You are here: Home » Uncategorized » Prince Myshkin and Me

1 Hillel Damron March 1, 2010 at 1:28 am

I probably shouldn’t do that, Cathleen, but I’m doing it anyway. With my laptop on my lap, I just finished reading your essay in the NYT Book Review. I was so taken by it, I even muted the TV screen in front of me, broadcasting the closing ceremony of the Winter Olympics (I’m in the West). You see, what you are describing in your beautiful assay is the story of my life, too (in the literary sense, but not only, come to think of it). I was a little bit older, though, when I fell under the spell of the” Idiot” after finishing my service in the Israeli army. I can actually say—oy vey—that that moment changed my life. I just never met before an American who read Dostoyevsky. Certainly not that kind of a reading. (Even what you wrote about Hemingway’s “The Dead Man and The Sea” fits me like a glove).
“Prince Myshkin and Me” is such a better title than the one they chose in the book review. And I tell you what: I am still in love with him. He’s looking at me now through the glass of my bookcase, asking for a comeback. I’ve read him first in Hebrew, in Tel Aviv, then in English in a paperback Penguin addition, in London. But a new, hardcover copy is waiting patiently for me. Only now, in the last six months (I’m a slow reader), I’m spending my nights with Anna Karenina. But first love is first love, don’t you think? That’s what Dostoyevsky still is for me.

Thanks so much,
Hillel Damron

2 Tom L. Grenier March 1, 2010 at 5:54 am

A Fascinating and uplifting essay ,Cathleen…so good to read the Times review of 3W’s of W’port… Last read “alice in bed” but now will continue with your complete works in sequence. Best wishes.

3 Kelley D. Ritchey March 1, 2010 at 6:11 am

Beautiful essay, Cathleen. It articulates so well the idea that there is so much to enjoy and discover- at 25, 35, and much older.

4 Beth P. March 1, 2010 at 8:18 am

I, too, discovered the joy of ‘My Antonia’ last month at the age of 46 and as I read it I could not help feeling immensely glad that I did not get around to it until now. If I had read it in my twenties, with all of my youthful impatience and inexperience, there is no way that I would have appreciated the subtle beauty and nuance of Cather’s writing. Thanks for a great article!

5 Matt K. March 1, 2010 at 3:28 pm

Reading The Idiot during a low point in my life nearly destroyed me. But I strongly recommend giving Dostoevsky another shot as soon as you can.

6 Adam Reich March 2, 2010 at 12:38 am

I just read your NY Times article and decided to look you up on the off chance that I might find a place to leave you a comment. I’m in luck. Found you! I started reading Dostoyevsky in my early 20s- luckily, I was not forced to read him in my early teens, (though other books were indeed “ruined” by English class back then)- and have found his works not only enjoyable but often absolutely thrilling. They usually take me about 100-150 pages to get wrapped up in, (so don’t give up), but they are well worth the effort. The characters are very rich and all seem to perfectly balance one another, forming fully fleshed-out worlds that result in gripping journeys and very insightful and rewarding endings. The Idiot is wonderful, (I actually happen to be re-reading it right now), but I would suggest starting with Crime and Punishment, as I remember it being a bit smoother, more exciting ride from the get-go. Anyway, good luck wrestling your literary nemesis, and thanks for the article!

7 tizzie.lish April 4, 2010 at 11:21 pm

For a Humanities class in undergrad, I was assigned Crime and Punishment, which I inhaled over the course of several days, doing nothing but reading it (which you can do sometimes in college). I went to a good undergrad university with demanding coursework. C&P was the assigned reading for about a week’s worth of class discussions and we had advance notice of the work (that’s what syllabus is for). Our reading assignments were doled out, let’s say I was told to read 200 pages by the first class that discuss C&P, then 200 more for the second. But once I got started, I couldn’t stop.

A guy was I was dating was in the class. He steadily undermined my reading skills because I always read things faster than him. He constantly nagged me, telling me I didn’t comprehend the material, that it was not possible to really read and understand Doestoevsky when I read him so quickly. I was a young female in the early seventies, vulnerable to male dominators. I believed that guy, distrusted my ability to absorb Crime and Punishment. Still, I got an A on the paper . . . and thirty five years after I graduated from college, I still remember quite a lot from that novel.

I sent my now-grown daughter to Waldorf schools. In Waldorf schools, instruction begins by telling the children stories, cultural myths that shape, well, culture. Fairies are told in first and second grade. Reading is not really taught in Waldorf schools. Children are prepared to read and trusted to begin reading when the time is right for them . . . and they all make the transition, boys reading later than girls, of course. Then, if the children are truly blessed and attend a Waldorf high school, the eleventh grade curriculum reads fairy tales again. Fairy tales are repeated because fairy tales are embedded with many important lessons for the unfolding human but a story met at age six brings different lessons than stories met at age sixteen. Fairy tales are repeated in the k-12 Waldorf curriculum to give the growing humans two opportunities to integrate the archetypal lessons in fairy tales. This also addresses the old writing-class saw that there are only a few stories, a few basic plots told over and over. Humans take away completely different lessons each time they hear a story, even if it is the exact same story every time.

I loved your piece, Ms. Schine, in the NYTimes on your reading history. My daughter is now 27. I basically ‘only’ exposed her to books that had been important to me when I was a kid. I never heard of The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe, for example . . . so neither did she. I regularly come upon books that I did not offer my daughter and then I have to be careful to avoid remonstrating myself for having failed her. I did my best . . . plus my daughter was her own person. She could not get into Jane Austen!

Willa Cather. I lived in NE for a few years. My daughter was born there. I had already discovered Willa, though, before I lived in NE. In my earliest feminist fire, I aggressively sought out female literature, which is how I found Willa Cather. When I find a writer I like, I tend to inhale everything they have written. My Antonia has been one of my most beloved books since the seventies. And I pushed her on my daughter, because my daughter was born in Nebraska. . . but she never got into Willa Cather. Not yet.

I am in the process, Ms. Schine, of inhaling your books, having just finished The Three Weismanns of Westport. I am reading The Love Letter this evening.