Fyodor Dostoevsky
This eclectic selection is, in my opinion, a great starting point for anyone who is looking to ingratiate themselves with the legend that is Dostoevsky. Nietzsche once called him, 'the only psychologist from which I had something to learn' and indeed, the portrayal of the human condition throughout the tales is breathtaking. DBC Pierre could not have been more 'en pointe' when he termed Dostoevsky's observations as being 'acute and universal. Frequent themes throughout the striking septet of stories in the collection I read were the dangers of excessive pride (one literary critic went as far to say that the protagonist's in the stories can be arranged in terms of their abundance of the stuff) and the loss of reality one gains when being encompassed by their dreams. The cold and desolate setting and equally cold and desolate people really bring about a harshness and cruel image of Russian life, yet regardless of the fact that the heap of these tales may result in momentary depression after reading, they are well worth the pain!
Personal highlights for me were White Nights, Notes from the Underground and A Gentle Creature. To start, White Nights, a rather simple story really of a dreamer experiencing one genuine moment of beauty in his life. Dostoevsky is quick to define what exactly a 'dreamer' is, a dreamer being a 'creature of the neuter gender' who 'settles mostly in some inaccessible place' sticking to the place 'like a snail'. This unidentified dreamer spends much of his time walking about the streets of Saint Petersburg in a daze, via some sort of emotional intuition knowing the beating heart of the city, without formally knowing any of its inhabitants. The aforementioned moment of genuine beauty comes when he stumbles across a maiden called Natenska. She gives him a sort of salvation, a cleansing, as he is finally able to reveal his innermost thoughts to someone. These thoughts and planned conversations have been bottled up for years waiting for him to come out so that the dreamers eventually explanation is rather fluid and well phrased, like a book. There is a particular sense of ambiance drench through the whole tale, but one particular passage was especially striking for me.
This passage came as the dreamer described the mechanics of imagination and the like. Once a dreamer gradually falls into the void of a dream a 'castle in the air comes crumbling noiselessly around [them]' and their imagination 'catches fire, burning gently at first' but then begins to '[flare] up fitfully'. This impassioned outburst of imagination, paralysing the individual in whatever practical task is at hand for them highlights the main moral of the story. Imagination and dreaming are beautiful, incredible things but, in the rather Forsterian suggestion of 'only connect', one can't allow them to run ones life. A balance is needed between the vast, expansive plains of imagination and the cramped, contained space of one's office. Dreaming, human connection and practicals need to be balanced in order to even have a chance at genuine happiness.
The other two highlights for me were Notes from the Underground, the story of an individual 'intoxicated with spite' and A Gentle Creature. The former follows the whims of a bitter, horrid, passive aggressive protagonist, an antihero if there ever was one. The reader firstly has to endure his rather extreme and incredibly pretentious views on pressing issues in life, that the 'insects' that make up most of the populace won't be able to compute. This is a case of excessive pride if there ever were one, indeed the protagonist secluded in his flat boasts of how he 'refuse[d] medical treatment out of spite'. For the second half the reader is invited to an explanation for his current pitiful state as we hear of his harsh dealings with old school friends and a prostitute. The similarly depressing A Gentle Creature follows a wife who refuses to withdraw her pride and be ruled over her husband, thus the expanse of years of painful marriage that succeed her lead to her eventual suicide. Both of these tales follow Dostoevsky's philosophy as suggested in the quote 'much unhappiness has come into the world because of bewilderment and things left unsaid'.
To conclude, I simply make a plea for those yet to read a work by the master of the human condition to do so. To finish a piece of food for thought by the man himself, of which there are so many:
'Man only likes to count his troubles, but he does not count his joys.'
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