Classics and the Western Canon discussion

There already has been some discussion of translations under the discussion topic "Planning for Our First Read of 2021."

As previously posted, this is a list of English translations from the wikipedia page:

Constance Garnett (1914, as The Possessed)
David Magarshack (1953, as The Devils)
Andrew R. MacAndrew (1962, as The Possessed)
Michael R. Katz (1992, as Devils)
Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (1994)
Robert A. Maguire (2008, as Demons)
Roger Cockrell (2018, as Devils)

The New Yorker had an article praising Volokhonksy and Pevear's translations to the sky a few years ago.

As I recall, there has been a certain amount of controversy about the P&V translations as well as praise.

I’m doing a close study of Demons for my own purposes, so I’m reading three different translations (Garnett, Maguire and P&V). I thought I would share some of my thoughts/links with the group for those unsure of which translation to get.

For anyone interested in the Garnett translation (the first English translation), I’ve posted the links for LibriVox (audio) and Project Gutenberg (text) that are free in the public domain.

Constance Garnett translated the novel in 1912 and has since been criticized by modern Russian authors for putting the stories of the 19th century Russian greats into her writing style, rather than retaining the original authors’ distinctiveness. Her translation is definitely the most Anglicized and dated. (see Lily’s post below for other criticisms)

Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8117
LibriVox: https://librivox.org/the-possessed-by...

For readers who have not read many Russian works and are unfamiliar with 19th century Russian politics and society, I would recommend Robert A. Maguire’s translation put out by Penguin Classics. I would also recommend skipping the Introduction until last since it assumes your already knowing the plot. It reads smoothly and for a General Audience, the footnotes should orient you enough to the important aspects of 19th century Russia and the Intro can clarify after.

For readers familiar with the 19th century Russian classic authors (Gogol, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Turgenev, Chekhov) and comfortable with the complexities, I would recommend the Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky translation. It may be simply personal preference, but I think it reads the clearest and the notes assume the above knowledge, so they can have more depth.

Hope this is helpful.

Aiden wrote: "I’m doing a close study of Demons for my own purposes, so I’m reading three different translations (Garnett, Maguire and P&V). I thought I would share some of my thoughts/links with the group for t..."

Thanks, Aiden. This will be helpful.

According to your analysis I should go for P&V translation which I have. I have read lots of russian classics but never bothered about translations before joining this group, and I observed that translations do make difference when I was reading Les Miserables earlier this year ( not yet finished).

In "A Note on the Text" (different than the "Introduction" -- which does seem to make assumptions about knowledge of the text, but not to the point of being "spoilers" imho -- but some of you know my skepticism about "spoilers" anyway) in the Maguire/Penguin edition include the following words, for which I am using spoiler marks to shorten appearance here, that both acknowledge the ground-breaking work of Garnett to make this literature accessible to English readers who could not read Russian and the limitations, especially to today's readers, of her work: "The novel Demons was introduced to the English reader in 1913 by the indefatigable Constance Garnett, the woman who single-handedly created the 'Russian craze' through her translations of the collected works of Dostoyevsky, Chekhov, Gogol, Tolstoy and Turgenev. Garnett dubbed the novel The Possessed, a title which held sway for decades, even influencing translations into other languages, for example, the stage adaptation Les Possédés by Albert Camus. But fashions in translation...change with the times, (view spoiler)[as evidenced by Garnett's own take on the problems of translating Dostoyevsky, whom she finds to be 'so obscure and so careless a writer that one can scarcely help clarifying him--sometimes it needs some penetration to see what he is trying to say' ('Russian Literature in English, Listener, January 1947). She was not alone then in her opinion of Dostoyevsky's carelessness, but today's reader now embraces those same instances that Gartner erased or smoothed over and wishes to grapple with the obscurities, rather than have them clarified or interpreted. In other words, rather than attempting to adapt Dostoyevsky's prose to the norms of 'good' English prose, whatever that may be, the modern translator seeks to reproduce as faithfully as possible Dostoyevsky's text in all its complexity, sometimes at the expense of the 'good, smooth' English so favored by reviewers. This (hide spoiler)] faithfulness to Dostoyevsky's text must begin with the title. The Possessed was an inspired choice on the part of Garnett, but the fact of the matter remains that it is not the title that Dostoyevsky gave his novel. The title in Russian is Besy, literally Demons, which is reinforced by the repetition of the word bes in the two epigraphs. ....Garnett's title redirects the action: Dostoyevsky's title, like the epigraphs, speaks of the demons by which one is possessed, not those who are possessed." (Dostoyevsky correspondence follows.)

I purchased the Maguire/Penguin edition based on some its reviews relative to other recent translations, but as usual I will read at least parts against listening to a different translation, long my "favorite" way of reading Tolstoy. The Audible translation I chose is the one by Katz from Middlebury College, largely because Katz as translator is reported to especially retain the humor and rough edges of D. The P&V version is currently available in my library system. But we shall see if I even have the stamina or the interest to stay with this one. At least, the presidential election is over and while still a waiting period for Covid vaccine inoculation, maybe political and Covid news will be quiet enough to not divert so rigorously as the last many months from concentrating on a work of demanding literature and length. (Humor and D? Not particularly my past experience of D.)

