Reading the Chunksters discussion

Please feel free to post your thoughts!

It was interesting to see the family all together at the dinner. I felt though that the sons are a little bit too different, as if each of them stands for a particular idea or characteristic in too much of an extreme way (the womanizer, the revolutionary, the religious man and the clever but bitter illegitimate son). I didn't enjoy this section so much. But it's clearly building up for some major action :)

I liked this section a lot more than the last one. To me it was a lot more interesting. I'm reading through the Cliffnotes for the three section I have read. I am hoping it will pull together what I have read so far.

So we are to have finished ch 9 by Oct 7 or begin then?

Hi Jim, we are not too firm on this. I post the thread on the scheduled day and that gives people a chance to chat about this section for a week. Some people will post the first day the thread opens, some will post as the week goes on, and then we have people that get behind and just post when they get to this section.

Does that help?

Yes thank you! I am just a few chapters ahead of the schedule it seems, but I just joined the group and can slow up a bit.

Well, I'm glad you found us and we are very happy to have you jump in!

I continue to be pleasantly surprised by how accessible this book is. A much easier read than Crime and Punishment, which I had read in high school.

Rosemary, I like your point about the differences among the family members. Out of the 3 legitimate brothers, Ivan worries me the worst. I am not fully sure what's lurking under the surface, and he seems like the one who is most like his father.

Again, some interesting dialogue about faith in one of the chapters, which reflected the tension between the church and State and their individual impact on the ability of Russia to progress as a nation. At the time, some Russians believed that the church was a major reason, because of its ties to old traditions and hold over the serf population, that Russia continued to be a backward nation. Even after many serfs were emancipated, the church continued to be the primary influence on how they lived their lives. Interesting how most socialists during this time tended to atheists as well, which is another example of how many believed that for the country to move forward, that the church's cultural and spiritual dominance had to be diminished, and ultimately eliminated.