Book III and reading pace

Again, a few scattered comments.

First, what do people think about the pace? Doing a book a week means we won't be done until September. I would say, let's do a part a week, but that might be too ambitious--though I'm not sure a better way to break it down. What do people think?

As for book III, just a few observations:

Ivan, while professing himself an unbeliever, again indicates how religion is beneficial--a noble lie perhaps. "There would have been no civilization if they hadn't invented God" (137).

What did people make of the title, "The Sensualists"? I would apply this label to Fyodor and Dmitri (and maybe Ivan too, but he does not express the same excessive passion as the others), but what about Alyosha? It is interesting that in book II, Rakitin tells Alyosha, "you're a thorough Karamozov--birth and heredity have shaped you. You're a sensualist from your father, a crazy saint from your mother" (86). Now that Zossima wants him to leave the monastery, I wonder if the Karamozov side will come out in any way. To begin with, Alyosha and his father are extreme characters...a saint on the one hand and a dirty old man on the other. I wonder if it's possible to find any common element between the extreme sensuality and piety the characters exhibit.

Of the characters we've met thus far, I am actually most impressed with Gregory. I admire his loyalty to the family, care for his wife, and how he lives a deep piety, especially in his willingness to take care of children not his own (though he had not wanted to baptize his baby). Though Alyosha is set up as the saint, he is so young (and so much story to go), that I still haven't made up my mind about him.