Lily wrote: "(Humor and D? Not particularly my past experience of D.)"

His stories and novels before his time in Siberian prison were somewhat lighter, allowing levity to shine through. His four major novels after his time as a political prisoner (which includes Demons) definitely have a witty humor to them; though it is, admittedly, often a rather dark humor.

Aiden wrote: "...definitely have a witty humor to them; though it is, admittedly, often a rather dark humor...."

I know...I'm not always good at picking up on those types of humor!

My book just arrived. I will be a very late addition to the group. I think the last time I read with the group was The Golden Ass back in 2015. Hopefully I will catch up. (Love Dostoyesky, and am looking forward to reading this one).

Cass wrote: "My book just arrived. I will be a very late addition to the group. I think the last time I read with the group was The Golden Ass back in 2015. Hopefully I will catch up. (Love Dostoyesky, and am l..."

Welcome aboard!

I've spent quite a while thinking about the book as a whole and made piecemeal comments in the course of the first week's reading.
They probably belong here rather than there, so I'm going to edit them a little, post them here and delete them from there.

Something I hadn't noticed was what Aiden said above "I would also recommend skipping the Introduction until last since it assumes your already knowing the plot." There's a lot to be said in favour of that! I ended up doing something similar - reading the "Instead of an Introduction" more and more quickly as I went on and getting only a general sense of events.

I hope to have the energy to reread it once "everything is past ... and we know what it was about".

I'm trying to get my head around the nature of this beast - way back at the Pushkin quotation ("epigraph" to use the technical term). That seems to me to immediately ask the reader to think about the nature of the narrative itself. That gives us a list of the standard questions "what, how many, where, why, what are they doing, when is this happening "? Who are the "We" and more importantly, who is quoting Pushkin here - one would assume Dostoyevsky, but it turns out to be a very nebulous "G-v".

Edit:> As Aiden very rightly said "I'm pretty sure an epigraph is considered outside the novel it precedes to suggest the theme(s)."

Edit:> That is the standard way to treat an epigraph and I have no evidence to the contrary for Demons. So I shouldn't be making implications about G-v based on it.

And, while the extract from Luke consists of consecutive verses, only two stanzas are taken from Pushkin. So why those two, and why not some/all others (it's not like length is going to be an issue in this particular text).

I imagine most books use literal translations, but maybe it's worth referring to Ted Hughes' version. I'll post that separately.

The Demons (translated by Ted Hughes)

Clouds are whirling, clouds are swirling;
Though invisible, the moon
Lights the flying snow while blurring
Turbid sky and night in one.

On and on through broad expanses;
Sleigh-bell tinkling—din-din-din…
Casting fearful, fearful glances
At the dark and eerie plain!

“Driver, hey there!….” “Can’t go faster:
Drifts have blown across the road;
Heavy for the horses, master,
And my lids together glued;

===============================
For the life of me, beside us,
Tracks are nowhere to be found;
It must be a demon guides us,
As he circles round and round.
===============================

“Over there: see him cavorting,
Blowing, spitting in my face;
Look—and now the horse is snorting
On the edge of the abyss;

Like some verst-pole without substance
He stood out against the dark;
Then he flashed across the darkness,
Disappearing like a spark.”

Clouds are whirling, clouds are swirling;
Though invisible, the moon
Lights the flying snow while blurring
Turbid sky and nigh in one.

No more strength to circle, barely;
Silent falls the little bell;
“What pulls up the horses?”—”Surely—
Stump or wolf? But who can tell?”

Raging blizzards, weeping, blowing;
Horses snorting in their fear;
See his eyes distinctly glowing,
As he capers over there;

Now the horses speed in frenzy;
Sleigh-bell tinkling—din-din-din…
I can see a spirits’ medley
Gather on the glimmering plain.

Endless, hideous hordes are pressing
Round us, in the moon’s dull light,
Demons whirling, flying, massing,
Like November leaves in flight.

===============================
Crowds of them! Where do they hurry?
Why so pitiful their song?
Goblin do they haste to bury?
Witch to wed they bring along?
===============================

Clouds are whirling, clouds are swirling;
Though invisible, the moon
Lights the flying snow while blurring
Turbid sky and nigh in one.

Swarm on swarm, the demons flying
Sweep the sky in endless quest,
Till their piteous screams and crying
Rend the heart within my breast…

So Dostoyevsky has started with stanza 4. The first three that set the context are deliberately omitted and we plunge into contextless questions. What is being left unsaid?

He omits the next stanza 5 which begins
"Over there: see him cavorting,
Blowing, spitting in my face;"

Does omitting that tell us anything?

