Customer Reviews

Demons (Everyman's Library, 182)

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Most readers probably know that the character of the amoral nihilist Peter Verkhovensky is based--not too loosely, either--on the real-life figure of Sergei Nechayev (pronounced neech-aye-eff), who collaborated with the anarchist Bakunin while they were both hiding out in Western Europe. (Bakunin finally learned that Nechayev was a total fanatic who'd stop at nothing--even blackmail, betrayal, and murder--and disassociated himself with Nechayev, warning friends against him.) Nechayev murdered a member of his conspiratorial group, suspecting the victim of betrayal, a scene portrayed in the novel.

What most readers may not know is that Lenin was fascinated with the career of Nechayev (who was eventually caught for the murder and extradited to Russia, where he died in prison), called him a "titanic revolutionary," and said that Bolsheviks should try to find everything Nechayev had ever written, and study it. If Peter Verkhovensky was a caricature, he turned out to be a caricature that came to life in Lenin and Hitler and Stalin. Yet it is important to remember that these men were not, and could not be, dangerous all by themselves. It is only the possession of an ideology that makes them dangerous, ESPECIALLY if it is one that claims to be supremely moral and virtuous. Why is this so? Because self-righteous people who believe themselves to following a supremely moral path would almost certainly conclude that anyone who OPPOSES this supreme virtue must therefore be supremely IMMORAL--and what should be done with immoral people? Dostoevsky tells us something very important here: ideology kills, especially if it's the kind that exudes proclamations of goodness and virtue. In CRIME AND PUNISHMENT, he has the policeman Porfiry Petrovich tell the murderer Raskolnikov: "You know, it's just as well you only killed the old woman. Because if you'd come up with another THEORY, that would have been a thousand times MORE hideous."

In THE DEMONS, Dostoevsky has Peter Verkhovensky admit to Stavrogin that he is a rogue, not a socialist. But he had socialism to use as a foundation--a rationale--and he used it. Without it, a rogue would just be a rogue, no different than an ordinary criminal. But Peter Verkhovensky is far from ordinary.

Dostoevsky knew he'd be called a "reactionary" for implying that ends-justify-means fanaticism--terror and immorality in the name of a "better world" to come--must end in utter destruction. But he nevertheless went ahead and wrote this novel to illustrate this theme. And Lenin, admiring Nechayev, did exactly what the great novelist foresaw--he created a monstrous tyranny that destroyed Russia, perhaps (as we are now seeing) even beyond repair.

We admire Orwell's 1984 for its insights and innovative ideas, but THE DEMONS turned out to be the more accurate and prophetic book of the two. Russian novels tend to be long on characterization and short on plot--as well as very lengthy--but don't let that deter you from reading this masterpiece.

Incidentally, I once queried the companies who write student guides for novels (i.e., Cliff's Notes; Monarch Notes) about why no such guide had EVER been written for this book (even though they do exist for Dostoevsky's CRIME AND PUNISHMENT), and even though the collapse of Communism should have produced a renewed academic interest in THE DEMONS. The reply was that professors assign Dostoevsky as class reading less and less, and that very few assign this book, so there wouldn't be enough of a market for such a guide. Class reading, hell -- the profs know full well how devastating this novel would be to their own efforts to instill their own utopian political beliefs in their students. As Malcolm Muggeridge once said, everything that happened in 20th century Russia was predicted in this novel. This was what originally inspired me to read it, and he was right.

I don't know what it is, but I get the feeling that reading Dostoevsky is an addiction. Whether it's a longing for creepy reality-based stories set in the whirlwind of 1870's Russia or those moments where Dostoevsky's genius for emotional writing lets loose, I think I'm addicted.

I say this because there are clearly a lot of moments in this 700 page book where I plod on, just wondering where the action is headed, could I recommend this book to someone else?, the answer is "No", but I still want to read on.

The first couple hundred pages describe the various characters. The action takes place in the second part of the book. The writing is typical D, not some dry polemic I had feared, as I had read so much about Demons being D's most "political" book. Don't worry; it's a novel first, not a manifesto.

I had a hard time following some of the characters, but maybe that was just me, maybe not. Figuring out the narrator is also problematic, though very interesting to think about (discussed in an essay in Leatherbarrow's book, see below).

There's also humor, which many reviewers talk about, but this is mostly in the latter sections, where D satirizes the characters of the group that want to tear down society. Clearly, one of the main attractions of this book is that D seemingly and very accurately foreshadows what happens in Russia 45 years later during the 1917 Revolution and rise of Communism. He couldn't have been more on target.

