if you are in a small town in the Deep South and do not speak with a Southern accent does this then tag you as a foreigner? 🙂
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The last few years I lived in the U.S., I had a dental hygienist who was a recent Russian immigrant. It was non-stop, heavy-duty dramatic stories the whole time I was in the chair. A very nice lady who often came this close to hugs.
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El Miserable: ?!?! that’s bizarre. It’s not like people in Grenada, Mississippi don’t hear a steady diet of non-southern accents on tv.
I’m not sure I’ve ever met a Russian, either. But “non-stop, heavy-duty dramatic stories” certainly fit with the Dostoevsky picture. Especially if they don’t quite make sense.:-) -
You mean all those people in WalMart that I thought were from England really live in Mobile?
AMDG -
Living in Mobile, but from Florida and New Mexico. Both pretty exotic from the Mississippi point of view, I guess.
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I’ve met two Russians as far as I can recall. They were both pretty mad!
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Oh definitely, Maclin, especially Florida. I get so excited whenever I get to talk to somebody from Florida. I visited there a couple of times and it was like being in a wonderland.
AMDG -
Truth be told, I haven’t had much contact with people from New Mexico, but I have read The Last Gentleman.
AMDG -
I know you must envy my proximity to Florida. When I cross the state line, it’s kind of like the scene in The Wizard of Oz where the black and white turns to color. I mean–Pensacola is such a magical place.
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I do. That picture reminds me a lot of Orlando.
AMDG -
W.H. Auden that has stuck with me ever since, to the effect that Americans and Russians are more like each other than either is like the English.
He was not referring to drinking habits, I take it. -
I actually don’t remember any more of the context than that, or even what the piece as a whole was about. But no, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t that.
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That picture of Pensacola is fabulous. 🙂
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You should go there Louise, then you could come see us again.
AMDG -
I just kind of feel the tension melting away when I look at that picture.
Light On Dark Water 
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