I had such a hard time trying to figure out where Dostoevsky was going with this story (perhaps Dostoevsky himself wasn't yet sure) at the end of Part I. I suspect FD was still developing the story idea in his own head as he developed the plot from the 'idea'. I think he knew very well where he wanted to go with the story - but not entirely certain how he was going to get there. Until Part II. Just my own opinion.

Daaaamn that was deep. This analysis hit really hard in me

You also see the The Red Death as the narrator since he is the only left at the end of the story.

In your discussion you asked us to make a choice a) to stay in Omelas, b) go away somewhere. But in the story you may find more options: c) you may just take a child and save him (or just change a room and how he lives), d) you can take a place of this child and suffer yourself and free this child!or e) you can change rules in Omelas and even people will be happier knowing that no one is suffering anymore!!! Answering a question about homeless people - can we as society help them - I think “yes only” that homeless people want to change their lives And they just need little help, but if a person doesn’t want to work you can do nothing- it is his choice to be homeless.

My grandparents were one of the first people in the countryside they lived in to have a radio/ record player and all the neighbors and townspeople would come around twice a month for an evening of music and dancing and bring food as well as their own instruments for when the broadcasts were over and people weren’t ready to leave 💗 Grandma made Grandpa put it over in the Firehall (grandpa was a volunteer firefighter) but it worked out well because there was more room for dancing over there 😄

If you look at his works the way you do Tarantino's movies, as in they all take place in the same universe, you can connect this book to Crime and Punishment. Where that was a look at what happens when someone accepts the teachings of Nietzsche personally, this book looks at what happens to society when it embraces nihilism as a whole. And if you look at it holistically like that, you can see that this is an Orthodox Christian prophetic work on what will happen in Germany and Europe in the 1930s.

Brothers Karamazov is indeed his magnum opus because it's the greatest work of literary fiction of all time.

i can dig Flannery O'Connor, who herself really dug Faulkner. I really like reading about Faulkner, not so much reading him...

Awesome

Intentions matter not just your actions... Yes, for instance, I like to tip service more then just the general amount because I really believe in rewarding the labor people do, BUT if I was tipping because I felt guilty for some behavior, if I ever correct that behavior, the tipping would stop.

I am getting a tee shirt that says... The Dosta Coaster

Did General Epanchin give Myshkin money? I thought he set him up for a job and lodgings. I thought he was selflessly helping him out because he realized Myshkin was a genuine nice guy.

Great 👍🏽

Excellent analysis. Sutpen married Ellen for respectability, not additional wealth. Coldfield was a struggling, but respectable storekeeper.

What an insightful resource you both provide. Many thanks.

I still remember when I read it back in 2012 I couldn't understand it it's like philosophy book !!!

@8:45 Oates is great. She's right up there with Shirley Jackson. This story would never, ever be accepted from a new author today because publishing would have the same reaction as you did. A young female protagonist who is at least partly unlikable? Who is unable to physically beat up the adult male villain? Some mixed messages about the pros and cons of promiscuity? None of those are allowed in The Narrative.

Thank you so much 😊

I took the story to be totally summed up in the last to lines. Nick saying he can’t stand to think about a man just holed up awaiting his end, which will be gruesome, and then being told to not think about it. How many people who orbit our lives are listless, awaiting their awful fate which they and we know is coming, and we don’t think about it. Hemingway was one of those people

They gave this guy nobel prize because he was an American author and they needed some classic works for their so called literature.

The broken harmonium, The painting, and the promises... (which are a blessing of domestic safety and comfort popular in ireland are all things forgotten. the Promises... foiled by her fathers abuse, the harmonium, broken to never make music again, and the portrait can be assumed to be a dead friend. Evelines dather avoids these subjects. He hates hearing the music being played by the organ (italian immigration was very insignificant at that time so his outburst against the organ player might be mote directed at the music itself). with these being metaphorically dead things near the room of Evelines dead mother I think that her fathers saying that his friend in the portrait has gone to melbourne is her fathers way of avoiding bringing up the subject of a lost friend. This metaphorical use of location justifies the idea of going to buenos aires being a metaphor as well. this phrase, was popular at the time and meant going into prostitution. I believe that Evelines true reason for not going to buenos aires was because in her prayer, God revealed to her Frank's intentions of selling her as a prostitute. Frank being congruent in pronounciation to franc, currency in europe symbolizes his selfish motives and could

Another thing I must point out is that the ages of the lead characters are kept in mystery. In the opening it feels like Mikage & Yuichi are preteens, I mean it seems normal for a preteen to invite an orphaned acquaintance to live with him & his 30-something mother for sometime. But since the introduction of relationships in classes, it seemed they're teenagers in school, of the ages to form relationships & hold jealousies for partners. But in the 2nd chapter it's made explicitly clear that Mikage is finishing her university studies & joining a full-time work. In the writer's ability to blur the character ages, she has expressed Mikage's emotional sensitivity more successfully. She wouldn't feel this vulnerable if we knew from the start that she was just an adult losing a grandparent!

Love how u pronounce it as ‘smeared jack off’😂

This is my favorite book… so good…. I’m re reading it over holiday… ❤❤ it.😊

💯 reading it now

preparing for an exam this morning

Wonderful video! I wish I had seen it before I read the portrait as my first Joyce read. One minor thing though, the catholic church wasn't the only one before Luther, the orthodox church existed way before the divide in Christianity in the west. 😊

Guys, stop using word GULAG. ГУЛАГ- Г- Главное (main), У- управление (management), ЛАГ- лагерей (camps- actually labour penal camps). It was not a place, it was a management of Soviet penal labour camps. During Dostoevsky time living GULAG didn't exist.