Going back to Pushkin, his title is also "Бѣсы (Besy)" (Lermontov is by contrast the singular "Демон (Demon)").

https://www.jstor.org/stable/20780421... is interesting. It mentions both Dostoyevsky and Pushkin's "Demons" in the context of the Russian Revolution.

Re where the novel is set, in 1859, after Dostoyevsky came back from "hard labor in shackles in Siberia, followed by six years in a Siberian army regiment" he spent five months in Tver on the Volga which is usually identified as being the model for Skvoreshniki (derived from a wooden box or maybe cage for a starling - скворец).

Barry P. Scherr has an interesting article online.

The Topography of Terror: The Real and Imagined City in Dostoevsky’s ‘Besy’

Dostoevsky Studies 18, 59-85, 2014
======================================

As to the chronology, G-v deliberately or inadvertently makes it at best quite vague.

The standard work on establishing the chronology from the available hints seems to be Gene D. Fitzgerald's "The Chronology of F. M. Dostoevskij's The Possessed". There's a preview of it at
https://www.jstor.org/stable/307244

It's maybe worth noting that G-v calls himself a "chronicler" rather than a narrator.

It seems to me that one needs to keep G-v's motivations in mind. Some commentators see him as trying to justify his own actions or lack of them. If that's the case (and I'm in no position to judge), then nothing he says can be taken at face value.

Genette's classification of types of narrators may be useful here. This one is both an actor and a commentator and isn't always obvious to me which one is speaking in some passages.

Dostoyevsky commentators talk about the "Narrating I" vs the "Experiencing I" - is he reporting events as a third party or reliving them? And that changes in different passages. (These two terms go back, I think, to Leo Spitzer in the 1920's)

We're dealing with what Genette calls the "fictive authorial" vs the
"fictive actorial" narrator. "Fictive" because both are made up by Dostoevsky.

But Dostoyevsky seems to want us to think in terms of a more "real" chronicler. That raises the question as to why he didn't use the more usual convention of writing authorially himself rather than as a fictive authorial narrator posing as a chronicler.

Would what G-v writes change in any way if Dostoyevsky wrote it as an omniscient author?

In 1870, he wrote in his notebooks for Demons that these scenes are “true”

“Either I have positive facts, or I am perhaps inventing them myself, but in any case, I can assure you that everything is true”

In narrative theory, a distinction is made between:
i) a first-person novel (where the narrator is a character in the novel) - Genette's term for this is "homodiegetic"
ii) a third-person novel (the narrator is not a character) - Genette's term is "heterodiegetic".

So, Dostoyevsky has decided for some reason to both have his cake and eat it. Starting from a first-person narrator ("events in our town"), he gives G-v the privileges ("authorial narration") of a third-person narrator (potential omniscience etc) by making him a "chronicler".

The following is based on "The Strange Relationship of Stavrogin and Stepan Trofimovich as Told by Anton Lavrent'evich G-v" by
Craig Cravens.

The advantage of the third-person novel is that the narrator has a wider range of ways of describing other characters "internal analysis" where they just describe what a character in the novel was thinking, "indirect monologue" where they are a sort of medium for the other charcters thoughts and "free-indirect discourse" which is somewhere between.

Stepan is mostly described using the third of these methods:
“Stepan Trofimovich managed to touch the deepest strings in his friend's heart and to call forth in him the first, still uncertain sensation of that age-old, sacred anguish which the chosen soul, having once tasted and known it, will never exchange for any cheap satisfaction. (There are lovers of this anguish who cherish it more than the most radical satisfaction, if that were even possible.)”

I could be totally wrong about this, but I thought that "Govorov" appeared in Dostoyevsky's notes but became only "G-v" in the final text?

Edit:> Googling suggests it's eventually revealed by "Stepan Trofimovich (74; I:3:iii)".

Edit:> Pevear/Volokhonsky have "Perhaps you're bored with me, G---v" (that is my last name).

So translations differ on this point.

Bigollo points out that the name Govorov in Russian can be understood as 'The one who speaks'.

My pet theory (without a shred of evidence) is that, going back to the nature of biblical demons as understood by the contemporary writers, G-v could also be read as "Grigoriev" in the sense of a Watcher as per e.g. "The book of Enoch"? Some Dostoyevsky commentators see him as a demon I think.

The opening lines may help in understanding what Dostoyevsky is doing

"IN UNDERTAKING to describe the recent and strange incidents ... I find myself forced ... to begin my story ... with certain biographical details concerning ... Stepan Trofimovitch Verhovensky. I trust that these details may at least serve as an introduction, while my projected story itself will come later." (Garnett)

Pevear/Volokhonsy use "events" rather than "incidents" and this may be a better word. I'm quoting the following from Zachary Samuel Johnson's dissertation at https://escholarship.org/content/qt5j...

"... the chronicler interrupts his narrative of Varvara Petrovna’s plans to marry Stepan Trofimovich to her ward, Darya, commenting: “As a chronicler I limit myself simply to presenting events in an exact way, exactly as they occurred, and it is not my fault if they appear incredible”.

