Dostoevsky: The Seeds of Revolt, 1821-1849

Dostoevsky #1

by Joseph Frank

The term "biography" seems insufficiently capacious to describe the singular achievement of Joseph Frank's five-volume study of the life of the great Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky. One critic, writing upon the publication of the final volume, casually tagged the series as the ultimate work on Dostoevsky "in any language, and quite possibly forever."

Frank himself had not originally intended to undertake such a massive work. The endeavor began in the early 1960s as an exploration of Dostoevsky's fiction, but it later became apparent to Frank that a deeper appreciation of the fiction would require a more ambitious engagement with the writer's life, directly caught up as Dostoevsky was with the cultural and political movements of mid- and late-nineteenth-century Russia. Already in his forties, Frank undertook to learn Russian and embarked on what would become a five-volume work comprising more than 2,500 pages. The result is an intellectual history of nineteenth-century Russia, with Dostoevsky's mind as a refracting prism.

The volumes have won numerous prizes, among them the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography, the Christian Gauss Award of Phi Beta Kappa, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the James Russell Lowell Prize of the Modern Language Association.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, Russia, History, Literature, Russian Literature, Criticism

424 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1976

About the author

Joseph Frank was professor emeritus of Slavic and comparative literature at Stanford and Princeton. The five volumes of his Dostoevsky biography won a National Book Critics Circle Award, a Los Angeles Times Book Prize, two James Russell Lowell Prizes, and two Christian Gauss Awards, and have been translated into numerous languages.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first of five volumes tracing in exhaustive detail the influences working on Fyodor Dostoevsky during his literary career. It was by reading David Foster Wallace's review of the series reprinted in his collection Consider the Lobster that I decided I would read the series and, along with it, the novels and stories of the great Russian writer as they came up in Joseph Frank's series.

Dostoevsky: The Seeds of Revolt, 1821-1849 is excellent except for a sag several chapters long dealing with Dostoevsky's attendance at various political/socialist/Fourierist circles after the disappointment's following the publication of Poor Folk. Fortunately, Frank returns after his author's arrest by the Tsarist officials to the minor (but interesting) works he was working on during the period of his socialist venture.

Here, from "An Honest Thief," is a fascinating quote that was later eliminated by Dostoevsky because of one critic's stupidly negative response:

My Emelyan, if he had stayed alive, wouldn't have been a man but some sort of trash to spit on. But here he died from grief and a bad conscience and it's like he showed the world that, whatever he might be, he was a human being all the same; that a man can die from vice as from a deadly poison, and that vice, it must be, is a human thing, something you pick up, it's not born with you -- here today, it could be gone for good tomorrow, otherwise, if we were destined to stay depraved all through the ages because of original sin, Christ would never have come to us.

This is a magnificent book, and I can hardly wait to read the other four volumes in the series. But first, I have promised myself to read (or re-read) The Double, White Nights, The Landlady, and Netochka Nezvanova.

[Steven R. Kraaijeveld · Rating 5 out of 5]

I finally decided to read the unabridged version of Joseph Frank's monumental biography of Dostoevsky. The first volume (of five)—The Seeds of Revolt, 1821-1849—covers Dostoevsky's life from birth to the time of his arrest due to his association with the Petrashevsky Circle.

When you embark on the unabridged work, you expect minutiae—but even when Frank lingers, as he does in describing the various characters involved with Petrashevsky, he never makes you lose interest. And Frank the literary critic—coinhabiting the pages with Frank the biographer—is what ultimately elevates the biography to higher art. What I love especially about Frank's approach—here as elsewhere—is how measured he is without shying away from occasionally offering a strong opinion of his own. The following is just a short example:

"To attain a proper perspective on Dostoevsky's minor fiction in the 1840s after Poor Folk is by no means an easy task. It is impossible, of course, to agree with the almost totally negative evaluation of his contemporaries, especially since we can discern, with the benefit of hindsight, so many hints of the later (and much greater) Dostoevsky already visible in these early creations. On the other hand, in rejecting what seems to us the distressing myopia of his own time, we should not fall into the equally flagrant and perhaps less excusable error. We should not blur the line between potentiality and actuality, and read his work as if it already contained all the complexity and profundity of the major masterpieces. Some of the more recent criticism, especially outside of Russia, has fallen into this trap; and these slight early works—The Double is a good case in point—have sometimes been loaded with a burden of significance that they are much too fragile to bear." (295)

On to the next volume!

[Conrad · Rating 4 out of 5]

It can't have been easy to do. If you wanted to be Robert Frank, you would wake up one day and:

Step 1: Learn Russian, French, and German. Throw in some Old Church Slavonic.
Step 2: Read oeuvre of Belinsky, Gogol, Turgenev, Lermontov, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Herzen, Bakunin, George Sand, Voltaire, Rousseau, Fourier (ugh) and many, many others, in addition to the many critical works written about Dostoevsky. Reading everything by FD alone would be tough - the guy barely did anything but write for most of his life, since it was his sole means of subsistance.
Step 3: Obtain volumes of Tsarist police reports on Dostoevsky as well as Soviet books of criticism (probably not that easy to do in 1979!)
Step 4: Read all those, too.
Step 5: Put it all together.

I admire him for the huge effort he put into his biographies. But it must be said, this book shows its age. It spends a fair amount of time toward the beginning painstakingly refuting Freud's transparently self-serving interpretation of FD's work and childhood. Frank second guesses himself sometimes, particularly when going over the details of Dostoyevsky's father's murder. What is absent is much consideration of the themes of FD's early novels in terms of the later criticism of them. We get an excellent picture from this book of what FD's brothers thought, as well as Belinsky, Maikov, and Petrashevsky, but it would not have been awful to discuss Poor Folk and the feuilletons in terms of later reflections on his early politics by Sartre and any of the thousands of thinkers who have been impacted by FD's works. There have to be documents relating to the Petrashevtsy that are available now and would've been impossible to access when Frank wrote these five books, his magnum opus. I find it hard to believe that this is still the comprehensive FD biography, given all the water under the bridge since it was written.

Anyway, this volume covers Dostoevsky's childhood and young adulthood as a kind of Christian Socialist (a type he gives a sly nod to at one point in The Brothers Karamazov.) It traces his Christian roots and his devotion to the Church, so odd to his Westernized peers; his nightmarish schooling at the College of Engineers; his life as a flaneur and radical in the Palm-Durov and Petrashevsky circles, up to his imprisonment. It's not perfect but it is very, very good.

[Bryn Hammond · Rating 5 out of 5]

The adventures of D. up to the age of 28 – that is, up to his arrest.

