CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
and
THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV

In early 2015, before even starting my website, Michelle and I had stopped at our favorite store, Barnes&Noble. I enjoy having my collection of their leather bound books, and almost all of them are to this day, but something struck me that day a little different. I grabbed, as you see in the above image, CRIME AND PUNISHMENT, and I remember quite well that Michelle said to me, with an awkward look on her face “You want to read that!?” Umm, “yes” I go to her, “what can it hurt, it’s here, and it’s famous, is it not?” ‘well yes okay, if you want it’. I brought it up to the counter and even the lady there had looked quite awkward as well. After purchasing it I said to myself “What is it with this book that makes people so afraid of it?, what’s the big deal?, is it because the book is quite long, longer than most. I had no idea of who Fyodor Dostoevsky was, nor when or where it was written and why.

I hadn’t read it for a short while because I was getting bored out of my mind from Dickens, Twain and others and superbly annoyed by Alexandre Dumas’s books, manly and mostly his Count Of Monte Cristo. Thanks to those irritating boring as all hell authors, I grabbed off of my shelf a paperback of Crime And Punishment, Michelle looks at me and goes, “you going to read that!, wow, okay, if you want”. And that day changed the way I read and wrote my own information, I was able to write and type better myself from his teachings, simply by picking up a book!  

When I introduced myself to Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, it was of sheer amazement to me and most of how superb he was. His talent, his writings, and his superb knowledge was back in Russia in the mid 1800’s and would have been the same today. I did not know of his background yet or of his problems either, which were epilepsy, but as I read along from the very first word, mind you, to his very last, I felt something in his writing that of which only another epileptic could pick-up on. Nevertheless, he was epileptic from birth which came as no surprise to me, but even so, aside from the books of the Bible, he is the greatest genius of our time. As you read along all his life-long masterpieces, you can feel the troubles he went through, the problems in our own epileptic lives: causing trouble but not knowing the reason, trying to do good for others when things start to fall apart on you, and, as any epileptic who has or the ones who watch, run away from their incidents, hopefully before things get worse as the way he wrote about Rodion Romanovitch Roskolnikov, a confused college student who is diseased, though he doesn't know of what, nor does anyone else, and causes trouble that punishes his life, but he thinks that he is doing things for the better, trying to help others. Always wakes up felling better, like most epileptics do, and yet, more confused. The book has many twists and turns in trying to find out who the bad people really are, and poor Roskolnikov, which he is a well wearing rags for clothes, sometimes remembers what he did, but nobody will listen or believe his story. Mainly because of his illness, his friends try to help him all the more. Very interesting and exciting book, keeps the pages turning from start to finish with the epilogue being the most crazy part of the whole book. Dostoevsky’s mind blows your own away!

Background
Dostoevsky was born in Moscow on November 11th, 1821 and spent most of his life in St Petersburg. Placed his children, who died at birth, as some of his main characters; his daughter Sonya and his son Alexey, along with all of his Novels, as he puts it, Petersburg. Death of his mother in 1837 and the assumed murder of his father by serfs, just two years later. In 1864, the death of wife and brother Mikhail and along with his severe financial difficulties, but concurred them with the continuation of his masterpieces. In 1880, he completes The Brothers Karamazov, was given a speech at Pushkin celebrations in Moscow, and died of a lung hemorrhage on February 9th  the very next year at 59yrs of age caused by emphysema and epileptic seizures. He is buried at Alexander Nevsky Monastery, St. Petersburg.

 In 1849 he was arrested and sentenced to death for participating in the ‘Petrashevsky circle’ where he was reprieved at the last moment, but sentenced to penal servitude, and until 1854 he lived in a convict prison in Siberia. In the decade following his return from exile he wrote his stories and novels that drew heavy on his experiences in prison, which goes to show you how his writings as in The House Of The Dead, Notes From Underground, Crime And Punishment and Demons, a.k.a The Possessed, are more true than not. Although not fact, but fiction, reflects back on his own life more fact than fiction!

