@phool4xc No, that's a highly reductive reading of the book, the Grand Inquisitor chapter, and Dostoesvky's complex relationship with religion ever since his time in prison. Far, far more to get into than a single post can summarize, but you're also forgetting Ivan's overall narrative arc and the role of polyphonic narration. It's not at all as simple as you've made it out to be.

But more importantly: TBK is hung around a Biblical discourse that my book does not have. That was the point here.

@phool4xc (I do have my own version of the Grand Inquisitor for a secular context, called the Parasite's Lament, though - so, I'll be getting into all this & more in videos & essays surrounding the release. But I'm pushing back here on a very rigid way that Western discourse often has, of trying to flatten a text expressly holding multiple views in tension to a single simplistic end. And I say that *as* an atheist who agrees with Ivan's not-one-tear speech: the book is much more complex.)

@MLClark Yeah, I don't disagree that thematically, TBK hinges on the passage from the Gospel of John. I was just offering the observation that it's specifically Russian Orthodoxy that suffuses the novel, and not Roman Catholicism.

Between my first and second reading of TBK, I had begun learning about Orthodoxy: history, theology, practices. The second time through, I got a LOT more out of the experience.

@phool4xc The critique in the Grand Inquisitor chapter runs the full gamut of Christianity - indicting Christ, too, for having left humanity in a state that needs the flawed mitigation of a church at all, because humanity isn't prepared to receive the salvation on offer. Ivan's arguments are then mitigated by a crisis of conscience after he realizes Smerdyakov's actions stemmed from his antitheistic rhetoric. So there's plenty to reward multiple readings of the text. I'm glad you've found it so!

@MLClark Thinking some more about our conversation, I was reminded of the scene from Hiuckleberry Finn when Huck rips up the letter. "All right then, I'll go to hell."

I'd never made that thematic connection between Twain and Dostoevski before. A friend of mine once commented that Clemens is his favourite theologian. He was mostly kidding, I think.

@phool4xc Hi Peter! Apologies, this comment slipped off my radar - but thank you for the smile. Clemens as a theologian! Oh my.

I often marvel at how many folks in that era were drawing from the same well, sometimes quite explicitly. A Dickens character, Mr. Micawber, was beloved by Dostoevsky, and likely informed Marmeladov from Crime & Punishment: the man whose drinking is ruining his family & driving his daughter to sex work. That kind of cross-cultural influence is wonderful to think about.