The family weren’t well off. For a start in life his father sent him to a military academy, hideous for our young artist. There, at least, he got to exercise his independent mind, his courage and his empathy for the unfortunate. The last, such a facet of his work, is very evident, very young, as simply a trait of his. And he has the guts – while an outsider himself – to get in the way, however he can, of violence at the school, physical maltreatment of junior students - of janitors - and of German teachers. Independence: not only does he take stands, but he’s unafraid to go against fashions, from the earliest age and even where his heart is, in the written arts. He’s persistently loyal to a father who has the fevered temperament poor D. must have gotten from him. Both were hard to live with. D. knows this about himself and apologises often to his brother for his behaviour: ‘I have a terrible defect… Otherwise I am disgusting… ’

Frank accounts for why the issue of serfdom set him frothing at the mouth; he couldn’t discuss serfdom without getting over-excited. It began simply with incidents – he was a casual witness of cruelty – a sight daily seen on the streets touched him where he lived. Then his father was murdered by his serfs… or maybe he wasn’t, but they believed so. D. managed to blame himself, for his cash demands on his dad in spite of the financial ruin of the estate. He knew the serfs weren’t murderers, unless pushed by the intolerable. He knew his dad was a bit of a loop and as a widower had gone to drink. D. ended up with a free-the-serfs agenda that took over his life – quite truly, when he stepped from liberal circles into revolutionary conspiracy.

He signed up to overthrow the government. It wasn’t a mere case of leaflets. Later he told us the investigation missed an inner cell, of which he was a member (if not, I assume, he wouldn’t have escaped that firing squad). It’s exactly like his novel Demons – and as exciting to read.

But before his deep political involvement he made a literary splash: and this is a cautionary tale. The splash was of the noisiest, and shortly after he sinks like a stone, savagely mauled by the literary lions he thought he had eating out of his hand. Frank takes him to task for his vainglory while the instant fame lasted; but this is too stern a test at 24 – or at any age for any writer.

Frank explains the originality of Poor Folk. D. uses the novel of letters, territory of high sentiment and exclusively, beforehand, aristocratic characters; but his affairs of the heart concern a shabby clerk – target of satire in Russian fiction – who isn’t even young and handsome, and a girl in the slums. No-one had done this. No-one had taken lowly inhabitants of St Petersburg and given them the fine and subtle sentiments of a Clarissa (without a cultural knowledge beyond them: the clerk has awful judgement in fiction – but his own life and heart are far above that fiction). D. drives the point home with stray mentions from the epistolary novel - a Lovelace here and a Teresa there. No-one in Russia had even written of such people from the inside – Gogol couldn’t shake the sarcasm and the view from an upper level - although George Sand was going great guns in France with poor and noble heroes. She wasn’t as clever, though.

The writers most important for him were Balzac and Victor Hugo; Schiller of course, who looms so in his last novel; and he was always devoted to Pushkin. George Sand was between your toes in Russia, at the forefront of the novelistic arm of French Utopian Socialism. Here we get to the great tug of war between two socialisms. The major critic of these years, Belinsky, couldn’t make up his mind and hopped from one to the other. But D. by his whole temperament was in the French Utopian camp, and I don’t believe he ever left. The Left left him – the tug of war was being won, even in these years, by the other style of socialism, rational, material and divorced from religion.

D. was religious as a child and they teased him for a monk in school. But we need to understand his religion against Utopian Socialism, which thought of itself as the True Christianity, at last, and of Christ as the original revolutionary. Florid sentiments, compassion as the Christ-like trait - quite the loveliest lefties on earth. Not that this contented D. He began to add that element of the human psyche, here, there and everywhere: the knowledge of human irrationality, which Frank attributes to his own unsettling mental experiences; human refusal to be reduced to one’s circumstances; self-exacerbation of those circumstances – so that society isn’t alone to be blamed. He quickly went beyond protest literature.

In a famous scene in Poor Folk, a handshake matters more to the clerk than a hand-out – the sense of equality, treatment with human dignity, are worth no end of dinners to him. A socialism about material circumstances – feed them and they’re happy – he’d find terribly insulting, however hungry he may be. Belinsky, converted to the other socialism, says, “It has been proved that a man feels and thinks and acts invariably according to the law of egoistical urges, and indeed, he cannot have any others.” Scientific, material determinism, a strictly physiological concept of the mind, rational solutions to our ills – and to boot, a utilitarian function for art. This was terrible to Dostoyevsky and is the start of his great falling-out with the Left.

Much of his biography book one explores these two socialisms – the old he was in sympathy with, the new with which he’ll be at loggerheads. I cannot but be struck by the fact that we too are in the grip of a scientific determinism, where free will is a fiction of the user of our software brains, to let us go about our lives without despair. Dostoyevsky spent his life in just such a fight. If you feel embattled, you can visit him.

[J.M. Hushour · Rating 5 out of 5]

One part biography, one part that kind of literary criticism that I don't mind and which is rare: the kind that actually has something to say. Frank thus accomplishes the nigh impossible, a revelatory dip into one of the greats, while keeping his academic distance enough and staying abreast of the usual hogwash and jargon. He even emasculates Freud, which is always hilarious and ironic.
This first volume ends with Dosty's arrest, so it covers his childhood, youth, and education. Better than all that crap, it goes into never-insane detail, the level of detail that never dares throttles the subject, to tease out Dosty's place in the literary environment of his time. That environment is fascinating, as fascinating as Dosty's early literary output which shines most forthright in "The Double" but apparently, according to Frank, hit its high point with an unfinished novel about a young woman/aspiring singer.
You get all you'd want about politics, culture, Belinsky, Dosty's sudden rise to literary fame and his just-as-rapid fall from grace amidst the polemics and bullshit of the academic milieu of the time.
Frank nicely steps out of biography into criticism and looks at each of Dosty's works of this period to reassess them and throw new light, new contextual light, on what the young D was up to.

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This first volume of Frank's five-volume biography compels one to read the remaining works. He accomplishes this by providing penetrating analysis and incorporating a winsome writing style. The reader is introduced to much more than just the dry details of a great author's life. One gains an understanding of the political, social, and artistic context of early 19th-century Russia.

Particularly strong is the way Frank positions Dostoyevsky within the social-political context of 1840s Russia. He avoids a stale analysis of the political theory of Left Hegelians and Fourierists by focusing on how the tension between these two groups impacted Dostoyevsky and his writing. Such engaging analysis enables one to understand better the evolution of Dostoyevsky as a thinker and writer and to delve into the philosophies that will influence Russia, and the world, in dramatic fashion during the 19th and 20th centuries.

