leonarde

Unless I get feedback here from certain, ahem, LITERARY CRITICS, this will be my last mention of
Dostoevsky. One of the difficulties in discerning
the attitude of an author in a novel is the polyphonic nature of many of the best works: dozens, if not hundreds, of characters each with his/her own voice and, even if one eliminates the minor ones, how can anyone determine which, if any, reflects the authors own views? There are probably several methods but one of the best, in my opinion, is to look at any inscription/citation put at the front of the book
by the author: this is something outside of the text proper and can be ascribed to the author him/
herself.
As I mentioned before "The Brothers Karamazov" was
completed at most a year before Dostoevsky's 1881
death. It is, by most accounts, his greatest work
and most dutifully reflects his understanding of the world.
So from the dedication page of "The Brothers Karamazov": leonarde: "Anna Grigorievna" was D.'s second wife.
This is from the most recent translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky

Cheers!

leonarde

As I mentioned two posts back, the surprisingly
reddish hue of the blood of the Shroud of Turin
was one of the features which caused much incredulity with some people and confusion with some others.
In 1973 some blood tests were run from tiny samples taken by two Italian scientists: Frache
of Modena and Filogamo of Turin. Neither one could
get a positive reading for blood.
A few year later (late 1970s)Walter McCrone, renowned microanalyst, looked at some samples from
the Shroud and proclaimed the "blood" too red. To
him this was evidence that the "blood" like the
body image was merely a dye or pigment applied by
a medieval artist.
If those had been the only voices on the blood question, it would be an open and shut case: the
"blood" at least was inauthentic and this was of probative value about the authenticity of the Shroud in general.
Next: the other side of the story.

leonarde

In 1978 began the most thorough examination ever
of the Shroud of Turin: that of the Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP). This was composed of mostly Americans and numbered about 30 scientists and scholars.
Aside from Walter McCrone whose results I previously mentioned, the STURP members most involved in the blood identification were John
Heller and Al Adler. The former relates many of the details of this in his book "Report on the Shroud of Turin" (1983, Houghton Mifflin). In the
back of the book he gives a table with a list of
the tests that they did to determine the "blood"
was real blood. The above was from page 215.
Next: why might the blood be so....red(!).

leonarde

As I may have mentioned previously, the best source on the PRESENCE of real blood on the Shroud
is probably John Heller's book (cited a few posts
back). Heller and A. Adler were the STURP members
most intimately involved in an investigation of the blood on the Shroud. Ian Wilson's book is also
very good on this point.
Starting on page 88 of Wilson's book there is an examination of the "hue of the blood" question.
Some characterizations thereof will ensue.....

leonarde

We laymen are, for the most part, accustomed to thinking of blood as more or less homogeneous: the
same for one individual from one moment to the next. But as Sammy Davis Jr. once sang in "Porgy
and Bess": it ain't necessarily so.
On page 88 of Wilson's book he reports on the inquiries by Adler, the blood specialist of STURP,
to ascertain the reasons for the redness of the
(very old) blood on the Shroud. Adler found elevated levels of bilirubin, a naturally-occuring
blood pigment. According to Adler there are perhaps only two things that could cause such a
phenomenon:
1)a severe case of malaria.
2)heavy traumatic shock.

Given the history surrounding the (alleged) Man of
the Shroud there is nothing to indicate 1) but quite a bit (scourging, crowning with thorns and
attendant bleeding, and the nailing to the cross)
to indicate 2).

Basically in layman's terms under the above conditions of severe trauma, hemolysis (rupturing
of the red blood cells) occurs and the blood when
it goes thru the liver produces (or the liver itself produces)bilirubin. Bilirubin is yellow-orange in color. It was THIS blood which combined
with methemoglobin in its para-hemic form to produce so much of the "off-color"(ie red)blood in the wounds.
Cheers!

Berenger Sauniere

Wrong shroud.

leonarde

In what way "wrong"?

[ May 11, 2002: Message edited by: leonarde ]</p>

Gurdur

uh, I hate to say this, but I've been really lazy this once, and just didn't bother reading this thread through (though I did like the interplay in French).

Pardon me if this has already been done to death, but has anyone mentioned the writer's epilepsy, and the fact that he most probably had "mystical" experiences in pre-onset epileptic auras ?

leonarde

No, no one brought up his epilepsy. It's been years since I read those Dostoevsky biographies but as I recall in outline it went something like
this:

1)In his youth Dostoevsky was a sort of free thinker with quasi-socialist tendencies.

2)During this period he wrote "Poor Folk" which
was warmly received by the critic Belinsky who
predicted a great career for Dostoevsky.

3)In 1846(?) Dostoevsky was arrested for participation in a political discussion group (was
it the Petrushevsky Circle?).

4)Sentenced to be executed, Dostoevsky went through all the real dread and anticipation of meeting death only to be "pardoned" at the last moment (a scenario prearranged by the authorities).

5)It was after THIS mock execution that his epileptic seizures started. Though one can develop
epilepsy into adulthood anyway.

6)It was the experience of prison labor that pushed Dostoevsky ultimately in a more conservative and religious direction. With the
possible exception of "The Double" (a story I LOVE!!) and the aforementioned "Poor Folk" all of
D's major works seem to have been done after his
move toward religion/conservatism (hinted at in the epilogue of "Crime and Punishment").

Cheers!

Gurdur

uh, pardon me, but you make it sound almost as if the shock caused his epilepsy, which would be impossible.

Furthermore, most epilepsies carry on into adulthood, if that's waht you mean (you're a bit unclear); and of course epilepsy can start in adulthood for any number of reasons (try "prison-fever" for example, or injuries).

And you haven't discussed the role of his pre-onset auras at all - which I would have thought extremely important given his descriptions of pre-onset auras (together with mystical religious ideation) in such novels as The Idiot.