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Empty Chair at Dawn
That Is Enough: Dostoevsky, Resurrection Without Resolution, and the Grace of the Returning Dawn in Empty Chair at Dawn Introduction The epilogue of Crime and Punishment is one of the strangest endings in world literature, precisely because of how little it resolves. Raskolnikov is in Siberia. He has confessed. He is serving his sentence. And…
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The Thistle & the Samovar
BONUS TRACK: THE THISTLE & THE SAMOVAR My prog rock concept albums usually contain several instrumentals, but Ghosts, Masks & Fractures defied that pattern from the start. I wrote the opening track without knowing where the album would go—so much for a “concept album,” right? The album’s characters are composites drawn from people I’ve known,…
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But…
The Smallest Door: Dostoevsky, the Half-Confession, and the Theology of the Unconditional in But… Introduction There is a moment in Crime and Punishment that Dostoevsky stages with almost surgical precision. Raskolnikov, sitting with Sonya, comes close — genuinely close — to naming what he did. He circles it. He approaches the edge of the sentence.…
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Ladder of Ash
The Fire That Becomes Its Own King: Dostoevsky, the Self-Made Throne, and the Inevitability of Ash in Ladder of Ash Introduction Dostoevsky had a specific term for the person who constructs their ascent from the wreckage of others: he did not call them villains. He called them men who had lost the capacity for genuine…
SMOKE WITHOUT FIRE
Smoke Obscures