So when you think of how sad your life is or of others, just imagine how others lives were, and still are today, in poverty, out on the streets in the freezing winters and boiling summers.

You wouldn’t believe it, even as I am telling you now, but others, I guess some other geniuses you may of heard of or recall learning about, though more difficult to fathom like Albert Einstein who declared “that he had learnt more from Dostoevsky than any other thinker.”   

His novels are all astonishing, how he can grab you, lock you into his stories and never let go. Fyodor Dostoevsy’s books are more like traps, per say, because they are all so well written and translated that you can never open another book, nor put his down. In his last masterpiece Dostoevsky revealed the components of his own split personality, depicted in four main characters; a humble monk Alyosha, a compulsive gambler Dmitri, a rebellious intellectual Ivan, and their cynical father Fyodor Karamazov. He writes as if he even has a double split personality, a triple even with all other characters of his, younger, older, men and woman; if that even exists. But I do believe that it did in this epileptic.

Everything else after will just sound, to make it short, Stupid! His books in the past were translated mostly at first, by Constance Garnett, but most recently and better by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, a married couple who live today in France. It is written on the back cover, one, from the San Francisco Chronicle as “This fresh, new translation…provides a more exact, idiomatic, and contemporary rendition of the novel that brings Fyodor Dostoevsky’s tale achingly alive…it succeeds beautifully.” And another from the Chicago Tribune which states “Reaches as close to Dostoevsky’s Russian as is possible in English…The original’s force and frightening immediacy is captured…The Pevear and Volokhonsky translation will become the standard English version.” Along with others.

In The Brothers Karamazov, the Washington Post Book World states that “Dostoevsky is at once the most literary and compulsively readable of novelists we continue to regard as great…THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV stands as the culmination of his art - his last, longest, richest, and most capacious book. This scrupulous rendition can only be welcomed. It returns to a work we thought we knew, subtly altered and so made new again.” As well as the The Times(London) “A miracle…Every page of the new KARAMAZOV is a permanent standard, and an inspiration”. With many more!    

My own wife has asked me many times if I would choose to read this or that, and since then, the past year, I have given the same answer, “Did Fyodor write it? If not, then no”. She said to me many times, my mother even, that if you love this author as much as you do, his books, then write a blog about him. Tell someone who may be as interested as you obviously are, and share with them his knowledge. I was not afraid of doing so, I’m just not sure that anyone will care to learn or just to enjoy his novels as I do, but someone else in my case or such other being home bound, will need to learn of his excellence and expertise as I have to myself. His books are mostly much longer than others, but teenagers and young adults wouldn’t mind reading a sentence without falling asleep! Every adult in my family turned away from me laughing even when I would hold up a book because they ask me why I want to read something so long, I can only guess that since there twice my own age, so then don't, nobody is asking or telling you to. But when you have so much more time on your hands then you know what to do with, it doesn't hurt to try.

And it’s as simple as that. Most of the time I’m reading a daily Missal or I have one of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky’s books in my hand. Every word on every page keeps you excited and into his storytelling, dramatic or funny, or both usually, you will never read a page from any other author with more words on it without stopping, comma by comma. When the sentences stop or the book ends you wish for two things: That he wouldn't have stopped and Second, how much he could have done with his life if he had the chance to fight off the epilepsy and of lived longer. In The Brothers Karamazov, there's an entry, towards the end, that he has a story for his next project, but knowing that he hadn't survived, will make you teary eyed, just as I am writing it to you today. It's sad to say even though, but if he wasn't epileptic himself and had lived his life the way it had come, that many others as well do believe that the genius of his world would not have been on paper the way it was. Therefore, the name Dostoevsky would not exist the way that it does today.

