463 - End of Term

I have just posted the two-part final, while closing the last two assignments. Basically the class is over, except for those few who need the checks offered by the final.

Just a few random thoughts:

• I really loved the readings from this term -- many of my all-time favorite works. I guess there is just something terribly beautiful about unrequited love -- the point about chastity mentioned in the last two assignments.
  
• Vladimir's father, Pyotr Vasilyevich, in Turgenev's "First Love" has almost nothing in common with Fitzgerald's brutish Tom Buchanan. My heart opens and I come close to weeping reading Vladimir's encomium for his father, oddly from the middle of "First Love":
  

  Sometimes he was in high spirits, and then he was ready to romp and frolic with me, like a boy (he was fond of vigorous physical exercise of every sort); once — it never happened a second time!— he caressed me with such tenderness that I almost shed tears. . . . But high spirits and tenderness alike vanished completely, and what had passed between us, gave me nothing to build on for the future — it was as though I had dreamed it all. Sometimes I would scrutinise his clever handsome bright face . . . my heart would throb, and my whole being yearn to him . . . he would seem to feel what was going on within me, would give me a passing pat on the cheek, and go away, or take up some work, or suddenly freeze all over as only he knew how to freeze, and I shrank into myself at once, and turned cold too. His rare fits of friendliness to me were never called forth by my silent, but intelligible entreaties: they always occurred unexpectedly. Thinking over my father’s character later, I have come to the conclusion that he had no thoughts to spare for me and for family life; his heart was in other things, and found complete satisfaction elsewhere. ‘Take for yourself what you can, and don’t be ruled by others; to belong to oneself — the whole savour of life lies in that,’ he said to me one day. Another time, I, as a young democrat, fell to airing my views on liberty (he was ‘kind,’ as I used to call it, that day; and at such times I could talk to him as I liked). ‘Liberty,’ he repeated; ‘and do you know what can give a man liberty?’

  ‘What?’ 

  ‘Will, his own will, and it gives power, which is better than liberty. Know how to will, and you will be free, and will lead.’ 

  ‘My father, before all, and above all, desired to live, and lived. . . . 

  Perhaps he had a presentiment that he would not have long to enjoy the ‘savour’ of life: he died at forty-two.

  Pyotr here already sees, and laments, his own weakness -- that, unlike Tom, he recognizes his own weakness before love. I realize that not everyone agrees with me, but for me there's a world of difference between Tom's breaking of Myrtle Wilson's nose, and Pyotr's striking Zinaida with a whip. Pyotr is acting out of his weakness, and quickly realizes, especially in the face of Zinaida's totally unexpected response. It all entails a level of passionate attachment that poor Vladimir cannot really fathom -- and he knows that.

• I want to thank Brock for his suggestion. I too want to find a way to jazz up discussions, without losing the process that has everyone read everything. We are working on a new version of courseDocs that will have some new social media wrinkles that will allow other ways of interacting. At that point will just need a way to give credit for this new work.
  
• It seems to me that the image that Werther falls in love with -- Lotte slicing bread for her child-like siblings -- lies at the very heart of our class, and hence is a perfect way to end this class.
  
• I do hope to see a few of you in the "Slackers" course in the spring -- a truly eclectic selection of readings, with a few films thrown in. Hope to have the syllabus done soon.