Dear Marion,

My most recent letter to Cynthia Behrman contained some medical advice
which although innocuous, shouldn't be broadcast. I forwarded to her,
as I did to you, the Youtube URL to that elegant performance by
Ton Koopman's group of Bach's Kaffeekantate. Cynthia replied,
adding appreciatively that although she was not a Christian,
she also liked very much Kantate 106, "Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste
Zeit", of which a Youtube performance is also available. I had the 
following comments:

"Cantata 106. Christianity has little to do with it. Formal religions
are, all of them, to my mind, red herrings. The question is not whether
the listener is a Christian, but whether the listener is a human being.
Translate the word "God" with "inwardness" or "specifically my own."
I hear this cantata as instructions not about death, but about life and
how it should be lived in the face of death. Its message, though
somewhat at odds with the conventional wisdom is very congenial to me.
"Bestelle dein Haus," (put your house in order) is what I'm busy with,
all the time."

"With respect to Katenuses comments in chapter 52, I consider them
like mathematical equations which may be erroneous and misleading, but
if not, might also be useful and productive.  In their present form,
their denomination as chapter 52 is only temporary. They belong in an
appendix or in a separate essay. I'm interested in the analogy between
life as it is experienced and life as it is recounted in the novel.
If ideas such as articulated in chapter 52 are meaningless then they
should be ignored. I'm interested in the possibility that they are NOT
meaningless and that they can be and should be integrated with the
narrative. I haven't succeeded in naturalizing them, but I believe
it's worth trying."

"My response to Rebekah's paper has been to start to reread the Brothers
Karamasov. How far I'll get seems uncertain. I looked first at Ivan
Karamasoff's tale of the Grand Inquisitor.  I was impressed with the
naivete with which Christ was characterized as the worker of miracles.
I was struck by the description of the Inquisitor who had just presided
over the burning to death of 100 infidels, under the auspices of Ferdinand
and Isabella, patrons of Christopher Columbus, as a rational human being.
I thought of "Eichmann in Jerusalem". I infer that Doestoevski endorses
the Inquisitor's elaborate and contrived interpretation of the Temptations
of Christ to which the novelist allots so much space. (My own interpretation
is different.) Would you admit (or assert) that theological abstractions
at such length interfere with the dramatic unity of the novel? My intention
is to integrate Katenuses "philosophy" into the texture of my novel in the
manner in which my own "philosophy" is integral to my life. I haven't begun
to succeed with the literary phase of my project; and I admit that the non-
literary phase may be an illusion."

It's probably the ultimate in presumptuousness that I've been comparing
my writing with Dostoevsky's, an exercise which, however, I find very
useful. I'm impressed how important a role theology has in Dostoesvky's
experience, and how problematic the function of religion is in his writing,
and I suspect also in his life.  The translator of the text of the Grand
Inquisitor which I read is Rudolf Kassner, a conservative literary figure
on the pre-Nazi German stage, a prolific author in his own right, who was
a close friend of Rilke, - if one can imagine Rilke having a close friend.
Kassner espouses the rather exotic and bizarre theory that Dostoevsky
confounded the Roman Catholism of the Grand Inquisitor with the positivistic
rationalistic enlightenment and deemed them both emblematic of the faults
of the modern world. My own interpretation is that Dostoevsky perceived the
Grand Inquisitor and the Catholicism which he represented as corruption into
objectivity of the religious experience which appeared to him to have
inspired "original" Christianity. The enlightenment which Dostoevsky
disdained similarly extolled objectivity, albeit from another perspective.
Hence the apparent coincidence.

Please don't worry about the ambient temperatures in our house. Margaret
has not sustained any frostbite. She seems content and cheerful. She knows
that I will turn on the oil burner for her any time she asks for it.
Meanwhile spring has arrived. The temperature is well above freezing,
and next week will rise to 76 degrees. Global warming, indeed.

I need to get back to my writing. I'm embarrassed to say that what I've
written seems pretty good to me, but there's too much of it; and I don't
know how to stop. I hope that you are well and will stay that way.
Jochen