Dostoevsky taught me that not by arguing, but by creating—creating characters who demonstrated the dehumanized desiccation of an unGodded life and, in contrast and comparison, the terrible beauty of a pursuit after God. —”God and Passion” by Eugene Peterson (pdf)
My bones are under assault. Dostoevsky is at it again, and this time its Crime and Punishment. While some folks might argue that Brothers Karamazov, The Idiot and Demons are less than blood-curdling thrillers, it would be hard to say that C+P falls short of spellbinding. But like the rest of his oeuvre, even the minor events are spectacles, and much is to be said of the discontinuous, sudden and unexpected, disharmonious and undignified. In a word, terrible—but all the while broadcasting a comical carnival of disruptive and unsettling truths spoken by holy fools. Its an upside-down religious experience of weirdness and wonder, one that reckons a new sense of righteousness coming at us despite our best intentions to avoid it.
A reading from Mr David Dark’s latest Questioning Everything with a revelatory word on Dostoevsky’s “surefire drama of people going crazy” (4min).