The Red and Black: The Gambler by Dostoevsky

It's not every writer that can take a break from writing a classic to pen an excellent novella but as we should know by now FD is not every writer.  For this is exactly what he did with this work alongside one of his masterpieces Crime and Punishment.  Apparently he wrote this in four weeks and in a very un Dostoevsky Hollywood moment he fell in love and married the young stenographer who helped him.  This has been the subject of a pretty ropey movie with Michael Gambon -  interspersed with the plot of the original book - which to be honest would need a bit of padding as it is a fairly slight story.

The other part of this story is that the reason he wrote it was to pay off a gambling debt.  This segues into the most striking element of the book - that is the element of autobiography.  All the early Dost traits are here: doomed unrequited love with unattainable woman, mediation on the nature of addiction and vaguely xenophobic characteristics of the main European nationalities.  In some ways the work this most resembles is his travel journal of his continental travails.

I think one of the most significant elements of the work is that it is his first fiction set completely outside Russia.   This gives a sharpness to his description of the Russian psyche when they are far from home.  The nominal "hero" works in the loosest sense for a "family" of chancers - an ostensibly aristocratic group who have washed up in the elite mittel - European gambling resort of Roulette-enberg.  Headed by the General the pretence is that they have untold wealth - he has attracted a few parasitic good looking hangers-on with this story.

In reality there is nothing there.  Quite a telling comment by FD on the flimsiness of the image of much of the entourage of Tsarist Russia in the 19th Century.  Money means status - nothing else; it is not related to work  or wages.  A common theme of some of the weaker aristocratic figures in Dost's work. When there is no money everything else crumbles away.  This is similar to FD's characterisation of a French nomadic aristocrat who does seem to have wealth - maybe making an ironic point of the relative wealth of an aristocrat who comes from a country that overthrew its feudalism to the poverty of ones from a country that they nominally rule.  The pragmatic Englishman  (Mr Astley! Never gonna give him up) who is in the ambit of the group has a stable financial background - the nascent bourgeoisie then beginning to dominate all of Europe - if not Russia.

Given that context gambling is the perfect activity.  Dostoevsky explains brilliantly in parts of the work the attraction of beating the casinos: in the novella (and in FD's actual  life) this is roulette.  He also explains the double think and calculations gamblers make with every transaction in life - including in the final analysis with the "Gambler" Alexis' romantic obsession with the femme fatale Polina.  He also provides a whistle stop tour of the finer technical points of "rouge et noir" or the roulette wheel -useful for any online gambling addicts out there.  Money and the weird forms of coin that make up the currency are a constant in the work - all relations are measured in some financial way - with wins and losses.

There is no real narrative direction the Gambler wins and loses but it is full of very funny vignettes.  In particular the appearance of the General's grandmother - who the General is expecting to drop dead at any minute to give him his legacy - at the resort and her arrogant behaviour which sees her believing she will beat the odds.  In short measure she loses all her wealth outlined in painful detail as the General sees his Russian inheritance essentially disappear before his eyes.

Another thing I noted about the work was the absence of any real ideological debate which underpins most of the dynamic of Dostoevsky's fiction.  Perhaps this is what leads to the slightly disposable feeling of the piece.  It seems to focus solely on the dynamic of inter-Euro relations of the nineteenth century and Alexis own obsessions with gambling and Polina - the former wins.  There are a few broad swipes at comparing Russia with other European countries but that is about it - no detailed dissection of nihilism or the necessity of religious feeling.

It is an enjoyable 100 pages though and actually given the utter reliance on gambling which late capitalism has  - with house prices, credit and the stock market - there is a telling insight into the psychology of people thrust into this world.  In 2014 in a sense that is all of us if we want to navigate the choppy waters of capitalism.  I think Dostoevsky saw this even in early nineteenth century capitalism and could see the problems attached - he wrote this to clear his own gambling debts for God's sake!

All in all a slight detour from the wonders of writing Crime and Punishment then but a worthwhile little rest.  That he created this in essence as a throwaway tells us a lot about the writer and the man.

Hot in the City:Crime and Punishment - Dostoevsky

I always have a trepidation of approaching work considered as a "classic".  Not that I would feel any compunction about saying er it's not very good but rather there seems to be too much history around it - particularly in literature.  I found this weight appeared more than usual with Dostoevsky's stand out book as it is related to law in the broadest sense, the area of human "knowledge" in which I work.  But sometimes all your worries are blown away and the term "classic" is completely appropriate as in this case.  A brilliant novel.

One good sign is that the book surprises you in lots of ways.  Even having spent the last couple of years reading the novellas/novels of  Dostoevsky I still have a picture in my mind of the setting being bleak, dark, wet, cold like Russian winter cold.  But this novel is hot - really hot set at the height of summer "early July, in exceptional heat" as the first line of the novel puts it.   The crime - a double axe murder which even now in these anaesthetised times is a shocking read - takes place in the smelly, cramped heating setting of a St. Petersburg tenement flat.

Like most of Dostoevsky's other works to this point it is also unarguably an urban novel .  People and cultures are living on top of each other in the city - interacting in lots of chaotic ways.  One of the characters is killed by being run over. Again touching on another common theme of Dost the tensions are clear between the strict feudal hierarchy of Tsarist dictatorship and the burgeoning urban life/squalor of Russia's biggest city.  Immigration is also a reality with many different nationalities mentioned in particular German landlords.   One scene has the accent and lifestyles of Germans living in Russia mocked - a very modern development as nation states interact through people.

In the midst of this world a  murder happens. It occurs early in the book and we know the perpetrator.  Raskolnikov - a drop-out law student  living in the archetypal garret room not even a flat.  By the end of the work he confesses to the police.  And that's about it as far as plot goes (apart some family developments with his sister and his burgeoning relationship with a prostitute Sonya).  This is not a who-dunnit or even why -duunit this is an exploration of human psychology, interaction and ideas.

This is not a sprawling family saga but a tight, rich exploration of humanity in a very contemporary (for 1866) setting.  I cannot really understand the phenomenal success of crime fiction - puzzle solving maybe -but everything that could be strong about a crime novel was covered here by Dostoevsky:  the thinking of a killer, the consequences of meaningless violence and the ending of human life.  Every crime book or the sub genre (apparently) psychological thriller since then that touches on this pales in comparison in my view.

Dostoevsky even creates  a bumbling intellectual detective Porfiry who solves the crime early on.   His interactions with Raskolnikov are excellent mind games .  Porfriry was apparently the model for legendary TV Detective Colombo (and the structure of each show was broadly based on this work too) which you can see.  In fact every cliched detective maverick with a brain (which he's not afraid to use!) has some roots in this little man - I'm thinking Cracker with his centre piece interviews/analysis with the criminals or more obscure  Frank Pembleton in Homicide Life On the Streets -  a forerunner of the Wire.

So plot is not really the thing but characters and ideas are.  This probably explains why three has been quite a few dramatisations of it  - not because of the story but the continuing power of Dostoevsky's creations.

