A Double Dash of Dostoyevsky (with a Garnett chaser)

It's been a while since my last Dostoyevsky read, so I thought it was time to crack open a book I've had sitting on my shelves for far too long now.  As you can see from the photo, my Wordsworth Editions purchase actually contains two of the great man's works, collected together for a very good reason - namely that they are both extremely autobiographical...

*****
The House of the Dead is a collection of reflections about time in a Siberian prison, penned by an upper-class political prisoner who has been sentenced to ten years' incarceration.  Preceded by a introductory chapter explaining where the notes come from, the book is a rather sobering description of life inside a typical Siberian labour camp.

The notes start with the arrival of the writer, a certain Aleksandr Petrovich Goryanchikov, in Siberia, and dwell chiefly on his first year in the prison.  As a 'gentleman', he finds it hard to settle in the prison, only becoming grudgingly accepted by the peasant majority as his term wears on.  Despite his initial difficulties, the conditions in the prison are made to sound fairly acceptable: good food can be had for a price (as can vodka!); the work, while difficult, is fairly relaxed; and the inmates tend, on the whole, to avoid any kind of physical violence.

However, it's not all fun and games behind bars.  The barracks the prisoners stay in are covered in filth, and the cold Siberian winter leaves its mark on the poor wretches huddling under their greatcoats.  Worse than the physical suffering though is the mental torture the prisoners must endure.  Even if there is no immediate threat to their lives, the reality is that they are prisoners - and they won't be getting out for a long, long time...

*****
While The House of the Dead can be a bit of a depressing read, The Gambler is anything but.  It's only half the length of its partner novel, but it seems even shorter as the reader is swept along by the energetic pace and irresistible energy of the characters.  It takes place in the (imaginary!) German resort of Roulettenburg, a town where high society from all over Europe comes to take the waters and gamble their money away.

Our main man here is Alexei Ivanovich, a young tutor attached to a family of Russian nobles.  His employer, the General, is passionately in love with a beautiful young Frenchwoman (and badly in debt to a suave Frenchman), and his stay in Roulettenburg is spent waiting for news about the health of the General's rich aunt.  With so much riding on 'Granny' shuffling off this mortal coil as soon as possible then, you can imagine that her arrival in Roulettenburg is not a welcome one...

The chapter depicting Granny's arrival steals the show, her triumphant entry set to the sound of dropping jaws an example of the writer's genius.  However, The Gambler, as the title suggests, is not about family matters, but about the dangers of the roulette wheel and the near impossibility of escaping from the casino with both wallet and soul untouched.  Spurred on by both Granny and Polina, the woman he loves but can never attain, Alexei succumbs to the temptation to risk his luck.  The consequences?  Well, that would be telling ;)

*****
It might be difficult to believe that one man could experience both of these lives in the space of one existence, but Dostoyevsky did.  The House of the Dead is based on his own experiences in a Siberian labour camp, where he spent four years of his life imprisoned and isolated from society.  Later, in the middle of a gambling mania in Wiesbaden, and under extreme time pressure to deliver a novel he had promised, he dictated The Gambler to the woman who would later become his wife.  He definitely wasn't one for a quiet life...

Of the two, I much preferred The Gambler.  It has that page-turning quality which can make a classic novel into a thing of beauty, marrying great writing with a plot you can't wait to unravel.  The House of the Dead, by contrast, seems a little leaden and doesn't really go anywhere.  It's a collection of impressions, loosely bound together, and it's tempting to think that were it not for political constraints, it may have become a slightly less sanitised work of non-fiction.

Of course, there is one more factor that must be considered when evaluating this book, and that is the (in)famous translator, Constance Garnett.  Garnett polarises opinion, with many readers loathing her rendering of Dostoyevskian dialogue into incomprehensible, pseudo-Cockney rambling, while others like her (dated) style.  I would have to say that the translations probably played a large part in my opinions here: parts of the conversations in The House of the Dead were virtually unreadable.  For example:

"You great sow!... He's grown fat on the prison bread.  Glad he'll give us a litter of twelve suckling pigs by Christmas."
"But what sort of queer bird are you?" he cried, suddenly turning crimson.
"Just so, a bird."
"What sort?"
"That sort." pp25-6

This goes on for a while, until one of the men finally declares himself a "cocky-locky", at which point I looked to see how much more of the novel I had to read...

