The Creative Act

Dostoevsky. The Idiot.  Everyman’s Library Edition.

I have long been a fan of the huge-russian-novelists-of-huge-russian-novels. What could be better than sinking your teeth into the equivalent of a massive stack of pancakes smothered in butter and real Quebec maple syrup? The Russians never disappoint, we have been reading them for a long time and will continue to. Russia was blessed with a surprising long tradition of writers that fed off each other, starting with Pushkin and working its way though the years (Gogol, Turgenev, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Lermontov, Bulgakov and  Solzhenitsyn) overlapping each other and pushing each other. While the competition was fierce and they threw many barbs at each other, they also inspired each other and fed off each other.

A few days ago I  finished reading Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Idiot. It has long been a favorite of mine. Every time I put my feet up and make the tea and start making my way through the 600+ pages I feel frustration at how hard it is to keep track of everyone in the book. Despair enters my mind as he makes his characters flip-flop in their ideas, attempt to murder each other, or at least ruin each others’ lives. The sad ending brought on by the fact that Old Dusty always loses control of his characters as he writes. (For those unfamiliar the story follows Prince Myshkin, a christlike figure, who has just returned from a long convalescence needed by him as he was an “idiot” or invalid. He returns to society and gets confounded by constant rumors and treachery. All ends badly for the young Prince). Despite the difficulty I know I will be rewarded for my time.

There are two main allegories in the novel. Firstly, the book is a riff on what Dostoevsky thinks would happen to Christ if he appeared in 19th Century Russia. As the tale unfolds the reader gets the feeling even the narrator is disgusted by his society which could ruin such a special man. Secondly, it is about the societal changes happening in Russia at the time and Dostoevsky’s feeling that these changes would prove disastrous for society.

The Idiot is a complicated novel. The narrator is not entirely certain as to what is happening and the reader really only knows as much as the characters are willing to say. The characters however, are not trustworthy narrators as they have their own goals, dreams, and fallabilitties. They are all trying to understand what is happening in their society of intrigues which leaves the reader guessing. The fun is in trying to get to know the characters, understand their hopes, virtues, and vices, if not synthesizing Doestoevsky’s metaphore’s into a political worldview.

I love reading Old Dusty, his novels are like comfort food, and yet a sense of malaise settles in upon me when I read him. When I finish one of his works I never know what to read next. A friend I recently introduced to D read The Idiot has found the same phenomenon in his reading, the only thing that appeals is another Dusty novel, Brothers K perhaps? If you have any ideas, or follow a pattern in your post-mega-important-novel-reading let me know about it by leaving a comment to this post. For my part I always follow him up with a softball book. So I read Micheal Dirda’s Book by Book which will be the subject of my next post.