Dostoevsky

I had to force myself to finish this one ("spiritual manliness," blah blah), but was at least treated for my pains to the most hyperbolic final sentence I've read in a long time. Behold: "So great is the worth of Dostoievsky that to have produced him is by itself sufficient justification for the existence of the Russian people in the world; and he will bear witness for his countrymen at the last judgment of the nations."

[earlier] It's starting to feel like Dostoevsky's just an excuse for Berdyaev to twist himself into a lot of theological assertions.

Berdyaev was a religious philosopher and wrote this study of Dostoevsky's work in exile during the 1930s. Though deeply religious, Berdyaev's analysis of the spiritual and moral themes in Dostoevsky's novels is astute, clearheaded and enlightening. He acknowledges Dostoevsky's somewhat bigoted views of foreigners, Europe and Catholicism, but sees beyond this to the moral truths underlying Dostoevsky's characters. His knowledge of Russian literature is immense and penetrating. I wish I had read him when I was studying Dostoevsky. I was trained in the Formalist/Semiotic views of literature, and sometimes a little mystical/philosophical discussion is just what is needed when reading a writer like Dostoevsky.

A biography of Dostoevsky