The novel is conceived on a large scale with numerous sub-plots and a host of secondary characters. True to form they are all colourfully depicted, invariably with customary Dostoevskian humour and wit. However, some critics have found the structure of the novel problematic, and it is not the most popular choice among a wider readership.
In the work Devils (Бесы, 1871–72, also known as The Possessed and Demons), one of Dostoevsky’s main concerns is nihilism: this is embodied in the novel to devastating effect through its memorable characters. The great Russian critic and novelist Dmitry Merezhkovsky argues in Gogol and the Devil that the suave, smooth-talking clownish con man Chichikov in Gogol’s Dead Souls is the devil par excellence, because he is one of us who goes about deceiving people left, right and centre with impunity, hiding under his mask of normality and ordinariness – a point worth noting in relation to Devils.
The novel boasts some of the most blood-curdling episodes imaginable, but at the same time the translator Michael
R. Katz writes: “Devils is without doubt Dostoevsky’s most humorous work. It has more irony, more elements of burlesque and parody, more physical comedy and buffoonery, more exaggerated characterizations and ambiguous use of language than any of his other works.” We are indeed not miles away from the Marx Brothers’ Night at the Opera. Stepan Trofimovich Verkhovensky, with whom the novel opens and who continues to play a significant role to the very end, can, improbably enough, be seen as a Groucho Marx figure with a touch of Don Quixote thrown in. The picture is completed with the former’s inimitable screen foil Margaret Dupont, who is represented in the novel by the grand and unapproachable Varvara Petrovna Stavrogina.
Dostoevsky based his story on a Russian press report of a brutal murder by a follower of the revolutionary anarchist Ivan Bakunin. He uses that as a paradigm for depicting a ruthless nationwide conspiracy, incidentally directed from abroad, to bring down the existing order in Russia. Acts of terrorism and extreme violence are used as political tools. But the events, despite being narrated by an apparently non-committal chronicler, are by no means a factual record of reality. The highly mysterious chronicler’s very protestations of veracity are a novelist’s ploy to draw the reader into a fantasy world that is blatantly of his own creation. At the centre of it are the demonically beguiling figures of Nicolas Stavrogin, a self-confessed paedophiliac and sadist, and his utterly unprincipled sidekick Peter Stepanovich Verkhovensky. Besides the motif of rampant terrorism, there is the theme of suicide, not as a desperate solution out of a psychological impasse, but as a supreme manifestation of one’s will.
Dostoevsky had always been keenly interested in all aspects of publishing. Even his fictional characters are bitten by the bug. Vanya in Humiliated and Insulted talks to a publisher or entrepreneur, as he facetiously styles him, and appears to know his role and what motivates him; Liza Drozdova in Devils comes up with a serious proposal to bring out a digest, “an illuminating overview” of current affairs, and she waxes enthusiastic over the benefits and commercial viability of the prospective undertaking. Dostoevsky himself was a prolific journalist and the founder and editor of several periodicals. Liza’s idea in fact goes back to Dostoevsky’s plans of 1864–65 to found Notebook – a fortnightly periodical which failed to materialize – and looks forward to Diary of a Writer (Дневник писателя, 1873–81), which did materialize in 1873. In both cases Dostoevsky was to be the sole contributor. It is for this reason that Diary of a Writer can, indeed should, be regarded as a free-standing literary work. In essence it is a ground-breaking, wide-ranging pot-pourri of all types of literary genres, “an illuminating overview” of all that continued to preoccupy the writer till the end of his days, and some of the issues touched upon were further reflected in his Pushkin speech and in The Karamazov Brothers.
In 1876 Dostoevsky wrote: “When, about a year and a half ago Nikolai Alexeyevich Nekrasov asked me to write a novel for The Notes of the Fatherland, I was on the point of starting my version of Fathers and Sons, but held back, and thank God for that. I was not ready. All I’ve been able to come up with so far is my The Adolescent.”
