And that’s a wrap! I finished Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime And Punishment…finally! I started reading this 584 page translation of Dostoevsky’s epic novel in the 1st week of February and just closed my copy in the 2nd week of April. I leave you with the last paragraph of Crime And Punishment. Unlike all my other posts about stories I read, where I usually never tell the end of the story in case you have a notion to read the book too, I am making an exception here. Why share the last paragraph you might ask? Well let me share it first before I try to explain myself.
But that is the beginning of a new story— the story of the gradual renewal of a man, the story of his gradual regeneration of his passing from one world into another, of his initiation into a new unknown life. That might be the subject of a new story, but our present story is ended.
Dostoevsky ends this intense psychological gripping tale of murder, guilt and redemption with the above paragraph that I found to be memorable for its succinctness as the author announces the rest of Raskolnikov’s unknown life might be the subject of a new story. This succinctness brings another novel to mind, Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick or The Whale. Melville introduces his novel about Captain Ahab’s driven search to find and kill the white whale no matter what the cost with this succinct opening sentence, Call me Ishmael. That left me the reader wanting for more and more I found as I turned the pages of Melville’s tale. Dostoevsky’s last sentence of Crime And Punishment, That might be the subject of a new story, but our present story has ended., left me wanting more! But as amazing a writer as Dostoevsky was in his short plagued lifetime: He found the energy to author The Idiot and The Brothers Karamizov, (both on my reading list), along with countless short stories, essays and poetry. I do not believe he penned from his fertile imagination a story about the rest of Raskolnikov’s life. I have never professed to be a formal student of literature so I ask any of you who might be a graduate or a current student at Oxford to enlighten me if I am wrong and there was another story written, focused on a middle aged and/or old aged Raskolnikov.
Like Melville’s White Whale where it has been written that evil as the whale may be, Melville also uses the whale as a symbol of God, fate , the unknown and more. Dostoevsky’s main protagonist, Raskolnikov, also embodied evil yet we share his fate colored by his guilt and angst, served on a plate of depression with no room for empathy, love, or compassion….. at first. Yet there is a bit! And it leads to this murderer deciding that any punishment the State formulated was justice that he longed to taste.
I wrote earlier that I have more Dostoevsky literature on my reading list and I do. However I need a break from the intense introspection Dostoevsky requires of his readers as we page through the days of his characters. Every character’s thought the author pens is more lengthily detailed then his swift couple of pages devoted to the murderous ax or the self-inflicted gunshot to another character’s head.
With that light read in mind, I next picked up The Diary Of A Bookseller, written by Shaun Bythell. Now if you know me and have looked around my web pages here at Bookmark7. com, you surely can’t be surprised that I would gravitate to a diary written by a bookshop owner. He lives and works in The Bookshop located in Wigtown Scotland. Take a moment to Google Wigtown. The whole town is dedicated to a plethora of stand-alone bookshops. Yearly festivals dedicated to the importance of books are the envy of my days in the Chamber of Commerce in Amherst and Nantucket, where we worshiped the Merry Maple in December and the Daffodil Weekend each spring. Why not books? ( Nice job Wigtown!)
Next month I will explain what booking means to me and my children and how Bythell’s diary exposes the soul of us bookers. I will leave you with this. The Diary Of A Bookseller connects so many people of all ages, backgrounds, desires, and goals that I am reminded of the Buddhist metaphor, Indra’s Web. I will attempt to detail how Indra’s Web is germane next month when I have finished Beythell’s diary. Now I must pivot as my metaphorical lighthouse is coming into sight.
The weather is calm, spring warmth seasoned with a touch of salt, cool to my exposed aging skin. I am reflective as I sit on the moss covered rock left for me many years ago by a retreating glacier. The sun is resting behind me and the lighthouse as we both look to our east. The lighthouse with it’s ever- brightening candle power gazing its sweep off its polished mirrors and my gaze, brighter still with the help of my minds-eye. Reading this month brought to light the importance of chapters in an author’s construct of telling a story. Chapters are important to me in the summary and reflections of my life. Eight years ago when I retired from working, I closed a chapter. Of course as I reflect back over my seventy-six years I have closed many chapters in my life. I just renewed my driving license this week and found my 1st card celebrating my finish with driver’s ed dated 1965. I passed the eye exam and remained standing as I paid the State the dollars demanded to print the ten cent license, so my driving chapter in life is not done yet. I closed chapters of marriage but never closed my chapters of being a father. In fact those chapters led to many more chapters in my life being a grandfather. This month I reflect on my oldest granddaughter as she closes one chapter in her life graduating from high school. I am blessed that she opens her life to me so I can read along. I am blessed beyond blessed to have ten other wonderful grandchildren whose chapters I also watch and read. Whether it is a first step, a first word read, a first word written, a first music lesson taken, or the introduction to me of a grandchild’s new best friend, so many life stories being written and chapters being numbered. I watched the Pope, (not the first in my lifetime), finish his last chapter of a life well lived. Piquing my faith, more and more, I believe that future chapters will be written by him, you and me! Finally, almost 25 years ago I tapped into my love of love and found someone that wanted to grow old with me. That chapter is far from finished and maybe, just maybe, our love……. well that dream is too personal to share with you here!
Thank you for reading.
Be at peace and joy!
Mark