Emo Orthodox: ang konyong kalahati ng isang usapang Karamazov

I was then a very unhappy young man. I suppose young men are fond of unhappiness. They do their best to be unhappy, and they generally achieve it. And then I was shamed because I discovered an author who was doubtless a very happy man. It must have been 1916 when I came to Walt Whitman, and then I felt ashamed of my unhappiness. I felt ashamed that I tried to be still more unhappy by the reading of Dostoyevski.
—Jorge Luis Borges


—it will help. kesa naman sa students lumabas yang sama ng loob mo

—

—or ... worse, maging self-loathing

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—good to hear. mabuti ganyan ka sa kanila. in my book, kahit saang eskuwela ka basta ganyan ka sa estudyante maganda iyan. kesa naman manatili ka diyan tapos maging katulad ka ng mga tanders na masama ang ugali

—

—nasa baligtad akong proseso ngayon, binabawasan ko ang convict face. i'm mellowin' down, hahaha

—

—

—

—

—weird lang. alam mo sa hum1, large class, pinagsusulat ko sila. yung isang lalaki, absorbed na absorbed, kinakamot yung gilid ng ilong niya ng eraser ng lapis. muntikan ko nang sawayin na para bang sinasaway ko si neneng! haha as in muntikan na talaga

—

—

—

—

—

—sana lang. but the changes inside the classroom, only the students could be the judge of that. i still think may ibang (at baka mas mabuting) natutunan yung mga iba na katulad nyo who had to go through a more punishing routine.

—halimbawa yung hum1 ko, ang igsi ng mga pinapabasa ko. e si mam dadu hinagisan kami ng karamazov

—

—

—at nagpapasalamat pa rin ako sa kanya. sa kanya pala ako unang nakabasa ng virginia woolf . . . miss ormerod ang kuwento

—

—

—

—

—hahagisan mo sila ng war and peace?

—

—haha ansaya! teach hundred years in episodes siguro. sa panpil, tinalakay namin yan. hal: anong masasabi nila sa sequence nung mahabang ulan, o yung mga bakang nilalalagyan ng label

—o yung masaker na nakalimutan ng lahat. parang as a collection of short stories muna bago iintegrate bilang novel, at least that's how i would do it

—

—

—crime and punishment, isang bagsakan yan ano? hindi kayang tilad-tilarin. miss ko na tuloy mag-dostoyevski

—miss ko na ang canon siguro, kaso super ang takot ko sa downloadable reviews

—

—

—kunsabagay

—how would you teach crime and punishment?

—

—

—

—

—

—

—ang downer ng denouement na yun. bakit kahit nasa 'rehab' siya parang nakakalungkot pa rin?

—

—

—tama ba? or am i mixing this with ivan k?

—

—

—

—sino ba yung parang pinadala sa wasteland tapos parang nagbabalik-loob sa diyos?

—

—

—

—rasko then. of the same cloth kasi. but it's an impressive cloth so okey lang kahit makailang beses ginamit ni dosto

—

—

—

—

—ah i see. kadiri talaga si smerdyakov (smerdyankov?) pero stroke of genius ang paggawa ng character na yun

—

—gambler kasi siya, hahaha

—

—una, for some reason, kahit tinapos mo na ilang beses ang bros.k, sobrang shadowed ni smerds na parang never siyang kabilang sa "bros" ng bros k.

—

—

—yes! ngunit nagkaroon ng culpability yung utak ni ivan k.

—

—

—

—

—

—

—in a way merging si smerds ng utak ni ivan at (resentment sa) lakas/natural force/beauty ni kuya (dmitri ba?) . . . and he was made possible by the absence of alyosha. kahit pa gaano kaspiritwal ang reasons ni alyosha

—grabe lang yung pasok ng ano nga bang tawag sa chapter na yun? yung inquisitor ba and jesus?

—

—

—YUN!

—

—

—anuano? abt grand inq, i mean, bakit ka napapamura nun!

—dosto orthodox!

—

—

—

—tapos halik lang, semplang na

—

—

—

—

—

—pero antindi ng kiss na yun! saktong-sakto. feeling ko kahit si dosto haunted ng image na yun

—

—

—

—

—

—at ang matindi pa, yung deep-seated rejection ng halik. in a way yung absence ng halik ang nagmotivate sa paring yun na maging grand inq. tapos nung dumating na, hindi nya kinaya.