So, if you're reading this for enjoyment and haven't read several of Dostoevsky's other major books, read them first. This book, as well as many other of D's books, was printed and written as a serial and isn't as smooth and refined as The Brother's Karamazov or Crime and Punishment. But once you're familiar with D and his environment, this book should be fine. Make sure to read the footnotes, as they provide very meaningful and essential insight into the environment in which D wrote.

Finally, there is a very good collection of short essays on various aspects of Demons edited by Leatherbarrow. I highly recommend it, in addition to the introduction by Pevear.

Demons (also known as Possessed & The Devils) is a 1878 novel by literary genius Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881). The novel is long, difficult and rife with Russian names easy to confuse. The novel is also a work of art of peerless genius.
The massive novel is set in the unimportant provincial Russian town of
Skvorishniki. The major characters are:
Vavara Stavrogin-She is the wealthy widow of a Russian general. Vavara is an aristocrat who is cultured and kind.
Stavrogin-A nihilist who is involved in the budding communist movement to overturn the Russian government. He is cruel, self-centered and self-loathing. An intellectual bored with life and love. He marries a crippled and ugly woman whom he later has murdered at his behest. He is Vavara's wastrel son.
Stepan-The old liberal of the 1840s who is a failed professor. He is the tutor to the young Stavrogin and is supported by the kindness of Vavara. He will later flee the town to die on the road. I found him to be a pathetic foolish character.
Lembke-The ridiculous head of the local town government. Dostoevsky did not like government officials and has fun with this pathetic creature. His wife seeks to climb society's slippery ladder by holding a literary fete in the town.
Lisa-The love interest of the novel who has suitors but is drawn to Stavrogin in a hopeless and tragic love.
The long novel is many books wrapped into one:
a. A mystery and suspense story about the conspirators and the destruction they perpetuate in the town. The town is a microcosm of Russian Tsarist society. These are the "demons" of the title based on Christ's driving out the demons from the Gerasene demoniac in the gospel accounts.
b. A philosophical/theological book exploring the issues of the existence of God; theodicy; the existence of good and evil. Not easy going for the casual reader!
c. A satire of the Russian literary world in which Dostoevsky makes fun of Turgenev who was too Westernized for the Slavophilic author.
d. A tragic love story.
The novel takes a long time getting into the exciting tale of the machinations of the conspirators. It will, however, reward the patient reader.

I couldn't believe there weren't any reviews for this book. I'm not a great reviewer, but I'll try. This book, for me, is as good as Crime and Punishment and Brothers Karamazov. It is about many things, it is a mosaic of political life in an insulated community in Russia--but moreover, it is about terrorism, specifically, a terrorist cell. It is a comedy, but the characters are not caricatures; the so-called terrorists are humanized. Dostoevsky obviously disaproves of the terrorists, but he uses his mighty soul to feel their lives in order to understand their motives. (Actually, being a former dissident, Dostoevsky probably didn't need to use his imagination in order to understand the mind of a terrorist.) Regardless, this endlessly fascinating book has some of the funniest and scariest moments of any Dostoevsky novel. Not to mention an amazing cast of characters. One of the best books I've ever read.

Fyodor Dostoyevesky, perhaps the greatest novelist of all-time, has a canon of mostly very long books that delve deeply into the darker psychological corners of man's mind. He shed long-dormant light on such subjects as the conscience, madness, the existence of God, family and criminal psychology, and a great many other things besides. In Demons, he explored yet another dark corner of the human mind: the tendency of people, particularly young people, towards nihilism. We have seen in our own times -- in the 1960's, certainly, and, perhaps, we are beginning to see it again now -- the tendency of youth to rebel against everything that the previous generation and the current powers that be stood and stand for, to tear everything down, to start anew. And yet, for all the promise of the 60's ideaology, where has it gotten us? How much change has actually taken place? Are we really any better off than before? Why did the movement fizzle out, and so quickly? Nothing is sadder, for the young modern liberal, than the sight of an old hippie, once idealistic and hungry, now shriveled up, in a depressed state, living off of social security. In Demons, Dostoyevsky explains why this happens.