[Ana Flores · Rating 5 out of 5]

Equilibrado, interesante, profundo y anecdótico, lúcido y siempre entretenido, este estudio-biografía de Dostoyevski es una auténtica delicia, una lectura suculenta para todo aquel admirador del gran escritor ruso, que nos pasea por sus páginas como con un amigo íntimo por esos pasajes tan queridos que constituyen sus novelas, sus primeros cuentos, sus experiencias de juventud, mientras pone con cuidado los puntos sobre las íes intentando entender y averiguar y desechando no pocos malos datos o rumores maliciosos que como mala yerba se fueron hasta entonces acumulando sobre las muchas biografías de Fiódor Mijaílovich, deformando y remodelando (tanto con buenas como con malas intenciones) su figura.

No es sólo un estudio de la vida y peripecias del autor ruso, si bien es parte de lo que se espera de toda biografía, sino, como nos advierte el biógrafo desde el inicio, es además y puede que sobre todo un estudio sobre su obra, un análisis de sus escritos con referencia al tiempo, lugar y circunstancias en que fueron concebidos, a saber, la Rusia zarista de mediados a finales del siglo XIX, con su bulliciosa actividad cultural, política y social en medio de la cual vivió y se desarrolló Dostoyevski.

Hace unos quince años pude leer los tomos tres y cuatro de este estudio monumental, y la única razón por la que no pude leer más fue porque los libros por entonces estaban descatalogados y eran por lo mismo muy difíciles de encontrar, pero si algo recuerdo de aquellas lecturas fue que me encantaron y casi hipnotizaron como ahora, en que por fortuna los libros han sido reimpresos y es posible conseguirlos en casi cualquier parte, por lo que espero ir a comprar y devorarme el segundo tomo como acabo de hacer con el primero.

Para todo dostoyevskiano de corazón, la biografía de Joseph Frank seguro resultará una joya.

[Trent Rich · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an eye opening start to an exciting journey.

For a while I’ve loved and idolized Dostoevsky. I’ve never directly believed that he was infallible or completely moral, but I’ve held him in such high regard that I rarely pondered his faults. Learning his life’s story (up to his arrest) and becoming intimately acquainted with his flaws blew me away.

His paranoia, nervousness, and “outcast” mentality struck me as especially linked to his many characters that suffer from psychological and social issues. I was also shocked to learn about his reckless spending and callous requests to his father for more money while at school.

In general, learning about these flaws and others has given me such a deeper appreciation for the frightening characters that Dostoevsky creates. I no longer identify Dostoevsky as Prince Myshkin or Alyosha; Dostoevsky is better represented by Dmitri, Ivan, Raskolnikov, Pyotr Stepanovich, and so many of the powerful and corrupt sinners that he put forward in his novels. It’s as if he intentionally considered each of his own weaknesses, built strong characters around them, then obliterated the weakness itself. To me, this only serves to strengthen Dostoevsky’s arguments and increase their resonance.

Finally, having just read Demons, it was interesting to learn about the various political societies that Dostoevsky was involved in up to his arrest. It’s easy to see where he got the inspiration for various scenes and motifs within Demons, such as the emphasis on the use of a printing press to distribute manifestos (something that Dostoevsky essentially participated in himself).

All in all, I can’t wait to continue this biography series and re-read some of his books with a renewed appreciation.

[Jeremiah Nichols · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is just what I needed. One of my current goals is to immerse myself in the world of 19th-century Russia so that I can better enjoy and appreciate the works of my favorite author. The Seeds of Revolt has proven to be an ideal place to begin.

In the first part of his monumental five-volume biography, Joseph Frank covers the early years of Fyodor Dostoevsky, from his childhood to his arrest. Along the way, he explores the political, social, philosophical, religious, and literary movements that shape the Western world during this period. The result is a work that is equal parts biography, history, and literary criticism.

I left this book with two impressions:

First, Joseph Frank only made me want to read even more! The rich supply of information on Dostoevsky's background provided me with a long list of books to grab and subjects to study. When I wasn't adding works by Victor Hugo, George Sand, Honoré de Balzac, and many others to my reading list, I was constantly researching topics such as the Decembrist Uprising of 1825, the Uniate priesthood, or utopian socialism.

Second, it is hard to miss that many of the controversies and debates that swirled around Russia and Western Europe in the 1840s continue to rage today. In surprising ways, Frank's in-depth analysis, written almost fifty years ago, offers striking insight into the pressing issues of our own time. Will a new Dostoevsky emerge to prophesy for us? Will anyone have the ears to hear it or the attention span needed to read it if the new prophet cries out among us?

"Man is an enigma... This enigma must be solved, and if you spend all your life at it, don't say you have wasted your time; I occupy myself with this enigma because I wish to be a man."

- Fyodor M. Dostoevsky, written to his brother in a letter about his father's death.

On to Volume Two!

[Kate Sherrod · Rating 5 out of 5]

Though the event is not actually depicted or described in Seeds of Revolt, the specter of Russian uber-novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky's arrest, mock execution and sentence to Siberia looms large over this first of Joseph Frank's five-volume biography of the man. This should not be a spoiler for anyone; this fact and its timing (1849) are quite possibly the best-known and most-talked-about biographical detail in all Dostoevskiana, mentioned in every introduction, foreword, sketch and essay I've ever seen about the man. I might say it's as impossible not to know Dostoevsky was sent to Siberia as it is not to know that he wrote The Brothers Karamozov and Crime and Punishment, but then I run the risk of wandering into bless-me-what-do-they-teach-at-these-schools-ism.

What is not generally known to the casual Dostoevsky fan (which is what I would call myself; I certainly could not hold forth with Michael at Pink's for any length of time*) is the details of why and how this pivotal event came to happen. Enter the redoubtable Joseph Frank, whose staggering work I learned of, as is probably the case with everyone in my cliques and circles, through an essay by the late and much-lamented David Foster Wallace.** And before you ask, yes, I plan to read the other four volumes, for having completed this one I find myself a much less casual Dostoevsky fan and a Frank fan as well.

Frank could definitely go toe-to-toe with Michael at Pink's, and wouldn't even have to serve up a hot dog to keep the ordinary punter's attention while he did so.

As I said, the arrest looms large over this account, ominous and always feeling just around the corner even as Doestoevsky grows up with his strict father, suffers through military school, attracts the praise and attention of the great critic Vissarion Belinsky with his first novel Poor Folk (which I have yet to read but now very much want to) and then falls out with him, takes up other, nicer friends and watches them move away, writes, writes and writes and always wrings his hands over the plight of the enslaved peasantry of Russia (among whom he had had mostly happy formative experiences as a boy on his family's little estate) -- and then meets Petrashevsky, he of the circle accused of subversion and revolution and all sorts of other things that autocratic regimes do not like.

