Devils (Wordsworth Classics of World Literature) (original 1872; edition 2000)

I liked The Demons, mostly its characters, though sometimes the dialogue devolves in such funny ways. The translation may be a bit uneven. This is not the translation I read, actually, but the one by Magarshack. ( )

This is one of the few novels by Dostoyevsky that I haven't read, and I think it's not only his most political but also his most prescient in terms of today's world—particularly the individual faced with corrupt systems, the movement toward anarchy and rebellion, and the webs of power that bind all individuals to their oppressive societies no matter how hard they strive to be free of these restrictions.

I think Demons should be read after some of Dostoyevsky's more intricately plotted and deeper psychological work, novels like Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov especially. The latter is the most fresh Dostoyevsky is my mind as I was reading through Demons, and the dialogue that the texts struck up with one another made Demons more profound, deeply affecting, and an immense achievement.

Every sentence was a joy and a small heartbreak. This will have me moving rereads of Dostoyevsky's work higher up on my to-read list, without any doubt. What an amazing book. ( )

Demons is a very political novel about extreme political views and the ineptitude of the conservative status quo to control them. The book centers around Pyotr Verkhovensky, who is a nihilist and a bit of an opportunist, whose political views lead to death and destruction. Also present is Shigalovism, which is kind of a twisted sort of Communism, and the conservatism of the local governor, Lembke. Meanwhile, the reader is left to make sense of Pyotr's intellectual father, Stepan, who seems to be muddled in his beliefs, and there is also the enigmatic Nickolay Stavrogin, who seems to lack any real convictions at all. This interplay of different characters and their beliefs, both harmless and destructive, lie at the heart of the novel and tell us a lot about Dostoyevsky's view of Russia at this time.

While I found the characters and the politics interesting, I was a bit put off by this book. For one thing, it took Dostoyevsky way too long to get past basic characterization and get to the plot of the novel. For this reason, I thought that this was not nearly as well crafted as the other three Dostoyevsky novels that I have read. Additionally, the use of first person narrator who was a confidante of Stepan was off-putting as well. There were several scenes that seemed to drift into third person as the narrator could not have possibly have known about what was happening. An example of this would be a conversation between two people who would not live long enough to share their conversation with anyone else. However, just when I thought that Dostoyevsky had switched narrative styles, the narrator would start telling you things that had happened in the first person. It was very jarring and made it difficult for me to enjoy the novel. For these reasons, while this is a decent novel, I didn't find it to be nearly as good as the other three Dostoyevsky novels that I haver read. ( )

This is by far the most readable Dostoevsky work I have yet come across, and one with a spell-bindingly unputdownable plot once you get past page 300 or so. The book is narrated, after the fact of its action, by a character who acts as a close observer but who does not participate as actively in the plot as the other characters do. There are times when this device seems far-fetched (how does he know so much about everything relevant?), but just when you begin to think so, the author has his narrator explain exactly how he came to know things, whether second-hand or by viewing from a distance. Dostoevsky very deftly handles actions and conversation as if they are occurring among real people, and thus not always privy to all equally. This establishes a reality that more than compensates for the slight distance attributable to the non-omniscient narration.

Likewise, some readers may find that the first 300 or so pages, which primarily set up the romantic and domestic backgrounds of the essential personnel, have little to do with the action that eventually takes place. On the contrary, it is just this which comes back to give so much weight to the characters in the end. As the plot becomes more and more political, they are not simply men caught up in their "great idea," but fallible humans who come home to wives and lovers and have a great deal more to give and receive in their relationships than simply the philosophical intrigues that occupy the bulk of their moral concern. The back cover of the Barnes & Noble edition suggests that for Dostoevsky, these grand political ideas were not considerate enough of the everyday person. With his attention to detail, it could be argued that few people were as considerate of the everyday person and his psyche as Dostoevsky.

The book has garnered tremendous praise for its prescient resemblance to the events of the Bolshevik Revolution. It is clear that the author's concern was primarily for his native land. In the words of Stepan Trofimovitch, "You see, that's exactly like our Russia, those devils that come out of the sick man and enter into the swine. They are all the sores, all the foul contagions, all the impurities, all the devils great and small that have multiplied in that great invalid, our beloved Russia, in the course of ages and ages. . . . But a great idea and a great Will will encompass it from on high, as with that lunatic possessed of devils. . . and all those devils will come forth, all the impurity, all the rottenness that was putrefying on the surface. . . and they will beg of themselves to enter into swine; and indeed maybe they have entered into them already! They are we, we and those. . . ." Dostoevsky's thoughts may have been only of Russia, but his novel endures precisely because "we and those" are all nations who turn to devils other than that "great idea and great Will." Even in utterly democratic America, the havoc that can be wrought by men in the name of great political ideas will cause the reader to shudder.

The Barnes & Noble edition of this book includes an introduction by scholar Elizabeth Dalton, the "Stavrogin's Confession" chapter excised by Dostoevsky's editors and translated by Virginia Woolf, a final note on the work's importance to the philosophies of Sartre and Camus, and a selection of quotations about the book and questions for further consideration. I was particularly surprised at the book's influence on existentialist thinking in spite of what to me seemed obvious Christian messages. However, this is perhaps best captured in the quotation by André Glucksmann included in the supplementary material: "The inner nature of this nihilistic terrorism is that everything is permissible, whether because God exists and I am his representative, or because God does not exist and I take his place. That is what I find so impressive about Dostoevsky: he is a secret, a riddle." I find the idea that one can take an author to be whatever one wants somewhat troubling, but this novel is proof positive of why Dostoevsky continues to be a riddle worth trying to figure out: it offers a great story wrapped up in great thought; or, if you prefer, great thought wrapped up in a great story. ( )

I've read this great political novel, but in a crappy old translation with no footnotes. The Pevear / Volokhonsky translation of Karamazov was such an improvement that I'm now working on going back and reading all of the great Russians in their versions. ( )