Notes From Underground (1864)

It’s not hard to understand why this short novel is widely considered a starting point for reading Fyodor Dostoevsky. It’s short and, perhaps most importantly, it’s a good example of his narrative style (when he finally gets to a narrative). I read it and didn’t like it when I was about 20, but it may (or may not) stay with me longer now even if it hasn’t been so easy getting here. In many ways Notes From Underground is Dostoevsky pure and you may like the ranting style sans narrative more than me. You obviously have to get here, if you are reading Dostoevsky, but I think it can wait. Crime and Punishment is a better place to start, if it doesn’t have to be short (or The Double, if it does). Notes From Underground has some intellectual heft, as an existential or otherwise philosophical treatise. I can certainly see how this leads directly to Nietzsche—it often felt like I was rereading him, which is admittedly remarkable—and even to Kafka. Not for nothing was Dostoevsky included in somebody’s list of the four great sick men of Europe (I think it was J.D. Salinger’s list and I’m guessing the fourth is Kierkegaard). For me the first part of Notes is a slog, a blistering rant about even the most basic elements of social life. The anonymous first-person ranter extols the virtues of the will over the tediously suffocating rational, even if the will is perverse and self-destructive. It’s a natural human right, or something. It often feels like he is railing against the terms of existence itself, heady and bracing with lunatic assertions. The second part of Notes is more the Dostoevsky I like, when our unpleasant ranting narrator—unnamed, for that modern existential flourish—is seen in action with acquaintances and a sex worker who is just being drawn into the life. The narrative momentum may still be fragmented, but it has some great scenes of painful social interactions, one of Dostoevsky’s great abilities as a writer. I sympathize with our guy’s reclusiveness and even to some degree with his resentments. But I draw the line at his cruel and vindictive behavior (nonetheless understanding the impulses). At that point Notes becomes an amazing freakshow spectacle, at which we can only gape in astonishment. All these harrowing and maddening terms of existence—that’s what Dostoevsky does best and still, arguably, better than anyone else. Notes From Underground stands with his greatest, but you might have to exercise some patience at first, or anyway I had to.

In case the library is closed to pandemic, which is over.

Winter Notes on Summer Impressions (1863)

Fyodor Dostoevsky’s short travel book—“notes” and “impressions” in the title give fair warning that it is closer to a think piece the size of an essay—was written after his first visit to Europe in 1862. He didn’t stay long, perhaps two and a half months in total, a few weeks in Paris, barely more than a week in London. And he came with a certain amount of innate disdain for Europe. Some see this piece as the point where the second half of his career began. The conventional wisdom is that it’s Notes From Underground, which followed the next year. I’m more inclined to go with the latter judgment, if only because this is so much more rambling and unfocused than Notes (and, for that matter, “A Nasty Story” from the year before). Dostoevsky may have been less comfortable with nonfiction, but my hunch is he knew he didn’t have much of a leg to stand on with the actual travels. Instead we get a lot of prejudices, which may or may not be right. He did turn into a raging antisemite as he aged and he never liked Europe much. He was close to a Slavophile, a believer in Russia as such, and even more in the Eastern Orthodox Church. So much faith in one church is really where I depart from him. He gets into some of that here, including some of his boldest statements of (cockamamie) faith. In many ways this is so short because, perhaps, he knew he needed more depth and understanding. He still lets it rip when he wants, notably on the French, but he may understand he’s not very persuasive. He would make a more detailed case against Europe in the novels to come. Here we merely see how early he was committed to Europe being the problem. It’s probably a misnomer to call it a travel book at all as it does few of the things we expect from travel literature. Winter Notes on Summer Impressions probably has to be taken as relatively obscure, and reading it through I think I can see the reason why. File under I read it so you don’t have to. I found a standalone kindle version—note that it’s not included in the Delphi anthology where I read most of his stuff.

In case the library is closed due to pandemic, which is over.