And a later section "The Event as the Novel’s Formal Center" begins:
"Demons is arguably not structured around a single protagonist, or even a select few. Categories of major and minor characters seem to break down in this novel, and traditionally other lines of inquiry have been taken in attempts to describe its formal properties. If not a hero, what is the primary object of the novel’s narrative attention?"

"The chronicler’s reliance on biographical form is accepted reluctantly, and for good reason. The central object of narration is the “strange events,” not any one protagonist, but the narrator struggles to begin a narrative about strange events without appealing to a biographical subject.

In an earlier draft of the novel, the narrator states more explicitly that the object of his narrative is not a hero but an event: “I am not describing a city, an environment, daily life, people, responsibilities, relationships […]"

He makes a good case for "The novel, in opposition to the chronicle, will be as much “a description of the strange events” (странные события) that constitute the chronicle as it will be about the act of chronicling, the act of narration."

That maybe begs the question "What is an event?" A chronicler should record at least "Who did what" as well as the time and place they did it. "How much" of something is usually relevant. The "Why" and the "How" are stories in themselves that may or may not fit neatly into the chronicle.

It may be worth keeping an eye out for where G-v addresses a "Why" or a "How" in his chronicle.

Edit: In the beginning all the "whys" occur in converstional passages by other characters. The first use of it by G-v seems to be in Part I, 3:II [I don’t know why I turned back to follow him; I don’t know why I ran for ten paces beside him.] And there it refers to himself and NOT knowing why he did certain quite innocuous things (despite knowing much that was actually unknowable about other characters).

Why he should be lost owing to Liputin I did not know ...
.
.
He had as a fact hanging on the wall, I don’t know why, two crossed daggers ...
.
.
I kept wondering to myself why Stepan Trofimovitch was so frightened of Liputin, and why he had cried out “I am lost” when he heard him coming.
.
.
I had imagined, I don’t know why, that she had asked him to come with some other object.
.
.
Now—now, I don’t know why he impressed me at once as absolutely, incontestably beautiful
.
.
Why Varvara Petrovna used the word organism I couldn’t understand
.
.
Shatov, who had been forgotten by every one in his corner (not far from Lizaveta Nikolaevna), and who did not seem to know himself why he went on sitting there, ...

And that seems to be all there is in Part 1. It's quite striking that all the "whys" of the "narrating I" relate to not knowing!

Maybe that was to be expected, we haven't really reached the main events of the novel yet.

My methodology is also a bit suspect, I've only searched the Garnett version for the word why. If there were explanatory passages that don't use it, I'll have missed them.

Very happy to have people correct me if so!!!

I think the "how" is going to be even more problematic but I'll try it later on.

While thinking about the poem above, it occurred to me that if I had stumbled on it outside of any other context, I would have thought that the 'demons' were all in the narrator's/poet's imagination. It's the night, the extreme weather, the blowing snow, the loneliness of the situation--all of it combines to get the traveler's mind going. That stanza four that you mention:

Tracks are nowhere to be found;
It must be a demon guides us,

that sounds to me like someone who's letting his mind run away with him.

I don't know if that has anything to do with Dostoyevsky's novel or not, but if it did, it could be that the 'demons' are our own leaps of imagination that cause us to react to any given situation in ways that may seem inexplicable to those who are not under the same illusion. Even in the poem, the traveler reaches higher and higher flights of fancy, but there's no indication the driver is affected by any of it other than as a nasty bit of weather. If, at the conclusion of this trip, the traveler were found fainted away (from fear), the driver would be baffled as to why.

Bryan--Pumpkin Connoisseur wrote: "While thinking about the poem above, it occurred to me that if I had stumbled on it outside of any other context, I would have thought that the 'demons' were all in the narrator's/poet's imaginatio..."

To me it seemed to be the horses themselves who sensed the abyss, stump or fear.

FWIW, 'Besy', Disorientation and the Person by Robin Aizlewood says that stanzas 2 and 3 are narrated by the coachman.

He goes on to say that "interpretation of Dostoyevsky's Besy tends to identify the eprigraph as pointing to the carnivalesque aspect of the novel"

Beware of spoilers! We haven't met Petr Verkhovensky yet.

Roger wrote: "Beware of spoilers! We haven't met Petr Verkhovensky yet."

Thanks. I've deleted the reference to him.

I'm leaving the carnivalesque aspect in because it may give a broader picture when reading on. AFAIK it comes originally from Bakhtin.

Donal wrote: "That maybe begs the question "What is an event?" A chronicler should record at least "Who did what" as well as the time and place they did it. The "Why" and the "How" are stories in themselves that may or may not fit neatly into the chronicle."

So I'll now try to see how "How" functions in the text. It will be even more problematic than "Why" so just searching for occurrences is a bit weak - one needs to reread but I'll just search for now.

Ch 1, 1:III
"... on one occasion, he broke some plaster off the wall. It may be asked how I come to know such delicate details. What if I were myself a witness of it? What if Stepan Trofimovitch himself has, on more than one occasion, sobbed on my shoulder while he described to me in lurid colours all his most secret feelings. (And what was there he did not say at such times!) But what almost always happened after these tearful outbreaks was that next day he was ready to crucify himself for his ingratitude."