The Gambler, however, seemed to fly by much more smoothly, and I hardly noticed any glaring conversational wonders, often the sign of a good translation.  There was one problem with the language in The Gambler though; anyone whose French is not quite up to scratch may wish to consider investing in a dictionary before reading it.  My edition had no notes translating the frequent French comments into English :)

So, at the end of a post which has become a lot longer, and much less coherent, than I would have liked, let's summarise today's findings:

1) I liked The Gambler better.
2) Constance Garnett's translations are not for everyone, so you may want to find another edition.
3) Especially if your French isn't much good.
4) Prisons in nineteenth-century Russia weren't very clean.
5) Dostoyevsky had a very, very interesting life.

You're welcome :)

A Small Amount of Catching Up - Part 1

After a horrible bout of RSI and/or nasty neck pain (which made it very painful to both type and read), I am slowly getting back to fairly normal health - yay :)  So, it's time to catch you up with a little of what I have managed to read recently: slowly...

*****
Of course, it's good to start the way you mean to go on, so my first mini-review will be a slating of Henry James' The Wings of the Dove.  Yes, yes, he's very clever, wonderful psychological treatment etc etc, but Henry James is everything that non-readers imagine classic literature to be - impenetrable, over-wordy, meandering and (most importantly) completely up itself.  I've tried with Mr. James, I really have, and there were times where I thought I was glimpsing the good in his writing; however, these few moments of enjoyment were drowned in the sludge of words and lack of momentum.  The story?  Sick rich girl has money, and everyone else wants it (but never actually says it of course).  Apologies to all James fans, but it's three strikes and out for old Henry - I just don't like his style...


*****
Now someone whose style suits me a little better is Jun'ichiro Tanizaki, and after reading the wonderful Quicksand, I immediately snapped up a two-book edition on the Book Depository, the first of which was The Key (translated by Howard Hibbet).  This is a he-says-she-says novel with a difference as it is entirely constructed of extracts from the diaries of a man and his wife.  The extracts show the somewhat perverse turn their marriage takes when the husband decides to spice up their sex life with some rather unorthodox measures.  While both the husband and wife become aware of their spouse's diary, both strongly deny that they would ever actually look inside, thus violating their partner's privacy, but how much can we trust what they are telling us - and who are they really writing their diaries for?


The Key is another wonderful, slow-burning, sexually-charged story, and the idea is an intriguing one.  However, it's not as good as Quicksand and suffers a tad in comparison  The ending is definitely very similar, and it does appear to run out of steam a little, surprising for what is a fairly slim book.  I would also warn potential readers that it does contain a storyline that is actually quite shocking to...  Look, I'm getting onto very dodgy moral ground here, and I don't want to start any kind of cultural debate, so I'll tread lightly and just say that many people will find some of the actions the husband takes ever-so-slightly disturbing.  Let's move on...


*****
Now, I do love a bit of Dostoyevsky, and Devils (translated by the famous Constance Garnett) is a lot more than a bit of Dostoyevsky.  Another rolling epic tale, it depicts events in a small rural town where a group of young anarchists is stirring up the locals, confusing the authorities and preparing for a particularly unspeakable crime.  It's based on a real event, and the novel is every bit as good as some of his more famous works, another wonderful combination of tight plotting, psychological suspense and well-written crucial scenes.

It's funny though that when people talk about Dostoyevsky, it's always as a brooding, masterful writer, someone who writes books to be waded through, akin to walking across a vast river of treacle, yet his books are often a joy to read.  As well as being real page turners, his novels can contain wonderful scenes of humour - yes, Dostoyevsky is funny!  The first part of Devils is especially amusing, culminating in a meeting where about a dozen of the main characters meet under unexpected and confusing circumstances, reminiscent more of Oscar Wilde than Tolstoy.  Of course, with the subject matter being what it is, things do take a turn for the more serious later, but never let it be said that Dostoyevsky neglected the lighter side of the art of literature...