“A Nasty Story” (1862)

"A Bad Business," "A Disgraceful Affair," "A Most Unfortunate Incident," “A Nasty Anecdote," "An Unpleasant Predicament"
Absolutely prime Fyodor Dostoevsky here in this long story of the painful realities of class conflict, written shortly after the Russian reforms that liberated the serfs into lives of grinding poverty. Our main character here is that oxymoron, a liberal man of business. He has been dining and drinking with two peers with whom he has uneasy relations. He leaves for home but his coachman has mysteriously vanished. He decides to walk, partly because he’s a little drunk. By chance he meets someone who mentions that the revelry they can hear from a nearby building is the wedding of a man who works for him. He begins talking himself into making a surprise appearance there, thinking they would appreciate his condescending to be with them. It is a disaster, of course. Before he even enters, he steps in a dish of galantine put out to cool. Everyone, including his employee, is paralyzed by his presence. Our guy can see it is spoiling the party and he attempts to dispel the inhibition. But when the dancing and revelry begin again he does not like it. Others, such as the mother of the groom, are all over themselves to cater to him. They produce bottles of champagne for him. Later he realizes he is the only one drinking champagne, and even later we learn the cost of the champagne for the wedding party. There is a remarkable tension between boss and underling, as the underling furiously resents his presence but struggles not to show it. Meanwhile the boss is getting more and more drunk and finally passes out. It is a titanic piling on of incident, so wickedly painful there is moral vertigo just from reading. I like the dawning sense in Dostoevsky’s work of no limits. If you think things are bad now, just keep reading. It’s not long before Dostoevsky would be reaching this level of intensity at epic massive novel dimensions. But certainly here there is a compelling seed of it. I should also note this is another of his stories with an amazing variety of translations, even in the titles. They give a vivid sense of what you’re in for with this story.

Read story online.
Listen to story online.

Dostoevsky: A Writer in His Time (2009)

From 1976 until 2002 Joseph Frank published the five (large) volumes of his biography of Fyodor Dostoevsky. As he explains in the preface to this (large) single-volume abridged version, he looked to Leon Edel’s similarly massive biography of Henry James (four large volumes), which was whittled down to a single book (large, of course). Frank thought that was a pretty good idea and brought in editor Mary Petrusewicz for the condensing work. It would take them seven more years, but I found the single volume particularly useful and worthwhile, given I had only limited interest in plowing through the original five. It connects a lot of dots that might be missed simply reading through Dostoevsky’s beyond-impressive work as a whole. Perhaps most crucially it covers the 10 years from 1849 to 1859, when Dostoevsky was charged and convicted of treasonous activity, imprisoned, forced to endure a mock execution, and exiled to Siberia. He was imprisoned there for four years, after which it took him another six years to make it back to Russia, Petersburg, and Moscow. Understanding what happened in that period is almost staggering to contemplate—he lost 10 years of writing in his late 20s and 30s, the best years for many writers. It is crucial to understanding his work, both before and especially after, when he produced most of his masterpieces. Frank also provides excellent literary context and analysis for all Dostoevsky’s work. My takes were not always the same as his, but he’s the expert here, not me, and his analyses were always illuminating. Even this abridged version is still quite a honker—nearly 1,000 pages in print and closer to 1,500 in the kindle pagination (however that is calculated). But this biography was essential as I made my way through Dostoevsky’s work, lucid and informative. Even with its imposing length I would recommend it to anyone with more than a passing interest in the great Russian novelist. Dostoevsky wrote great tales, but in many ways his life story rivals them.

In case the library is closed due to pandemic, which is over.

