Book Review || Demons (1872)
"A fictional town descends into chaos as it becomes the focal point of an attempted revolution, orchestrated by a master conspirator."
: 🌕 : SPOILER ALERT : 🌕 :
As testimony of the grandiosity that exists in the singular vulgarity of a thought, Dostoevsky implanted in the popularist culture of vagrant vapidness the conceptual reality of change. As documented in his tireless quest for transparency via the written word, the author’s keen ability to craft realism as an entity distanced from the reader, who might otherwise flounder at the excruciating brutality of the truth, is seldom challenged in the literary world. Dostoevsky’s ability to narrate fables of behaviour via tangible foibles masquerading as familiar creatures nestles his tomes on the godly shelves of all whom the enlightened fear.
“When you pledge yourself to progress with all your heart and…who can say for certain? You think you don’t belong but then you look, and it turns out that you do after all belong to something.”
Within the binds of this book, one finds a shocking void of company. As once was highlighted by a greater mind, the uncommon ability to act rationally has seethed forward in society to present all glazed irises with the shadow of a fondness it cannot name. This book was recommended because of my fondness for deep literary dives. Having stroked the mid-way point in Dostoevsky’s “The Idiot” (1869), I wondered what other great feats he had performed with the common word.
To my great surprise, the author has penned thirteen novels, a slew of novellas & short stories, & has possibly been at the helm of what one might deem think-pieces. Supposing Dostoevsky had a great deal to say about his society would be an understatement. As readers grow familiar with the author, his philosophies & profound conceptual appreciation—perhaps contention—with the waves of Russian hieroglyphics have been tamed into a format which is now highly accessible.
Therefore, readers might be left to wonder at the philosophies of the author & the meaning of such a world where he was allowed the success that befell him. What remains crucial to readers is the means by which Dostoevsky has permeated the social world, at writ large. I found a copy of this book in my local bookstore. I bought this copy, brought it home with me, & began reading it immediately.
I mention this here because it was blessedly easy for me to gather the material I needed to begin the odyssey of the underground & yet what lies hidden between the punctuations that denote a verbose political exchange is the ease with which these events seem to come about; be it as seamless as wandering to gather something otherwise & previously, unknown to the reader.
These notes should, perhaps, be accompanied by a warning. It might be useful for a particular mind to understand that the book itself is not one that a person can burn in order to avoid accountability. Dostoevsky’s commentary in his plots, although apparently fiction, represents an opening, such as all books do, for readers to accomplish the unthinkable, to exist beyond the confines of their ignorance & pursue an insight the likes of which was beyond the pale & darkness of human intentional nescience.
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What I find to be the most absurdly evocative genius of books is their ability to evoke change. In this story, Dostoevsky’s characters remain flamboyant & loyal to their roles. At times, readers will note that the old tutor is crass & incapable of standardized methods of conversation. In fact, near the conclusion, he runs away without any forethought.
During the next exchange, the narrator reveals inner reflection, which reminds readers that this old man is just a person, like me & like you. The philosophical commentary reflected to the reader whose social & geopolitical landscape may well resemble that of the narrator as he reflects on Nikolay Stravrogin—although a leading member of a political opposition group, is nearly apathetic to the experiences of the collective—is what I might term as quaint. His closest companion, Pyotr Stepanovitch Verhovensky, leads with what one might call a paranoid iron fist.
These clear differences present a turbulent plot for readers. Although knowledge of the political systems of Russia in the 1870s may be of benefit in deciphering the critical overwhelm that the “group of five” experiences when faced with the directive to murder Shatov & allow Kirillov to take the blame, an innocent entry into the séance may benefit the reader whose desire is to absorb the loss of innocent lives through ignorant & voracious pursuits.
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Certainly, each of the characters appears to represent a facet of social reality, such as Verhovensky’s brutalist approach to manipulation & his tritely cruel sense of humour regarding the failures of others crown him king of a movement that will sever his ability to rationalize his lived experiences.
Although the story does not make clear any opinions—the narrator is also a member of this underground radicalistic movement—the presentation of these outlandish & yet intimately empathetic goals of change foreshadows the looming & secular experience of those who fail to grasp the fruit, which is pruned in their hands.
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Timidly, I wandered into the story, wondering all the while what Dostoevsky had in store. This will mark my third book by the author & I had not found the devilish lust other readers have boasted about upon their first encounter. Dostoevsky’s writing is as seamless as a knife over newborn skin; his menagerie of carbonated scullery & luxurious pearled arrangements lends a sentient nature to the thick brick one holds.
Perhaps, had I had a sweetly savouring experience with Dostoevsky before finding this book on the little shelf of Classics, I might not have longed for the climax I experienced. In all due time, thanks have been sent to the ghost who wanders now on clouds, watching for movement amongst the pages he has left strewn.
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Although this story evokes a necessity for reflection, I doubt that all readers may forgive it for its teasing nature. At times, the narrator acts as a friend to the reader, yet he rebounds & reminds them that, should roles be reversed, he would not be among their League of Nations. In fact, the narrator is a person whose political beliefs seem to be intentionally excluded from the narrative.
His goal in presenting the series of events as they happened is cartographic; he has mapped the world of the small Russian town, his friends & comrades feature, their lives are coloured by first & second-hand testimonies, & what he has written serves only as a catalogue of their reality. In no way does the narrator endeavour to evoke in readers the familiar twain of reconnaissance.
This is critical. Dostoevsky’s plot does not mirage the peril experienced in current society; rather, the story presents a cast of characters who are fraught & riddled with the ambiguity of what they fail to understand.
Stepan’s life was filled with intellectualized fables; his presence in the story serves to compare the spectrum of extremist longing that is fostered in a newer generation, those who wish for a different world in tomorrow’s dawn.