Some of the ideas explored are pretty basic - why kill someone?  What affect does it have on a killer, any?  Although Raskolnikov seems to create a motive -  the woman he murders is a "hag" and a money lender - he can use the money for a greater good - to re-establish himself as a student (tuition fees were about then!) and help his widowed mother and sister.  Yet he ends up killing an "innocent" - the hag's half sister and never spends the money which he steals.  In a vague echo of Johnny Cash - is he killing her "just to watch her die" or to see what will be the impact on him.    Well it's not good - Raskolnikov retreats into his shell, but life goes on and his attempt to exist with his actions as the banality of life goes on around him is spellbounding to read.

Along with these fundamental questions there is also a lot of nineteenth century ideological debate.  Another powerful aspect of this novel is that the discussion of these concepts neither seemss dated nor contrived.  Often in fiction when the author is linking the novel with an idea it seems shoe-horned in.  For Raskolnikov makes an attempt to intellectually justify the murder of "lesser" people - it is discovered that he has written an academic article (which Porfiry has read, obviously).  He argues that exceptional people have the right to overcome their conscience as they have a higher and greater aim.   Indeed the greatest people in history have introduced new laws and systems which traduce earlier ones thus they are by necessity turning things on their head.   Napoleon is a recurring (and for the time current) example.   His greatness and plans allowed him to take endless lives.  It is still a symptom of psychiatric illness to believe you are the reincarnation of Napoleon or related to it.  This is part of Dost's attack on the Nihilists and Early Utopian Socialists - essentially ascribing Raskolnikov with these views.  The ends justify the means at one level but it is a bit more than that - the ends almost require these means.    Some have seen this as an attack on Marxism but that is very unlikely as Marx's work was only in limited circles by then.  But it is an attack on "modern" or "European" responses to the radically altering world in the nineteenth century.  Particularly there are many side swipes at "What is to be Done" - the Utopian Socialist Novel.

For the problem with Raskolnikov is that even though he may believe the great man can do what he wants philosophical action the double murder he has carried out is impossible for him to bear and maintain his grip on reality.  The dichotomy of actions that end in people's deaths - it seems easier to do this when ordered from a distance - like Napoleon or even Tony Blair.  Interestingly it is the detective Porfiry who outlines the argument from the article to Raskolonikov in another memorable scene.

Again that highlights the strength of the work it is not a dry academic analysis on the impact on human pschye of killing one or two people (although it is partially that) it is a fast paced work with memorable scene after memorable scene.  In many ways like a great piece of cinema.

There are dark characters found in the grottiest bars in back streets of St Petersburg - one called the Crystal Palace accurately enough.  Early in the book he stumbles into a bar-room bore drinking his family's money away.  He gives a brilliant monologue outlining the tedium, self indulgence and delusion of all drunks.  This is so strong I almost hoped it wouldn't be referred to again - just existing as a stand alone piece.  But there is a nod to the 19th Century novel plot and the fallen daughter which the drunk refers to becomes entangled in Raskolnikov's life - Sonya.

A true villain Svidrigailov also exists in the piece - although ironically we don't discover if he actually has killed anyone (though the murder of his wife and others is hinted at) where we do know that Raskolnikov did.  He is attempting to seduce and pursue Raskolnikov's sister which he almost does in a chilling scene near the end.  He also seems to be a peadophile - marrying a 15 year old in his fifties, grooming other children.  Again a very modern, nasty dark truth written about by Dostoevsky.  Svidirigailov also kills himself which Raskolnikov cannot bring himself to do.  The nature of suicide is something which obsessed Dostoevsky.

There is so much in this work (in fact it is a book you could get obsessed with in itself).  A disturbing scene where Raskolnikov demands Sonya reads Biblical passages to him.  The comical uselessness of Luzhkin - a clerk on the make who manages briefly to convince Raskolnikov's sister to become engaged to him.  And of course the creation of Porfiry. All of the work is of its time : St Petersburg 1866 - streets, events, people are referred to but also universal.

Dostoevsky really found his voice with this book - although he had written some strong pieces as I have outlined on this blog.  Literally - this is a third person narrative although it follows Raskolnikov almost through every page: he apparently rejected the version where he was the narrator.  There are two exceptions to this - near the end the narrative breaks from Raskolnikov to follow Svidrigailov - ending with his death. Also the Epilogue which has a strange distant tone - it follows Raskolnikov (or the criminal as it calls him) to his prison exile ( a la Dost himself) and his redemption through Sonya's love and (of course for FD) religion.  I am not sure about that ending but it follows Dostoevsky's spiritual belief - the truly dark figure kills himself.
.
It is great when "classics" live up to expectations and I have not really done it justice.  In contemporary writers the balance of the very new with the universal is often attempted but never that successfully.  Old Dostoevsky shows how it is done.  Amazing.

"Needless to say, I stayed".....Dostoevsky: Notes From Underground

Nothing says Christmas like finishing a existential Russian novella critiquing 19th Century Utopian Socialism.  Well in my house anyway.  Dostoevsky's relatively short monologue from a name-less individual marks a significant change from his other work I have read so far.  Although some of the themes touched on in House of Dead and even his grumpy travelogue make an appearance.  The work, in my view takes a while to catch with the reader but by the end you are entranced with the inner revelations of the "Underground" man and not in a good way.  Some passages are as cringe-worthy and car-crash viewing as David Brent or the Peep Show boys at their peak.  Again Dostoevesky's modernist appeal can be seen here.  I really don't think there was anyone writing like this in 1864.

The novella is split into two relatively distinct parts and the first part is quite hard going.  Having said that: what an opening - "I'm a sick man, I'm a spiteful man. I'm an unattractive man.  I think there's something wrong with my liver".  I hadn't realised that  Howard Devoto had lifted the sentiments of this for his single Song From Under the Floorboards (later covered by Moz!).   The difficulty, for me in the opening third of the work is similar to Camus' The Fall - relying solely on one voice which do not really depict events but simply let rip on their general philosophical views is a difficult way into a book.  In a sense you are walking in at the middle as you have no idea as to how the narrator became the way he is.   This narrative device is resolved a little by the end when a number of significant incidents from his recent past explain his withdrawal from everyday society and most importantly human communication.

The other problem about this early part I think is it is very much specifically dealing with the debates amongst the Russian Intelligentsia at the time which you need to have at least a passing knowledge of to fully understand.   For example the whole work was in part a response to the early Narodnik Chernyshevsky's  novel "What is to be done?" on the necessity of revolution a struggle in Tsarist Russia written the year before.  This was a big favourite of Lenin's - he named one of his significant works after it.

So some of the bile in the first part is personal - FD's own rejection that material struggle and the improveability of man was possible or even worthwhile in achieving.  Feudal Tsarism- though it does exist in the work is very much in the background.  The narrator is a 40 year old retired civil servant - middle ranking in the strict hierarchy.  He has a servant. His "enemies" later in the work are fairly high ranking soldiers.  But for Dostoevsky this regime was not the focus of struggle rather it provided a context for the narrator's human feelings to unravel.

Essentially Dostoevsky argues that it is impossible to impose a logical framework or social system on humans because they will reject it almost as a matter of course.  Human "volition" means that people will always react against being told what to do "sticking their tongue out at it".  This will even be the case if it is not in their best interests to act in this way.

