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Title: Demons (Everyman's Library (Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.), 182) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Richard Pevear, Larissa Volokhonsky, Fyodor Dostoevsky ISBN: 0-375-41122-4 Publisher: Everyman's Library Pub. Date: 17 October, 2000 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $23.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.59 (17 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Helter Skelter
Comment: Reviewers usually mention the social & political commentary at the core of this novel, how it anticipated the Russian Revolution & Stalinism and so forth. Actually the book is more expansive than that, in that it's largely a comedy of manners, set out in a breathless narrative style that breaks all the rules of "novel writing" as taught in our schools.
DEMONS was initially published as a serial, and it reads that way. Each of its several parts seems designed to be read in one sitting. The multiplicity of characters & intricacies of the plot are less formidable the more rapidly the book is read (provided the reader is always attentive, of course).
In DEMONS Dostoevsky pokes fun at the naivete of Russian nobility, "intellectuals" and petty officials who seek "enlightenment" and wind up the pawns & victims of "very trashy people," a.k.a. "scum." There's murder, romance, plotting & intrigue of all kinds, and there are some "big scenes" resembling comic-operatic finales, with characters arriving one after another, each serving to push disorder over the edge, finally, into utter chaos. Dostoevsky is a master of this sort of writing and his storytelling (and plotting) talent is what makes his "novels of ideas" so much fun to read.
Dostoevsky's contempt for Jews is unfortunate, and some of his "messages" are less agreeable & consistent than they might seem while you're immersed in his novels. But the man was certainly sincere, and few great writers are so plainly enthusiastic. DEMONS is an excellent specimen of Dostoevsky's art.
Rating: 4
Summary: The Novel of Ideas
Comment: Nabokov, in his Lectures on Russian Literature, suggested that Dostoevsky be knocked off the canon of Russian writers, especially in favor of Turgenev, whom Dostoevsky hated. The reason was that Nabokov was against the "novel of ideas" because, he would say, it managed to achieve neither.
Demons is, of Dostoevsky's novels, the most ideological, yet still it is masterfully pulled off. Let it be known, however, that at times, the plot suffers at the expense of ideology, just as one has to expect, BUT THE IDEAS!
This book, although in my opinion it has the nuance of neither, is a perfect bridge between Notes From the Underground and The Brothers Karamazov. The intelligentsia, you suspect, are trying to build the positivistic paradise that the Underground man railed against, but as the novel progresses, you realize that the idealist vision has already been lost by Stepan Trofimovich, that all that remains is his desire to feel alive, even if that means inflicting every sort of pain. This is the same type of monster that Ivan warns against, and identifies himself with--if he were to act--in the Grand Inquisitor.
Also, please note, I tried once to read it in an older translation, and gave up somewhere in the 100s. This one I plunged through with little trouble.
Rating: 4
Summary: Bracing
Comment: Having read Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov, I had no idea how impenetrably dark this novel would be: let's just say that every single even mildly sympathetic, likable, or normative character is dead by book's end, while the primary villain, the terrifying Pyotr Stepanovich, gets off scot-free. Ha ha! Fun for the whole family!
Dostoyevksy's politics have little in common with my own, his characterizations of his political enemies are frequently outrageously unfair (although, admittedly, sometimes pretty funny--check the 'With Our People' chapter) and he has no sense of dramatic restraint; all of these characteristics are far more present here than they are in his more famous novels, which I would say are better than this one. Also, more than usual, Demons is pretty formless; there's no discernable protagonist, and dramatic progression is plodding at best. All of this notwithstanding, however, the novel does accrue a startling level of power, even as it makes you cringe now and again. There are a number of memorable characters, lead by the endearingly Micawber-esque Stepan Trofimovich and the childlike Kirillov. And then there's the aforementioned Pyotr Stepanovich, who is surely one of world literature's greatest villains. He's utterly cold-blooded, obviously doesn't even believe in the cause which he nominally spearheads, and doesn't operate with more than a schoolyard bully's level of intelligence--and yet, he never comes to any sort of justice. I cannot help but believe that this character portrait is not as unrealistic as one would hope.
I find that I have to sort of psyche myself up to read Dostoyevsky novels; it isn't an everyday undertaking for me. But this one was reasonably worth the effort. I recommend it to all conservative Christians seeking validation for their worldview, as well as fans of Russian literature.
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Title: The Idiot (Vintage Classics) by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Richard Pevear, Larissa Volokhonsky ISBN: 0375702245 Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 08 July, 2003 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Crime and Punishment (Crime & Punishment) by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Constance Garnett ISBN: 0553211757 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 01 July, 1984 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Notes from Underground (Vintage Classics) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Richard Pevear ISBN: 067973452X Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 01 September, 1994 List Price(USD): $10.95 |
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Title: The Idiot (Oxford World's Classics) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Alan Myers ISBN: 0192834118 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: 01 May, 1998 List Price(USD): $7.95 |
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Title: The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Richard Pevear, Larissa Volokhonsky, Fyodor Dostoevsky ISBN: 0374528373 Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux Pub. Date: 14 June, 2002 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
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