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As far as I know, Mouse, Pepsi, and I are reading the book.
This one seems to start off a bit slow eh?
You loathe the father instantly and then have to keep track of the rest of the brothers.
I wonder but doubt if the story of the father will make him a little more complicated (like Humbert of Lolita) or if he'll stay easy to hate unequivocally. Initially we hear about his behavior: how he treated his wives, marriages, children. In a word: poorly. I think he's kinda the personification of Freud's idea of the id. Purely selfish and motivated by self gratification.
He's kind of a shocking character altogether, but I think one of the more surprising things is to see a father with no feelings towards his children. He forgets them completely and there's no demonstration of parental affection for his children at all thus far. It violates our expectations a bit more than his utter disregard for his wives I think. Maybe we're more used to seeing feelings change for a wife/husband or loveless marriages.
I thought maybe when we finally start to follow him more in the story (compared to the summary of the more distant past) we'd see that maybe he was a bit exaggerated and isn't quite the pig he seems, but no... I'm a chapter or so into Book II where they are at the meeting at the Monastery, so I've seen some of his interaction with Elder Zosima that is coloring this, but I'll save specifics about that stuff for the next thread dealing with Book II.
I haven't formed any solid opinion of the brothers yet.
Anyone have any thoughts so far based on the first few chapters?
This one seems to start off a bit slow eh?
You loathe the father instantly and then have to keep track of the rest of the brothers.
I wonder but doubt if the story of the father will make him a little more complicated (like Humbert of Lolita) or if he'll stay easy to hate unequivocally. Initially we hear about his behavior: how he treated his wives, marriages, children. In a word: poorly. I think he's kinda the personification of Freud's idea of the id. Purely selfish and motivated by self gratification.
He's kind of a shocking character altogether, but I think one of the more surprising things is to see a father with no feelings towards his children. He forgets them completely and there's no demonstration of parental affection for his children at all thus far. It violates our expectations a bit more than his utter disregard for his wives I think. Maybe we're more used to seeing feelings change for a wife/husband or loveless marriages.
I thought maybe when we finally start to follow him more in the story (compared to the summary of the more distant past) we'd see that maybe he was a bit exaggerated and isn't quite the pig he seems, but no... I'm a chapter or so into Book II where they are at the meeting at the Monastery, so I've seen some of his interaction with Elder Zosima that is coloring this, but I'll save specifics about that stuff for the next thread dealing with Book II.
I haven't formed any solid opinion of the brothers yet.
Anyone have any thoughts so far based on the first few chapters?
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