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT and THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV have now become my favorite books ever written from my favorite author to have ever lived. I now own 6 CRIME AND PUNISHMENTS, 2 others digital, and 4 BROTHERS KARAMAZOV’s, along with every one of his other writings I was able to get my hands on. From his very first when he was 22yrs old, POOR FOLK, where he writes a letter to his brother Mikhail, a long letter in the introduction, that “I am seriously pleased with my novel, to make it short, if my project does not succeed, I may hang myself.” Amazing and surprising to himself, thank God, that he was smarter than even he thought at the time. The people that Mikhail told him to see and speak to knew that there was something special about Fyodor from page one. He brought his manuscript with him wherever he went, and from that year in 1846, published, was a great success and from that we have our genius. From then on, he was able to publish 14 novels and short stories in total before his death, and for which I myself own almost all of them. Some older illustrated ones from the 1960’s, leather bound with 22Karat gold paper edges. Like the one in the picture above from the Easton Press Collectors Editions. There is one thing though that I must note to you about his book called Demons or The Possessed: it is not a book about demons, it’s a book about people with seizures who suffer during their lives the way most of us do, the way he did! His very first entry is from Gospel according to Luke:

Now a large herd of swine was feeding there on the hillside; and they begged him to let them enter these. So he gave them leave. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned.

When the herdsman saw what had happened, they fled, and told it in the city and in the country. The people went out to see what had happened, and they came to Jesus, and found the man from whom the demons had gone, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind; and they were afraid. And those who had seen it told them how he who had been possessed with demons was healed.

Luke 8:32-36

In Russian literature from his time, and maybe today, since I am not Russian or in Russia, he was a religious man too, a Christian in Moscow, so he never says anything bad about God or Christ, but there's something he says that makes it quite funny. It may be said today in Russia, but have never heard it here in America or anywhere else for that matter, but it's somethings that he has that is very catchy! Somethings that basically means that a person may say to another, or themselves, which could be about something or someone else. And I use it myself here even nowadays with my wife Who laughs at it, wondering where it came from, because she doesn't read Dostoevsky either, works a lot, but still  uses it herself in our text messages sometimes, which is:

“Pah….Spit on it!” and or “Devil take it!”

The names of the characters in all his novels, in the Authors Notes, he describes to make the storyline easier for the reader, are the people that he didn't appreciate, as evil neighbors or teachers from his past. The names in Russian are not too hard for a reader to understand and translate to in European or English, besides the one and only I was having trouble with, his own. Fyodor, Fyodor, Fyodor? This troubled me for quite a while, my family as well when I asked them if they had ever heard of the name before. And none of my friends are Russian, which would have helped, until I finally gave in to grab my cell and find the translation. Fyodor is actually a beautiful name, I said to myself and my mother who was with me at the time “Oh, what a nice name, a lot nicer then Bruno”. Something I say more then ten times a day! I couldn't find myself to drop the first two letters of his name, nor could anyone else. Mom I go again “we have had many famous Fyodor’s here in America” she goes “Roosevelt”, ‘Yes him, also quite special.’ And then I texted my wife on her way home what the name Fyodor was in translation. Again she had no clue, probably sick of me asking her as well, so I gave her a pretty simple, yet funny hint, “one that sang with his two older brothers,” but stopped there for a few seconds because who would she know, and said that “one was Alvin”. A millisecond after returned with              

THEODORE!!    

SEIZURES, THANKING GOD, AND A RUBIK'S CUBE...

This is one of the most difficult things that any epileptic wants to hear. They will never be able to know what, why, where or when a seizure occurs. The worst thing that any family member, sibling or spouse could do is to get angry at a seizure, and that yelling causes and epileptic to do things so way out of the ordinary that people near you will get hurt as you place yourself in the corner of any room scared at what just happened like a child with arms crossed over their chest and worried about what else may happen.

And it’s never your fault!

Others may blame you for what you just did and continue with the agony put on your head, if you are younger you are probably stronger than the ones who stay with you, day by day - your caretakers. But, others will blame themselves for causing the problem to be worse and those are the ones that you appreciate forever for understanding your situation and they will say “Sorry, I shouldn’t have done this or that to make the seizure possibly worse”. You will feel at blame for your actions and most likely won’t remember what just happened, but others do, so ask them to explain in detail. You will say sorry, always, especially if someone did get hurt trying to keep you safe; and sometimes it can be bad; depending on the level of seizure.

