What made Dostoevsky's work immortal
thoughts.wyounas.com
thoughts.wyounas.com
I love Dostoevsky too much and am quite happy in my bias and echo chamber of that—he was one of the writers that I read in my early days, and to date, I feel that he changed a lot in me or resonated so much that I can't explain.
I believe Nietzche said this about him "the only psychologist from whom I had something to learn."
And one of my favorite quotes by him:
For, after all, you do grow up, you do outgrow your ideals, which turn to dust and ashes, which are shattered into fragments; and if you have no other life, you just have to build one up out of these fragments. And all the time your soul is craving and longing for something else. And in vain does the dreamer rummage about in his old dreams, raking them over as though they were a heap of cinders, looking in these cinders for some spark, however tiny, to fan it into a flame so as to warm his chilled blood by it and revive in it all that he held so dear before, all that touched his heart, that made his blood course through his veins, that drew tears from his eyes, and that so splendidly deceived him!”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Those_Were_the_Days_%28song%29
There is a comment there with the lyrics (Cyrillic, yes) (@nickwilde9991)
The essay is named "The Power of the Elements" and it can be read here on Google Books:
https://www.google.com/books/edition/Less_Than_One/N5Nzm2uih...
Yes, it seems the essay inspired the post and it quotes excerpts from the essay but also has also some nice additional commentary.
Well, it's not like there's money in that direction, so the computer work can provide money for the Russian literature/philosophy interest.
That said, I’m skeptical its wisdom will help us carve out a new future that’s better for everyone. I think Cloud Strife’s journey in the original release of Final Fantasy VII is better-suited to that.
I think the most important lesson we have to learn in our modern world is that there aren't good or bad sides.
Most stories told follow the path of the hero's journey, in which the hero obtains some great power and learns to use it for good, generally by destroying some great villain.
In reality, there are no villains and there are no heros. There are only good and bad actions. And every person does bad actions everyday, out of ignorance, out of convenience, out of ego, out if ideological allegiance. There is also very little in the way of greatness in every day life.
And there is no other cure than to do what Alyosha does. Try to do good. Alyosha does not judge anyone, he has genuine compassion even for the worst of men. Alyosha has no great skill, is not endowed with any great intelligence and is sometimes socially awkward. He sometimes gets his affairs out of order and makes mistakes. He is not an island: he relies on the moral support of his mentor (the famous monk) for a good part of the book, and is devastated when he dies. And he never does anything which could not have been done by anyone else.
But he, at every point, chooses to do the good, as well as he can. At one point, during a time when one of his brothers was wanted for murder and his whole family drama is in full force, while going around town trying to do things to help, he sees a kid which is being bullied by other kids which are throwing stones at him. Alyosha shoos away the other kids, and inquires into this lone kid's drama. He then spends the rest of the day helping the kid, with his problems, instead of rushing to fix his own. It never even occurs to him not to act in this way.
And it not only helps the community for him to act in this way. But it also, as it were, helps his own "soul". While other characters go insane, or have manic episodes, Alyosha can bear the tragedies because of his own conduct.
It appals me how much praise dostoyevsky and such still get, without any attention to a lot of the context around it.
The prime reason his (and of most other russian writers) legacy and importance to world culture is the fact that they were backed by an empire. Try and think, for once, why you tend to know about Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, but (usually) don't know about literally everyone else from east europe?
The answer is simple. While russian culture was supported, promoted, encouraged. The culture of their colonies was suppressed, imprisoned, executed.
It's about time Dostoevsky and Gorky and so many other russian writers get the same treatment Kipling did.
Dostoevsky was a horrible person, a staunch chauvinist who denied the basic existence of other nations and cultures on then russian territory, stating they're just an obstacle on russia's imperial path.
And not only were many of them plain bad during their life, their art was (and is) weaponized, to manufacture an image of russia that lifts it from the evil things they did (and are doing) into being something interesting, something positive. To erase cultures of those russia enslaved from the map of the world.
It's "Crime and punishment" scaled up -- fuck the victim, they're not interesting. Just look at the murderer though -- fuck the fact he axed a granny, look how deep his soul is!
Joseph Brodsky, who is so complimented in the article, also wrote one of the most filthy and nauseating poems i ever read (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Independence_of_Ukraine). Before the author continues with their adorement of both Brodsky and Dostoevsky, i highly recommend they read that one. And Dostoevsky's statements regarding Poles, Ukrainians and Serbs.
Such ignorance to the reality of who these people were is disgusting.
This has a slight ring of Derrida and/but I find it a very interesting point. The "stream of consciousness" really does seem like a stream of the words themselves, each one in reflection of the previous and anticipation of the next. The flowing is not just in the writer's mind but the reader's as well.
With the perceived potential of separating work from its author being inversely proportional to the amount of attention devoted to both (Raskolnikov attitude towards Poles as something on the surface, though it's infiltrated with Russian chauvinism at a much deeper level).