Just as in Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons, the theme of the generation gap is at the heart of The Adolescent (Подросток, 1875). Incidentally the narrator-hero rejoices in the name of Arkady (Dolgoruky), the same as one of the principal characters, Arkady (Kirsanov), in Turgenev’s story; the other – the more important of the two – being Evgeny Bazarov. The similarity does not end there. Both Arkady Dolgoruky and Evgeny Bazarov are kindred spirits, rebels at heart and ardent champions of liberalism and truth. This ideological confluence is quite remarkable because on most points the two authors could not see eye to eye at all.
Also, the theme of relationship with serf women is tackled head on by both authors, especially Dostoevsky, who of course extracts every ounce of drama from the controversy associated with such a liaison. Arkady is illegitimate: he is the son of the serf Sofia, wife of the bonded serf Makar Dolgoruky, and the gallivanting nobleman, Andrey Versilov. Dostoevsky is immediately on home ground – the trials and tribulations of a thoroughly dysfunctional family. After his wife had been taken away from him, Makar Dolgoruky leaves his village to wander off and walk the land as a penitent, surfacing only at the end of the story. Young Arkady, at nineteen – having been knocked all his life from pillar to post – is back with his biological father, whom he had hardly met since birth, eager to get to know him closely. It’s a love-hate relationship from the start: Arkady is fascinated by Versilov, and is drawn to him inexorably. Versilov shares a good few characteristics with the devil of Ivan’s nightmare in The Karamazov Brothers, who, in line with Dostoevsky’s intertwining of good and evil, is of quite an affable, genial sort. Arkady wants to live up to his father, and in his young heart he nurtures a grand, but in his view eminently attainable and realistic idea. He lusts after money, and above all, power. As he says in the novel, he wants to become a Rothschild. Father and son also lust after the same woman almost to the point of committing murder. In the background there is the ever-present mother figure of the saintly, long-suffering Sofia, and what with Makar Dolgoruky bearing a strong resemblance to Father Zosima, the similarity between Dostoevsky’s last two novels is striking. Yet the atmosphere is altogether different. Perhaps the chaotic, topsy-turvy, structurally unbalanced Karamazov Brothers is more action packed and stimulating, intellectually intriguing and humorous too, which is what counts with readers in the end, even the more sophisticated ones. The Adolescent is, in that case, arguably too sophisticated and refined for its own good. One way or another The Adolescent has been overshadowed by his other great novels both in Russia and the Anglophone West.
Sigmund Freud wrote that The Karamazov Brothers (Братья Карамазовы, 1879–80) was “the most magnificent novel ever written”. Indeed, the novel played right into his hands, above all as regards the Oedipal connection. The work blends together literature, philosophy and entertainment in way that has held a strong appeal for many intellectual readers.
At the heart of the novel is a dysfunctional family, four sons – one illegitimate – and the father, a dissolute, cunning, mistrustful old man, who is in a running feud with the eldest over money and the favours of the local siren. The conflict gets out of hand and Dmitry Karamazov is accused of patricide. Bound up with this intense family drama is Dostoevsky’s exploration of many of his most deeply cherished ideas. The novel is also richly comic and philosophically challenging. One chapter, entitled The Legend of the Grand Inquisitor, in which the churchman, in a confrontational dialogue with Christ, argues that freedom and happiness are incompatible, is styled a poem, and for its content and form occupies a unique place in literature.
This account of Dostoevsky’s works is by no means exhaustive, but has had to be limited to some of the most famous and pivotal novels and novellas. During his career Dostoevsky wrote many other shorter works of fiction, not to mention artic
les, essays and travel writing, and among his short stories one could mention the following, among many others: White Nights (Белые ночи, 1848), a story of isolation and heartbreak spanning four nights, during which the protagonist realizes his love for a young girl called Nastenka must always remain unfulfilled; The Eternal Husband (Вечный mуж, 1870), which compellingly describes a recently widowed man’s encounter with his dead wife’s former lover; A Gentle Creature (Кроткая, 1876), the tale of a widowed pawnbroker’s turbulent relationship with a young customer who eventually becomes his wife; The Dream of a Ridiculous Man (Сон смешного человека, 1877), which recounts the spiritual journey of its suicidal protagonist, who finds salvation in an encounter with a young girl and a subsequent dream.
