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Terms of the Duel

New-Year's resolutions have a pronounced and infamous tendency to fall by the wayside by, say, the 1st of February. Perhaps, however, that is because they are resolved upon, adhered to, and discarded, by solitary individuals. Perhaps what's needed is some good old-fashioned competitive spirit.

The participants:

  1. Ilya Gandelman - desk jockey from 9-5:30, Monday thru Friday. Free time activities include, but are not limited to, writing, reading, watching tv/movies (very selective in this area!), eating Meredith's delicious food, playing with Gizmo, spending time with family and friends.
  2. Meredith Gandelman - also a desk jockey, from 9-6, Monday thru Friday. Free time activities include, but are not limited to, reading, watching tv/movies, cooking/baking for Ilya (and others), snuggling/playing with Gizmo and spending time with family and friends.

The resolutions:

  1. To read more books
  2. To watch less television
  3. To spend less money (by reading library books, and by making our way through unread volumes gathering dust on the shelves)
  4. To spend more quality time together with a shared interest

Therefore, the challenge proposed: who can read the most books in a year? On one side the wife, on the other the husband: who'll get the most volumes under her or his belt before 2015?

The rules:

  1. Books will be chosen independently. Any genre or subject is eligible.
  2. No second thoughts once starting a book. An uncompleted book is not counted, except of course as time lost. We shall have to choose carefully; and if a book seems to be disappointing, best to soldier on through to the end!
  3. A 300-page minimum. However, books briefer than 300 pages may be combined with others to count as one entry in the Duel.

Saturday, January 18, 2014

We are all Kosh

Pages read today: 73 for Meredith, 49 for Ilya

I hate to reveal myself as a one-trick pony, but I am: and the trick apparently is to compare great works of literature to TV shows I've watched.  I did it with "The Grand Inquisitor" and Angel, and now I must, alas alack, confess that (oops) I did it again by concocting in my head a comparison between Dmitri Karamazov's dream and ye olde classic mid-90s low-budget sci-fi epic, Babylon 5. Of the two dreams I discussed yesterday, Dmitri had the redemptive, life-affirming one, and it reminded of an episode from the third season of Babylon 5, in which the character G'Kar gets hopped up on space meth, or something, and hits rock bottom (like Dmitri) after inflicting near-deadly violence (like Dmitri), at which point he has a spiritual revelation. Check, check, check. The points of divergence, however, are these: no space meth in Karamazov, and in Babylon 5 it's made rapidly clear that G'Kar's revelation is the fruit of telepathic manipulation by an alien, Kosh, who very much enjoys playing God.

Another point of divergence, and really the major one, is that G'Kar's epiphany, manipulation and all, takes in a way that Dmitri's doesn't seem thus far to have done.  From that point of epiphany onward, G'Kar becomes steadily more and more generous, self-sacrificing, noble, and virtuous, as the show goes on, until, admittedly rather late in the show, there comes a time when one says, "I think I've had enough of G'Kar and his insufferable bouts of wisdom." Dmitri, on the other hand, though his dream has made some sort of deep impression (his dialogue continues to be laced with those oblique references to it that no one else in the novel can comprehend), continues to be a Dostoevskian character: violent, passionate, deeply riven and conflicted.  The dream has not brought him any lasting peace or clarity.

 Although the novel ain't over yet. I have 62 pages left to go.  A lot can happen in 62 pages; I may even develop a new trick. We shall see what we shall see. Keep the pages turning.
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