Scientific analysis of human behaviour and striving for a different society then is pointless.  FD labels this as "2+2 = 4".   But for man (and as ripped of by Radiohead) 2 and 2 always makes 5. In symbolism of the time he labelled the new society as the Crystal Palace - a new London Building mentioned in his Winter Notes and seen then as a pinnacle of human creation.  The real thinker he says "does nothing" - action is the sign of someone who doesn't realise how pointless his actions are.  "If only it were simply out of laziness I did nothing" In doing this he has a few side swipes at Napoleon (Bonaparte and the 3rd) so indirectly the actions of the French Revolution.

In part the writings are polemical so exaggerated - still readable but difficult to engage with.  For example such rejection of struggling for new types of society ignores how the current society - in FD's case a  slightly less brutal version of Tsarist autocracy - came to pass in the face of human thought and wish not to be dominated.

If the work was only this then it would simply be an editorial in one of the many literary magazines which Dostoevsky involved himself in at the time but it was obviously much more than this.  Partly this is because of the second part of the work but also because I think FD is being deliberately and exaggeratedly provocative.  Also in another modernist twist the narrator is very self aware of the strangeness of writing this all down  as if "it will turn out grander on paper".  So the text itself is continually being assessed.  In fact at the end the narrator says "I don't want to write anymore"..but then an unknown voice intervenes and tells the reader that in fact he did go on but we'll just end it there.

Hinted at is the fact that the narrator was once an idealist believing in the "sublime and beautiful" - the perfectability of man but his experience made him turn away from this to a world of isolation, debauchery and the "Underground".

These urban St Petersburg events are outlined in Part 2 of the work "Apropos of the Wet Snow". I think setting is important here - the city landscape was unreal and surreal for most Russians at that time but hundreds of thousands had to adapt to the lifestyle.  Similar to FD's earlier work - The Double - this threw up unlikely situation.  It symbolises the combined and uneven development of Russia at that time as mentioned by Lenin and Trotsky in their work.  The narrator's disengagement from ltraditional life I don't think could have occurred anywhere else in Russia.

The events focus on the narrator's inability to interact with other humans.  In one pitiful dragged out scene he outlines how he imposes himself on some old school acquaintances' going away party, gets drunk and borrows more cash even though noone wants him there. He knows he should go but "Needless to say I stayed".
One passage was particularly brutally honest : "Disorder, leftovers, a broken glass on the floor, spilt wine, cigarette ends, intoxication and wild gibberish in my head, tormenting anguish in my heart...."  Yes, I'm sure we've all been there...

To compound the humiliation he ends up in a brothel where he lambasts a young Latvian prostitute Liza over her behaviour (ignoring the fact he had just used her - a bit of Dostoevsky's own hypocrisy coming out then).  He then gives her his address to "save her" - immediately regrets it when he sobers up and in an amusing but desolating end to the work we see why the narrator can no longer interact with human beings. There is also an interesting side line here in discussing the narrator's servant who acts towards him with open disdain - again a fairly modernist touch.

I am not sure if the rant/monologue at the beginning fits in completely with the second part.  That is I am not sure that the incidents explain the strength of the language used at the start - or whether they are simply a device to have a go at some of his contemporaries and their interaction with a very early form of Marxism.  But the work as a whole is very good  and very funny (an unappreciated element of Dostoevsky).  Its view of humanity is open to debate but his outline of the contradictory and difficult elements of human conciousness and how it deals with reality is not dealt with much better by other writers.

Why Oh Why Oh Why Oh....Dostoevsky has a moan: Winter Notes on Summer Impressions

Bad holidays. We've all had them.  Indeed with cheap air flight and traffic gridlock the norm across continents a big chunk of even the most relaxing break can be taken up by a re-enactment of one of the levels of Dante's Inferno - probably one where those blooming suitcases on wheels keep banging into you.

It wasn't always thus the erudite (whoever they are) cry - the Victorian Grand Tour allowed the Elite to relax and wallow in the cultural dominance of the haute bourgeois.   Quaint boarding houses, civilised ocean liners,  lengthy steam train journeys.  Even  the Eastern Reaches of 19th Century Europe could enjoy this - intellectuals like Dostoevsky could partake.  Except er... it didn't quite work out like that.

In fact reading this slight and short work (which are not always the same thing) you almost imagine Dostoevsky with a hanky drawn over his emaciated skull moaning about the sun and the lack of decent vodka in the Montmartre.

For although this is ostensibly a journal of Dostoevsky's first trip to the West in 1862 - following his incarceration, limited freedom and prior to his writing took off fairly dramatically - that provides only a tiny portion of it.  I had an image that this is a book you could stuff in your pocket if you visited one of the cities mentioned sharing in FD's experience.  Well, nope it aint.  It is also very poorly structured,

Starting off in Germany he dismisses Cologne Cathedral "not very majestic" and Berlin because it was pissing with rain.  Then on a train he moans about French people (more of this later) and launches into a chapter  entitled "Which is Quite Superfluous"  - basically musings when he is on the train about Russia its literature and its relationship to the people.   This then merges into another rant about the French and a bit (which is quite interesting historically) about the preponderance of spies and the high level of security a tourist or traveller had to got through in 19th Century Party.

You could argue as some of the blurbs on this quite difficult to find work do that this is Dostoevsky making an important point.  He is indirectly (and actually in some passages quite directly) criticising the Russian intellectuals  who idealise the West  in particular the revolutionary France of Bonaparte and the development of literature and making his own case for the particular distinct nature of Russian Society and how outsiders are not really needed.

Though there is a partial truth in this overall the tone is of someone who doesn't really like to travel and who really (really) doesn't like French people.  Although there is some perceptive comments on Britain and its "half naked, savage and hungry population" and its drink culture - even 150 years ago!"Everyone is drunk, but drunk joylessly, gloomily and heavily",  Wha's like us!

Even in some of his comments on France he notices the dominance of the "bourgeois" and small businesses despite 1789 as we are in the era of the ludicrous Napoleon  III.  In doing this he criticises the notion of fraternity as impossible to be created in humans.  Man must be born with it or it will not be created - this would be synthetic and require compulsion.   But even this point seems like a notebook musing and not a fully developed idea.

The book then descends into more criticism of the French and then just stops.  An unreleased extra from Dostoevsky but for me more interesting for its tone (grumpy anti-French) than for much of its content.  As some of my journo pals would say needs a lot of subbing but this is only part of the problem.

Locked on the inside looking in : Dostoevsky's Memoirs from the House of the Dead

Prisons have a strange status in modern society.   Most of us tend not to think of them yet Scotland (and England)  has one of Europe's biggest proportionate prison populations.   In the USA (a different league to the rest of the planet vis a vis prisoners) a massive industry has built up around incarceration - in some respects it now challenges Eisenhower's fabled military industrial complex.