*****
So that's the first of my mini-catch-up pieces; there'll be more to come when I can bring myself to return to the computer.  Forgive the brevity and the shallowness of the reviews - hopefully there's something there to make it all worthwhile :)

57 - 'The Brothers Karamazov' by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Tony made his way briskly along the muddy street, huddled inside his borrowed greatcoat, avoiding the great puddles of slush as best he could (which wasn't that well as there seemed to be more slush and snow than road). Finally, thankfully, he made out, through the newly started shower of snow, a collection of wooden structures indicating the start of the town. He hurried towards the nearest, a large, crude hut, and hammered at the door, breathing deeply and regretting it each time the frosty air penetrated to his lungs. A voice bellowed from within, "Come in if you're coming, damn you!"; Tony opened the door and stepped inside without needing further prompting than this rather unlikely invitation to enter.

Inside, behind a large table bearing a samovar, mugs and plates laden with bread, cheese and various meats, sat a thin, gaunt man, obviously in the middle of his meal and displeased with the interuption to his repast. "Who are you? Why do you disturb me?", he barked out. Tony took a deep breath and stepped forward. "My apologies for the delay", he said measuredly, "I had trouble making my way here on such short notice. Let me introduce myself, I-". The other interrupted him, waving his arm in the air as if to physically beat Tony's words to the ground. "I know who you are, the Englishman, the one who wants to talk about my book. Yes, my book!". He started to laugh, pointing playfully to the bench on the other side of the table. "Sit, Anton Antonovich, yes, I have been expecting you. Take off the coat, come now, we're warm inside, warm enough for an Englishman even!". Tony hesitated, then took off his greatcoat, laid it across one end of the bench and sat down opposite the great writer.

"Fyodor Mikhaylovich," he began, "I wanted to discuss your latest novel as, I must confess, it seemed, at times, somewhat confusing, rather circuitous. I know that there is a lot about Russia, about the Russian people, but I wanted -".

"Of course, it's about the Russian people!", the writer cried out, leaning back in astonishment, losing, for a moment, his balance and then righting himself and leaning forward onto the table. "I'm Russian, I write about Russia, I am Russia! Or rather...", he continued, a wry grin appearing on his face, "Russia is a part of me. We Russians are different to others; to you prancing womanly Englishmen, to those logical, loveless Germans, to those elegant, but lifeless Frenchmen. We live! We strive for love, we reach for the stars!". He leaned back again and shrugged his shoulders. "And should we miss, should we fall short, well, at least we have tried."

Tony nodded. "Like Dmitri Karamazov, Mitya. A typical Russian". The writer smiled. "Exactly! A true man, a Russian, a man with an impeccable soul at bottom, but a man who is unable, unwilling even, to adapt to his situations. A man unwilling to steal, to break his own somewhat twisted moral code. A man able to waste thousands of roubles, to drink, to dance, to forget the future, to exclude all thoughts not of the present time. A man of great sensuality and vigour, ha ha! Not one of your foppish Darcys or Rochesters, more than a match for your Heathcliffs even! A man, a Russian man, nothing gentle about him, but still a man!". Dostoyevsky laughed wildly, freely, until stopped by a great bout of coughing, his gaunt frame shaking behind the table. He recovered, breathing deeply. "A Russian. What else should he be?".

Tony went to speak again but waited as the writer reached over to the samovar and poured himself, and his guest, some tea, steam wafting away from the table, up towards the ceiling.

"Let us move on," he said, collecting his thoughts as Dostoyevsky sipped his tea, wincing at the heat of the scalding liquid on his pinched lips, "for I wanted to talk a little about the language used in your novel, the way that the characters use words without really revealing what they want to say, the way language is used to take up space rather than to make things clear. What I am trying to say -".

"- is exactly what you are saying! A perfect example of your point, young man, nothing better!", the writer laughed. "Do people really speak so clearly? Are intentions always there, on the surface, ready for anyone to touch at a moment's notice? Come now, young Anton Antonovitch, are your beliefs so easily found? As all people talk without saying, making noise for the sake of amusing the idiots around them, so too do my characters. They exist in their social context and their words are created by these surroundings, they speak to please those with whom they are speaking. Are people really concerned with other people's ideas? Do people really have a strong understanding of their own ideas, strong enough to be able to explain them, in detail, from one moment to the next, to the first person who enquires about them? People talk, dear Anton, but what they say...