The first occurrence of "how" is in a very minor event, but it's interesting in terms of delimiting the nature of the chronicler.
If Dostoyevsky had written "on one occasion, he broke some plaster off the wall" qua Dostoyevsky that would be the end of the matter - the omniscient author has spoken.

But the actorial G-v needs to justify his other self the chronicler = authorial G-v (Adam Weiner speaks of them as two "hypostases" which is a good word, but one I suspect Dostoyevsky would have disavowed as being too close to its theological use for the two natures-human and divine-as united in the person of Christ). Alter ego/doppelgänger?

So how did he come to know something that he seems very unlikely to have witnessed? He says first he might have - that's weak.

Maybe Stepan sobbed it all out on his shoulder - they are close friends so that works. But, looking to the future, that's not going to justify other insights he will have - so maybe other people will feel such pain that they need to speak about events only they have witnessed.

Ctd: Search for "how"

The second occurrence is when Varvara Petrovna is left a widow and Stepan wonders whether he is expected to ask for her hand (the first “I shall never forgive you for this!” incident)

The how appears as follows Part 1 1:IV:
"When, ten years later, Stepan Trofimovitch, after closing the doors, told me this melancholy tale in a whisper, he vowed that he had been so petrified on the spot that he had not seen or heard how Varvara Petrovna had disappeared."

So again, it's a negative how - Stepan does not know how she disappeared. And again, G-v volunteers his source for the information strengthening his chronichler role.
.
.
Varvara Petrovna disliked him [Liputin], but he always knew how to make up to her.
.
.
[Shatov] wandered through Europe, living God knows how; he is said to have ...
.
.
we flew into raptures, and even on one occasion sang the “Marseillaise” in chorus to the accompaniment of Lyamshin, though I don’t know how it went off

Then there are various occurrences in dialogues (which I'm ignoring in the search for G-v explaining something using "how").

That brings us to Chapter II and early on we find:
"To do Stepan Trofimovitch justice, he knew how to win his pupil’s [Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch Stavrogin] heart. The whole secret of this lay in the fact that he was a child himself. I was not there in those days ..."

So Stepan knew how to do something, G-v wan't there to witness it but now doesn't need to explain his source of knowledge. He continues by detailing their relationship onmisciently and then notes "Yet the mother confided his whole instruction and moral education to Stepan Trofimovitch. At that time her faith in him was unshaken. One can’t help believing that the tutor had rather a bad influence on his pupil’s nerves ... But in any case it was just as well that the pupil and the preceptor were, though none too soon, parted."

We have been warned!

Next there's another unknown how about Nikolay (but with considerable truth)
"It was a surprise to all the townspeople to whom, of course, young Stavrogin’s whole biography was well known in its minutest details, though one could not imagine how they had got hold of them, and, what was still more surprising, half of their stories about him turned out to be true."

Next, Nicolay pulls an old gentleman by the nose:
"Yet, how had it happened? How could it have happened? It is remarkable that no one in the whole town put down this savage act to madness. They must have been predisposed to expect such actions from Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch, even when he was sane. For my part I don’t know to this day how to explain it, in spite of the event that quickly followed and apparently explained everything, and conciliated every one. I will add also that, four years later, in reply to a discreet question from me about the incident at the club, Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch answered, frowning: “I wasn’t quite well at the time.” But there is no need to anticipate events."
G-v volunteers he does't know how to explain it, in spite of the event that quickly followed and apparently explained everything
and then shrugs it all off "But there is no need to anticipate events"
.
.
"he had set every one against him—and one wonders how. Up to the last incident he had never quarrelled with anyone, nor insulted anyone, but was as courteous as a gentleman in a fashion-plate, if only the latter were able to speak. I imagine that he was hated for his pride."
G-v wonders how everyone is now against Niokolay - he doesn't know, but imagines his pride as a reason (despite him previously being "surprisingly modest" which is rather opposed to its immediate continuation "at the same time bold and self-reliant").

Donal wrote: "So how did he come to know something that he seems very unlikely to have witnessed? He says first he might have - that's weak."

Interesting analysis. It does seem a weak explanation for an author to give to his readers for the seemingly omniscient capabilities of his narrator.

However, when the statement is made by the narrator, it adds a dimension of evasiveness to his reliability, or lack of reliability. For example, "maybe I did, maybe I did not", and the ubiquitous legal defense response, "I can neither confirm nor deny. . ."

If the narrator is evasive, it is an effective device for Dostoyevsky to both offer some justification for what the narrator knows as well as demonstrate the evasive quality of the narrator suggesting he knows more than he is telling us and is somewhat guarded over his sources.

Donal wrote: "Ctd "How"
Next Nikolay bites Ivan Ossipovitch's ear:
"At the club, too, people were ashamed and wondered how it was they had failed to “see the elephant” and had missed the only explanation of all ..."