– Ignat Avsey, 2008
For a more extensive introduction to Humiliated and Insulted, please consult Ignat Avsey’s article in the Literary Encyclopedia: www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=11266
Select Bibliography
Standard Edition:
The most authoritative Russian edition of Humiliated and Insulted can be found in volume 3, edited by G.M. Fridlender, of Dostoevsky’s Полное собрание сочинений в тридцати томах (Complete Edition in Thirty Volumes), produced in Leningrad in 1972–90 by the Nauka publishing company.
Biographies:
Carr, Edward Hallett, Dostoevsky, 1821–1881: A New Biography (London: Allen & Unwin, 1931)
Dostoevsky, Anna, Dostoevsky: Reminiscences, tr. B. Stillman (Liveright, Dutton, 1974)
Frank, Joseph, Dostoevsky, vols. 1–5 (London: Robson, 1977–2002)
Grossman, Leonid Petrovich, Dostoevsky: A Biography, tr. Mary Mackler (London: Allen Lane, 1974)
Magarshack, David, Dostoevsky (London: Secker & Warburg, 1962)
Mochulsky, Konstantin, Dostoevsky: His Life and Work (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1967)
Simmons, Ernest Joseph, Dostoevsky: The Making of a Novelist (London: John Lehmann, 1950)
Yarmolinsky, Avrahm, Dostoevsky: A Life (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1934)
On the Web:
www.petrsu.ru/~Dostoevsky
www.fyodordostoevsky.com
www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=11266
Translator’s Note
Dr Johnson’s dictum – that the only end of writing is to enable the readers better to enjoy life or better to endure it – is, in my view, particularly applicable to the novel. In such an approach therefore it is the entertainment value of a work which becomes the principal measure of quality. To apply this to Dostoevsky, who has traditionally been judged by other criteria, is to turn him on his head. And not before time! Dostoevsky needs to be reassessed, and reassessed radically. Up to the present he has been lauded almost exclusively for his major works. His earlier, shorter novels, on the other hand, have been woefully neglected. The loss has been both his and the reading public’s. By the new standard that I am now applying, Humiliated and Insulted becomes his all-time number one, then follow The Double, The Village of Stepanchikovo and The Gambler, not necessarily in that order. My predilection for Humiliated and Insulted is by a narrow margin; what is most important, however, is that these works, between them, provide me with all the arguments I need to make my case; they show the author as an unrivalled storyteller pure and simple who drives on in headlong outpourings of extreme emotion and passion, untrammelled by the mind-bending complexities that are such a feature of his later novels. To many critics, and readers, those complexities and labyrinthine philosophical speculations have been a decided deterrent, as has the sheer size of the resulting tomes. Brevity is the soul of wit. However, my enthusiasm for Dostoevsky-lite does not mean I am siding with the relatively small but highly eminent coterie of his detractors. For me it is simply the case that if Dostoevsky had written those four novels and nothing else, his lasting fame would still have been assured.
Now it’s all very well my waxing lyrical over my recommendations, but I cannot ignore the fact that not a single word of the text (foreign quotations apart) that the translator presents to the reader has been written by the original author himself. The American translator and academic Michael R. Katz said that for the authentic experience the reader is advised and urged to learn the language himself. I would quarrel in one respect only. The translation has to be the authentic experience. It, and not the original, becomes the original – the de facto original. Indeed there is no reason why the translation cannot surpass the original. Interestingly, Goethe preferred to read his own Faust in French, and he of all people had a choice. He even chose to give his reason in French: “En allemand je ne peux lire le Faust, mais dans cette traduction française chaque trait me frappe comme s’il était tout nouveau pour moi. (“I cannot read Faust in German, but in this French translation every feature strikes me as if it were entirely new to me.”) The translator in question was Gérard de Nerval. It is also said that the French translation of The Life of Jesus by the German theologian David Strauss sold more copies in Germany than in France.
