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The narrator and protagonist of Dostoevsky's novel The Adolescent (first published in English as A Raw Youth) is Arkady Dolgoruky, a na*ve 19-year-old boy bursting with ambition and opinions. The illegitimate son of a dissipated landowner, he is torn between his desire to expose his father's wrongdoing and the desire to win his love. He travels to St. Petersburg to confront the father he barely knows, inspired by an inchoate dream of communion and armed with a mysterious document that he believes gives him power over others. This new English version by the most acclaimed of Dostoevsky's translators is a masterpiece of pathos and high comedy.… (more)
Bota intime e një djaloshi të zjarrtë përballë të papriturave të pakëndshme në një ndeshje të pakufishme me të vjetrën, bota e trazuar, e lodhur dhe e freskët njëkohësisht.
This was a fairly decent Dostoyevsky book, which parts that highly stimulated my interest and attention. However, it was a little long-winded in parts and it dragged on for bit too long. Nevertheless, although I don't consider it among Dotoyevsky's finer works, it is still a good novel.
As with The Devils, I think here, Dostoevsky's reach exceeded his grasp artistically - and while the former novel was hindered by censorship (Stavrogin's "confession" was not allowed to appear in the original version, and since each character represents a "type," this necessitated a re-working of the book in such a way that blunts the coherency and strength of its implicit social-political commentary), the latter is hindered by a mix of self-censorship and self-indulgence.
Dostoevsky was placing his novel in a journal with political leanings seen as contrary to his own, with an editor who had earlier derided Dostoevsky for his focus on pathological sensationalism - consequently he seems to restrict his subject matter and motifs to a greater degree than with any other work from his mature period. At the same time, there seems to be no limit to the number of devices, plot points, or character-traits haphazardly recycled from his published and unpublished oeuvre. This is also easily the most convoluted of his books, with every character pushed across hundreds of pages from one ridiculous intrigue to the next (Dostoevsky even mistakenly changed the name of one character from one part of the book to the next, so the reader should be forgiven for having any trouble keeping up with the action).
There are a few striking or memorable passages, as well as a clear theme (i.e. who can/should the Russian youth look to for moral guidance or as models?), but overall the novel seems distinctly and strangely unfocused. Perhaps the novel makes more sense when situated in the context of contemporaneous depictions of the Russian "family" - especially Turgenev's [b:Fathers and Sons|19117|Fathers and Sons|Ivan Turgenev|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1390793535s/19117.jpg|1294426] and Tolstoy's [b:Anna Karenina|15823480|Anna Karenina|Leo Tolstoy|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1352422904s/15823480.jpg|2507928] - but [b:The Brothers Karamazov|4934|The Brothers Karamazov|Fyodor Dostoyevsky|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1427728126s/4934.jpg|3393910] is such a towering response both aesthetically and philosophically to these works (as well as a great achievement on its own), that it is difficult not to consign The Adolescent to the shadows.
So, while (Dostoevsky's biographer) Joseph Frank's critical assessment of The Devils lead me to appreciate it much more than I would have on my own, I've yet to encounter a convincing defense of the abiding merit of this book. ( )
Theme: an adolescent experiences/matures; ideas of the day in Russia illustrated Type: social/philosophical insight, novel Objectionable: profanity 49, 162; Jewish bias 293 Great Introduction, I listed characters inside cover
Unable to restrain myself, I have sat down to record this history of my first steps on life's career, though I could have done as well without it.
Quotations
Information from the Italian Common Knowledge. Edit to localize it to your language.
… l'epoca attuale è il tempo della mediocrità aurea e dell'insensibilità, della passione per l'ignoranza, della pigrizia, dell'incapacità al lavoro e dell'aspirazione a trovar tutto già bell'e pronto. Nessuno pensa; di rado si trova qualcuno che concepisca un'idea.
Ma forse è meglio che gli altri ci offendano: almeno ci liberano dalla disgrazia di amarli.
Conosco invece a Pietroburgo alcuni luoghi «felici», cioè luoghi dove una volta, per qualche ragione, sono stato felice: ebbene, ho cari questi luoghi, ed appositamente ci vado meno che posso per poter un giorno, quando mi sentirò solitario e infelice, ritornarvi a rivivere i miei ricordi in un'ora di dolce malinconia.
«E l'avvocato si sa cos'è: l'avvocato è “una coscienza presa in affitto”» …
Last words
They will preserve at least certain faithful features by which to guess what might have been hidden in the soul of some adolescent of that troubled time---a not-entirely-insignificant knowledge, for the generations are made up of adolescents...
The narrator and protagonist of Dostoevsky's novel The Adolescent (first published in English as A Raw Youth) is Arkady Dolgoruky, a na*ve 19-year-old boy bursting with ambition and opinions. The illegitimate son of a dissipated landowner, he is torn between his desire to expose his father's wrongdoing and the desire to win his love. He travels to St. Petersburg to confront the father he barely knows, inspired by an inchoate dream of communion and armed with a mysterious document that he believes gives him power over others. This new English version by the most acclaimed of Dostoevsky's translators is a masterpiece of pathos and high comedy.
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Book description
La storia di un adolescente povero e ambizioso, in bilico tra la malvagità e la grazia, in un grande romanzo psicologico di Dostoevskij (1821-81), nel quale confluiscono tutti i temi cari all'autore. (piopas)
Haiku summary
Legacy Library: Fyodor Dostoyevsky
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