If not we can thank God that the problem you may think you caused didn’t hurt the people around you - The people who watch over you - The people who love you!

You will thank God for things that you should thank God for. That you are alive, the ones you love are not hurt and come home to you every day. I tell my own family and others when they say things like, “Yes, thank God I found my car keys or thank God I found my cell phone”. I say, “Really, is that really what you want to thank God for, not that I’m still here and you're still here, that you woke up from bed this morning, but I can see that that must be very important to you”. And the best part is, nobody ever listens. You put the TV on and the first or last thing you hear in every sentence is Jesus Christ. If you are a religious person as most of you are, you should use his name in prayer or in church, by heart and never use it in vain.  

The Lord, our God was not sent down to us to have His name used in ridiculous ways but as our Savior Who was born and Who died for us. Who watches over us all the days of our lives and Who judges the living and the dead. If this is something that you have forgotten, then I pray for you to remember! I tell people who forgot or never knew themselves that there was one person here on earth who could and did cure the sick and the "demons" which were the epileptics. The deaf, the blind and all else, but the answer I get most sadly is “who?”. “His name was Jesus, have you ever heard of Him before?”.  Every day of my life, when I perform an action like getting up and walking to get a bottle of water or cup of coffee, I hate, but hear almost always, “Jesus Christ, what are you doing?”. And my reaction is always as I stop short, “First of all, I am not Jesus Christ, so stop and secondly, I only wish that I was so that I could stop all of the problems of the world, understand?”.    

This is something you can learn from and to teach others about what is going on in your head all day compared to others. Everybody knows what a Rubik’s Cube is, a 3-D combination puzzle invented in 1974 by a Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture Erno Rubik, in which you have to get all six sides of different colors of the square together to an even and clean form, which some people say is an impossible game, but it is not so. There are literally 43 252 003 274 189 856 004 ways of solving the Rubik's Cube, so good luck. Now when you have figured that 3D combination out, compare that to the brain cells in a normal functioning brain. Take the Cube, scramble all the sides of the cube around in your hand to start the game over again and you now have the semi-functioning cells of an epileptic brain smacking into each other causing major problems that you need to figure out ways to control.

A Rubik’s Cube is a good puzzle for epileptics to keep their mind busy, put in control and away from things that trigger seizures from occurring. Once you figure that out you may be able to do things that you hadn’t thought before were possible keeping your mind straight. This is not something that you will hear from a neurologist because we need them for all of their studies and research.

And no neurologist will have any problem with you telling them what you do all day, what keeps you interested and busy. A hobby in life is one of the most important things to have. These are things they want you to do, how they want you to be and that you should be enjoying for a normal lifestyle. These stories are the stories that make them see that what they are doing is working for you too. If you can't share your life stories with them, either good or bad, how can a doctor help with anything that you may need them for!

And for an epileptic, that is alot!      

Try This for 2016!

It may change your life for the better, Forever!

This may be the greatest New Year’s resolution of your life, even though it's March. It is quite harsh and drastic but, if you choose as I have to stop your seizures from destroying the rest of your life, you may want to give it a shot. I can almost promise you that it does work. It has stopped many of my seizures from occurring, almost all!    

The #1 thing that causes the brain to go out of control especially for epileptics are Cell Phones. Put the cell phone down. Every time you put a cell phone over your ear you are losing the battle already. If you must, put the phone on speaker mode and keep in in front of you, away from your head. Your brain waves will act up like you are frying your brain cells while using a cell phone. The longer you are on your phone, whether close to your head or not, the closer you are to having a seizure. Looking at the screen of your smart phone 100 times a day or more causes the same. If you think that this is not true, talk to an epileptic because, although we have our problems, most of us like myself can see in our heads through our own eyes what is happening.

Never a good thing.

