Book Group: Helps for Understanding Demons
For those of you working to complete the first part of Demons before Friday, here are a few helps sent by Chantalle:
http://community.middlebury.edu/~beyer/courses/previous/ru351/novels/devils/devil.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Possessed_(novel)
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/jim_forest/pevear.htm
Please be warned that the above links contain information that may spoil the plot.
Dostoevsky isn't easy to understand, partly because of the number and complexity of his characters. I have posted a list of characters below. I suggest printing it and using it as a bookmark.
I look forward to discussing Part 1 Friday.
9 comments:
how will we discuss part I on friday; i want to make sure i don't miss out.
...and i better get reading!
We have a few options for discussing Demons.
My initial thought was to start a post with some of my thoughts and then people could respond w/ comments and introduce their thoughts.
A second option is to discuss the book in an online chat at an agreed upon time. We could chat through gmail, windows messenger, AOL, etc. This would be fun, but it is a bit more complicated.
Everyone, please tell me your preference? If you would like to try an online chat, please tell me if you are free Friday evening and at what time. I am free the entire evening, but would prefer to hold the call after 8:00 p.m. eastern time.
Jayme
I made the above comment but didn't realize that Katie was signed in at the time. Sorry if I confused anyone.
Final comment, I promise.
Has anyone ever set up a conference line? or does anyone know of an inexpensive conference line that we could use. it would be fun to discuss Demons on a live call if we can find a way to do it cheaply.
i would love to try a live chat...it would be fun!
xoxo
here are a few that we found. be sure to read the FAQ's; from what we can see there are only normal long distance charges. there also is no e-mail sharing, no request for cc and no hidden fees.
http://www.easyfreeconferencing.com/pages/faqs
http://www.freeconferencecall.com/signin.asp?source=goog&kw=Free+Conference+Call&gclid=CLD0iPu3y4sCFQieYAod3hCRBg
xoxo
Part I by Friday!?! I had mine shipped for free, so I didn't get it until yesterday. Maybe I'll have to skip the discussion of part I and catch up with everyone for the discussion of part II.
I might be with Ian. I didn't read the deadline part of Jayme's initial post. Demons is kind of a heavy book and hard to take on my commute!
All:
Read what you can before Friday. I don't know that it will matter too much that you haven't finished the first section, since that section is primarily background for the "events" of the novel.
That said, with only a few of us having read the first section, let's wait until the next deadline to hold a live online or phone discussion. I'll initiate discussion by posting my thoughts on my blog. Then we can discuss through the comment feature.
At this point you have 3+ weeks to finish the first two sections--roughly 400 pages.
Here is the schedule:
schedule:
Part I - April 20
Part II - May 11
Part III - June 1
Amber: Our next book is a bit lighter (physically and intellectually)
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