... James Wood comments on Dostoevsky. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I have no interest in arguing against Wood's atheism - that's his business - but I would suggest it is unfair to lay it at Dostoevsky's door. It is like those people who are so impressed by Thomas Aquinas's summation of views opposing the one Aquinas espouses that they subscribe to those and not the one Aquinas argues on behalf of. In order to sum up those opposing views as cogently as he did, Aquinas had to think through those views as thoroughly - and I would say as passionately - as the people who held them. It was from that point that he undertook to refute them - from the inside. Those who adopt the views Aquinas rejected are guilty of intellectual sloth, using his engagement and passion in place of their own. I doubt that James Wood has invested anywhere near the imaginative capital in grappling with questions of faith as Dostoevsky did. And that is what would have horrified Dostoevsky.
Ach! The problem with that entire discussion (which I read for as long as I could bear to do so)? The question is not about "moral truths" or some such blather; it is about ethics, and for Dostoevsky, that was far more important. Not what was morally right; rather, what was ethically responsible. Big diff. (Nigel, I loved that line about seven-hundred loyal poodles, though :).)
ReplyDeleteFrank, I think that all Wood is saying is that the argument against God (how could he permit such suffering) is powerfully made in the Bros Karamazov; I'd concur. The scene where the dogs tear a child apart in front of his mother is devastating.
ReplyDelete...and thanks J for the nod :)