The dialogue between Ivan and Aloshya leading up to the Grand Inquisitor chapter is one of sustained power and mastery which I imagine Dostoievsky wrote beating out each awkward sentence while the fire was still hot. The two full brothers Ivan and Aloshya, the former a philosopher wielding arguments from evil to question God, to call him to task; the latter in the monkish garb of a novitiate responding with faith shaken by the examples that he is confronted with.
But really they are very young and are foolish; opinionated yet ignorant. Not stupid, that can’t be said of them, not in the least, because they want to get to the bottom of things. Young men, there will be terrible things to face before long. Will you be ready to ‘love life more than its meaning’, to live it with ‘your insides’?
No comments:
Post a Comment