Frank's painstaking examination of the Petrashevsky circle -- a very informal salon in which members of the intelligentsia gathered of a Friday night to talk Socialist ideas, religion, politics and, occasionally, literature -- frankly gave me the chills, not so much because of what happened to them per se, or how they conducted themselves or what they talked about as what they resembled: they resembled Twitter, if not the entire internet. Everybody got a chance to spout off or argue, there was rarely a set agenda, anyone who wanted to could participate (within limits, of course, the physical and temporal ones of St. Petersburg of the 1840s. Of course.), anyone could get sucked in and, potentially (and later actually), everyone could become tarred with the same brush. So when some members started up a secret society with the aim of actually staging a revolution in Russia, everybody got busted.

Back then, of course, the government had to work hard at it, to infiltrate the circle with an actual person hanging out at actual gatherings at specific times; nowadays, we've turned everything inside-out, having our conversations in full public view, asynchronously, trusting the First Amendment and the odd pseudonymous identity and that those in power won't confuse rhetoric with intent. This may be very foolish of us. Especially as things like NDAA have been allowed to happen. I do not fear being mock-shot or sent to Siberia, but I do fear an internet fettered and stunted by corporate/government interests, or being cut off from it and thus my world. I fear falling into the prison of my own flesh.***

Such are the dark thoughts a good Dostoevsky biography can inspire. And this one is very, very good. And, as I said, I'm itching to get my hands on the other four volumes.

And I'll be sleeping with one eye open, and tweeting with a little more concern (though I'm sure I already damned myself long ago out of my own typing fingers. I've always been free with my opinions, and have paid the price for this before when they were misconstrued, misunderstood, or just unpopular). Dostoevsky was not a revolutionary or even much of a socialist, Frank says, but if you got him going defending literature that wasn't written purely as a dialectical tool for social reform, or, worse, on the plight of the peasantry, then he could potentially wind up out in the streets screaming and waving a red flag. As a friend of mine once observed, some people have buttons to push, others have a whole keyboard. Unca Fyodor had perhaps a modestly sized keyboard; mine is vast and varied).

But what of it, Orson Welles might ask. Go on singing.

*Wink wink at Unca Harlan Ellison, the modern writer of whom I was most reminded as I read this biography of Unca Fyodor. Go get your hands on a copy of Angry Candy, far and away my favorite of his short story collections and the one containing the amusing and awesome "Prince Myshkin and Hold the Relish."

**Which appears in his last essay collection Consider the Lobster, if you're wondering. I could not find a link to the complete text online. The book is worth acquiring or at least reading, though, and not just for the Frank/Dostoevsky piece!

***Wink wink at William Gibson. Of course.

[Piero Marmanillo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Monumental estudio de Joseph Frank sobre la vida y obra de Dostoievski previo a su encarcelamiento.
Me impresionó la detallada información que expone sobre su relación con las ideas de la época y su vínculo con varios círculos.
Joseph Frank remata su obra magistralmente con una aguda oposición a Freud desbaratando su teoría psicoanalítica sobre Dostoievski.

[Cameron Barham]

“For the capacity to overcome the masocho-sadistic dialectic of a wounded egoism- the capacity to conquer hatred and replace it by love- has now emerged as the ideal center of Dostoyevsky’s moral-artistic cosmos.”, p. 367

[Yorva Muñoz Solano · Rating 5 out of 5]

Qué gusto poder leer esta primera parte de la biografía de Dosto. Me emociona mucho conocer un poco más de su vida y su inicio en la literatura.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

While this is only volume one of five, I am thoroughly intrigued for the rest of the series. What appears from outside to be merely a (detailed) biography of Dostoevsky's life is actually something more--an in depth critical look at his works, which itself demands biography. Thus, while there are biographical elements galore in this volume, Frank's primary purpose is to provide background for his criticism and exploration of Dostoevsky's writing.

The volume covers the early period of the writer's life and career, up to his arrest in 1849, which led to the abrupt ending of the incomplete major novel, Netochka Nezvanova. Frank makes sure to highlight Dostoevsky's literary and political influences (Gogol, Hoffman, Scott, Hugo, Pushkin, and Sand among others), but dives into the ethos of these writers to draw lines of connection and/or contrast between their work and Dostoevsky's. The result of this careful treatment of the surrounding literary and philosophical history allows Frank to situate early Dostoevsky comfortably in the Romantic era with its appreciation of the higher ideals in life.

However, with the changing of the times came an aggressive and all-consuming materialism, from Europe and into Russia. The result finds Dostoevsky at odds with many of his now increasingly materialist colleagues, people concerned only for the nuts and bolts of society and solving the problems around them. While Dostoevsky was sympathetic to this heightened social concern, he also wasn't prepared to give up on the notion of romantic ideals. And so, by the end of this period, he finds himself seeking to blend these two concerns. There are tantalizing hints that he would have done just that in his incomplete novel.

Frank does an excellent job working through the stories (and one short novel) of this period, highlighting Dostoevsky's interest in the theme of personal freedom vs. social limitation, the development of his perception of masochistic tendencies in certain of his characters (people who gain something from their own failings or guilt), and his ability in a variety of genres. I reread a number of the stories covered in this volume, and found Frank's analysis to enlighten and deepen my understanding of the works. For that I am grateful.

[Carla Parreira]

