Father Sergius

LET'S JUST FACE IT: MOST OF THESE POSTS WILL HAVE SPOILERS.
The crazy thing about Father Sergius is that I didn't even read it while at a coffee shop.

Quick Synopsis: A man moves up in society--up--up--up, until he reaches the top and out of vanity becomes a monk, so as to show how superior he is to even the highest circles of society.

There are some other unique things about Father Sergius.

For example one of the things which is most memorable about the story isn't actually the climax of the story.

The last time I read the story, the thing that most stuck out is a scene where Father Serigus is serving as a hermit. He is still struggling with 1)Doubts & 2)The Flesh. One night a lady shows up, claiming to be lost and ill, begging for entry into the hermitage. He tries to ignore her, but she is persistent.

Once admitted he allows her in to the room next door. He returns to his cell to pray. She repeatedly calls him over. He has heard her slipping off her dress to expose a boobie. Except Tolstoy doesn't call it that because he has a lots more class.

So Father Sergius in order to answer her call, but risk neither of their immortal souls, He frickin Cuts off the tip of his finger with an ax!

In this way he can enter her room without worrying about his flesh's desires consuming him.

What a scene. Even Nabokov's remark that Ol' Father Sergius cut off the wrong appendage doesn't minimize the power of this scene for me.

But what struck me in this reading is how, this scene comes about half way through the story.

I mean this centerpiece really inspired me and I'm going to take Tolstoy's Methods to heart in the next booger joke I write.


JUSTIN KAHN IS MOST LIKELY NOT A PROFESSIONAL LITERARY CRITIC