The best short stories of Fyodor Dostoevsky (1950)

In all honesty, I'm not much of a fan of Dostoevsky. His longer works are spotted with patches of brilliance that are subsumed in a morass of overwrought prose and excessively long asides. These short stories are a welcome surprise then. There's a concision and clarity that's lacking in all the novels I've read by the author. The exception to this, in this collection, is Notes From The Underground which, being by far the longest, contains the flaws I have just mentioned. The remainder are little gems, although The Dream of a Ridiculous Man is a slightly weak effort too.

Given that NFTU makes up almost half this book, and it's a novella I'm not very fond of, I can't give this collection as a whole a particularly good rating. Yet I still consider it a worthwhile collection as it demonstrates a side to Dostoevsky not evident in his most famous works and it's some of his best writing. ( )

This book collects the following shorter works of Dostoevsky (though calling them "short stories" does not seem completely accurate given the philosophical nature of so many of them): "White Nights," "The Honest Thief," "The Christmas Tree and a Wedding," "The Peasant Marey," "Notes from the Underground," "A Gentle Creature," and "The Dream of a Ridiculous Man." The first story, along with the last three works, each merit five stars in their own right; the other three are a bit more unusual if what you are used to is the novel-length Dostoevsky's more obviously moralistic writing, as they couch their purpose behind a much more symbolic and less transparent veneer. This edition of collected works only merits four stars, however, in that, in addition to omitting "The Gambler" (which is included along with the writings I've designated as five stars in Perennial Classics' "Great Short Works of Fyodor Dostoevsky"), the extras included in the book are nothing spectacular. The "commentary" by Stefan Zweig and André Gide consists simply of a page-long quotation from each, and the list of reading group questions is so broad in its scope ("How does Dostoevsky address psychology? How does Dostoevsky address religion?") that it will bore avid readers of the author who already keep those things in mind when perusing his writings, and do little to provoke specific thoughts among readers who are less familiar with delving into his complex mind. ( )

This is a wonderful little volume of short stories from Dostoevsky; I quote frequently from "Notes from the Underground" below but especially enjoyed "White Nights" and "The Peasant Marey". A book like this might be a good way for a reader intimidated by Dostoevsky's novels to get a taste of his works.

Favorite quotes....

On brotherhood, from "Notes from the Underground"
"But I used to call on him only when I was in the right mood for such a visit, when, that is, my dreams had reached such a pinnacle of bliss that I felt an instant and irresistible urge to embrace all my fellow-men and all humanity. But to do that one had at least to have one man who actually existed."

On freedom, from "Notes from the Underground":
"One’s own free and unfettered choice, one’s own whims, however wild, one’s own fancy, overwrought though it sometimes may be to the point of madness – that is that same most desirable good which we overlooked…And why on earth do all those sages assume that man must needs strive after some normal, after some rationally desirable good? All man wants is an absolutely free choice…For what is man without desires, without free will, and without the power of choice but a stop in an organ pipe?"

On history, from "Notes from the Underground":
"Monotonous? Well, I suppose it is monotonous: they fight and fight, they are fighting now, they fought before, and they will fight again – you must admit that this is rather monotonous. In short, you can say anything you like about world history, anything that might enter the head of a man with the most disordered imagination. One thing, though, you cannot possibly say about it: you cannot say that it is sensible."

On virtue, from "A Gentle Creature":
"Cheap generosity is always easy, even to give one’s life – yes, even that is easy, because it is merely the result of high spirits, of a superabundance of energy, of a passionate desire for beauty! Oh, no! You try a different kind of generosity, the really heroic kind, the difficult, calm, silent kind, without glitter, with odium, the kind that demands great sacrifices, the kind that doesn’t bring you a scrap of fame or glory, in which you – a man of shining virtue – are exhibited before the whole world as a blackguard, while you are really the most honest man of them all! Well, try that, my dear girl. Just try it."

On virtue, from "The Peasant Marey":
"I suddenly came to and sat up on my bunk and, I remember, I could still feel the gentle smile of memory on my lips. For another minute I went on recalling that incident from my childhood…now twenty years later in Siberia I suddenly remembered this meeting so distinctly that not a single detail of it was lost…I remember the tender, motherly smile of that serf, the way he made the sign of the cross over me and crossed himself, the way he nodded at me. … if I had been his own son, he could not have looked at me with eyes shining with brighter love. And who compelled him to look like that? He was one of our serfs, a peasant who was our property, and after all I was the son of his master. No one would have known that he had been so good to me, and no one would have rewarded him for it. Did he really love little children as much as that? There are such people, no doubt. Our meeting took place in a secluded spot, in a deserted field, and only God perhaps saw from above with what profound and enlightened human feeling, and with what delicate, almost womanly, tenderness the heart of a coarse, savage ignorant Russian serf was filled, a serf who at the time neither expected nor dreamt of his emancipation. … And so when I got off the bunk and looked round, I suddenly felt I remember, that I could look at these unhappy creatures with quite different eyes, and that suddenly by some miracle all hatred and anger had vanished from my heart."

On the younger generation, from "Notes from the Underground":
"Every decent man of our age is, and indeed has to be, a coward and a slave."

On the loss of youth, from "White Nights":
"For, after all, you do grow up, you do outgrow your ideals, which turn to dust and ashes, which are shattered into fragments; and if you have no other life, you just have to build one up out of these fragments. And meanwhile your soul is all the time craving and longing for something else. And in vain does the dreamer rummage about in his old dreams, raking them over as though they were a heap of cinders, looking in these cinders for some spark, however tiny, to fan it into a flame so as to warm his chilled body by it and revive in it all that he held so dear before, all that touched his heart, that made his blood course through his veins, that drew tears from his eyes, and that so splendidly deceived him!" ( )

It is with this broader sampling that we can fully appreciate the reputation of the Russian writers for conveying human essence and spirituality. This collection consists of White Nights, The Honest Thief, The Christmas Tree and a Wedding, The Peasant Marey, Notes from the Underground, A Gentle Creature, and The Dream of a Ridiculous Man. ( )

These are great short works by a great novelist. I haven't read Notes from the Underground, although I've tried many times over the years, because the protagonist, who tells the story is so repellant. The other stories are quite compelling, especially The Christmas Tree and a Wedding, which is, I think, a perfect short story. ( )