Ao mergulhar na biografia de Fiódor Dostoiévski escrita por Joseph Frank, senti que estava diante de uma obra monumental, que revela as raízes profundas do gênio literário russo antes mesmo de sua prisão. Frank consegue nos transportar para a vida de Dostoiévski desde seu nascimento em 1821 até o momento crucial de sua prisão em 1849, oferecendo uma narrativa repleta de detalhes, emoções e análises minuciosas.
O autor inicia sua jornada explorando o contexto histórico e ideológico do século XIX na Rússia, que é fundamental para entender a formação do jovem Dostoiévski. Desde os primeiros anos, Frank destaca a influência da família, especialmente de seu irmão mais velho, Andrei, cuja narrativa pessoal ajuda a construir um retrato mais humano e próximo do autor. A relação entre os irmãos, marcada por afetos e diferenças, parece refletir as tensões internas que Dostoiévski carregaria ao longo de sua vida.
Um ponto que me chamou atenção foi a figura do pai, um médico com uma personalidade complexa. Apesar de ser considerado um homem melancólico e de postura contrária à violência física, ele buscava oferecer uma educação de qualidade e uma formação cultural sólida aos filhos, enviando-os para escolas particulares. A relação dele com seus filhos, sobretudo com Dostoiévski, é carregada de nuances. Frank discute boatos de que a criação do personagem do velho Karamazov, na obra "Os Irmãos Karamázov", teria alguma relação com a figura real do pai, embora o autor confronta essas histórias com relatos contemporâneos, mostrando que a relação do biografado com seu pai foi mais complexa, marcada por uma mistura de admiração, medo e conflito.
A formação religiosa e cultural da família foi essencial na construção do jovem Dostoiévski. Ainda que inicialmente tivesse uma inclinação para a engenharia, sua entrada na Academia Militar de São Petersburgo o colocou em contato com um universo que estimularia seu interesse pela literatura. Nesse período, a morte de Pushkin, seu ídolo, o abalou profundamente, levando-o a buscar inspiração em autores como Schiller, Hoffmann e Balzac, além de se envolver com o romantismo alemão e a literatura francesa. Essas influências se tornam marcas evidentes na sua escrita futura, carregadas de uma busca por entender a condição humana e as injustiças sociais.
O livro também revela como George Sand influenciou Dostoiévski, sugerindo que seu estilo e visão podem ter sido impactados por ela, o que, por sua vez, influencia a profundidade de suas obras, como "Os Irmãos Karamázov". Na década de 1840, ele se volta para o realismo e o naturalismo, inspirado por Gogol, especialmente pelas obras "Almas Mortas" e "O Capote". Essas leituras e influências o ajudaram a desenvolver uma perspectiva mais crítica e introspectiva da sociedade russa, que se refletiria em seus textos.
O relacionamento com outros escritores, como Turgenev e Belinski, também é explorado com riqueza de detalhes. Frank mostra como esses encontros e desentendimentos moldaram a trajetória de Dostoiévski. Sua rivalidade com Turgenev, por exemplo, resulta na caricatura do personagem Smerdiakov em "Os Demônios", uma espécie de resposta às provocações do colega. Sua amizade com Belinski, inicialmente forte, também se desgasta com o tempo, sobretudo quando suas obras posteriores não encontram a mesma acolhida. Essas relações mostram a complexidade do ambiente literário e intelectual da época, que influenciou profundamente sua evolução.
Outro aspecto que me tocou foi a reflexão sobre as dificuldades iniciais de Dostoiévski para criar um estilo próprio. Seus primeiros trabalhos, considerados imitação de autores mais estabelecidos, demonstram uma busca por autenticidade. Obras como "Noites Brancas" receberam críticas favoráveis, enquanto "Netochka Nezvanova" — que ficou inacabada devido à sua prisão — já mostrava uma abordagem mais psicológica, libertando-se das amarras sociais. Essa fase marca a transição de um escritor inseguro para alguém que busca entender as profundezas da alma humana.
Frank também aborda sua participação em círculos de discussão social e político, como o grupo de Petrachevski, que discutia ideias utópicas e socialistas influenciadas por pensadores como Fourier. A repressão do governo russo, após as revoluções de 1848 na Europa, levou Dostoiévski a se envolver com grupos mais radicais, como o liderado por Spetniev, que defendia ideias comunistas e conspiratórias. Essa fase de sua vida foi marcada por um intenso debate sobre injustiça, servidão e o desejo de mudança social — temas que se tornariam centrais em sua obra posterior.
Um dos momentos mais impactantes do livro é a análise da morte do pai de Dostoiévski. Inicialmente considerada um assassinato pelos servos, novas investigações sugerem que foi um ataque epilético, com boatos de suborno às autoridades para encobrir a verdade. Essas versões, alimentadas por relatos familiares e interesses econômicos, deixam uma sombra de dúvida sobre a verdadeira causa da morte do pai, influenciando profundamente a formação emocional de Dostoiévski. Essa história familiar, cheia de mistérios e controvérsias, revela como a infância e os primeiros anos moldaram a psique do autor, alimentando uma semente de revolta que floresceria na sua literatura.
Por fim, Frank discute a epilepsia de Dostoiévski, contestando as teorias de Freud, que atribuía os ataques a fatores histéricos. Ele sugere uma origem mais genética, considerando a morte de seu filho Alexei por ataque epilético e o impacto emocional da morte do pai. Essas análises aprofundam o entendimento de como a saúde mental e as experiências pessoais do autor se entrelaçam com sua produção artística.
Ao terminar a leitura, senti que Frank nos oferece uma compreensão mais nuançada de Dostoiévski, revelando as "sementes da revolta" que germinaram na sua alma desde os primeiros anos. É uma biografia que não só conta a vida de um gênio, mas também nos faz refletir sobre como a dor, o conflito interno e o ambiente social moldaram uma das maiores vozes da literatura mundial.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this 2 years ago, but I'm writing up a review now since I just finished the second volume in this series.

A phenomenal biography of an absolutely fascinating early life. Contains great synopses and analyses of the works Dostoevsky wrote during this early period, contextualizing them within the trends of Russian (and generally European) literature at the time. A combination biography, literary analysis, history lesson, and page-turner all at once!

[Mateus Pereira · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is funny to read about Dostoyevsky as a kid.
Problems with his father, and the school's times, his personality started to develop in this time. It is important to know how the writer started to see the world while he was growing up, his favorite authors and, of course, what made him so furious about the world.

[Carlos_Tongoy · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Dostoievski : las semillas de la rebelión, 1821-1849" de Joseph Frank

En el breve ensayo llamado “El Dostoievski de Joseph Frank” (incluido en “Hablemos de Langostas”, editado por Mondadori) David Foster Wallace da una razón más que suficiente para leer el "Dostoievski" de Joseph Frank:


[…] al profesor Frank […] se le empieza a ocurrir la posibilidad de usar la narrativa de Dostoievski como una especie de puente entre dos formas distintas de interpretar la literatura: un acercamiento estético puramente formal versus una crítica social barra ideológica que solo se preocupe por los temas y los supuestos filosóficos que hay detrás de ellos (*).
(*) Por supuesto, la teoría literaria contemporánea consiste básicamente en demostrar que no existe ninguna distinción real entre estas dos formas de leer: o mejor dicho, en demostrar que la estética casi siempre se puede reducir a ideología. Para mí, una razón de que el proyecto general de Frank valga tanto la pena es que muestra una forma completamente distinta de aunar lecturas formales e ideológicas, un método que no es ni de lejos tan abstruso ni (a veces) simplista ni (demasiado a menudo) destructor del placer como la teoría literaria.

De las lecturas formales o ideológicas hablamos cuando ustedes quieran, sin que tenga que ser necesariamente hoy ni necesariamente aquí porque lo cierto es que esta entrada quiere ser nada más que una reseña del primer tomo de la biografía de Dostoievski, de la que estos días me habrán leído escribir bastante.