The tabloid press whip themselves up into synthetic fury over so-called luxuries in prisons and the extension of the legal protection of human rights to convicts.  Even when the European Court of Human Rights argues for the right to vote ( a fairly fundamental right in a democracy)  to some prisoners - politicians from David Cameron to Jack Straw (admittedly not a very big spectrum) speak of their disgust. Even the SNP - out of step with European legal thinking - are not extending the franchise for next year's referendum: probably out of fear of a public backlash.

But for Dostoevsky prison was not a theoretical construct nor a place where you lock people up and throw away the key - it was for the 1850s his home.  As he explains the real hell of prison is  the theft of time and place which is critical to a human's liberty.  The existence of pool tables and Sky TV in cells 150 years later does not alter that.

For although as a society we may like to ignore them prisons have always been a recurrent setting for popular fiction - from novels to movies to TV serials we seem to be drawn to the darkness. Prison memoirs are also a constant phenomena - even Jeffrey Archer wrote one!  In fact the law has been altered across the whole of the UK (English and Scots Law) so prisoners cannot make money from any artistic work related to their crime or their time in prison.

This pivotal work for Dostoyevsky ostensibly has the structure of a novel - there is a perfunctory introduction explaining that the book is a recovered text from a convict settler's belongings who worked as a teacher prior to his death.  There is one other reference to this device but that is it.  This really is Dostoyevsky's own thoughts on his time inside.

It is unusual for such a traumatic life event for a fiction writer to be used in such a way.  Though not unique.  The Empire of the Sun by Ballard was  a real novel but it was based around Ballard's youth in a prison camp - though he changed several key issues in the fiction.  He later did write a memoir  - in fact his last original published work.  The House of Dead cannot really be called a novel in any sense - it is episodic and written totally from the unshaking gaze of a participant in the incarceration.  However you could argue that Dostoyevsky could not have written his master works - all of which followed this memoir - without this experience.  His view of the world and hence his fiction is sharpened, honed by his collective living experience amongst the Siberian convicts.  This he shares with Ballard whose fiction throughout his life was dominated by the Japanese war camps.

But perhaps more surprisingly in his characterisation and its outline of the hierarchy and dynamic of prison life   he creates a structure that has been followed by almost every prison drama since.  I was actually reminded more  of the underrated HBO 90/00s show Oz than I was of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich's time in the Stalinist Gulag.  This is because the writer is nearly absent he views all his fellow inmates and their interactions almost from a distance which is difficult because he is living almost on top of them.   It is like a cinema camera is omnipresent.

The different nationalities of the Tsarist Empire - the Tartars, the Poles, the Musselmesn (Muslims!)a solitary Jew are subjected to forensic examination: much as the various prison gangs were in the Oz penitentiary in Clinton/Bush America.
The absence of the narrator contrasts with his more traditional novel ( a weaker work that this) : the Humiliated and Insulted which he wrote around the same time as this where you can't escape the writer who is in nearly every scene.  For a fiction writer this was an important exercise in finding his voice.

The narrative structure dips in and out of various scenes over the writer's imprisonment - in the jail or the hospital prison which he admits he escaped to at every opportunity to escape the hell of prison.  These are mainly set pieces but some are beautifully written: the visit to the public baths, the Christmas Feast with its limited pleasures and happiness for the prisoners and the prisoners putting on an amateur dramatic  performance.  Arguably the Christmas episode (!) was part of Dostoyevsky's personal focus on the importance of religion but it fits well in the work.

One thread which runs through the work though is Dostoyevsky's alienation from the group.  This is not simply down to bullying or the fact  he was there for political activity not some of the brutal crimes which are outlined at different points in the book, particularly in one harrowing incident told as a story as one of the inmates in hospital.  It is rather a reflection of his "gentleman" status outside in the strictly delineated feudal structures of  Tsarist Russia.  Although prison is a uniform setting even that location cannot escape the class division.  This was a time of serfdom where even FD who was on the lower fringes of the system had a family that owned other human beings or souls.

This is outlined in a brilliant chapter : the Grievance.  This covers a limited revolt from the prisoners over conditions and food  where FD is told he is not welcome to take part (because of his background) and has to cower in the kitchen with the other aristocrats and various others (including the other nationalities) who do not want to participate.  In fact he outlines tremendously well the tensions of a collective action - the sort of people who don't take part,  how it begins in the first place, how it crumbles and its aftermath.  Yet more than anything it outlines the bizarre outmoded structure of feudalism (even for the 1850s) that crippled Russia and lead to a series of revolutions to remove all remnants of it.  It also shows the mindset of the peasant as well and how difficult it was to transform that - a problem Lenin and Trotsky wrote extensively about.

Dostoevesky was making a political point as well though - essentially criticising the early Left leaning aristocrats of Russia who thinks they could be part of the peasantry or be accepted.  However he is contradictory on this as his later works tend to idealise the peasantry.  I think it is also wrong to see this as a universal that people from one group will never accept another or be fully part of them - it is firmly grounded for me in the particulars of Russian feudalism.  It did show the problems facing Russian radicals at that time though - fighting to change society for a group that would not accept them or perhaps had no trust in them.

The horrors of prison life are written about particularly the use of torture, the whip and the birch but not extensively.  The real horror is the grind, the lack of human freedom and the enforced collective living - no solitude allowed.  Yet through this I think Dostoevsky by nature probably a bit of a loner learned much on human interaction.  He writes almost with a lover's eye on one of the Tartars from Dagestan (!) - Aley : or rather "my dear, dear, good Aley" .  His examination of the prison rulers - one corrupt, one effective is really strong. This means there is so much more in it than existential moans of "Woe is me" or "I shouldn't be here".

His voice or thoughts are not absent - there is commentary on all the characters and incidents but as all great writers do Dostoyevsky was absorbing everything.  Because of this there is even room for humour - not what you would think.  One thing tickled me " there were a few unquenchably cheerful souls, who for that reason enjoyed universal contempt"... You said it FD.

He cleared the decks with this work - following this all the classical titles followed.  This however is worth spending some time with - they don't make Oz anymore but this is still here.

We are the Nihilists - Ivan Turgenev: Fathers and Sons.

Being both the things in the title of this 19th Century Russian Novel and as I am currently meandering through the works of old Fyodor Dost I thought I would make a pitstop at one of his contemporaries (and eventual enemies) Turgenev and this influential work.

I didn't really know what to expect of it but the title does give a clue.  Forget about the Andrew Marr sanctioned view of  Sunday Night TV 20th century history of the 1950s being the era of the "birth" of the teenager this 1862 work blows up the generational gap that was present in Tsarist Russia.  It also creates the role model for James Dean and er John Travolta in Grease's rebellious angry young man in Bazarov (probably).

Much is made that Turgenev popularised (or some would argue created) the term nihilist to describe Bazarov as someone who believes in nothing - thank you Big Lebowski!  But it is actually slightly inaccurate - the young medical student Bazarov does have beliefs essentially in the ultimate authority of rationalism.  That is to say he distrusts and rejects all elements of mysticism or romanticism whether in the form of religion (very controversial at the time) or poetry and art (ironically this would probably be more controversial today) and distills everything down to scientific experiment and reason.  In a sense Bazarov is the post French Revolution age of reason personified.

