New Yorker's Review of "Laurus"

[Anonymous No.8673657]

The review in question is "Holy Foolery", available here: http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/holy-foolery

Note that the review is not negative, "Holy Foolery" is a play on the Orthodox idea of the Holy Fool, which is a central theme in the work. Nonetheless, the author of the New Yorker review clearly misunderstands some important spiritual themes in the work, and I will nitpick my way through them. But first, here are some Orthodox hymns in English.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1ybJx1osyk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDoyZtkrU0s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noetoc2W4Pc

From the review
>Nil Sorsky was renowned for his asceticism and devotion, suggesting that, through self-discipline and prayer, you could directly commune with God, making irrelevant the extravagant rituals of Orthodoxy.
This is a complete misunderstanding of Saint Nilus of Sora, a product of imposing the Western, polarized conception of religion (ritual contra spirituality, which has about as much place in Orthodoxy as it does in Native American religion), on Orthodoxy. Saint Nilus of Sora was a radical ascetic, but he wasn't against ritual at all. His fight was about monks owning land. Back then, many monasteries owned land, and peasants could farm it in exchange for providing a tithe of food and other goods. Saint Nilus was ardently opposed to this arrangement, and said a monk's place is to live in poverty and with no property, and monks ought to be as self-sufficient as possible (the prevailing monastic philosophy now in the Orthodox Church). He wasn't raining against rituals by any means, just against accumulation of land and things like that.

>In “Laurus,” Vodolazkin aims directly at the heart of the Russian religious experience and perhaps even at that maddeningly elusive concept that is cherished to the point of cliché: the Russian soul.
The author misunderstands the work: it's about the religious Russian soul, and is more relevant to non-Russians of the Orthodox faith, than to irreligious Russians. The work is replete with allusions to the Bible and non-Russian saints. It ends with an allusion to Saint Ignatius of Antioch.

>In “Laurus,” the depiction of faith is presented entirely without irony—a strategy that has become unusual among literary writers, but which is central to Vodolazkin’s effort to excavate what was meaningful from Russia’s distant past.
The first part is true, but again, the reviewer is marginalizing the spirituality of the book as merely a device to emphasize the past, whereas in the book, it's what unites the past and future. The glimpses of the future in the work, are tied very much to faith and God, they are miraculous visions.

>The faith of Vodolazkin’s holy fools is neither ecstatic, like many forms of Western Christianity, nor hierarchical, like Eastern Christianity, nor scholarly, like Judaism.

cont

[Anonymous No.8673658]

>>8673657
The reviewer makes a critical error in divorcing the Holy Fools of the book from "Eastern Christianity." The book in fact uses the Eastern Christian tradition of the Holy Fool, it doesn't conjure up some new fool. And there is religious hierarchy, it's used in the book as an opponent to folk superstition (where that is dangerous, although usually it's portrayed as merely quaint). The work, unlike Dostoevsky's religious novels, is not polemical in the least against modernism or atheism or anything like that, true faith is presented in contrast to dangerous superstitions of the middle ages (but, again, superstition in the work is generally portrayed as quaint and harmless, only occasionally as dangerous).'

>His botched attempt to deliver their child tests the limits of prayer and folk medicine: “The blood was flowing from the womb and he could not stanch it. He took some finely grated cinnabar in his fingers and went as deeply into Ustina’s female places as he could.” Arseny acknowledges his malpractice, but not the fact that she’s gone forever.

COMPLETELY misses the point. The death is ultimately a consequence of sin, in this case fornication, and that is overtly mentioned in the book.

>Most of his silent communion is not with God, but with Ustina’s spirit.
Again, completely misses the point. Arseny and Ustina are one in an unsanctified matrimony (this is made expressly clear), and Aresny's quest is to repair their sinful unity. They are one, he's not just "communing with her spirit," they are man and woman as one flesh, and his works and prayer are in her name.

>The prophets put forward a peculiar explanation for their extraordinary visions. They don’t necessarily attribute it to their spirituality. They see soothsaying as a kind of physical phenomenon, related to either the circularity of time or to its illusoriness.
The prophets don't proclaim they see vision because of their spirituality, because they are humble, humility is a major requirement for their visions. But it's made clear they see these visions because they are spiritually gifted.

Anyway, that's all.

[Anonymous No.8675324]

bump

[Anonymous No.8676869]

I'm interested in the Orthodox Church so this was an interesting read for me, thanks!

[Anonymous No.8676879]

>>8673657
>2016 New Yorker

Eh.. no thanks

[Anonymous No.8676889]

>>8676879
This

[Anonymous No.8676924]

This was a good thread but I have nothing to contribute because I'm cancer.
>>8676879
>>8676889
We should get more New Yorker takedowns on /lit/

[Anonymous No.8676941]

Where's your blog dude? I'd read

[Anonymous No.8676975]

>>8676869
No problem. Happy you enjoyed it!

>>8676941
I don't have a blog, but thank you.

[Anonymous No.8679766]

>>8673657
I haven't read Laurus and I'm not terribly familiar with the Orthodox Church, but I appreciate that you're not some trashposter from /mu/pol/r9k/reddit.

[Anonymous No.8679793]

>2016
>being a christfag

[Anonymous No.8679798]

>>8673657
nothing better than meta-reviews

[Anonymous No.8679868]

>>8679766
Thanks, I'm doing my best to bring the quality of the board up.