Spoiler alert: We don't start Chapter 5 of Part I until Wednesday.

Roger wrote: "Donal wrote: "Ctd "How"
Next ..."

Sorry. I was taking Part 1 as my unit of analysis and forgot I was a bit ahead. I've now deleted it. It can always go back in later.

David wrote: "Donal wrote: "So how did he come to know something that he seems very unlikely to have witnessed? He says first he might have - that's weak."

Interesting analysis. It does seem a weak explanation ..."

Yes. I've read something along those lines - let me see if I can find it again.

"The Strange Relationship of Stavrogin and Stepan Trofimovich as Told by Anton Lavrent'evich G-v" by Craig Cravens

"What I suggest is that G-v is a conscious storyteller in his own right, a complete consciousness, and not a mere realistically motivated device by the author to withold information and create suspense. It is simply not enought to apply the label 'unreliable narrator' and leave it at that. He is certainly that. But G-v has his own ideas about storytelling which are shaped by his own prejudices, loves, hates, regrets and past dependencies".

Possible spoiler.
.
.
.
.
.
This is jumping way forward in the novel but only concerns the status of G-v as a chronicler so I doubt if it will spoil anything for anybody :-)

Way back up in message 16, I'd been assuming that the two epigraphs were written by G-v for his "Instead of an Introduction".

Aiden quite rightly said that epigraphs were usually regarded as outside the work they prefixed i.e. the expectation would be that they were written by Dostoyevsky.

Now I've come across, near the end of the book in Part III 7, an intermediate position!

"Sofya Matveyevna knew the gospel well and at once found the passage in St. Luke which I have chosen as the motto of my record. I quote it here again ..." (that's the Garnett translation. 'I have placed it as an epigraph of my chronicle' in PV/VK).

So G-v wrote a book (whose name is unknown) with Luke 8:32-36 as its epigraph and which started with "Instead of an Introduction".

That makes Dostoyevsky the real author of a novel entitled "Бѣсы" whose epigraph is two stanzas of Pushkin's poem Бѣсы and which is followed by G-v's nameless chronicle which itself starts with the epigraph Luke 8:32-36.

What exactly that implies in terms of the narrative theory of "implied authors" etc I have yet to work out. My impression is that one will only be able to arrive at any conclusions regards G-v at the very end of the novel and that different readers are likely to differ.

Hope that hasn't irrevocably spoiled anyone's enjoyment of what is indeed a great novel.

To reformulate this as a question for your next pub quiz:
Q. What is the first word of Dostoyevsky's novel "Demons"?
A. "Now". Or if the quizmaster is a real pedant "Тут же на горе паслось большое стадо свиней"

Nice catch, Donal. On re-reading (and Maguire's translation confirms the other two) G---v definitely mentions late in the novel that he chose the passage from Luke as an epigraph to "his chronicle." He is often referred to as "the chronicler," so it tracks.

I'm not sure we can assume the Pushkin poem to be likewise chosen by G---v rather than Dostoevsky, but it does shed further light on our narrator that he chose the biblical story to characterize his telling of his friend Stepan Trofimovich's story. In any case, it definitely puts the swine story squarely in the body with the chronicle, not just the epigraph.

Aiden wrote: "Nice catch, Donal. On re-reading (and Maguire's translation confirms the other two) G---v definitely mentions late in the novel that he chose the passage from Luke as an epigraph to "his chronicle...."

Without further evidence I think we have to assume the default position that the two Pushkin stanzas are Doestoyevsky's epigraph.

The actual Russian ST becomes important here. Софья Матвеевна знала Евангелие хорошо и тотчас отыскала от Луки то самое место, которое я и выставил эпиграфом к моей хронике.

Garnett "the passage in St. Luke which I have chosen as the motto of my record" suggests a single G-v epigraph by using "the motto"

But PV/VK (which would usually be more accurate) suggests the opposite by using "an epigraph" - "I have placed it as an epigraph of my chronicle".

There's even the possibility that Doestoyevsky deliberately used a phrasing that kept it open. My understanding of the construction is that "an" or "the" depends on the context (and here we don't have any). That would make PV/VK's choice better by retaining the uncertainty.

Just occurred to me that the typography may play a part too.
If Doestoyevsky wanted to clearly claim the Puskhin epigraph as his (rather than G-v's) he could have put it on a separate page. Their being on the same page without any obvious separation at least lends credence to it also being by G-v.

FWIW there's an online scan of the page with epigraphs - it's not clear from what edition but certainly quite an early one (at a guess pre Grot 1885). Don't know how long it'll last https://infourok.ru/urok-v-klasse-fmd...
Бѣсы
Роман
Pushkin epigraph
Luke epigraph
часть первая
глава первая
вместо введения ...
1.

In it the title and the Pushkin epigraph look rather like they're typeset as a unit and the Luke epigraph and subsequent text as separate unit.
That suggests to me that the first epigraph is Doestoyevsky's rather than G-v's.

