Do L Pass The Vibe Check

Do l pass the vibe check

i really can’t stress enough how much i recommend regularly engaging with older art– movies, books, whatever. like, “Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it” and all that, but also, there’s just something really fascinating and kind of beautiful about reading something written by someone who lived so long ago and really connecting with it, recognizing the humanity of people who once seemed like abstract concepts to you

On the peasant in the snow

Okay so I've been reading and rereading Book Eleven for a while now, which is why this blog is gradually becoming even more Ivan-centric than it already was, for multiple reasons (partially because of my bipolar Ivan essay, but mostly because it's my favorite book out of all of them, it's so interesting to me and gives me so much to think and write about so I don't want it to end) and Ivan does a lot of strange things in there that I've always been able to find an explanation to, mostly because poor guy's going through dysphoric mania and psychosis and I get where he's coming from, but there was one thing that I didn't understand. Until I thought about it a little harder because I felt that it was very important.

The thing is, even if his mental state isn't the best in those moments, the things he does never really striked me as out of character (I'll talk about it in the last part of my aforementioned, and at this point quite famous since I'm constantly mentioning it, essay in the future) because again, I get it, but I felt weird about the way he acts when he encounters the drunk man on his way to Smerdyakov's for his last visit: he's walking in the snowstorm and he sees a drunk peasant who later falls on him, Ivan pushes him away violently and he falls unconscious to the ground; Ivan then thinks to himself that the man will freeze do death and walks away. I didn't really get it at first, but when I did I had to close the book for a few minutes because Ivan Karamazov you bastard you'll drive me mad.

As the man, a short peasant walking in zig-zags while swearing and singing to himself in a husky drunken voice, walks in his direction Ivan feels a very deep hatred towards him and even feels the impulse to knock him down and okay, just Ivan being Ivan, he's like that all the time, but then he leaves him there and wait a fucking minute. Ivan is definitely not someone who lacks empathy, and even if he is more empathetic towards children than he is towards adults by his own admission, he would never let a stranger die just like that, and in the end he indeed doesn't. I decided to go over the description of the man and on the particular verse of the song Ivan hears him sing again, which also echoes in Ivan's head after he hears Pavel's confession: Vanka's gone to Petersburg / I won't wait till he comes back. The man is described in a way that resembles Fyodor; and Ivan (Vanka) went away (to Moscow, not to Petersburg, but still) and Fyodor didn't wait for him to come back because he died and Ivan didn't even make it in time to attend the funeral. And that's when I closed the book; please please please don't tell me Ivan almost left a stranger to die in the snow because he saw his own father in him.

What made me want to scream even more than I already did is how that ends: as I already mentioned and as we all know, on his way back to his place he picks the man up, goes to the nearest house to ask for help and saves the man's life; he even calls and pays for a doctor to make sure he's okay. That is who Ivan truly is and that's why I always say that his words are rarely reliable; he said he was going to kill Smerdyakov, yet we're shown that once again he's just putting up an act and that Father Zosima was (of course) right about him: he's a struggling soul with a noble heart, as he tells Ivan in Book One. He's not like Pavel described him to be during that last visit; he tells Ivan that he's more like Fyodor than any of his children and Ivan agrees, but Ivan's perception of himself is already skewed on its own and Pavel is just another person who didn't understand Ivan. Ivan's actions redeem him and show us his true colors while his words condemn him; he's going to testify against himself at the trial and he decides to save the life of that stranger that reminded him too much of his father, that he wanted dead. Or did he, really?

This was supposed to be a short post but I talk too much, especially when it comes to Ivan; I can't believe the first meta I post that is not part of my bipolar Ivan Karamazov agenda in months still turns out to be about him. I swear that I have things about other characters in my drafts, I just want to be done with that essay first but at the same time I needed a break from it so yeah. The thing that drives me insane about this novel is that it's made of parallels and metaphors and I love stuff like that, so my metas are often about parallels and metaphors. Expect more of them in the future (it sounds like I'm threatening you but I swear I'm not) (maybe).

Morning Star