The House of the Dead (1862)

For those keeping score, the only novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky that Vladmir Nabokov liked was The Double, and the only one that Leo Tolstoy liked was The House of the Dead. Both cases make sense for specific reasons. The Double is arty and literary (and good), The House of the Dead is full of humanity (and very good). I have to say so far I’ve liked very much everything I’ve read by Dostoevsky, even more than I expected. The House of the Dead has a tone that is different from any of the others—more sober, with more pathos. Gone is the screaming edge of anxiety, outrage, dread, hysteria. It's fair to call it a novel but much of it is lightly fictionalized, closer to autofiction, with scenes from his four years in prison at hard labor, following his mock execution, an unimaginably cruel and traumatizing exercise in which he believed he was about to die. There is little narrative through-line here, just scenes of prison life organized by theme: first impressions, new acquaintances, Christmas, the hospital, punishments, and animals they lived with and loved—a horse, a goat, etc. This journalistic novel is also where I learned that Dostoevsky’s family of origin had the status of nobility. Dostoevsky’s first-person narrator here is also from that upper class, and describes how the majority of prisoners were peasants and hated him for his class. Just another problem to deal with in prison. The book is rich with characters, and Dostoevsky’s ability to bring them to life with vivid detail and concise anecdotes is more evidence of how he continued to get better as a novelist. It may have been serialized in its initial publication, but it does not feel fragmented. Rather, it is methodical in its treatment of the subjects at hand. Some of the foreshadowing and references to other parts of the text feel a bit awkward but I like the approach he has taken. The narrator is serving a 10-year sentence for “assassinating” his wife (in the Constance Garrett translation) whereas Dostoevsky served four years for participating in a subversive literary discussion group. There are many beautiful passages here—notably the sections on Christmas, a theatrical performance staged by prisoners, and the prison animals. But I really enjoyed all of it. It’s interesting to see how much skill he has even when he is adopting a more restrained voice. The House of the Dead belongs with the best of prison literature and it’s one of Dostoevsky’s best too.

In case the library is closed due to pandemic, which is over.

The Humiliated and Insulted (1861)

Humiliated and Insulted, The Insulted and Humiliated, The Insulted and the Injured, Injury and Insult
There are various problems with this novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky, early and arguably his first true novel. That’s in part because it’s under influence of Charles Dickens, who Dostoevsky reportedly read in his years of exile. It’s his biggest to date, well over 300 pages by my estimate, managing multiple storylines with foreshadowing and cross-cutting. It’s still pretty crude and awkward, but it’s apparent he is absorbing and learning the craft. When I first saw the title I thought it was perfect for Dostoevsky, though it travels under various titles—some translators drop the “The,” which changes the sense too much for me. I’d even like another “the,” which appears in The Insulted and the Injured. But I prefer “Humiliated” and think it should go first. The Dickens influence is seen most clearly in the orphan girl Nellie, a 13-year-old suffering from epilepsy and homelessness, among other things. The first-person narrator is himself published, and now working on a second novel. His first novel roughly resembles Dostoevsky’s own first, Poor Folk. The best thing about The Humiliated and Insulted is probably Prince Valkovsky, who develops into one of Dostoevsky’s memorable villains. He’s even worse (or better), ultimately, than Foma Fomitch from the previous novel, The Village of Stepanchikovo. There’s a scene here that blew my mind in which this prince takes this narrator to supper and schools him on the depths of human depravity. Dostoevsky was particularly good at these evil souls. The reason I like the title as given above is because that’s how things generally go here. First these struggling poor folks are humiliated—given hopes for something, for example, that are subsequently dashed. Then followed by gratuitous insult, so it really stings. Again, this is what Dostoevsky can be particularly good at and he’s really coming into it here. The plots and subplots generally involve marriage and the grasping needs for money. An Englishman appears in Petersburg, as if to fix the Dickens influence. The structure, as I say, is somewhat awkward, but it is nonetheless compulsively readable, even as you can see the seams and how he is learning to write novels. It’s probably not necessary to read this for a better understanding of Dostoevsky, but it won’t hurt and it’s a good fix if you are jonesing for more of him.

In case the library is closed due to pandemic, which is over.