Leaving that aside because it would sound like Bazarov is purely allegorical a cypher to study these ideas and that would be very inaccurate.  He is a powerhouse of a character though who really dominates the work and the narrative arc, such as it is, revolves around him although the other "son" in the work provides the immediate focus - his friend Arkady.

What is quite refreshing in the book is that it is not really plot driven - a few incidents occur and Bazarov dies in the end in an understated way - but for a nineteenth century novel it is unusal in that it is really an exploration of character and theory.  I guess many radical Russians at that time used fiction as a method of expressing their political views as other ways were blocked by the Tsarist police state, even Dostoevsky although this altered into more spiritual and philosophical views.  Ivan T was definitely one of these - he dedicates his work to the Utopian Socialist radical literary critic - Belinsky.

The novel begins with Arkady returning home to see his widowed father a fairly small scale but wealthy landlord with Bazarov in tow.  In contrast Bazarov is not of the landed gentry - a critical distinction in feudal Russia - but his father is a doctor for the military.  Also thrown into the mix is Arkady's uncle Pavel a retired soldier who had had an obsession with a Princess which lead him to travel around 1800s Europe before returning home.

The timing of the work is also contemporary thus the emancipation of the serfs by Tsar Alexander II had just occured though the details of it all had yet to be worked out.  Thus we are in the midst of a transitional period - a fertile time for art.  What is significant that Arkady's father Nikolai (great name!) and Pavel are not really representatives of the worst elements of feudal society but the liberal wing of established society.  They believe in the emancipation, are influenced by European Romanticism.  Nikolai eventually becomes an official  arbitrator designed to regulate relations between the emancipated peasants and the landowners.  He also has a child with a peasant and eventually (though significantly not immediately) marries her.

But it is this liberalism that Bazarov and for a period Arkady most despises  - "we have decided not to do anything about anything" Bazarov proclaims at one point causing Pavel to shake with anger.  They want to smash things down and subject every institution in Russia to "complete and merciless condemnation".

Thus the older generation simplistically believe in limited reform which does not really challenge the status quo - seen in Nikolai's initial refusal to recognise his loving relationship with the peasant Fenechka - whereas the younger generation want to overthrow everything.

Bazarov has been labelled as the "first" Bolshevik and in many ways that is true.  Although the group were not around until 40 years later and even the birth of the general Marxist movement in Russia was in its extremely formative stage (Trivia fact: Turgenev had the same birth and death years as Marx!) what it shows is the tension between those tied to the power of the feudal state and working to maintain it even using liberal language and those who want to go much further.

It is that tension that lead Trotsky to come up with the concept of permanent revolution - essentially not trusting liberal elements of the Russian feudal state to introduce meaningful capitalist reform as was done in Western Europe in Holland and France and to some extent England.  And for Lenin - the guy who more than anyone formed the Bolsheviks - to argue when revolution did hit Russia to argue for "uninterrupted" revolution using the slogan All Power to the Soviets.  This exposed the closeness of even the Menshevik wing of the Socialist Movement in Russia to the state.

Through the arguments of this 1862 novel all of these tensions are there (quite incredibly).  In fact I saw an Unreported World on Channel 4 last week about Aung  San Suu Kyi trying to disarm a mass community movement against Chinese investment in Burmese capitalism using her liberal authority (well earned with her house arrest) and was reminded of that.

What is missing is that Bazarov has no vision of another society - in fact he rejects that which removes it from a traditional Marxist view - which remember was just being created at this time: Marx was  5 years away from writing Capital.  I also found significant Bazarov's attitude to the peasantry - although not part of the ruling order by not owning land he is elevated as is his father by their education - he is noted for being comfortable mixing with all classes.  But he has no romantic view of this group in fact he openly despises and derides their superstition and mystical nonsense.  This is in stark contrast to the Back to the Land attitude of the early Narodnik radicals in Russia who tended to romanticise the lifestyle of the peasants. Or indeed the "Mother Russia" idea of Dostoevsky of celebrating the unique-ness of Russian culture.  This again puts Bazarov back in the Bolshevik type.

In my view these political disputes and tensions are central to the work and give it an energy and modernist feel which is quite surprising but it is not the only thing within it.   We are introduced to Bazarov's parents  - poorer than Arkady's but still influenced by Russian society particularly the religion - Bazarov has dinner and plays cards with the local priest.  Both Arkady and Bazarov fall in love.  Arkady's love seems to bring him back to his father though rejecting the sharp rationalism of Bazarov.

Bazarov's putative relationship with the widow Anna Sergeevna is interesting as when he first views her he sees her as an object of lust - a possible physical conquest.  As he gets to know her though (as Arkady gets to know and fall in love with her younger sister) he struggles with his feelings of romantic love which he as a nihilist has rejected. His declaration of this is quite disastrous as he himself is not sure where these feelings have come from and are predictably rebuffed by Anna.  Significantly she marries at the end though not for romantic love but political support for a reforming politician and her attraction for Bazarov is largely due to his intellect and different viewpoint.

This part of the work shows Turgenev challenging Bazarov to an extent - it shows he did not fully buy into the philosophy of the "sons" - that maybe the Fathers did have some good elements.  This is also shown in Bazarov's death which he details in a  matter of fact way as he is infected when treating someone with Typhus and knows he is going to die - which he does at his parents' home.

There are also some good set pieces in the novel - a ridiculous duel scene between Bazarov and Pavel - how more symbolic a generational clash could you get; a few encounters with fairly strange fellow travellers of Bazarov. The translator of this Oxford World's Classics edition also does a good job with understated and funny phrasing where appropriate.  The edition of the work also has interesting background work - which shows how Turgenev had driven a background sketch of each character and a rudimentary plot line.  A method much utilised since - Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant did it in the Office for example.

The work was controversial with Dostoevsky and others seeing Turgenev's book as an attack on them and the liberal intelligentsia in Russia satisfied with the Emancipation Reforms.  The writers fell out soon after this. But I have to say FD must have seen the power of this novel - the style of writing and the economy of plot.  Having now read a lot of FD's early works this is much stronger than those with the exception of the semi-surreal piece the Double and parts of the Humiliated and Insulted.  Perhaps FD also saw this book as a challenge for him to lift his game.

For me this book symbolises the power of fiction which can cause heated discussion 150 years on in a way other things simply can't.  Or can cause me to garble on about it for 2 hours during my Christmas holiday - not sure if that is good or bad.  Impressive anyway, Ivan.

Humiliated and Insulted: Dostoevsky back in the saddle?

It's taken me quite a while to complete this - Dostoevsky's first lengthy novel which foreshadowed a period where he produced his recognised great pieces.   Mainly this has been down to  external factors - an increasing workload due to the grinding cuts in the public sector and the timing of the current semester but it does also reflect the prose itself which I think is a bit stop -start and difficult to get into the flow of.

Like many 19th Century novels this was published in instalments through a journal.  This also gives the text a strange rhythm - something I remember noticing in Hardy - in that it builds up to climaxes in strange places in the overall structure of the work.   Of course in the novel (or I guess in serial terms the box set!) these can be a problem if the prose around it is weak as it is unusual and stands out - in part this work does suffer from it  I think.  Even though this is a strong recent English translation.