"But not Alyosha. He knows, he understands, he cuts through the idiocy of idle pratter, he genuinely seeks communication, not diversion, and communicates in return." Dostoyevsky fell silent, perhaps thinking (as Tony supposed) about his own Alyosha, the departed soul of his poor child. A long silence settled across the room, like a blanket of snow slowly, but inexorably, settling and covering a churchyard. Neither man spoke.

Finally, the writer looked up, puzzled initially by the sight of the other, but then, as recognition dawned in his eyes, he stood up and shouted, "But wait! It grows ever later, and we have not discussed (we have not touched upon!) the central theme, the one true core of the novel! We have not discussed God!". The old man stood behind the table, shaking with, what Tony could only presume was excitement, evidently waiting for his visitor to speak, to ask a question. Tony, however, stayed silent, slightly embarrassed, unwilling to make the first move in such a delicate area. Slowly, the writer's face calmed itself, the features rearranging themselves into their usual, almost angry state, and he sat back down, silently, defiantly, on his bench. Again, silence.

This was the part Tony had feared, and part of him wished to avoid it and move on. But, with such a book, such an idea... He took a deep breath and plunged in. "Fyodor Mikhailovich," he began, "I must confess that, on this point, my ideas are not exactly clear." He paused, and, as he had expected (indeed wished), the writer eagerly took up the thread of the conversation.

"Not clear? What is there to be confused about? My views are crystal clear, a call to arms, a warning for my great country to acknowledge the true path before it is too late. You see, my young English friend, we have strayed from the right path, we have been blinded, blinded I tell you, by the progress of logic and science and philosophy, and what does it all mean? There is no God, they say, there is only here and now! And this, this should set us free, make us happy! But no. This idea is ridiculous, lacking in all credibility, this way lies madness, for if there is no God, no guidance from above, no rapture to look forward to, where will we find our guidance? What will prevent us from living like dogs, worse than dogs even?". Dostoyevsky paused for breath, panting, his eyes shining from the conviction of his words. His gaze never deviated from that of his visitor, who looked back, unable to break away from the writer's terrible grip.

"You saw what happened to Ivan, poor Ivan, when he gave up the idea of God. He was unwilling to believe because of what he saw as the inconsistencies: the suffering of children, the only innocents and still subject to death and torture; the necessity of believing in the end of days without the hope of actually being there to witness it himself. He believed he could dismiss God, dismiss his teachings and found a new life on science, on logic, but", he continued, his voice dropping so much that Tony was compelled to lean forward, so as not to miss the writer's words, "he was wrong. Without God to order his life, he lost direction, as would we all. If you dismiss God, you dismiss society, you reject laws, you decide to take the role of God into your own hands." A pause. "Ivan stepped back from the abyss, but the other, the other... he walked into it, and he took his brother with him...".

He stopped. Tony was getting up, taking his greatcoat from where it lay on the bench, as if ready to leave. Dostoevsky also rose and sighed. "I see you are unconvinced. Still, my story is not finished, Mitya's tale will continue. I'm sure that you will start to see the truth after the next book...". He stopped speaking. A strange expression had appeared on Tony's face, a mixture between pity and regret, an incomprehensible look of sadness. The two men stood there for a moment, and then, with a bow, the Englishman took his leave and vanished into the snowy night. The writer sat down again and wondered.

[This text was recently discovered in the attic of a small wooden house in a village a few hundred miles outside Moscow. There seems to be no trace of the writer. Dostoyevsky never wrote the sequel to 'The Brothers Karamazov' mentioned in the text.]

45 - 'Notes from Underground' & 'The Double' by Fyodor Dostoevsky

If you're looking for happy smiley people, my daughter has several teddy bear books which may be just up your street. If, however, you enjoy reading about people more depressed than you (or you're depressed yourself and want to know you're not alone), you can't go past a bit of classical Russian literature, and who better to put a dampener on your day than good old Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky, Fyod (possibly) to his friends. A few hundred pages of his tales of anguish and existential angst, and you too will feel as if you've been trudging through the St. Petersburg mud and sludge in the middle of a blizzard (without your fur coat. Or shoes.). Not that I'm saying that's a bad thing...