The popularity of Humiliated and Insulted among present-day Russian readers is impressively high. Why then is it virtually unknown to the English-speaking world, which might have been expected to warm precisely to this kind of intricately constructed tale of passion and woe with a plot line that is rich in all the ingredients of modern best-selling fiction? The explanation might lie in the nature of the previous translations. I know of only three: the first by Frederick Whishaw (Injury and Insult, 1887); the second by the legendary Constance Garnett (The Insulted and Injured, 1915); and the third by Olga Shartse published in the Soviet Union in 1957 (The Insulted and Humiliated). The first two are currently out of print and the third available only at specialized outlets. The present attempt to recreate Dostoevsky’s original in English is in the translator’s mind an exercise in revealing to a new and wider readership a hitherto much neglected masterpiece. It will stand or – as did the previous translations – fall in the attempt.
The vast majority of recreational readers operate in one language only. They have no choice but to read foreign literature in translation, but I hope that like Goethe with his Faust, bilingual people, and even native speakers too with a command of English, will pick up this rendering of Dostoevsky’s Humiliated and Insulted as worthy of attention per se. As a former language teacher, I would particularly encourage language students to read their own literature in translation. Overriding everything, however, as Robert Burton points out in his The Anatomy of Melancholy, written many centuries ago on the theme of the tenuousness of literary success and popularity, indeed of literary survival itself: “pro captu lectoris habent sua fata libelli” (“the fate of books depends on the fancy of the reader”).
In conclusion a word about my own style in relation to Dostoevsky’s. It could be summed up in what one South American author said to his translator: “Translate not what I said, but what I was trying to say!” This would necessarily imply that the norms of the target language are paramount. What about the “warts and all” principle? Only as far as it goes. There are warts and warts – native speaker’s mistakes and a foreigner’s. The two are like chalk and cheese! “With Dostoevsky one can be pardoned for thinking one has walked into a lunatic asylum, but never into a museum of waxworks.” The translator therefore has to be careful not to give the reader the impression that the lunatics are just foreigners communicating in a peculiar brand of English.
Appendix
Opening Pages of Humiliated and Insulted
in Russian
Глава I
Прошлого года, двадцать второго марта, вечером, со мной случилось престранное происшествие. Весь этот день я ходил по городу и искал себе квартиру. Старая была очень сыра, а я тогда уже на�
�инал дурно кашлять. Еще с осени хотел переехать, а дотянул до весны. В целый день я ничего не мог найти порядочного. Во-первых, хотелось квартиру особенную, не от жильцов, а во-вторых, хоть одну комнату, но непременно большую, разумеется вместе с тем и как можно дешевую. Я заметил, что в тесной квартире даже и мыслям тесно. Я же, когда обдумывал свои будущие повести, всегда любил ходить взад и вперед по комнате. Кстати: мне всегда приятнее было обдумывать мои сочинения и мечтать, как они у меня напишутся, чем в самом деле писать их, и, право, это было не от лености. Отчего же?
Еще с утра я чувствовал себя нездоровым, а к закату солнца мне стало даже и очень нехорошо: начиналось что-то вроде лихорадки. К тому же я целый день был на ногах и устал. К вечеру, перед самыми сумерками, проходил я по Вознесенскому проспекту. Я люблю мартовское солнце в Петербурге, особенно закат, разумеется в ясный, морозный вечер. Вся улица вдруг блеснет, облитая ярким светом. Все дома как будто вдруг засверкают. Серые, желтые и грязно-зеленые цвета их потеряют на миг всю свою угрюмость; как будто на душе прояснеет, как будто вздрогнешь и кто-то подтолкнет тебя локтем. Новый взгляд, новые мысли... Удивительно, что может сделать один луч солнца с душой человека!
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