The novel is back in Dostoevsky's bleak urban environment of St. Petersburg after his dalliance with the rural     tensions of hierarchichal families in his previous two short works.   The central pivot of the piece is Vanya a writer who gets entangled in two plots - the life of an empoverished epileptic child Nelly who he discovers when he moves into her Grandfather's grotty garret flat and a fairly flimsy love triangle between him, his childhood love Natasha and her obsessive love the foppish, handsome, rich  and nice but dim Alexei.   The link between the two, apart from  Vanya, is the villainous Prince Valkovsky: the father of Alexei who is attempting to ruin Natasha's father in a law suit and is somehow indirectly involved in Nelly's dead family

In true 19th century style the two plots entwine with a series of (fairly unsurprising) revelations but in truth the narrative is not really driven by the plot. FD's heart doesn't really seem to be in that - even when he introduces a private detective - an old friend of Vanya - to drive elements of the plot forward.  So on that measure as a "cracking good read" copyright arch Will Self saying it is a failure - and probably one of the reasons it is not in the realms of TV adaptions (though Wikipedia tells me a Russian film was made of it in the 1990s).

It does have strengths though that really stand out that also put it outwith the realm of the disposable cheap novel.  In a sense Dostoevsky's ambitions for this work were not great he was really trying to find his feet following his lengthy exile.  But the stand-outs relate to a couple of set-pieces and as always in FD's work (well those that I have read so far) the development of ideas.

The opening chapter is remarkable where he encounters Nelly's grandfather seemingly an emaciated pauper and his dog, he witnesses his death in a very European setting (a coffee house) but in a very understated way.  That part will stay with me way longer than any of the later plot devices utilised by FD.  Also outstanding and indeed it is almost like it fell into the book from another novel is the confrontation between the Prince and Vanya.  It is partially hidden til this point but through an excoriating monologue the Prince reveals his villainous nature, his utter disdain for the wimpy Vanya (comparing him to the romantic poet Schiller) and in quite explicit tones for the team explains his love of debauchery and corruption of innocence. A really strong piece of writing which sadly is not really equalled anywhere else in the rest of the work.  As I observed earlier it also occurs at the culmination of the third instalment of the work.

Ideas around mortality, corruption and the nature of Russian Society are touched on but never fully developed which again suggests why the work is not up there with Dostoevsky's other works.  Alexei, before his betrayal of Natasha dabbles in a Utopian Socialist group and portrays the ideas in a fairly naive way - probably reflecting FD's cynicism at that time.  Interestingly at this post-Savile time the book touches on the possibility of  a peadophile ring involving aristocrats which there seems to be an attempt to put Nelly into.  The abuse of children is also one of the modern themes which Dostoevsky explores pretty well although the nature of the relationship between Nelly and Vanya is quite confused I think - similar to passages in his unfinished work which centred around a young girl of around Nelly's age.

Another significant element of the novel although ultimately I think one of its weaknesses is the character of Vanya.  He essentially is Dostoevsky.  His first (successful) novel has parallels with Poor Folk, as an aside he compares himself to other wealthier writers who can take years before they come up with a new novel whereas he needs to write to earn a living.  He also has pot-shots at publishers and indirectly at what it means to be a novelist when the simple Alexei says he wants to become one.

Stylistically though this is a problem it means that there is no differentiation between Dostoevsky the writer and Vanya the character.  Vanya is in almost every scene. Getting back in the swing of prose writing I guess that FD did not feel confident removing his all-seeing eye character.  The problem for that though is that the narrator simply becomes a cipher.  There is also no distance from the actions.  One pretty painful scene is where Natasha admits her love for Alexei to Vanya - it's almost like reading a teenage journal or listening to some early Morrissey lyrics - bleeding hearts on sleeves time.  It will be interesting to see if he continues to do this in his next works: I doubt he will.

So some highs (if that is the right word) and a few cringe-worthy lows in the book which does not really work on itself but only as part of Dostoevsky's overall oeuvre.

The Village of Stepanchikovo: Dostoevsky's Trapped Comedy.

A companion piece to Uncle's Dream in some ways for FD's next work.  Also written in exile, also originally envisaged as a drama (which it was eventually staged as after Dost's death), also on the face of it a comic tale  of misunderstandings and machinations about the semi-aristocracy in Tsarist Russia- but I have to say this piece has a bit more substance to it and illustrates his ability to understand both human character and relationships.  Indeed the work has a very lightly disguised anger running through it which bursts out now and then - hardly surprising given he was coming to an end of his imprisonment and Siberian exile.

They (whoever they are!) say that great sitcoms stem from the characters being trapped - in a situation, a location, a personality: the pub in Cheers, the hotel in Fawlty Towers, the Office.  I'm not sure that theory holds up completely but there is an element of truth in it and this book illustrates it.  In a sense you cant get more trapped than a feudal society - your role was very specifically labelled and you could neither escape it nor ignore it.  Russia was a peculiar one though as it held on to its feudal trappings much longer than other similar societies whilst trying to develop a modernist outlook.  Britain maintained its feudal overlords as the recent Jubilee "celebrations" showed whilst making damned sure that real power was removed from them after the monarchy was restored following the English Civil War.  As old Moz so cleverly put it in Irish Blood English Heart

But in Russia the development of the elements of a modern state was done in a feudal way - so the hierarchy was maintained strictly in the civil service and the army (both controlled by the Tsar who of course was appointed by God).  In this tale a young student is returning to his adopted village home where his "Uncle" a retired Colonel from the army is struggling with his existence by the return of his mother and a parasitic entourage headed by a brilliant villainous character Foma Fomich.  Though the Colonel does not recognise this he is in awe of Fomich but wants his nephew to marry his children's governness who is facing poverty.

The return of the gauche youth essentially precipitates a crisis within this bizarre household and reveals hidden crises and loves. The comedy comes from the desciption of the grotesques who populate the Colonel's household - drawn to him because he is a "good man" but wealthy in control of many "souls" or serfs - written as this was before the 1862 Emancipation.  The writing skill of Dostoevsky was coming to the fore here with using the outsider to expose all of this in his return.

The hangers on in feudal courts at high and low levels must have been a real phenomenon in Russian Society - one escape from utter penury I guess must have been to be a chancer who proclaims higher normally spiritual powers who is showered with the wonders of the top table.   Rasputin (Russia's greatest love machine) confirms this  the real aristos eventually did him in angered by his position - but that was a couple of generations after Foma Fomich who was clearly cut from the same cloth.

Of the Dostoevsky books I have read so far with the exception of the protagonist in the Double this baddy is the best crafted characted I think he has written.  He is sanctimonious, manipulative and knows exactly how to exploit his relationship with the Colonel to maintain his power and situation.  To draw a parallel with great sitcoms again he is Albert Steptoe to the Harold of the Colonel!  He is as trapped as Harold is in the junkyard to Fomich but also his mother who also exploits her son but  who is utterly dependent on the chancer.