House phones however, even the wireless ones, do not ever come close to the effect of a cell phone. I have never dropped a house phone when on one nor have I ever had a problem using one either. A cell phone has a 100% chance of falling to the ground, sometimes taking you with it. The power of a cell phone can burn the brain and yet we wonder where brain cancer comes from. Not that brain cancer started when cell phones came into our lives but, it isn’t helping the the situation. The lights and flashes that we epileptics see everyday are ungodly, even through text messages. Most of us see flashes of light in our heads that others do not through our own eyes, yet difficult to figure out what it is we are seeing time and time again. This is something very common but, luckily, does not kill us once it stops.

Second to cell phones are laptops and office computers with giant monitors in our faces being stared at all day. Close the laptop or shut the computer off, give yourself a break, if it is allowed, time on your computer with more time off of your computer. I had a job for ten years behind a computer and just wished that someone would have given me a heads up on them as to what it might do. I had to stare into a monitor which I kept changing, keeping it further away from my face with screen covers on them as well and yet, nothing worked. Every year, working got worse, worse and worse for me. I just wish that I could go back in time to change what happened but, if it wasn’t going to happen there, it would have happened somewhere else. Although I never wanted to use a computer, my dream job had always been out on the field working as a carpenter or construction worker, and I do believe to this day that I would be better off then I am now.

Third after cell phones and computers are televisions. Do yourself a favor and just don’t turn them on, ever. This can be easy to do for yourself but, when you are living with a family it can become very difficult, yet if they have any feelings for you at all, will let you be and go into another room to turn the television on. Almost everyone has more than a few these days, it’s not the 50's anymore with a black and white television on wheels like a piece of furniture, although a black and white television would not cause such problems and, can be black and white if you choose to make any TV screen put on that way. Personally I cannot stand them and yet, I have every premium channel, go figure. It just makes it easier for someone else to watch something else somewhere else! With a large collection of DVD’s and Blu Rays just because.    

Forth on my list are eReaders. Reading off of a tablet such as Apple IPads, Samsung Galaxy S’, Barnes and Noble’s Nook or Amazon’s Kindle Fire; the most popular of these tablets to read off of. Every one of these tablets can cause the same as any of the above by staring into these colored screens for minutes or hours even of every day. Staring at these screens is more like, staring into the abyss of Epilepsy! So for that matter, put the tablet down and grab a book instead. An actual real page turning book which causes no problems while being stared at. It is easy to get to a local library or book store even and if not it is simple to buy one off of Amazon, eBay or Barnes and Noble on line. Anything that you want can be found. Even some libraries make pick-ups and deliveries. However, audio books are fine as well and cause no harm although are more expensive to purchase if wanted or needed. 

Fifth, store shopping, bright ones such as jewelry stores mostly but, these days every store will cause an epileptic problems. Not that you shouldn’t go but, try to keep yourself on a timed schedule, basically know what you want, find what you want, pay and get out. Strolling slowly all stores such as Macy's per say, like most people do on escalators and such will only cause you problems that you do not need! Would you like to go back to the store one day, for sure you do and will, so my best advise is to just get what you went for, pay and get out.

Sixth problem for epileptics and seizures is a big deal! Bigger then you may think.  Being driven around everyday from here to there can cause you problems, especially at night. During the day you only have the sun to worry about so put sunglasses on and done, but at night everything can and will affect you more from stoplights, street lights to break lights on cars in front of you but, mostly cars and trucks coming at you in on-coming lanes blinding you with their high beams on. Keep the sun visor down blocking the stoplights and your head turned down or away from on-coming cars. You do not want to have a seizure on the highway scaring the driver half to death or causing accidents. Personally, I have been pulled over to the side of the road many times by my wife, the side roads only though luckily for us both. Many nights leaving from one house to another I have had a seizure, then asking Michelle, “where are we”. “we haven’t even moved yet” she goes. Wearing your sunglasses at night is not a bad thing to do either, whatever keeps the lights on the road from causing you problems and protecting yourself and others, is a good thing to do.

So we understand now how to keep yourself well from seizures caused by cell phones, computers, televisions, tablets, shopping and every night out on the street and what to do about it!