Tweet 7/10/16

By

All suffering is unique—and all suffering is common. I have to be reminded of the latter truth when I am suffering myself—and of the former when I see others suffering.

Popular posts from this blog

Front Matter (Preface) The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

By Anonymous
Image
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky Verily, verily I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. John xii,24 Preface I N STARTING out on the life of my hero, Alexei Fyodorovich Karamazov, I feel somewhat at a loss. By this I mean that, although I refer to Alexei (Alyosha) as my hero, I am well aware that he is by no means a great man, and this leads me to anticipate such obvious questions as: “What is so remarkable about your Alexei Karamazov that you should choose him as your hero? What exactly did he accomplish? Who has heard of him and what is he famous for? And why should I, the reader, spend time learning the facts of his life?” The last question is the fateful one because all I can answer is: “You may find that out for yourself from the novel.” But what if they read the novel and are still unconvinced that my Alexei is a remarkable man? I say this because I sadly anticip...
Read more

Front Matter (preface) Lyrical and Critical Essays by Albert Camus

By Anonymous
Image
Lyrical and Critical Essays by  Albert Camus Preface 1958 [by Albert Camus] The essays collected in this volume were written in 1935 and 1936 (I was then twenty-two) and published a year later in Algeria in a very limited edition. This edition has been unobtainable for a long time and I have always refused to have   The Wrong Side and the Right Side   reprinted. There are no mysterious reasons for my stubbornness. I reject nothing of what these writings express, but their form has always seemed clumsy to me. The prejudices on art I cherish in spite of myself (I shall explain them further on) kept me for a long time from considering their republication. A great vanity, it would seem, leading one to suppose that my other writings satisfy every standard. Need I say this isn’t so? I am only more aware of the inadequacies in   The Wrong Side and the Right Side   than of those in my other work. How can I explain this except by admitting that the...
Read more

Front Matter (introduction) An Armenian Sketchbook by Vasily Grossman

By Anonymous
Image
An Armenian Sketchbook   by Vasily Grossman Introduction An Armenian Sketchbook , written in early 1962, two years before Vasily Grossman’s death in September 1964, is unlike anything else Grossman wrote. It is deeply personal and has an air of spontaneity; Grossman seems simply to be chatting to the reader about his immediate impressions of Armenia—its people, its mountains, its ancient churches—and digressing, almost at random, onto subjects that range from the problem of nationalism to his views on art and even his difficulties with his bladder and bowels. The underlying cause of these physical problems was that Grossman was in the early stages of cancer, soon to be diagnosed in one of his kidneys. Just as   Everything Flows , which he began in the mid-1950s but continued to expand and revise during his last years, is Grossman’s political testament, so   An Armenian Sketchbook   is his personal testament, a discussion of the values he holds deare...
Read more