From "The Other Lenin" by Alexander Maysuryan. Moscow: 2006.) (Майсурян А. А. Другой Ленин. М., 2006.

Lenin's opinion towards Nechaev was closely intertwined with Lenin's opinion on the "revolting, yet genius" Dostoevsky. Lenin decided not to read "The Demons" [...] Lenin admitted: ["Demons" is] Evidently reactionary filth, like Krestovsky's "Flock of Panurge", I have absolutely no desire to waste time on it. I have no need for such literature; what could it possibly give me? [...] I have no free time for this garbage."

(Nicked from a Reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/dostoevsky/c... )

Calling a book garbage, not even reading it. So bolshevistic!

No free room for the benefit of the doubt, that rotten bourgeois prejudice!

Bigollo wrote: "Calling a book garbage, not even reading it. So bolshevistic!

No free room for the benefit of the doubt, that rotten bourgeois prejudice!"

Well well, this didn't turn out so well for Mr. Lenin. He's now a mummy in a mausoleum in Moscow, while Dostoevsky seems to be immortal.

"You're not Dostoevsky,' said the citizeness, who was getting muddled by Koroviev.
Well, who knows, who knows,' he replied.
'Dostoevsky's dead,' said the citizeness, but somehow not very confidently.
'I protest!' Behemoth exclaimed hotly. 'Dostoevsky is immortal!"
Bulgakov

Aah! Master & Margarita! Long time no read..

Nice touch, Emil!

PS Maybe I'm out of touch from Russia for a while now, but didn't they take his body out of the mausoleum and bury it in normal, human way?

You don't have to answer. It does not make difference to Kirillov.. I mean.. to us.. :)

So, a book I requested from the library arrived. Russian Literature and its Demons. I plan to avoid the essay on D’s Demons until after I finish the novel and think about it a bit.

I thought though, a few sentences from various essays might contribute interesting background information.

From “Russian Literature and its Demons: Introductory Essay,” Pamela Davidson:

“All Russian literature is, to a certain degree, a struggle with the temptation of demonism, an attempt to undress Lermontov’s Demon.” ---Merezhkovky.

I have no idea who Merezhovsky or Lermontov were.

“A major difference [between Western orthodoxy and Russian folk tradition] concerns the moral dimension of the demonic: whereas in Christianity the devil is the very embodiment of sinful temptation, in folkloric tradition the unclean force is not necessarily evil, although always dangerous” (5).

Gogal apparently wrote a number of “Petersburg tales” in which, according to Julian Graffy, “the demonic … is imbricated in the very nature of the city” (7).

byPamela Davidson{No photo]

From “Nostalgia for Hell: Russian Literary Demonism and Orthodox Tradition,” Simon Franklin

Re Russian demonology: “Demons are external, not externalizations. WE may choose to psychologize them as, for example, … an equivalent to Jungian ‘shadow;’ or we may choose to treat them as a store of imagery, as allegoric or metaphorical device, as oblique means of expression; but such choices would arise out of OUR ways of cultural modeling, not out of Orthodox understanding” (33).

“They can possess a person beyond that person’s apparent power to resist, hence to an extent remove responsibility from the human unto themselves; or they can slink from the scene, vanquished by prayer or the sign of the Cross…” (39).

“…holy men and women have a special claim on the devil’s attention” (40).

“Devils deceive. Because they deceive, moral perception is fragile and uncertain….Evil can appear to be good, good can appear to be evil, and the consequences of error can be catastrophic….. The greater the apparent virtue, the greater the hidden danger” (48).

I’m thinking some of these perspectives on demons may apply more toward demons prior to Dostoevsky’s time. I don’t know. Still, D named his book something like Demons and must have been familiar with Russian literature… so I will consider it as I read.

Adelle wrote:"I haven't got a hold yet of "the Russian God." It's come up a few times. How is the Russian God/ the Russian version of Christianity different from that of the West? And are the peasants (Alexai Y, for instance) more in touch with the Russian God than the more educated elites? And is this good or bad for Russia?..."

That's a parallel discussion and I don't want to digress from our topic, so I'll better reply in here. My grandfather was Greek Catholic and my grandmother Eastern Orthodox, so I can give you some insights, being exposed to both.
From a dogmatic perspective, the differences are trivial.
The really big difference is in the way God is perceived by the average layperson: the Russian God is more involved in his creation and more human. He's omnipotent but sometimes not omniscient. In folk tales he even walks among the people disguised as a beggar to test them (usually accompanied by St. Peter.)

The russian educated elites  lost their touch with him. They adopted the french culture and the Russian God cannot survive in their minds, so he is confined to the rural & poor areas where tradition and superstition are as important as dogma.