With overlooking the fact that it is being used as a weapon (together with the unified Russian language created by Pushkin) for erasure of entire cultures. I'd stress this out: this is not a weapon in a museum. We are talking active phase. And the more obscure the relations above are, the higher the penetration rate.
Disappointing.
I really recommend Nabokov's full lecture on Dostoyevsky [1], plus obvs all the of the lectures in the series are brilliant.
[0] https://lithub.com/on-dostoevskys-199th-birthday-heres-nabok...
[1] Lectures on Russian Literature, Vladimir Nabokov, https://www.londonreviewbookshop.co.uk/stock/lectures-on-rus...
A small extract of “Transparent Things" by Nabokov that I love so much: how a Caran d’Ache pencil is built. An incredible travel through space and time!
> extraordinarily amusing
Nabokov is a genius but not once did i get this vibe ever, much darker, almost hopeless.
The man wrote what he wanted to read and hated everything else.
This is probably true. But Russians' opinion shouldn't matter the slightest about him for the rest of us.
Probably he just lucked out, and all his translators are geniuses. Tho this would be a more remarkable skill, than just being a literary genius..
BTW I usually like derivative works, in every arts.
If a translator makes changes, and she is only right 60% of the time, that's still a net positive. I encourage every translator to make changes, if they think they can make the text better.
Also, depending on your tastes, Charlotte Bronte and other similar period writers were equally bland or significant.
I like Notes from the Underground and his other short stories (like the Double) even more.
I did not bow down to you, I bowed down to all the suffering of humanity.
This cannot be put an expiry at..
the only reason crime and punishment isnt a short story (which it was planned to be) is that dostoyevsky lost a lot of money drinking and gambling.
so he stretched it out every way he could conseivably do so, as he was paid by content length
“Don’t be afraid of anything, ever. And do not grieve. As long as your repentance does not weaken, God will forgive everything. There is not—there cannot be—a sin on earth that God will not forgive the truly repentant. Why, a man cannot commit a sin so great as to exhaust the infinite love of God. How could there be a sin that would surpass the love of God?
Think only of repentance, all the time, and drive away all fear. Have faith that God loves you more than you can ever imagine. He loves you, sinful as you are and, indeed, because of your sin. It was said long ago that there is more joy in heaven over one repentant sinner than over ten righteous men. Go now, and fear nothing. Do not be offended if people treat you badly. Do not hold it against them. And forgive your departed husband all the harm he did you. Become truly reconciled with him. For if you repent, you love, and if you love, you are with God. Love redeems and saves everything.
If I, a sinner like yourself, am moved and feel compassion for you, how infinitely much more will God! Love is such an infinite treasure it can buy the whole world and can redeem not only your sins, but the sins of all people. So go and fear no more.”
Dostoevsky, Fyodor. The Brothers Karamazov (pp. 64-65). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
If you're going to write a book, for other people to read, you ultimately want people to understand and recognize your ideas/the point of your work. It has nothing to do with morality.
with an unreliable narrator who's a cog in the evil machine, and obviously deluded about it,
and deeply unpleasant detailed descriptions of the awful cruelty perpetuated by the nazi regime,
and some fascists really like my book, because detailed descriptions of awful nazi cruelty are their jam, and they really identify with my evil, unreliable, deluded narrator
and a lot of people haven't read my book, but they know the kind of person who like my book - fascists
should I be judged by the popular reception of my work?
But also, it is a bit suspect chain of events. Because it is quite unlikely that your books describe Jews in much sympathetic human way. Fascists would not like that. You wrote a book about suffering fascist and per your book ideology, fascism is bad when the fascists themselves suffer. That is just critique of concrete fascist regime from the point of view of the fascist.
I think it's important you choose what affects you most. I was deeply moved reading this when I was atheist, so who am I to say what will and will not move others?
> There is not—there cannot be—a sin on earth that God will not forgive the truly repentant.
To me, this sends a horrifying message. A self-righteous individual can kill millions, wake up to the terrible reality of their act, repent, and be bathed in the joy of a loving god's forgiveness. They need suffer only a moment's guilt, before proceeding fearlessly back into the world.
And yet, according to alangau's sibling comment, the passage was deeply moving to him. Perhaps my horrified response is a deep motion of sorts, but that isn't a typical usage of the phrase "deeply moved."
And ultimately this view of repentance is kind of unhelpful in a practical way when dealing with incredibly damaging behavior. We can't really judge the sincerity of someone's repentance, ultimately it is between them and god. We can restrain them from being in a situation where they could commit that act again though, just in case.
Something I think about often is an event that occurred in my home town when I was a young adult. A child, 12 or 13, old enough to know better, was playing with the stove and set the house on fire. One of their siblings died in the fire.
How do you react to that as a parent? You love the child, have to go on raising them. No punishment even makes sense, the idea of taking away the nintendo or whatever is simply grotesque, and what could be accomplished by anything proportional to the consequence? The only thing left is forgiveness. I think this is how it is with god and your hypothetical monster.
