In The Heart of the Drunkard

By Paul Hughes / April 5, 2012

And away he went, to drink the value of his cross …

I have been listening to Fyodor Dostoevski’s The Idiot on the iPhone, from Audible.com. It’s incredible. I just know I’ll have to read it as soon as I’m done with the audio.

[I do irk myself somewhat on having become such a fan of audiobooks, as well as eBooks. I’d considered myself a purist in this regard, but have now roughly — in two senses of the word — embraced both electronic … I will call them enhancements. But it’s not about one way or the author — or one way or the other, for that matter. It’s simply about getting good words out there, so they can do their metaphysical magic.]

The words in this case are those quoted in italics in the first line, above, and the story that follows. Prince Myshkin is telling Rogozhin a story of how a beggar pawning a tin cross to get money for getting more drunk lied to him, the prince, and told him it was silver. Lev Nikolaevich notes the drunk smiled at the thought he had cheated this gentleman out of a very small amount of money.

So we have a man drunk, who is begging, lying, selling the symbol of his salvation, and giggling inside about cheating Myshkin. And then of course he (the drunk) goes off to buy more booze. And the whole time — during the events of the tale and the recounting of it to the evil and lost Rogozhin — he (the prince) speaks no syllable against the man supposedly running a very short con on him. The story closes with this:

I’ll wait awhile before I condemn this Judas. Only God knows what may be hidden in the hearts of drunkards.

And that’s why the prince is also The Idiot, that is to say the best and kindest character in the entire book.

And that’s why I say The Idiot is incredible, and I can’t say all of why, let alone understand the reasons.

And that’s why, of course, among other more prosaic reasons, I shall never be Fyodor Dostoevski.

Recent

What I Recalled Watching Netflix

[Television is educational.] One Saying the same stuff over and over looks like you have different things to say. Two If you’re ever in a below-average film or streaming series, and you beat the tar out of a guy, in a house, and you gaze down in both some shock as also a certain

Seeking the King

A line everywhere misattributed to Chesterton reads thus: The young man who rings the bell at the brothel is unconsciously looking for God. This line is not from the great [several senses of the word] man who recently celebrated his 150th birthday, but the mid-century most unmodern novelist Bruce Marshall. The words — which do

He’s the Guy

Those social media posts of ‘this moment in this famous film was totally unscripted!!!’ as if that by itself makes it better miss the point. Moat unscripted material, like most ideas, inventions, ideas, notions, &c … fails — such is the nature of creativity: the best stuff, it is devoutly to be wished, sticks around;

‘Round Here

Imagine someone, potentially anyone, even you, perhaps, but let us, in any case, say. Yes, you. You pull into the diner – Earl’s, Norm’s, Dinah’s, something like that. A sort-of Googie architecture … but maybe not quite, as if it’d been a little late for the Space Age, and late is the one thing you

Random

On (Not) Using Words

Preach the gospel at all times. If necessary, use words. Quick now — who said that? Me. Just now. Weren’t you paying attention? The saying is sometimes attributed to Francis of Assisi, most likely erroneously, as many are gleefully wont to revel in and reveal, should someone dare voice the view. To which the only

The Fat Guy And Food

The Fat Guy does not particularly like food. There are gourmands, who also are likely to be massively obese — think Mario Batali, who can be easily envisioned in one of those old “Faces of Death” videos, hammering the monkey trapped in the middle of the dining table and scooping brains out of the not-yet-dead

The Fat Guy and Sex

Murder, Inc.

In Season One’s “Ransom for a Dead Man” Columbo tells a story about his cousin Ralph. He’s flying in Leslie Williams’ plane and she’s been talking about her husband, whom she’s murdered. By the story he tells after they’ve landed, he enters the murderer’s mind — with a significant stopping point: “I have this cousin, Ralph,

Related

People of Costco

We got some of our Christmas presents at Costco and I’m not sorry. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of volume discounting, for it is the confidence of 30 rolls of absorbent toilet paper and the power of barrels of mayonnaise unto certain kinds of satiation, and two items not unrelated in the

Do Piece — Anger (Buechner)

Of the Seven Deadly Sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving

Not a Eulogy

(A Eucatastrophe) * Love the words, my friends. Pay attention to the words, I say. Christians don’t die One reason we know this is Jesus said it. In John’s account he told Michael: “You shall never taste or see death” (Indeed, as the Psalmist says, “taste and see that the Lord is good.”) Another reason

Total Recall

Don’t stop me if you’ve heard this one … There was a woman who claimed to talk with God — not to Him, but with Him. The tale was well-told around town, in which there was also a priest. The priest one day after Mass asked to speak with the woman and when they’d settled