Hey, folks!
Plodding through more of my Philosophy and Literature Ph.D. program, I have discovered a real love for Dostoyevsky! I recently read Notes from Underground and Crime and Punishment to do a report for my Existentialism class. And though I haven’t read The Brothers Karamazov yet (it’s on my summer reading list), which is just humongous, I have watched the movie version (with Yul Brenner and, in his first role: William Shatner!).
I think a great idea for an Intro to Philosophy or Existentialism class is to have them watch the movie (maybe in two sessions – it’s 2 1/2 hours long), and then read “The Grand Inquisitor” section (a shorter piece in the middle of the novel). “The Grand Inquisitor” is not near as understandable if you don’t know the whole story, but the novel is just too lengthy for undergrads, I think, so having them see the movie and then reading “The Grand Inquisitor” would work really well, I think.
Another thing that might work really well, whenever discussing Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, is watching Alfred Hitchcock’s movie Rope. That is a classic movie, with Jimmy Stewart no less, and the writer obviously read and drew form Crime and Punishment. The philosophy behind the murders (great men are above the law and can hence commit murder – something like a perverted form of Nietzsche’s overman) is almost exactly what Raskolnikov expresses in Crime and Punishment.
Another great movie for an existentialism class? Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal, which I watched for the first time this semester. Wow, what a classic! The unfulfilled existentialist search for meaning in the face of death…it’s all there.
Back to Dostoyevsky. Dostoyevsky…his characters are so weird, so flawed, so tragic, so irrational, so…human! And he always so deeply explores issues of good and evil, and redemption through suffering. Yes, that’s just the kind of philosophical writer I aspire to be! I’m not saying I’ve every written any characters as complex as Dostoyevsky (I sure hope I’ve gotten close with Witch Hunt), but Dostoyevsky is definitely now one of my stylistic role models, along with Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. Ah, well, enough of my existentialist ramblings for now. 
(My newest novel, Witch Hunt, is now available on Amazon. If you want to take a look, check out my website, www.richmondwest.net, which has a description and a link to the Amazon site.)
Love and Compassion Always, Richmond
