I’m not trying to foist a favourite dinner menu on readers. I like fish, tea and cherries – separately, at different moments but together….
In Brothers Karamazov, this is the menu suggested by Ivan Fydorovich to his younger brother Alyosha when they meet in a tavern. Alyosha eagerly agrees to the menu and seems to enjoy it too.
Every alphabetically literate person who opens the papers to the health section believes that tea is full of anti-oxidants that keep us forever young, cherries help fight cancer and fish provided the magical omega 3 fatty acids that lower cholestrol. In 19th century Russia, they ate it simply because they loved it.
My real reason for mentioning it is the chapter, “The Grand Inquisitor” in which it appears. The novel is one of those scintillating classics that’s to be read and re-read, for its sheer complexity of human characters. In this chapter the two brothers discuss religion. Ivan explains to Alyosha how Christianity has changed so much that Christ himself would be unwelcome on earth.
Sample this line: …”and we wil give them a quiet, humble happiness, the happiness of feeble creatures.” Or, this, when a Cardinal accuses Christ of “giving mankind what it does not want – freedom of choice. What it really wants is Miracle, Mystery and Authority.”
Eh?
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