My most recent book brought together two of Dostoyevsky's shorter works, 'The Double' and 'Notes from Underground'. Apart from the fact that they add up to a nice amount of pages (Penguin probably decided they couldn't get people to fork out their hard-earned cash for each story separately), the two stories are linked by the theme of a man's decline in terms of social status and sanity. That, and the fact that there's a lot of snow.

'The Double' follows a few days in the life of Mr. Golyadkin, a civil servant who is passing pleasantly through life until the arrival of an interloper with the same name and, more importantly, the same face as him. The new Golyadkin usurps the original's place and causes him to lose face, status and, eventually, his job without the poor public official being able to do anything about it. He roams aimlessly through the streets of St. Petersburg, unable to make a decision and stick to it, denied at all points by the mysterious newcomer and suddenly shunned by his aquaintances and colleagues. As the tale progresses, we realise that all may not be as it seems; Golyadkin's spiral into the gutter is the description of a mental illness which the patient himself seems to be unaware of. The reader is also unsure as to the exact role of the new Golyadkin: is he real, is he a figment of the imagination, or is he the mischievous alter-ego of a schizophrenic?

While 'The Double' is one of Dostoevsky's earlier books, and consequently not that well known, 'Notes from Underground' is one of his most famous works. The unnamed 'underground man' rants about his life in the first section, explaining how, as an intelligent person, he is plagued with self-doubt and unable to function, as he is without the certainty and belief in his decisions that stupid people seem to possess. When faced with unmoveable obstacles, he cannot rest, knowing that there must be a way around, while the less intelligent accept the fait-accompli and are happy that they have done all they can. These existential musings are followed by a series of events which occurred earlier in the underground man's life: an imagined street confrontation with an unsuspecting soldier; an embarrassing scene at a dinner party for a former friend, which the underground man invited himself to; and a confrontation with a prostitute whom he offers to save and then rejects, before regretting his behaviour and (too late) chasing after her into the street.

On reading the first section, it is easy to believe that the underground man is talking to the reader and expressing their thoughts. After all, who hasn't felt that they were special and intelligent and that their path was blocked by less intelligent people whose only advantage was their ability to substitute volume and aggression for reason in an argument (and that these people still somehow seemed to come out on top)? I've even seen comments on discussion boards where people identify with the underground man, believing him to be describing the plight of intellectuals everywhere. As the story progresses, however, it becomes more difficult to identify with the writer's voice. His actions seem exaggerated and unnecessary, and his voice becomes less and less trustworthy. Despite his professed superiority over his less intelligent classmates, he is unable to display it and, in reality, comes across as petulant and childish. By the time he wilfully rejects Liza and thrusts her back into the street with money in her hand (which she rejects), he has (hopefully) lost all credibility in the eyes of the reader.

Although the underground man professes to tell the truth, we are unable to take him at his word. His rejection of friends, privilege and company are less the consequences of a proud nature than those of a cowardly one which is afraid to bare its soul to the realities of life. Having mastered books, he is unable to return to the real world, and, after inheriting a small amount of money, he finally withdraws from the real world and decides to write his 'notes'.

With this tale, Dostoyevsky begins his works on the uselessness of Western (European) philosophy and culture and a need for a return to the good old Russian basics (which includes serfdom/slavery, but it's a nice idea all the same). The French philosophy of man only needing to find out their true desire in order to be able to find their way in life is rejected; the underground man claims that man's need to be able to go against his true nature is stronger than the nature itself. Even if we know that something is for the best, as humans, we desire to have the freedom to screw up our lives if we so choose, and this freedom to mess up is what stops everything from being perfect (slightly paraphrased, but you get the idea). Which explains why diets never work...

Having read the work starting Dostoyevsky's golden era, it would be interesting now to go back and read 'Crime and Punishment' to see how the earlier novella influenced or led to the classic novel. The background and setting are the same, as is the fevered stream-of-conciousness dialogue (monologue) of the main characters, slightly more coherent than Woolfe's fragmentary utterances or Kerouac's verbal diarrhoea, but still fairly confusing and breath-takingly swift. These shorter works are a great starting point for anyone wanting to read Dostoyevsky but still unsure about launching into one of the great novels. For anyone who has been put off by my description, please give them a go anyway. If not, well, the offer of the teddy bear books still stands. Just don't tell my daughter...