Buy: Late 19th Century Authors’ Psychotic Parents
This has been nagging at me for a few years.
In a great way! I am obsessed with dysfunctional families. The other losers [sic] here at BoDB will probably post a lot more on the subject of 19th cent authors’ parents, with rebuttals and everything, so let me just get on with it:
Louisa May Alcott:
Bronson Alcott hung with the transcendentalists and held his keep by founding fruitarianism. The Fruitlands! “The fruitarian diet consists of RAW fruit and seeds ONLY!” says that link that I just linked. He made Louisa and the rest of the virgin suicides eat apples 24/7.
Um… remember when I talked about eating apples all the time? Um…Wouldn’t that suck?
During my JSTORing, I printed this out for later.
The Orchard Hous
e (hence, apples)
Dostoevsky:
He wrote that book that was like Match Point! His bio in the front pages of the Bros K reads, “[The Dirty D], the son of a former army surgeon whose drunken brutality led his own serfs to murder him by pouring vodka down his throat until he strangled.”
What?? Father D was strangled to death by his serfs, who held him down to pour vodka down his throat?
Did anyone see my dad’s fishpond pics?
I don’t get this joke.
Chekhov: also had a violent Russian dad. Maybe if that story were more interesting, his short stories would be too. Zing!
Those are the only examples I have. QED.
ScoJo/soccer coach Match Point montage!!
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2 Comments, Comment or Ping
That cartoon is supposed to be Dmitri’s father from Brothers Karamazov, who’s father-son conflict is quite demented, which is why he wants to evict him from the “Big Brother Karamazov” house (caption at bottom). Dmitri is the only brother still living at home, along with a few other less intimidating characters.
Also, interesting thing, fruitarianism. Why is there no serious case study of fruits? (Fruitology?). Myths of eating have been taken into considerable examination by anthropologists (”In mythological thought, the cooking of food is, in effect, a form of mediation between nature and society, between life and death, and between heaven and earth.”)
I still don’t get it… do communism and evictions come hand in hand? Does this have something to do with Co-Ops? Kirkland?
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