Powerfully he does not appear until the 100th page of the book but is spoken of almost from the first - a great dramatic device.  When he does you can almost here the vitriol in FD's description:  apparently FF is a vicarious characterisation of Gogol - the earlier Russian writer who ended in death a complete reactionary and supporter of serfdom.  Again similarly to his other early work FD runs the roost in parts of the tale over current fiction, journals and poetry in 1850s Russia - even quoting a poem in full at one part through the mouths of one of the children.

In FF's vicious bullying of the Colonel's peasants we can see the dilemma of the arrogant Russian nineteenth century intellectual - he despises the illiterate masses but wants to elevates them with his own higher knowledge: symbolised here by FF bullying them to learn French.  Quite painful to read actually and beyond a comedy.    The setting is clearly rural as well with the urban landscape of St Petersburg a distant reference as it was at that time for Dost.

FF has a symbiotic relationship with the Colonel though who is impressed not really by status but by knowledge - which FF ( a court jester in a previous time apparently) exploits to the full.  Unusually I guess for the time the comedy ends with a complete triumph for the villain "complete and unassailable" - who although he oversteps his mark with the Colonel pulls it back in and is restored in his parasitic place.
The other place where I sensed real anger on FD's part was his description of a wealthy single older woman who almost falls prey to gold diggers in a very well written couple of pages that really stand out from the rest of the work.

Plot wise it bounces along - I think it started as a serial a la Dickens - but that is not the real point of the work - it is a character study and as an ensemble piece is quite funny - a nun appears for no real reason at the end !  So although it has chapters called things like "Concerning the White Bull and a Peasant named Komarinsky" it is quite a complex piece which belies its appearance.  Maybe why it is quite difficult to get and not translated very often.  Perhaps not as weighty as his later works but the signs were there and it tells you much about Russian society and the human condition as well.

Uncle's Dream: Dostoevsky has a laugh?

In his decade of exile, the first few years of which he spent in hellish prison conditions, Dostoevsky produced little written work. You could argue that all of his great works couldn't or wouldn't have been produced in the same way without his 1850s experience. After all many writers don't immediately draw on traumatic life experience in their own work. I'm thinking of JG Ballard whose work specifically on his childhood in occupied Shanghai came relatively late on in his work or the prolific Dennis Potter where only his later TV dramas like the Singing Detective (currently repeating on BBC4) dealt with his own youthful trauma.

There was another problem for FD though - he was living in a feudal dictatorship which he had been arrrested and exiled for opposing. Although by the end of exile he supported the new Tsar. They had controls of publication and also in his prison time he was not permitted any writing material.

So the sum total of that time was two ostensibly light novellas - Uncle's Dream being the first. Seemingly a literary confection, a bauble as Mark Cousins would say, this short work explores the machinations of a provincial village elite trying to marry off an elderly, possible senile, member of the aristocracy to a young beautiful woman. Lots of visits to country houses, aristocratic balls and comic misunderstanding.

The tone is very theatrical and I wasn't surprised to see it had been turned into a play something like 20 times. The lightness is obvious and it flies past as you read it. However I have a sense there are glimpses here of deeper issues. One theory is that FD stuck to this path so there would be no issue around censorship.

Given all that the characterisation is pretty dark - the key villain - the manipulative mother who believes she controls all the comings and goings of the village and equally can control the doddery old Prince: Maria Alexandrovna is a sophisticated creation that could come from a modern writer. I could see similar issues being done and a similar woman in an English play by Alan Ayckbourn or a TV comedy drama by Victoria Wood. The pathetic thwarted suitor of the intended for the Prince and indeed the nominal nephew Pavel Mozglyakov also stands out.

What is missing from the work I have read so far of FD are the contemporary literary and artistic references. This village is in a bubble where banal worries about who is going to marry (and trick) an elderly aristocrat are to the fore. Although there are references to light French novels like Dumas and constant quotes in French - these stand out because they are so isolated. I guess this is not surprising because FD himself was miles away from the literary milieu he had cultivated.

Yet in passing the number of "souls" -peasants - controlled by these figures is thrown about pretty lightly. The deference to the feudal structure, a constant them in FDs work, is there in spades in fact the whole plot revolves around it. The Prince even raises the issue of serf emancipation, one of FD's crimes in the eyes of the Tsarist state, before almost as quickly dismissing it - he speaks of being influenced by foreign ideas. And in a very unusual last chapter the issues of mortality are raised darkly and really out of kilter with the rest of the piece.

So all those things are touched on but I have to say it is actually funny - maybe unusually for a nineteenth century literary comedy. I could see some influence perhaps of Dickens whose jokes have not all stood the test of time. There is a funny line about a boring male character who often "looks blankly like a sheep that has seen a new gate" well it made me chuckle. And the plot whilst derivative is pretty well paced and structured for humour. Also in quite a modern way FD contrasts the lightness with quite dark and bitter ideas- Maria's essential prostitution of her daughter and her relationship with her husband is quite shockingly violently cruel.

So you could argue this got FD back in the saddle of published work and it's a good distraction for a few hours read. Also have to give word of praise to edition I picked up by Hesperus press. Lovely lay-out and good translation and introduction - published last year. I think it specialises in publishing more obscure literary works from the great writers. Lucky for me!

Netochka Nezvanova: Fragmented Witness

My latest FD instalment is an intriguing piece which he was working on prior to his arrest as part of a Utopian Socialist underground group in 1840s Russia. He didn't have another piece of published fiction for ten years. So this I guess is the last piece of this specific period of Dostoyevsky's work.

It is a little difficult to judge it as it is a fragment of what was clearly planned to be a substantial "major" work - like a Dickens or French 19th Century Novel. The eponymous character outlines the early years of her life from brutal childhood to her alienated teenage years: unlike the Double - no laughs to be had here.

As this is all that survives I assume that FD must have written chronologically as there are no records of any other parts of this novel. So it can be followed unlike other unfinished novels.

He develops his psychological approach for the characters although being part of the rigid Russian social stratification are never characatures but more rounded - a constant theme or tension of his early writings. However I also think he is attempting to use the young female narrator as a witness of certain aspects of human interaction and obliquely Russian society. Thus her unhappy childhood unravelled by her step-father a drunken musician elevated from the peasantry and moved to Petersburg, convinced of his genius. Her adoption by an aristocrat provides an insight to that world. She is then passed on to a slightly lower echelon of aristocrat where she is a witness to a disintegrating marriage undermined by secrets and lies. A wee bit like Oliver Twist - an orphan can look at different aspects of society - in Dickens case the underworld in London.

Thus the character is a bit of a cipher, indeed the translation of the name is Nameless Nobody, but she has her own relationships. In particular with another 10 year old - the Princess daughter of the aristocrats which is very abusive and unusually written I thought for kids of that age. This is one of the problems of the work as it stands you dont get the sense of a child or an adolescent's view point. It reads the same as the perspective of an older writer. Apparently this was not FD's wish he wanted a different style for each part of her life - this definitely doesnt come across in translation. It may account for the strange way the relationship with the little princess is written.