The Village of Stepanchikovo (1859)

The Friend of the Family
My version of this short novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky was unfortunately a reminder that these massive kindle products with everything an author ever wrote (Delphi, in this case) can also come with flaws. Besides an unusually heavy rash of OCR typos (e.g., “He110!”) which are now and then impossible to parse, one long passage was duplicated, possibly obliterating other text. It’s hard to guess what’s not there, or even whether anything indeed is not there (it’s always hard to know what you don’t know), but I think I got the gist and anyway it seemed to be a relatively minor episode. I think this might also be a place to register the general complaints about Russian novels. The names—they are confusing and it gets worse when, as here, there are numerous characters. Between last names, formal constructions of a first name with (I think?) a “patronymic,” and familiar forms of first names, sometimes I think there are two or more characters when actually there is just one. The Village of Stepanchikovo is another lampoon of a buffoonish upper class, focusing on the betters in a small village and a uniquely manipulative character named Foma Fomitch. He is enraging and a reminder of how well and how viscerally Dostoevsky can do hateful characters. One scene in particular, Foma’s first, lengthy appearance, practically made me murderous. All attempts to thwart him inevitably fail. Although the novel is relatively minor, as much as anything part of Dostoevsky’s literary rehabilitation after 10 years in Siberia, it has plenty of the hallmarks of his best stuff. The characters are real and so is much of the psychology. Foma Fomitch is basically a con man getting away with it right in front of our eyes. His superiors have no control of him, partly because they are too genteel and partly, and most significantly, because he has the matriarch of the village upper class entirely snowed. She is twice widowed and steadfastly blinkered about Foma. An approximation of the dynamic can be found in the 1936 movie My Man Godfrey in the murky relationship between the matriarch of a very rich family and her protégé, or something, Carlo, who entertains them with impressions of an ape. The Village of Stepanchikovo is another farcical, acidic critique of manners, courtship, and wealth. There are probably too many characters and too many red herrings with all their ridiculous names. But the narrator, his uncle, and Foma Fomitch are all vivid, believable portraits. Dostoevsky’s voice, as always, sings.

In case the library is closed due to pandemic, which is over.

Uncle’s Dream (1859)

This short novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky was his first in more than 10 years, the first since his imprisonment on political charges and 10 years of exile to Siberia. He opposed the serf system and associated with an activist group, and along with imprisonment and exile he suffered a mock execution, a form of torture. Uncle’s Dream is short enough to classify as novella and works as a story of manners, perhaps as only Dostoevsky could do it. There’s a matriarch and her attractive 23-year-old daughter. And there is a prince of the realm, ancient and doddering—BUT presently unmarried. The matriarch has her eye on him for her daughter. The matriarch blames all the world’s ills, or perhaps just her own, on Shakespeare, which strikes me as singularly Dostoevskian. As the story goes along it appears it is Romeo and Juliet that she specifically objects to. Her daughter has other suitors, one of whom is the nephew of the prince. The prince is a wonderful character. He stammers (one of the least annoying I’ve seen in literature, it even gets to be kind of fun) and he melts into reflexive lust whenever a young woman is nearby. At one point there’s a lot of whisking around as the matriarch schemes to get her daughter alone with the prince to manipulate a proposal. They pull it off, but to get him out of it the nephew and others scheme to make him think it was all a dream. The prince is mostly oblivious. The others are trying to bluff the matriarch and her daughter out of forcing the issue. The prince seems willing to marry her if that’s how it has to be, but after a point the daughter can’t stand the humiliation any longer of all this intriguing. The ending is strange, dragging in a new character for no apparent reason, although the finish beyond that, a long view of the daughter and matriarch, is inspired. This has all the stuff I like and expect from Dostoevsky, with the outraged and the indignant sputtering their rages past one another. I am already inclined toward these marriage-seeking stories, which tell us so much about the way people behave. I love the Shakespeare detail, and the prince is a perfect example of Dostoevsky’s contempt (laced with envy) for the aristocracy. Welcome back from Siberia, Fyodor.

In case the library is closed due to pandemic, which is over.

