The Gentle Spirit

A great short story with a depth that belies its length. The decision of the 'meek one' – a timid woman with a narcissistic husband – to commit suicide can be interpreted in many ways, and Dostoevsky's storytelling cleverly allows for all of these to be potentially true without committing to any one of them.

Is the husband's view the right answer – that she had "made too many promises" (pg. 53) and she had to decide whether to try and love the hardships life presented (as represented conceptually by the figure of her husband)? Was this meek, hunted, poverty-stricken girl not able to cope with the prospect of a richer life ahead of her, when life becomes not just bovine endurance but something you have to work out? Or is it that show more her husband's change of heart doomed her – she had come to terms with his aloofness, only for his narcissism to reassert itself again? After singing and becoming free, was it that she did not want to go back to belonging to him again?

Either way, it is a great little story that is readable enough not to exhaust you but deep enough to make it worth the reading. Dostoevsky knew about life and he wrote perceptively about it, and I can't help but wonder if, for him, it was not so much her death that was a tragedy, but her life of meekness: "she held her tongue, didn't throw down the money, took it – that's what poverty is" (pg. 3). Whether you choose life or death, it is when you take the reins for yourself that you transcend the poverty of your existence. show less

This bleak and puzzling story, originally published in 1876, is a tale of love gone wrong. Its narrator is a former army officer turned pawnbroker, who resigned from the army in disgrace to find that his brother-in-law had squandered the family's meagre fortune. Having clawed his way back to a semi-respectable style of living, he's embittered by the world and seeks to take his revenge on it. He decides to marry a quiet and put-upon orphaned teenager who comes to him trying to sell trinkets from a happier past; but he resolves to be stern with her. When she rushes to him, brimming over with affection, he puts her off; he encourages contemplation and silence; all the time thinking that he's creating a rational and deep connection between show more them - never realising that he is making her life so miserable that, one day, suicide may be the only option for her.

Dostoyevsky is not renowned for being a laugh a minute and, based on this story, it's a reputation that's well-deserved. At first I loathed the narrator, whose cold and clinical approach to love seems designed to torment his young wife - to make her, in microcosm, the butt of all the resentment he feels against the world at large. Then I began to feel for him: his tragic misunderstanding, his cowardice and his desperate attempts to revive a love that he has already crushed into ashes ('You don't know with what paradise I would have surrounded you. The paradise was in my soul; I would have planted it all around you!'). No, he isn't a straightforward villain. He's cruel without understanding the human heart, selfish, tyrannical and supercilious; but he's also a deeply wounded man whose claim to hate the world belies the fact that he cares deeply about rank and success. His determination to make money through business, and to retire to a life of comfortable wealth, has blinded him to the more delicate emotions and will, ultimately, deprive him of the chance of real happiness. No. It isn't exactly upbeat.

I should point out that this story is also often translated as A Gentle Creature. In fact, Penguin Classics published it by that title in their Penguin 60s Classics series, in a 1989 translation by David McDuff. This current version is translated by Ronald Meyer. show less

Dostoevsky is one of my favourite writers. I discovered him in my teenage years, read as many of his books as I could get my hands on, and to be honest haven't read anything else by him in a long time. I still count him as one of my favourite writers, though, more on memory than anything else. His writing is so urgent and immediate, and began to open up a world for me beyond 1990s South London.

The Gentle Spirit is very short - longer than a short story, but barely long enough to be called a novella. Because of this, it doesn't have the grand scale of Dostoevsky's longer works. But it does succeed in its aim - to get inside the head of a pawnbroker as he watches his dead wife laid out on the table in front of him, the wife that he has show more recently driven to suicide.

The language reflects the disordered state of the character's mind as he tries to understand what has happened. He asks questions, changes his mind, berates himself for going too fast or too slow or missing the point, and is always alternating between self-justification and self-flagellation. It's a convincing portrait.

The wife's character is not so clear, but in a way that's the point. The pawnbroker did not understand her - still doesn't, really. Because we see the world entirely through his eyes, our view is very limited and distorted. His wife is the "gentle spirit" of the book's title, much younger than he is and perhaps a little naive in her expectations of him, but beyond that we discover little about her.

Even the pawnbroker's own motives are not very clear - he decided from the start of the marriage to be "stern" with her and to withhold love and affection, but the only reason given for this is that it's what he was used to from his job - a pawnbroker has to be stern with his customers, and not allow himself to be emotionally involved in their plight. Perhaps Dostoevsky is saying that after cutting himself off from people in this way for so many years, he was unable to achieve intimacy with another human being. By the time he does realise his mistake and declare his love for her, it is too late and too extreme - after months of not speaking to her at all, he suddenly throws himself at her feet and tells her everything. Whereas at the beginning she would have welcomed this display of love, after everything she's been through it just frightens her and drives her away from him.

This was a quick and enjoyable read, and was probably the right length - because of the limitations of the pawnbroker's perspective, it might be tough to read a whole novel based inside his head. In this short book, though, the style worked very well, and although I didn't really understand either character very well, they felt real to me. Now I feel inspired to go back and re-read some of those novels I loved all those years ago. show less

Una historia corta escrita como monólogo. No estoy seguro si el título es apropiado, ya que el personaje al que hace referencia no es sumisa como si no que es destruida sistemáticamente por el narrador hasta el punto que su final es una conclusión lógica. En cualquier caso, es un texto brillante que por momentos es capaz de helar la sangre.

Watched this as a theater piece for two actors about twenty years ago. Still remember it vividly. The performance of both actors was phenomenal. I kept wondering how an almost silent role played by the actress could be so remarkably memorable.
Suzirya (Constellation) theater in Kiev in the 90s was a unique experience for anyone who attended.

Goed geschreven, leest heel vlot weg. Niet heel speciaal, maar ik ben fan.

Another gem by [a:Dostoyevsky|3137322|Fyodor Dostoyevsky|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1506003555p2/3137322.jpg] that displays his insight into the psychology of men, and perhaps, even more, his unique skill in uncovering the depths of our psyche through compelling narrative.

Quick, short read and perhaps a great introduction to Dostoyevsky, if you are not yet familiar with his canon.