Marya's prototype was Tolstoy's mother.

why does kripto and @matteolanecomedy look so alike

I got the blue cover translation of war and peace on Kindle for 99 cents. It's 1997 freaking pages long. That's twice as long as the two books I just read put together and no doubt far more complicated. It might take me until next year to finish reading it, but I'll give it a shot.

Do you guys do novels anymore? It's been all short stories and poetry for a year now.

_First!_ What edition of _Ulysses_ is that over your right shoulder? 😅 This is probably my favorite Ginsberg poem. 🖋 "The mundane becoming magical because of a muse ..." I like that 😊 Great points regard 2034 😮

the chinaberry tree...never thought of that one.

Before you read ? I've already read it twice times in my life , it is , perhaps , the archetype of the modern psychological novel , absolutely masterpiece ...!

Our fellow man are conformist normies who think good is evil because you know... They're normies aka spiritless NPC Chuckle heads -The End

I didn’t realize I was so different from you guys! I love it because I thought you guys were more “Intellectual”!! Haha haha

I always saw “it” as a boy idky. But in some since my brother and I were that child until I got an apartment and I got us out. I regret it but whatever. We escaped

Russians can have multiple nicknames and they can go back and forth between them. When I lived in Moscow, I knew a woman who called me Shereechka (my name is Sheri). I knew someone names Ivan who sometimes his friends called him Vanya and Vanushka.

I'm excited what Mike Flannigan can do with the story!

Thanks

i have read it in french ( I'm not french) it was excellent.

I think Vonnegut's 'robot dropping jellied gasoline' was the precursor to this line from Apocalypse Now and the halitosis was the nose art. Kurtz: We train young men to drop fire on people. But their commanders won't allow them to write "fvck" on their airplanes because it's obscene!

Just finished part 5 and I have been following your recaps. They have been very helpful to my understanding of the text. Great work gentlemen!

My favorite short story!

Oh! I didn't know you have it!! I just finished reading it 😍 edit: ok .. my two cents 🤗: - The only other Faulkner's I've read so far are Absalom, Absalom, and the short story Barn Burning (at school which introduced me to Faulkner) so I'm not really sure why you're not as enthusiastic about this one as some of the others. Obviously, it IS more straightforward and simpler than Absalom. Never the less, I loved it! I love the detailed and disturbing portrayal of this darker side of human nature, extreme behavior and how like you said and as is quoted: evil corrupts, and the portrayal of the mob mentality, and how "grey" morality is presented from the "good" Christian folk who wouldn't hesitate to through a woman and baby out in the street for a perceived wrong, to the actual "righteous" burning alive of a man! I also loved the guess work I had to do and how I was always kept on my toes. I loved what you called world building too; bringing in Snopes was a nice touch, I was introduced to the Snopeses in Barn Burning and was so delighted with him here I went online to see whose descendent he was exactly lol There's something so Stephen King about the macabre-ness, darkness, and connectedness of it all (don't come for me please for the comparison lol, I'm a die hard King fan 😂and I'll bet he was influenced by Faulkner!), I mean if Yoknapatwapha is the place Faulkner's Southern ghosts haunt (I read or heard that somewhere), then Derry is equally King's haunting ground! - Temple made two choices actually, both of which were disastrous. The first was choosing to get off the train and get into Stevens car at the beginning of the story, where it seemed like an innocent enough, girls-just-wana-have-fun, light hearted choice. Nothing so lighthearted about the consequences though, nor those of her last choice (can't wait to see how she lives with that on her conscience in Requiem for a Nun 🤨). It really makes you stop and think about choice making and predestination. Are we really as in control as we like to think we are? - Popeye doesn't strike me as having a bit of good in him! On the contrary he seems like a classic psychopath serial killer. First of all he lacks empathy, and in the backstory he kills little animals as a child! That's one of the MacDonalds triad for psychotic behavior .. another is setting fires!!! an act performed not by Popeye but by his grandma! lol I was so surprised that this was not an intentional twist on Faulkner's part (or was it?!), as the MacDonald triad didn't come out till the 1960!! - One more thing I was SO impressed with .. is that Naturalistic vein in the story where nature lies so tranquil and serene, oblivious to the plight of man! This was so vivid in the scene where Popeye and Temple are in the car right after they left the old bootlegger place, and Temple is sitting there traumatized screaming inside her head "I'm still bleeding". Meanwhile as they rip through the countryside, the radiance of May is described with its fat globs of whipped cream clouds and the lavender spring with it's different kinds of trees and bushes and foliage, and the peaceful tranquility of it as if "Sunday were a quality of atmosphere, of light and shade .." That part was so beautifully described, the contrast between the inside and outside of the car so great; it made me breathless, I wanted to reach out, open the car door and exit the vehicle, leaving Popeye and Temple to their tragedy and stay there in that filed soaking up the morning sun and listening to the whispers of the dogwood in the breeze. Ok I'm done 🤗

I love Dostoevsky, and I have read Crime and Punishment, the Idiot, and the Brothers K about a dozen times each. But I have never really enjoyed Demons. I am giving it another try and I really appreciate these discussions.

DUH - allegory for pure democracy

Thank you, the comments really help my understanding of the story and it’s symbols. When I read about the red shoes I remembered Louis XIV shoes, certainly a symbol of power, but he also wore them because he was short!! 😂 I have a question, I could not understand why the title? Red Leaves??

Great questions around fate vs. choice and the concept of a circle. This is such an interesting story to dig into. I also laughed at the Leslie Nielsen reference. Cheers, Jack