Like the other short works I have read of his at this time it is also about the power of art and writing itself. The character's partial liberation comes from getting a secret key to the library and discovering the joys of fiction in particular the novels of Walter Scott - a pioneer of that form - Although this source also provides the root of the downfall from her last familial setting. Art is also shown through music and the mercurial nature of her stepfather. According to the Dost biography I am reading he wanted the character to become an artist - so the interaction of art and life was going to be a constant in the work.

Unusual that he never returned to this, unlike the Double which he re-worked after his decade's absence, perhaps the moment had passed or he felt he could deal with the ideas and themes in a different way. A fragment, then, but gives a glimpse of his power as a writer and of how he would later construct his big novels.

Dostoyevsky: The Double - Fear and Loathing in St Petersburg.

Did you ever have a moment in your life when you act in such a way that you dont recognise yourself - as if you were looking in from outside? Well old FD seems to have or rather young written alongside Poor Folk when he was 26. That very 20th century form the existential novel seems to have a forebear here in Dostoevsky's second work and first traditional novel.

It was a critical failure at the time apparently particularly amongst the left intelligentsia who had seen (and overstated I think) in D's first work a new voice exploring the poverty and inequities of Tsarist Russia. But it was so important to the writer that he spent many years re-writing it when he got out of his Siberian exile.

Narratively the work is "fantastic" in that it deals with a middle ranking civil servant in mid nineteenth century St Petersburg confronting some one who is his literal doppelganger. Yet although they start on friendly terms the double soon undermines him at work, humiliates him in front of women and makes him pay for ten pastries he buys and consumes at a German bakers!

Through this unusal prism FD explores the static nature of Russian feudalism, as in Poor Folk, the frustration of accepting without question such an unfair society. Yet to the chagrin of the critics he doesnt do it through a downtrodden serf or a decadent aristocratic but a pompous bureaucrat with a servant who he treats pretty badly.

But Golyadkin, the name of the dual character, is collapsing. His other doesn't appear in the work until after he's spent a morning skiving off work, wandering around shops promising to pay for stuff and then not, tried to get medication from his doctor and he has humiliated himself in front of a beautiful woman whilst at a party. Sounds like a modern tale !

I think all of these events are a catalyst for the self-examination which is externalised with the appearance of his look - a - likey. The passages where Golyadkin examines his faults and then pulls back to put a superficial brave face on it to admit everything is fine are painful to read yet anyone who has ever had self-doubt (which I would hope is everyone) will clearly identify with them. The problem is every time he resolves to make the best of things his double appears and stamps all over them

Golyadkin goes even further though ending up being carted away by his sinister doctor to an asylum we guess lost in the throes of mental illness crying "I think Im all right". I think the work is a brilliant examination of mental disintegration and the feeling of not having a place in a society which is completely reliant on structure. Golyadkin is an outsider who doesnt want to be - indeed in one of the passages he accuses his double of being disdainful of the rightful order of things.

Way ahead of its time in many ways but strangely it is quite contemporary - the sense of 1840s St.Petersburg is palpable - indeed the sub-title of the work is A Petersburg Poem. Reference is made to music and prose of the time (again like Poor Folk).

The tale works if you believe it is possible you can have an absolute double or if you view it as a sort of fantasy but I really think it is more about the single, the struggle that we all have as individuals to keep things together particularly when someone (who looks very much like ourselves) is trying to rip them apart.

I saw after finishing this that the guy out the IT crowd is going to direct a movie of the book - which again is pretty short 130 pages. I'm not surprised the attraction given its universal themes. But for me it was a real surprise as a piece. but a pleasant one.

Dostoyevsky: Poor Folk - Communication Breakdown

Every journey begins with a single step someone once said. This unusual piece of prose was Fyodor D's first "novel" and for the record this is the first one of Dostoyevsky I have read in full. I tried the Brothers Karamazov when I was 17 but I was too too young and couldnt get past the first few chapters.

The form of this (pretty short) work is a set of letters between two people - an older man employed as a copyist a fairly low role within the burgeoning Russian civil service and an impoverished young woman once from a relatively privileged background. What is their relationship - well it is familial at a distance they seem to be second cousins but is it more: lovers, future partners?

This chamber piece has limitations - indeed I think about 120 pages is about as far as you can take the forms of two letters between two narrators, unreliable or otherwise. Other novels which use letters usually break down more into a narration of events as a third party or protagonist - Wuthering Heights from memory does this and much more recently White Tiger.

It doesn't help that both characters are very pathetic, in the literal sense of the word, the male Makar is a balding, occasionally heavy drinking, in debted individual. Varenka is an ailing abandoned soul open to abuse and manipulation from richer people. Both lived in cramped penury in the urban setting of St. Petersburg - opposite each other: this is what leads to their communication. So their missives are not full of laughs!

Varenka, almost inevitably, by the end is married off to a brutal landowner who wants to hide her away in the Russian countryside. This leaves Makar devastated in a final sad letter to her he states: "I write only in order to write, only in order to write as much as possible to you". But even this is unusual. One doesnt get the sense that this is a great romantic tryst broken by the needs of feudal society and property - a common theme in 18th/19th Century literature - Jane Austen, the Brontes et al.
Makar is a pretty sad character who never gives a sense of being a romantic partner of Varenka. He continually calls her little mother, for example. He is self indulgent in a very male way in his tone particularly after drinking escapades or trying to borrow money - FD does this brilliantly - subservient to his masters but torn by his very real poverty: not a great catch for Varenka!

So not a doomed love story, definitely not. What it is though , which surprised me, is very contemporary (for its time). It explores the static nature of Russian feudalism - which in a sense both characters are victims of - where everyone has their station from which there is no escape. Everything that happens is because of God's will - nothing can be challenged. What is innovative is that this is done from two "urban" characters rather from the serf's perspective which FD was very pre-occupied with in the 1840s.

Urban landscapes are also central - the crowded nature: people living on top of each other; sharing (unwillingly) their most intimate moments - love and death. Compared to Austen where her romances take place in vast spaces - country estates and houses. The claustrophobia here is palpable.

But also, and perhaps most importantly for the author the work explores contemporary literature. Apparently it is very influenced by Gogol which I have not read, in particular a story called the overcoat. In one very funny communication Makar takes personal offence when Varenka sends him this work to read as he identifies so closely with it - stating "I am going to register a complaint". Pushkin is also central - in a moving piece Varenka writes how in her past she searches for a complete works of Pushkin to buy for her first love (also doomed) but allows the boy's impoverished father to say he bought them. French and English lit also get mentions in passing.

So you could say that this novel is about novels albeit this is not clearly stated - the quote at the beginning of the work talks of the power of fiction. And I suppose in the 19th Century the novel was finding its form - which FD was going to spend his life working on.

Others saw it in other ways - it was thought of as Utopian Socialist - with its vision of poverty and its implied critique of the ruling elite. FD was going to do 5 years hard labour for such thoughts in a short amount of time. I think that is there but its lasting significance comes from its other elements. He was also only 26 when he wrote this an incredible fact in itself.

So a lot in 120 pages! And a good signpost for a future journey through FD's work.