The devils are also quite different. The Orthodox devils are more palpable and involved in the day-to-day life. They are tricksters and I've heard folk tales where they even deceived God. They are also funnier than their western counterparts and they love practical jokes. For example there are incubus-like demons who break into maids rooms and seduce them while they're sleeping. They caused many unwanted pregnancies and funny enough the child always looked like the neighbour or the local priest. As I said, a trickster :)

Thanks for the insight, Emil. It seems to me like Eastern Orthodox is Judeo-Christian melded with the old gods of the Kievan Rus and other tribes that converted in the Middle Ages. From what I have read, their gods were similar to (if not the same as) Norse mythology, with anthropomorphic gods that have human foibles and natural characteristics.

By comparison, the Roman Catholic Church in its “civilizing” journey through Western Europe seems to have succeeded in eradicating the Greco-Roman and other “barbarian” old god characteristics in favor of the benevolent, but sometimes vengeful Hebrew god, Yahweh. Unsurprisingly, they played up a version of the Judeo-Christian God similar to the way the Roman Empire saw itself before it morphed into the church.

Note: I’m an atheist who was raised Roman Catholic, so I may opinions above may contain that bias. No offense is intended.

Emil"

You made me to laugh.

Thank you for the background information on the different perspectives on God.

And the demons! I had had no awareness that Russia had a long history of demons in folklore and literature, in art.

Aiden wrote: "Thanks for the insight, Emil. It seems to me like Eastern Orthodox is Judeo-Christian melded with the old gods of the Kievan Rus and other tribes that converted in the Middle Ages. From what I have..."


I totally agree with your comment. Catolicism also retained some pagan syncretic elements, but the eastern Christianity has a lot more. I think it's mostly because cristianization was a longer and uncontrolled process in there. In some cases (like Armenia and Romania) the process occured during their ethnogenesis - they were born with their version of Christianity, mostly loaded with pagan elements dressed up as Christian tradition.

Here is an extreme example. There was a kind of 'Christian' ritual ongoing in some scattered villages in the Balcans. They believed that when an evil or possesed person died, his demons would get out of him and possess his family members. There was just one way to avoid it: you take the heart out of the dead man chest and you burn it. The priest will then mix the ash with some wine in a cup and all the family members should drink from it.
A dramatic reportage appeared few years ago. The church declared the ritual a blasphemy and excommunicated the involved priests, but this doesn't change the fact that this tradition was as old as Christianity.

From “The Russian Folk Devil and His Literary Reflections” Faith Wigzell

A broad subject. Cross-roads, thresholds…among dangerous places (63). “Danger presented by unclean force was also worse on unlucky days, either Wednesday or Thursday, depending on which was regarding as the middle of the week” (63). “The Russian folk devil was usually ‘they’ not ‘he’” (64). Water (65).

“As the visible folk demon largely melts from sight […] the devil is constantly invoked” (“the devil only knows”) (78). “loss of direction” “liminal times of day” “empty, meaningless laughter”

Was Kirillov at a vulnerable point when he found out he was happy "Wednesday, in the night"?

From “Russian Views of Art as Demonic” Pamela Davidson

“Literary Views of Post-Petrine Culture as Demonic”

“The combined effect of Peter’s reforms was to prepare the ground for what would eventually become a new ‘secular’ culture, paradoxically both sustained and burdened by the weight of displaced religious aspirations...

[Writers] appropriated the notion of literature as sacral…and came to regard their mission in this light as the re-creation of moral and religious values through literature….

The attitude was so well entrenched that it became a prism through which works of literature were not only conceived but also read” (144).

Just an interesting bit:

From “The Devil Is in the Detail: Demonic Features of Gogal’s Petersburg” Julian Graffy

“While earlier studies have established demonic traits in individual characters and individual Petersburg tales, the purpose of this article is to reveal how a concern with the demonic is in fact imbricated in the very nature of the city and informs the essence and structure of Gogol’s Petersburg world” (243).

Details ‘have merged and mixed so much’ in the narrator’s head ‘that it is extremely difficult to get anything out of there in an orderly fashion’” (244). [lol]

“This demonic vision of the city, this shadow cast by Gogol’s overcoat, becomes a fundamental constituent feature of the ‘Petersburg text’ in the work of later writers….

Dostoevsky, in seems, did not in fact say that ‘we all came out from under Gogol’s ‘Overcoat’,’ but he obsessively rewrote Gogolian texts and episodes in his writings, and repeatedly invoked Gogolian moods and atmospheres” (268).

Having finally "finished" "listening" (in quotations, because either are only partially true), I am reminded that Demons was written as it was being published -- i.e., it apparently was not a text/story developed, written, and reshaped, re-written, re-arranged (like much of Tolstoy, for example). Which rather implies a particular perspective was embedded in the writing and was not exhaustively re-evaluated by the author later than the time of the initial writing?

My personal question -- the value of reading/relistening versus time spent with, say, Gulag: A History by Anne Applebaum -- at 610 pages probably at least 300 more than can interest me on Russian history right now, or something by Vasily Grossman or to turn to something like the biographies of Walter Isaacson that touch upon some of the figures that have helped create the topsy-turvy digital world that feels, in some ways, as menacing as the one of nineteenth century Russia. Don't expect a response; just an observation.