It is not a true repentance if one can wash off their guilt in a moment. True repentance is eternal burn.
Well, maybe not. Dostoevsky was Orthodox, so I don't know how he would think about this...
From a Catholic perspective sin has both temporal and eternal consequences. God can forgive a truly repentant person any sin, ordinarily through the ministry of the Church by the power and authority of Christ, establishing or returning a person to the life of divine grace in their soul, but the temporal consequences of their sin/s may remain to be repaired.
By analogy, suppose my neighbor became unreasonably angry with me, becoming so incensed that he threw a rock at one of my windows causing it to shatter. Then, after a day of cooling off, he apologized and asked forgiveness. Now suppose I granted him forgiveness, moved by his sincerity and a mutual desire to repair the relationship. The shattered window remains — the glass needs to be cleaned up, and a new window must be purchased and installed. Maybe my neighbor has the resources and skill to do the repair himself; or maybe he can pay directly or reimburse me for contract labor; or maybe he can't afford the repair but promises to pay me back; or maybe one of his family members pays me instead. One way or another, the window will be repaired and my neighbor bears responsibility for it.
So sin, generally, is like this, from the Catholic POV. If the forgiven sinner is not able to make repair before their life ends, then they will suffer in purgatory after death before enjoying the beatific vision. The purification will be more severe depending on the number and gravity of sins. Some mystics claim to have been informed about souls that will suffer in purgatory flames hotter than those of damnation until the last moment before the general judgment, so terrible were their sins and unrepaired consequences of the same.
It's kinda like alcohol, and if we go with this comparison - Dostoevsky promotes drowning in it as a salvation. Put bluntly, that shit ruins lives, not mends them. But Dostoevsky does not just write about it, he carefully designs the whole narrative to make it look like the only logical choice and wholeheartedly promotes it. And that's why I just can't stand his works, despite all their psychological, artistic and linguistic/literary merits. This insane cultural gap is simply too big to cross for me.
It all makes sense in historical and cultural context, of course, but that's exactly what puts an expiration date on Dostoevsky's works. They're a product or a very specific culture, and thus will no longer be relevant when their parent culture will finally wither away (and, personally, I sincerely hope it naturally does, for I see it as way more harmful than positive).
There are literature works that would remain relevant for a long while, but Dostoevsky is not one of those.
Just my own personal opinion.
We can forgive someone for horrific things they've done, even when they are utterly unrepentant. Forgiving them is changing our attitude about the harms the offender did from anger and hatred to acceptance and peace. This does not mean saying "what they did was okay," but rather accepting that they chose to do something horrible, learning to make peace with their hurtful choices, and focusing on healing the damage to ourselves and others rather than seeking to injure the injurer.
Reconciliation is mending a damaged relationship between two (or more) people, as much as it can be. Unlike forgiveness, true reconciliation requires that all parties make an effort - the injured party must put in the work of forgiving the offender, and the offender must do the work of repenting.
"Repent" now means "make a show of acting sorry" in evangelical Christian circles, but genuine repentance is very different. It is recognizing the harmful choices you have made and truly regretting them, and as a natural outgrowth of that regret, choosing to do what you can to heal the damage you have done. It means accepting the consequences of your choices; a repentant offender expects to be distrusted and treated differently for their crimes, and does not resent it, realizing the shattered relationships (emotional, familial, civil, and otherwise) are part of what they chose. Without repentance, others may forgive an offender, but reconciliation is not possible - if the injured continue a relationship with the aggressor, it is necessarily a stilted, broken, fragmented one.
Redemption is rarer and harder to achieve than either forgiveness or reconciliation. It is when reconciliation succeeds and goes beyond success, giving birth to something fuller and more beautiful than what was first broken. Adapting the words of my lost-yet-beloved faith, "He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. Behold, He is making all things new."
This is not, in my experience, how conservative Protestant evangelicals use these words. However, in the decades I practiced Christianity, I slowly found these ideas in the Bible, despite the ludicrously-wrong exegesis practiced in US churches, by reading the texts many, many times. I find a great deal of truth and wisdom in them, considered this way. I hope perhaps my explanation can help you understand why so many people resonate with the message recorded in the Gospels, and the one that Dostoevsky so loved.
Again, liberal amounts of salt/lime may work, to stop it from turning allegorical.. https://www.quora.com/What-do-you-think-Dostoyevsky-was-expr...
it cites faulkner, too, and he famously wrote "as i lay dying" while he was broke and working at the university electric plant.
That was not the point of the article. The point was that the narrowness of circumstance - living between riches and poverty and what type of person can handle that (not to mention the unique problems that might come up with that) - requires someone that can balance that sort of situation.
Wait... which is it?
But that does not make one a Nazi.
Thinking that it does dilutes the discussion.
It just leads to garbled thinking, this kind of random sloshing-of-words-around.