“White Nights” (1848)

This long story by Fyodor Dostoevsky is a love story much as perhaps only he could do it—unrequited, of course. The setting is late June or early July in St. Petersburg, which is far enough north that the darkness hours of night are very few or nonexistent (hence “white nights”). Our first-person narrator, another no-name, wanders the streets in his loneliness. Loneliness, loneliness. He sees a woman leaning against a railing and crying. There’s something about her. He’s intrigued but walks by, respecting her privacy (he will not always be so good about respecting boundaries ... what man in a romance ever is?). Then he hears her scream. A man is harassing her and he steps in to help. They strike up a conversation. He tells her about his loneliness, probably not the best next move. I have to say he comes across in many ways as what we now call an “incel” (involuntary celibate), with strange and strangely urgent ideas about women and men. He never crosses the line—he is too passive, like many incels in the clutch—but he comes close to it in his head. He describes the incel’s fatal passivity by putting himself in a category of “dreamer.” A dreamer is essentially passive and a lot like “a nice guy.” Those themes were incidental more or less when Dostoevsky was writing, although they also suggest that “incel” is a very old way of being. Altogether these two meet for four nights, talking about things like his loneliness, her lover who may have abandoned her, their life stories. It’s a classic “nice guy” story as he is forced to reckon with the fact that it will only ever be a friendship, which makes him long for her even more, etc. We all know this story. Once again, though he must go on at some length to do it, Dostoevsky manages a very precise portrait of this kind of incel / nice guy fantasy doomed to bitter disappointment, because women, they decide, don’t like nice guys, etc., etc. Our narrator here may yet be capable of rising above it, but that’s not clear at all by story’s end. All the romance here—and it is here—is supplied by the setting, the long nights of daylight. Dostoevsky, in counterpoint, is his usual slightly bitter realist. It creates a wonderful tension. Great story.

In case the library is closed due to pandemic, which is over.
Read story online.
Listen to story online.

The Landlady (1847)

This long story (or short novel) by Fyodor Dostoevsky is probably more fairly called a novella, in the notably vaporous task of separating stories, novelettes, novellas, and novels. Like The Double and even Poor Folk it already bears the mesmerizing quasi-hysterical voice of Dostoevsky which is so familiar now. Other elements of his writing we would come to know are here as well: grinding poverty, urban squalor, disease, fever, a central character so sensitive he verges on mental illness, along with various ways of being inept about relationships. In this case his beloved—his landlady only because her father or lover is the landlord—is first seen collapsing in church, where our guy has followed her. It’s more or less a case of love at first sight, because he is out on the street looking for a place to live when he first sees her. In the inchoate way the plot of The Landlady advances, she goes for him too, after he has taken a room at her place and then fallen into a stupor for weeks with disease. She nurses him and falls in love with him. It seems to be her way. But there is the complication of Murin, who is older than her and altogether a mysterious figure. Wikipedia suggests he may be a sorcerer. He’s at least a failed businessman, failed but capable of building an operation with barges and a factory. That’s the story about him anyway. I got a little lost in this one, taking the ride on the high points of Dostoevsky’s keening voice. His internal dialogues are impeccable, or maybe I share his sense of the outrage and frustration of the marginalized. I feel like I already know a lot of his characters, especially the protagonists who rant and go mad with rage. I enjoyed watching this one fall in love in the scene in the church. The ways of this landlady are strange and inscrutable. Murin might be her abusive father or her abusive lover or even possibly her abusive trafficker. It’s not clear, but her loyalty to him is very clear. Lots of strange notes through all the sturm and drang here. I can see why it’s considered minor, but it has its points, starting with what a pleasure as usual it is to dive in and read.

In case the library is closed due to pandemic, which is over.

