Dostoyevskiy
... as good as Crime and Punishment and Brothers Karamazov. It is about many things, it is a mosaic of political life in an insulated community in Russia--but moreover, it is about terrorism, specifically, a terrorist cell. It is a comedy, but the characters are not caricatures; the so-called terrorists are humanized. Dostoevsky obviously disaproves of the terrorists, but he uses his mighty soul to feel their lives in order to understand their motives. (Actually, being a former dissident, Dostoevsky probably didn't need to use his imagination in order to understand the mind of a terrorist.) Regardless, this endlessly fascinating book has some of the funniest and scariest moments of any Dostoevsky novel. Not to mention an amazing cast of characters. One of the best books I've ever read. 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. Fyodor Dostoyevesky, perhaps the greatest novelist of all-time, has a canon of mostly very long books that delve deeply into the darker psychological corners of man's mind. He shed long-dormant light on such subjects as the conscience, madness, the existence of God, family and criminal psychology, and a great many other things besides. In Demons, he explored yet another dark corner of the human mind: the tendency of people, particularly young people, towards nihilism. We have seen in our own times -- in the 1960's, certainly, and, perhaps, we are beginning to see it again now -- the tendency of youth to rebel against everything that the previous generation and the current powers that be stood and stand for, to tear everything down, to start anew. And yet, for all the promise of the 60's ideaology, where has it gotten us? How much change has actually taken place? Are we really any better off than before? Why did the movement fizzle out, and so quickly? Nothing is sadder, for the young modern liberal, than the sight of an old hippie, once idealistic and hungry, now shriveled up, in a depressed state, living off of social security. In Demons, Dostoyevsky explains why this happens. In it, he shows the inherent hollowness of the nihilistic viewpoint, that it always leads to the same place in the end. As Don Henley once sang, "It's another hollow rebellion/As rebellions often are/Just another raging tempest/In a jar." For all its idealism and visions of utopia, it always ends up the same way in the end. What is practitioners often don't seem to realize is that it denies life itself. How can any movement, however pious and idealistic, suceed, if it does this? Many people have observed how the ideas embedded in Dostoyevsky's novels foresaw the philosophy of Nietzsche -- and yet, for all of the darkness and social criticism that sprang from the two men, what many people often overlook is the fact that both of them, in essence, AFFIRM LIFE (for proof of this, one need only to look at the fate of the characters in the book who deny life: even tho...