The learned individual of this plot does not seem to be able to grasp the complexity of what they want. Although Stavrogin & Verhovensky represent cartoonishly devious drivers of altered political stamina, they are too esteemed for a reader to forget as their faults & flaws bleed them dry.
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Readers must take pause, as I found myself doing. Which particular facet of human empathy may lend a reader to feel at once that Verhovensky was a simple clown amongst a dynasty of men while also leaving one able to acknowledge the cruel realism that preceded his actions?
The author induces in these characters the misaligned, despondent hyper-reliance on another person that is seldom seen in the cultural world today, save perhaps in the virtual world where one can forget the negative complexities of another person.
Why would these two men become friends? What’s more, what would make them trust one another enough to lead a political uprising? When reflecting on the great heads of change that human society has experienced, one notes the pang of familiar paranoia that seethes like a serpent through short grass.
No person who has severed the heads of all who surround them will approach intimacy without visualizing the revenge of the ghost. Therefore, where within these relationships has there been room to foster the one & all sentiment necessary in pre-Bolshevik Russia?
Within this titillating commentary, one notes the essence of the story itself. The erotically morose inducement of the demon that has attached itself to the charming, debonair, homicidal, & fiercely apathetic Stavrogin.
Artfully, Dostoevsky induced Stavrogin into the story as though hoping the reader might forget themselves & feel amorous towards the prince’s curt vandalism of human rights. This particular approach betrothed the reader to the harrowing rambles of a man fighting, at once, against himself, & the nihilistic self-admonishment that he cannot understand to be absent in general society.
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Here, readers will note the natural progression of a novel by the late-great-author. Dostoevsky’s reflections of liberal nihilism have been well-documented. I will not pretend this review will regurgitate what has been done.
Pertinent in this story is the antagonist, who is, above all, a villain to himself. Whereas the young man who is handsome & suave was perhaps once a young boy with promise & opportunity, somewhere along the way, he grew weary of his shortcomings. Hollow is the man who wanders onto the pages, longing for some form of human experience, the likes of which live dastardly & clearly in his friend.
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In much the same way as a body of water drowns the beloved, Stavrogin experiences a suffocation within himself. His exchange with Tikhon reminds readers that the oozing malevolence in the castrated man revels & stumbles in his inability to firmly grasp the outside world.
His malaise at performing acts of barbarism—the sexual abuse of a minor—does not leave Tikhon with the apparent disgust Stavrogin seeks to evoke. He has forgotten that the world in which he exists as a martyr of his imaginings fosters individuals to live barbarically & flee into the sunlight without any guilt riddling their souls.
Perhaps here, Dostoevsky has sought out the reader. Throughout the entirety of the plot, one is reminded of the lunacy being performed by the manifestos, the gala, the worker uprising, the murder, & the plotting of vanquish & fire; behind all of this, exit individuals who go about their days exhibiting the very worst traits of humanity yet, they desire naught the recognition for their feats.
Tikhon acknowledges that the demon that lives beside Stavrogin may well be a manifestation of his failings or the cruel embodiment of continued pursuits of extreme violence in the hopes of inciting some psychological, emotional, or physical response by his person.
Yet, as he says, there are people who abuse children & do so gladly. They feel no such conflict as is exchanged between the two in the monastery. This cruelty is casual, as Hannah Arendt wrote it, it is banal.
Where within this realization is the reader meant to draw a firm conclusion about what happened to Stavrogin? Did he commit suicide? Did Verhovensky's sublime paranoia lead him to stage the death of his friend? Perhaps a reader whose sadness could not mull over the hills of sorrow cast by Shatov’s murder may not care either way.
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Regardless of what might have been evoked while reading, an individual’s gaze into the absurdly mundane events that lead to such catastrophic change is to be studied. Here, we find our roles; will we be loyal to the monsoon as it devastates all we have known, or will the tide’s sullen underbelly send a current of bravery through the swimmer’s spine? What will tomorrow bring?
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Ultimately, commentary on this novel is endless. The material supplied by Dostoevsky is remarkable in that it does appear so unsettled. The narrator is recounting events, including people he considered friends, & the reader will pass judgment on them only to return to a world where the same familiar faces act out evils the likes of which the benumbed mind cannot fathom.
Within this truth, social reflection has its say. The possession of harsh criticism for Varvara, as she sings her silly little songs in her silly little house with her silly little friends, may appear to cause no stir to the leger where history is written. But, Varvara’s tremendous dedication to her silence influenced the world, whereupon, one evening, she found her son hanged.
The women in this story, although secondary characters, act as pamphlets of the male characters’ moral degradation. Surely, failure to care for anyone but the movement may lead one to rupture, though Koba might disagree. Necessity merits the effort to pursue that which seems impossible in the moment.
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When I reflect on my time with this novel, I feel nothing but gratitude. I have yet to become a snob, though I will certainly acknowledge the elitists’ hold I have in fantasies of dead men who have written stories that struck the Bear’s bravely beating heart.
Superseding the faceless narrator who appears to me, almost as a friend, is the strange man whose life was once riddled with the threat of tragedy of which he drew forth, with the firm conviction that the rambunctious doctrine of the rat might maroon the great victory of socialistic change.
For in that theology exists the current thunderbird, the great State’s winter frost, boasts of historical perplexity which Dostoevsky knew well, as a friend to him & friend to you.
In retrospect, his characters & their demons permeate the democratic landscape where silence prevails with notes, fond greetings, & tinges of forgotten hope that the craven crawling to its pen might not set flame to the nucleus that will destroy us all.
If you would like to read this story, please visit this link — « Demons » by Fyodor Dostoevsky
C. 💌