La cita anterior es, o pretende ser, la “razón más que suficiente” para leer a Joseph Frank pero soy consciente de que no todo el mundo está dispuesto a afrontar las casi 3.000 páginas que suman los cinco volúmenes de esta monumental obra (ni los doscientos euros que pueden llegar a costar) simplemente para conocer los secretos que puedan ocultar las obras del escritor ruso. Hay una tercera razón que estoy convencido que a muchos entusiasmará. Cito por enésima vez a Wallace:

Al terminar de leer los libros de Frank, sin embargo, creo que cualquier lector/escritor americano serio se verá a sí mismo impelido a pensar muy seriamente en qué es exactamente lo que hace que muchos de los novelistas de nuestro país y nuestra época parezcan tan superficiales y pusilánimes en sus temas, tan moralmente empobrecidos, en comparación con Gogol o Dostoievski (o aunque sea con luminarias más tenues como Lermontov o Turguéniev). La biografía de Frank nos hace preguntarnos por qué parece que en nuestro arte necesitemos distanciarnos mediante la ironía de las convicciones profundas o de las preguntas desesperadas, de forma que los escritores contemporáneos tienen que convertirlas en bromas o bien intentar abordarlas bajo el disfraz de algo como la cita intertextual o la yuxtaposición incongruente, metiendo las cosas realmente urgentes entre asteriscos como parte de alguna floritura multivalente de desfamiliarización o alguna mierda parecida.

Cualquier obra que ponga en evidencia (una vez más) las miserias de la narrativa actual por fuerza ha de suscitar interés. Ocurre a menudo que me pregunto qué pasa que no me acaba de convencer casi nada de lo que se escribe últimamente y me resisto a creer que pueda tratarse simplemente de una actitud negativa por mi parte frente a las tan nuevas y espontáneas generaciones literarias y sus subproductos condenados al olvido. Será que ya no quedan cosas que contar. Será. O que hay saber contarlas. Será.


* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


Dostoievski : las semillas de la rebelión, 1821-1849



Decía antes que esto quería ser una reseña del primer volumen de la biografía pero lo cierto es que desde que he empezado no he hecho otra cosa que alejarme cada vez más de mi objetivo primero. Me disculpo, pero entiendan que hay veces que evitar una digresión es evitar el que puede llegar a ser un interesante debate. Ahora, una vez planteado, procedo con lo siguiente:

Las semillas de la rebelión aborda el período que va desde el nacimiento de Dostoievski hasta que roza los treinta años, justo después de haber publicado “Netotchka Nezvánova”, su tercera novela siempre y cuando aceptemos ésta y “El doble” como tal. A esa edad ya ha "sufrido" el éxito pero también el más estrepitoso de los fracasos; ha sido adorado y ensalzado pero también ridiculizado, insultado y odiado con una vehemencia como el propio Dostoievski no creía posible. Este primer volumen podríamos perfectamente dividirlo en tres grandes bloques. El primero sería aquel que abarca su infancia y juventud hasta la publicación de su primer libro y que salvo por esa última parte sería de los tres el menos interesante. En el segundo, que ocuparía la parte central del libro, Joseph Frank dedica cantidades ingentes de información y esfuerzo a explicar la formación y consolidación de las ideas socialistas de Dostoievski. Por último, el final de libro se ocupa de analizar algunos cuentos y un par de novelas más.

Acabada la primera mitad de este primer volumen Dostoievski no es un tipo que nos caiga especialmente bien. Tras su primera novela sufre un exceso de confianza y su actitud se vuelve directamente... despreciable, digamos: un engreimiento supino con querencia a la gilipollez. Su posición social, sin ser especialmente buena, le había permitido vivir hasta el momento sin sobresaltos ni grandes penurias, todo gracias a los esfuerzos económicos de un padre con el que tiene muy poca relación. Su muerte (la del padre) amenaza con sumirlo en la miseria pero el éxito de crítica (que no llegará a materializarse, no al menos cómo él esperaba) de “Pobre Gente”, su primera novela, le hace ver un rayo de esperanza en el horizonte de su futuro de mierda. La historia de su caída la contaré en otra ocasión que venga más a cuento (con la reseña de “El doble” probablemente) pero sepan que es muy interesante ver cómo en la segunda mitad del volumen y a raíz de este fracaso, su actitud cambia radicalmente: se adivinan señales de hechos lo bastante relevantes para que en el futuro los incluya, de las más diversas maneras, en sus obras. Así es como podemos entender, por ejemplo, porqué caricaturizar a Turgueniev en “Los demonios” es un acto de justicia y no una maldad gratuita.

La tercera parte de esta división imaginaria que me acabo de inventar la dejaré para cuando comente los libros en cuestión pero respecto a la segunda no basta decir que debería ser lectura obligada para todo aquel que quiera entender mínimamente el germen ideológico de Dostoievski. No se trata simplemente de explicar a qué teoría filosófica se adscribía el ruso sino qué personajes de su esfera le influían más y de qué manera. Belinski, por ejemplo, fue uno de ellos, sin duda el que más, pero hubo otros (Petrashevski, por ejemplo) y Joseph Frank no escatima tiempo ni espacio para explorar los orígenes de esos hombres en un esfuerzo por tratar de sentar unas bases lo más firmes posibles, ya que soportarán (me anticipo un poco) parte del peso de los siguientes tomos. Conocemos también la [cuando menos] curiosa etapa de militancia radical de Dostoievski, una militancia que desembocaría en su primera detención y que sin duda marcará su futuro. Pero de todo esto ya habrá tiempo para hablar en el futuro.




* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


UN PROYECTO MUY PERSONAL

Empecé a leer esta biografía por culpa de una casualidad que conté no hace mucho (aquí) pero según iba leyendo fui cayendo en la cuenta del absurdo que estaba siendo planteármela como si de un libro de texto se tratase cuando era a todas luces evidente el desperdicio que esto suponía. Inicialmente yo sólo iba a leer “Memorias del subsuelo” y luego el resto de las Grandes Obras del ruso. Hoy no. Hoy quiero leerlo todo, absolutamente todo para tratar saberlo todo o al menos entenderlo todo (en la medida de lo posible). Bueno, quizá “todo” no, porque los cuentos, por ejemplo, no me suscitan especial interés -aunque no descarto su lectura en un futuro por determinar- y preveo que los “Diarios” serán un punto y aparte.

El experimento empezó con “Pobre Gente”, su primera novela, (aunque unos días antes había terminado “Memorias de la casa muerta”). Llegado el momento del análisis que le hace Frank interrumpí la lectura para ponerme con ella y una vez acabada continué con el ensayo. Les diré que el resultado no pudo ser mejor, más gratificante ni más enriquecedor (una experiencia que compartiré en breve). Después, con “El doble”, invertí los papeles: primero leí el ensayo y luego la novela (y así me fue). Ahora debería continuar con “Noches Blancas” y “Netotchka Nezvánova” que en su momento -hará unos veinte años- me parecieron poco menos que infumables no recuerdo ya por qué y me alejaron -creía yo que para siempre- del escritor.


