Chapter 5 -- The Grand Inquistitor

Ivan Karamazov, the tormented doubter, has written the following "poem" (that's what he calls it).  In it, he imagines that Jesus comes back to Earth, during the Spanish Inquisition.  (Not for the Second Coming, but just for a visit.)  The Grand Inquisitor is not amused.

Go over to Edmodo to find a file with this chapter.  Comment here.

(If you want more background on the Spanish Inquisition, follow the link above.  But don't go here, or here.  They really won't help you at all.)

Chapter 4 -- "The Rebellion"

     The first Guided Independent Reading assignments will be two chapters from Fyodor Dostoevsky's classic novel The Brothers Karamazov. All I want you to do is read them (you'll have to go over to Edmodo.com to get the text), and respond here.

      It's a Russian novel, and it's long and scary (as are a lot of the names), but it's a monumental work of art.  I read it when I was a senior in high school, and it blew me away.  As I did with another Dostoevsky classic, Crime and Punishment, I read the last two hundred or so pages in a sitting.  For The Brothers, I literally missed eating dinner (just a couple more pages), and kept reading for hours until I was done.  I've never been as immersed in a book -- before or since.

     In this chapter Ivan, the cynical, skeptical brother is explaining to his brother Alyosha why he must doubt.  Alyosha is the youngest brother, meek and spiritual, and has become a novice in a monastery.

     Dostoevsky himself was a devout Russian Orthodox Christian.