Criticizing Critics

Happy day! I just finished reading The Return of the King. Thus ends my reading of The Lord of the Rings. As for my being a Tolkien reader, I may have only just begun. I am disinclined to reread The Hobbit or any of the LOTR books, as I've just finished poring over those. What I have in mind (and stored in this impersonal computer of ours) is a copy of Silmarillion. For this I am grateful to Paul, Sandigan's erstwhile webmaster.

Critics said it was the best among Tolkien's works. Critics usually do that. They pick some less popular piece in a certain author's corpus and say it's the true classic. Hell, I don't know any "decent" Shakespeare critic who would choose Romeo and Juliet over Macbeth or King Lear!

It's like saying, "all you guys have been reading the wrong book. I on the other hand have gone through all his works, I've read his unpublished thesis, I even read those little love letters he wrote when he was a pimply adolescent! From that wide selection that nobody else cared to labor over, I say this obscure work no one cared about is the real deal."

"Got any questions? Or have you read what I read? What framework are you coming from?"

I can't blame them (or "us?") though. I mean, they spent their baccalaureate degrees over literature getting everything - language, stylistics, milieu, tone, plot, every excruciating detail! What was the color of the wallet that the American soldier let drop? How many witches were there in Macbeth, with or without speaking lines, three or four? Did you count Lady Macbeth? Explain. Was there really a devil or was that just Ivan Karamazov's hallucination? Or is this whole exam just a hallucination in Ivan's world-view? In yours?

They got everything really. Maybe except entertainment?

And they (okay, "we") devote postgraduate time and toil too. We look and sound so erudite, such connoisseurs of "high thought." And what do we tell the masses? "You watched Romeo and Juliet? That's Shakespeare at his best you know!" or "You've just finished The Fellowship of the Ring? It's just the greatest, isn't it?"

"Duh? Hello," the brave reader speaks, "We knew that. You spent your time studying literature just to say that?" They have a point too. They have an engineering, medicine, or law degree (and salary to boot) and they also got that.

So I'll just raise my erudite high brow. Oh. Romeo and Juliet? He was such an amateur then, wasn't he? Oh. LOTR is good for starters. I assume you're just warming up to read Silmarillion. Now that's worth reading!

And those years of snobbish faithfulness to the canon, those excruciating minute detail studies, the piled fiction that I never really enjoyed with those doses of caffeine, all that money I'm not going to have, it's all worth the puzzled look on his face and the forced, hesitant, nod. A pretense of acquiescence. "Uh yeah, right, 'Selma Reyon,' I'll start reading on her soon!"

But he may just say "Screw you! You wasted years in that nuthouse academe! Everybody loves Romeo and Juliet, freak!"

*

Belle, kakukuha ko lang nga nung link na iyan para sa mga komento per artikulo. Sana nga e magamit mo! Ok lang sa akin na mangarag riyan. Pwede ko naman i-delete e, hehe! Pero yun naman talaga yung silbi nyan. Para medyo makapa ko naman kung ano ang epekto o kawalan ng epekto ng sulatin.

Ok lang na magkwentuhan blues tayo rito! Medyo naintriga nga ako sa sagot mo sa mahal nating Mel sa susma e. Huwag kang maasar ha? Wala kasi akong tuwirang karanasan sa ganuong bagay e.

Trixy, salamat sa komento mo sa deskripsyon sa blag! Malaking bagay lalo na't galing sa iyo.

Ria at Chie, papunta na ako riyan sa Cavite! Antay lang! At ikaw nastranded dyan, musta na? Heto yung SMS mo sa akin, ibablag ko kasi trip ko:

"The most beautiful things are those that madness prompts and reason writes."
-Andre Gide

O di ba? Pangkalahatang gabay (at deskripsyon na rin nga) sa mga nagbablag katulad natin?

Narito nga pala sa tinig.com v 11.0, ang pagbasa ko sa pagtatapat ng mga pwersang Amerikano at Abu Sayyaf sa Filipino psyche. Alam kong ilang beses ko na nasabi ito pero sasabihin ko uli, dala ng sobrang emosyon. Nakakaasar talaga na matawag na Abu lover ng tumatayong lider ng bansa. Hurt ako.