CONCLUSIÓN

Independientemente de mis “neuras” y obsesiones personales y estos arrebatos temáticos de una vez al año no puedo menos que recomendar con entusiamo este volumen en concreto, no sólo por el tratamiento exhaustivo que hace de sus primeras obras sino porque nos permite entender que era “eso” que pasaba por la cabeza de Dostoievski, cuál era el entorno y cuáles las motivaciones; qué hay de leyenda en sus orígenes y qué de verdad.

Del resto de los volúmenes…
(a saber: “Los años de prueba, 1850-1859”, “La secuela de la liberación, 1860-1865”, “Los años milagrosos, 1865-1871”, “El manto del profeta, 1871-1881”)
... quisiera ir dando cumplida información a medida que los vaya terminando (no prometo nada) lo mismo que de las novelas que en ellos se analicen. Un proyecto que, a pesar del exceso que supone, me entusiasma y aunque este blog ya se ha declarado oficialmente en pausa (llamémosle así) eso no quita que no vaya a publicar las reflexiones que salgan, si salen, de la lectura.

http://lamedicinadetongoy.blogspot.co...

[Christopher · Rating 3 out of 5]

More interesting in that I'm reading this alongside Sartre's Family Idiot series, a book about an author during the exact same time in history, taking up exactly the same number of volumes, written in roughly the same decade, but both having wildly different approaches to their work as "biography" (the English translation of the Family Idiot began to be released right after Frank's series began publishing).

To be honest Frank's book suffers from comparison. I probably would have caved and given it four stars if I didn't have a model of something more interesting (if even more unwieldy). At the end of the day this got a bit in the weeds for me. I found huge swaths of the book did not interest me and I yearned for it to simply move on. Frank will dedicate entire, long chapters to minor early works (not for no reason, but not to my taste, let's say). Frank also has the irritating habit of using an unfamiliar Russian word for a concept, then parenthetically defining it, and then, for the rest of the book using that Russian word to denote that idea that is...what now? Who knows, I can't remember because there's no glossary.

On the whole, it's thorough but I wish I had read the abridged single volume version. I may switch. Worse, I fear that my ambivalence about which version to read will doom me to not finish this well-researched series.

But without leaving it just at that, I think some preliminary comparisons with Sartre's project should be drawn because it's interesting that no one has pointed out the interesting overlap here. Mainly as the two are taking direct stances against each other's approach likely without even knowing they're doing it, or even being particularly familiar with each other's work.

Frank goes to great pains to dissociate himself from Freud's famous reductive look at Dostoevsky's neurosis by attempting to provide the empirical evidence that, if Freud had bothered to look at it, would have dissolved his interpretation of D's problems. It should be noted that the book provides a whole essay challenging Freud's essay in depth, an appendix that is totally superfluous because Frank touches on most of the main points in the main text.

Anyway, as a sort of reaction against the psychoanalytical read of D, Frank clings too closely to the level of Dostoevsky's ego. He is constantly at work explaining and justifying everything from D's point of view, how he must have seen something or meant something or felt about something. Sarte, on the other hand, in his work on Flaubert is doing another sort of engagement with psychoanalysis. Rather than cede the unconscious to the realm of what Lacan would dub "the Real," Sartre is attempting a project to bring the unconscious to consciousness by elucidating how his subject Flaubert lives the various contradictions of all the levels of Flaubert's ideology (mother vs father, bourgeois reason vs religious ecstasy...it goes on, I can't do it justice here...), how they all find their way into his fiction, how his antagonism to his brother, his inferiority complex, his admiration for his father while also despising the class he was born into simultaneously warps all of his writing in very distinctive ways (none of which rely on Flaubert consciously admitting to their existence).

In the end Sartre, even by writing around analysis, is still doing something much more sophisticated and interesting (no less for being a TOTALLY MIXED BAG) than Frank who is avoiding it altogether.

Sartre is attempting an existentialist psychoanalytical read of a writer at war with his time, his family, his class. Frank is, against both existentialism and psychoanalysis, trying to resuscitate the man Dostevsky himself. Frank is trying to go beyond -ism and, predictably turns out a fairly mundane work of conservative-ish history that is well researched and provides some good analysis of D's work but seems drawn to D's ideological committment to personal responsibility (to liberate oneself from resentment through Christian love) while also refering to any sort of discussion of socialist theory as a "machination..." Of course the flight from ideology is the path straight into it.

One charts a book of a self-hating bourgeois, and the other a disappointed radical turned anti-Semite and xenophobe believer. In the hands of someone like Sartre, the former is obviously going to be a more interesting read. If I ever resume this series it will be after I've finished The Family Idiot. Frank is trying to prove, while Sartre is watching a psychic process unfold.

[Zo · Rating 5 out of 5]

An exemplary work of literary-biography: careful, discerning psychological analyses and thorough consideration of Dostoevsky's socio-cultural context produce literary judgments that feel incontrovertible -- both in their revealing of Dostoevsky's intentions and evaluation of the merits of his works relative to his time. Now, that is a bit silly of me to say, since I haven't actually *read* any of Dostoevsky's early works that are this volume's objects of criticism. But it speaks to the authoritativeness and comprehensiveness of Frank's work that I felt so sure of his appraisals (though maybe my thoughts will change when I read discussion of works I've read). Frank combines the prudent and measured diligence of a scholar with his own turns of literary flair, and an evidently abundant wealth of psychological understanding. Which makes him able to give a portrayal of Dostoevsky that feels like privileged access to his mind.

A few things that felt particularly revealing for understanding the development of capital-D Dostoevsky are: the importance of Dostoevsky's early Christian education; his seemingly innate concern with the suffering of others; his inculcation and subsequent belief in Romantic conceptions of the value of art; his always volatile emotional and expressive comportment; his excessive status sensitivity (which makes sense given his family's "upstart" position) that combines derision for, and jealousy of, the socially established and bourgeois; and his immersion in the literary/intellectual world of his time -- in particular, Hoffman's romanticism, French naturalism, Gogol, the problem of serfdom, and the emerging popularity of different socialist philosophies (of the atheistic/materialistic sort and the beatific religious variety). There are many other smaller factors Frank pays attention to -- like the details of Dostoevsky's upbringing and relationship with his father -- that combine with these more "dominant" strains to create an intuitively graspable sketch of the artist. My interest in Dostoevsky alone would make this a great read, but when you add in the excellence of the historical/cultural exploration Frank undertakes, it is easy to see why this work is regarded with such reverence. I am sure it will take me a while, but I feel a firm desire to read the whole five parts. Very different style and themes than Caro's Johnson, yet similarly compelling because of the way it takes off from a fascinating persona to make a wholly different cultural moment intelligible.