The Double (1846)

The Double: A Petersburg Poem

Fyodor Dostoevsky’s second novel was published the same year as his first, Poor Folk, in 1846 when he was 25. The Double was taken, then as now, as being under some influence of Nikolai Gogol (whose The Nose and The Overcoat I think I read many years ago but don’t remember well). At any rate I found The Double crazy impressive and impressively crazy. Wikipedia does not include The Double among Dostoevsky’s “major works,” but Vladimir Nabokov, who was not particularly a fan, called it the best thing Dostoevsky ever wrote. At this early stage of my reading through him somewhat systematically, I’m inclined to agree. No one (not even ISFDB) seems to see much of the fantasy/horror genre in it, but it’s one of the best and most effective doppelganger stories I know. Yes, it works at other levels as well: psychological search for identity, comic lampoon of St. Petersburg society, etc. But the bold absurdity of it is just right. “Our hero,” as Constance Garnett frequently translates, is a low-level bureaucrat in St. Petersburg who is not doing well in his work and entering into a nervous breakdown (that explains it! he's insane! per many). About a quarter or third into this short novel he encounters someone who looks like him and has his same name. This fellow, often designated “Junior” to the original’s “Senior,” is even further down on his luck, and homeless. Senior invites him to stay with him until he’s on his feet again. The next morning Junior is gone when Senior wakes. By the time Senior gets to his job he finds Junior working it for him, as him—and doing very well. It’s soon quite apparent that Junior is stealing Senior’s life. All this is rendered in an early but already accomplished version of Dostoevsky’s raving, raw, canting high-strung voice. You’d be wrecked too if this were happening to you. This little gem is rollicking and entertaining all the way. Like the best horror—I guess I’m going there but Dostoevsky, of course, is much more than mere horror—The Double gives us an impossible situation and little explanation. Where does Junior come from really and what does he want? No word. He’s just there, steadily taking over Senior’s life by way of meritocracy. No one seems fazed that there are two of him, and his employer is pleased with the new guy. The Double is often funny, pitched at this hysterical level. But also unnerving, strange, and very entertaining.

In case the library is closed due to pandemic, which is over.

Poor Folk (1846)

Poor People
Fyodor Dostoevsky’s first novel is fairly called “epistolary”—it is a series of letters between two distant cousins in love with one another by all their many declarations. The approach brings some some awkwardness to the narrative related directly to the stop-and-reset nature of a series of letters. Epistolary novels were more common in 19th-century literature, but usually they involved correspondents who are monied people, middle class at least, with leisure time to write. Dostoevsky’s innovation here is to put the emphasis directly on “poor folk.” In terms of classifications, I’m less sure about “novel” because it’s pretty short, less than 150 pages by my count, whereas I see later work of his that appears to be longer characterized as “novella.” As always, go figure. Dostoevsky wrote Poor Folk in his mid-20s but it feels like mature work, perhaps because the epistolary nature of it may cover up to some extent his inexperience as a writer. Critics in the 1840s declared it a social novel—Russia’s first, according to some. The correspondents detail many lives of poverty, including their own, but their anecdotes are fragmented, not the point of their letters even if they are the point of the novel. Some story elements go unfinished or must be surmised. The main subject of these two is their love for one another. Other stories may be broken off but that one never is. There’s a large age gap between them too—he is close to 50 and she’s not even 20. Dostoevsky’s style, his voice, is already in evidence. I’m not sure how to describe it. He enters into passages that are like ranting, full of wild invective, justifications, and self-lacerations. Yet they are also concrete and vivid and serve to propel the stories. Even this early in his career he can sweep you up into them. The best example here is the longest letter by far, written by the woman (in my C.J. Hogarth translation she is Barbara, though more often elsewhere I see her called Varvara). She intends the letter to be the story of her life and it covers a lot of territory. Most of their concerns are otherwise about the daily inconveniences of poverty and how they attempt to overcome them. These persistent, ever-shifting daily problems will be familiar to anyone who has had periods of no money. The crises may seem trivial, especially to people of means, but they are constant and can be imposing. They can take a lot of time and energy to deal with. Despair is never far. The correspondents also make some connections over reading—both are literate. He works as a copyist. The ending is sad because a rich (and cruel) man proposes to Barbara and she accepts, leaving her cousin behind in grief. I don’t particularly like the epistolary mode much, but it’s interesting to encounter Dostoevsky so young and fresh. Call him DJ Dusty F.

In case the library is closed due to pandemic, which is over.