[Dustin Lovell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not for the faint of heart, Joseph Frank's series on Dostoevsky reverses the "examine the work to understand the man" approach to biography and instead examines themes in Dostoevsky's life that might inform our understanding of his work.

The first of Frank's five-volume biography, The Seeds of Revolt examines elements of Dostoevsky's childhood, family, early religious life, and initial presence in the literary scene of 19th-century St. Petersburg to inform his earliest works, such as Poor Folk, The Double, The Landlady, White Nights, and others. Leading up to Dostoevsky's 1849 arrest, Frank identifies the cultural and political conflicts in Russian society at the time—among which are the move in Russian interests from German Romanticism to French Naturalism and the question of whether reform (specifically, the end of serfdom) should come from the Tsar or from the people.

Amidst these conflicts, a young Fyodor Dostoevsky developed his own ideas of Naturalistic social consciousness while maintaining (often to his social detriment) a conviction that Romanticism was not completely meritless. Recounting Dostoevsky's moves between different social and literary circles, Frank deftly shows how he eventually embroiled himself in a plot to print subversive materials advocating that the liberation of the serfs should come from below. While presenting Dostoevsky honestly as a revolutionary, Frank never removes his eye from the implicit, abstract themes in the man's work that show his psychological and literary progression as more than those of a simple social radical.

Despite the work's length and weight of subject, Frank's prose is eminently readable and his organization compelling. Prefacing Dostoevsky's St. Petersburg life (the bulk of the book) with chapters about his childhood and then ending the book with a focused look at the early works he has mentioned throughout, Joseph Frank offers a biography that does not read as a simply chronological biography, and he provides a context and jumping-off point that can easily prompt one to read not only Dostoevsky's early work but also the next volume of the biography.

[john lambert · Rating 4 out of 5]

I go this book from reading David Foster Wallace's, Consider the Lobster. Wallace is a genius and a real intellectual. In the book he discusses Frank's 5 volume series on Feodor.

I really like Dostoevsky, in particular, I LOVE, Notes from Underground. He is a favorite of mine.

Frank's first volume covers Dostoevsky from childhood up to living in St Petersburg, where he became famous, up to his arrest for being part of a group that was probably looking to start a revolution, of sorts.

The fascinating thing about this book is the detail that Frank uses to show the milieu that Dostoevsky was living in. Luckily, in the 1840s everyone wrote letters, which thankfully people seemed to keep, so we get a real insight into all the characters.

The book is heavy going, however. Lot of talk about 'the Natural School' and the struggle between madness and sanity in a country (Russia) that wears down everyone without money. For example, the heavy going...

'This is the naive form to which Katya explains her ambiguous feelings, which stem from the unwillingness of the prideful ego to surrender its own autonomy to the infringement represented by the temptation of love.'

Frank uses some words that I've never heard of...
tatterdermalion!!!

Highlights....
A child is by nature, a despot.

[Ryan Schmitt · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am no longer accustomed to reading literary criticism--AP Literature was a long time ago--and the first volume of Joseph Frank's masterpiece was often a difficult read. The effort, however, was well worth it: Frank's staggering intelligence and erudition illuminate every aspect of Dostoevsky's early life and work, and how they connect to both the later trajectory of his career and the greater artistic and social context in Russia in the 1840s. The significance of Frank's accomplishment with this work is difficult to overstate: nothing escapes him, and the sheer volume of rich detail and nuance and cross-references is always enlightening and frequently overwhelming. This is even true of Dostoevsky's most minor works from this period, such as his nearly-forgotten feuilletons; as Frank reveals, these feuilletons constitute an important stylistic precursor to Notes from Underground, which itself may have begun as a feuilleton.

In short: tough, but deeply rewarding. Recommended to anyone with a very serious interest in Dostoevsky.

[CarelesSpine · Rating 5 out of 5]

As in-depth a biographical introduction as one could ever ask for. This is valuable in providing context to a time and place that I was wholly uneducated about— the social/political scene of 1840s Russia in particular feels labyrinthine in its confusing whims. The even greater benefit in this work is how easily Frank makes it to read Dostoevsky along with him as he charts the writer’s growth. I read each story/novella/novel as it came up chronologically, and it was great to be able to immediately return to this book and read a well-structured literary analysis that placed it in the context of his life and larger body of work. Very thorough and makes me want to immediately jump into the next one…after I knock out some long-delayed TBRs.

[Jaek Wraf · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first volume of an exhaustive series on this amazing author's life. I've loved his novels since high school, but learned almost nothing about his personal life. The book gets dry at times, but Frank keeps the reader engaged by cycling between winding, complex narratives of Dostoevsky's socialist ties, analyses of his early literary works and their connection to literature of the day, and intriguing character sketches of people around the writer. This gave me a richer basis for understanding and enjoying Dostoevsky's works.

[PR · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wanted to read something impossibly long, and so I chose the multivolume biography of Dostoevsky. I was unaware of the inextricable linkage between FD and Russian history, the way his experience acts as a kind of synecdoche for Serfdom's end, social order, etc. A great primer in 19th century Russian history and intimate biography of FD and St. Petersburg literati as well.

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

小小陀在一个良好的、传统严父慈母模式的家庭氛围中长大，并受到家庭和社会的影响虔诚地信仰宗教。他从小广泛地阅读文学作品，和哥哥一起对文学产生了兴趣，用一篇《穷人》在俄罗斯文坛崭露头角。时值西方世界的变动，俄罗斯的文化思想圈子也充满生机，各种新旧思想交替出现，小陀和别林斯基的互动虽然我读得不是很明白，也大致理解作为“文学贵族”的别林斯基及其圈子的赞扬与批评对于他的影响。在《穷人》之后屡屡碰壁的作品让小陀受挫但又憋着一股劲，想要写出更好的作品证明自己，在一些文学沙龙中倾听和感受社会的暗流涌动。我跟着作者读了小陀早期大多数作品，感受到了作者所说，“我所写的这本书并不是一部传记”，“我的目的在于阐释陀思妥耶夫斯基的艺术”，作者对于小陀作品的分析之透彻让我感慨，传记写到这种程度，怎么不算读者的福气呢？

[Chet · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this made me think of Caro's "The Years of Lyndon Johnson." YLJ is the only massive scale biography I've read prior to this. I love taking one person's life and stretching it out over 1000s of pages, going into deeply granular detail. I'm going to read the rest of the series right away.

[Dionysius the Areopagite · Rating 5 out of 5]

A damn good way to welcome summer if there ever was one [Think Kentucky Derby, clouds parting, resounding amplified gun shot echo, &c].

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5*