In it, he shows the inherent hollowness of the nihilistic viewpoint, that it always leads to the same place in the end. As Don Henley once sang, "It's another hollow rebellion/As rebellions often are/Just another raging tempest/In a jar." For all its idealism and visions of utopia, it always ends up the same way in the end. What is practitioners often don't seem to realize is that it denies life itself. How can any movement, however pious and idealistic, suceed, if it does this? Many people have observed how the ideas embedded in Dostoyevsky's novels foresaw the philosophy of Nietzsche -- and yet, for all of the darkness and social criticism that sprang from the two men, what many people often overlook is the fact that both of them, in essence, AFFIRM LIFE (for proof of this, one need only to look at the fate of the characters in the book who deny life: even those, like Shatov, who do it once and then repent are, in the end, doomed.) To both Dostoyevsky and Nietzsche, it is not only wrong to live one's life merely for the sake of a higher power or for hope of a reward in some afterlife, but it is also wrong to live one's life for an "ism" -- whether it be atheism, idealism, anarchism, nihilism, or whatnot. Granted, both men themselves subscribed to such things; Dostoyevsky, himself a revolutionary who was served 10 years in jail, some at hard labor, and was nearly executed, saw Demons as "novel pamphlet", his own attempt to speak out at the wave of materialism that had, at the time, infested Russia, and to break out of his habit of dealing in negative modes of thinking. To paraphrase Dostoyevsky's famous letter, modern nihilists do not deny the existence of God: that is over and done with: no one cares about it, anymore. What they do, instead, is deny, with all their might, God's creation, God's world, and everything in it.

Pity the poor revolutionary who attempts to incite a rebellion while denying, at the same time, the very means he must use to do so. Neil Peart once wrote "Changes aren't permanent/But change is." Indeed, change is a good thing: anything which does not change will, inevitably, become stagnant. However, whatever changes we may hope to bring about, we must always remember to affirm life. Thank God we have the works of Dostoyevsky left to remind us.

This brilliant novel explores other subjects as well: the responsiblity of one generation for the next generation, the responsiblity of teachers for their students, and, above all, the responsiblity of philosophers for their ideas. A must-read novel essential for any reader of classics or Russian literature.

a mentor once gave me a bit of advice: if you plan to be a professor of literature, you will be asked very often to name "favorites" . . . if you don't have answers, your credibility will be damaged. That's just the way it is. Nothing is etched in stone, but you must always have your answers ready.

Bearing this in mind, DEMONS is my answer. The dangerously free thinking novel (free thinking enough, mind you, to denounce all the cynical atheistic sentiments of the time which are STILL considered 'free thinking') is a devilsh and touching story of ideas gone bad and the redemption of a kind old thinker. The novel has rightly been called prophetic, referring of course to the Russian revolution, but I contend that Dostoevsky's prohecies continue to unfold, because modern America is torn between factions, some of which sport ideology strikingly similar to the ideology of one Pyotr Stepanovich. At the heart, however, is a tender story of age and wisdom, and one of the most peaceful and unmenacing deaths in literature . . . as well as a few of the worst.

This is the best of the 'dynamic duo's' translations that I have read, and interestingly it's a translation of the novel by Dostoyevsky I find most difficult to love. I have read and re-read "Demons" or "The Devils" several times, and feel that this admittedly excellent book falls short of greatness when compared to his other three true masterpieces. "Demons" suffers from a less-than-gripping plot (not just a 'plot' to kill a revolutionary) that is barely sustained by some of the author's least interesting conversational set pieces, a cast of thoroughly unlikable characters, or caricatures, and a narrator whose befuddlement at events that transpire is matched only by his inabilty to influence these events.

In Nikolai Stavrogin, Dostoyevsky creates the pencil sketch of an intriguing individual (perhaps his most purely evil character) but the gradations of shade and light present in the author's best characters are all but absent. Stavrogin's nonchalant vileness may have been too much for even Dostoyevsky to explain, and the appended 'Stavrogin's Confession' omitted from the original publication, is very unpleasant with all it alludes to. If, as some have speculated, Stavrogin is the Prince of Darkness incarnate, the author gives the reader a shadow wrapped in an enigma.

In short I feel "Demons" pales somewhat compared to the other three acknowledged masterpieces.Structural deficiencies in "The Idiot" (my favorite) are more than compensated for by the wicked humor and pathos, as well as by more lovingly drawn characters, whilst both "The Brothers Karamazov" and "Crime and Punishment" are sustained by suspenseful narratives and again by terrific characters. "Demons" is polemic-as-novel, and whilst by no means a failure, is nonetheless a difficult love and is best left to the last by those wishing to read and come under the spell of this remarkable author.

Dostoyevsky himself is a victim of youthful frenzy, of revolution's dangerous freedom, and of radicals' ruthless betrayal. A powerful work of dark messages, Demons also known as The Possessed, crowns Dostoyevsky literature before the brilliance and magnitude of The Brothers Karamazov. Written more of severe historical recounts than a lighter fiction work such as The Idiot, Dostoyevsky gained the permanent abhorrence of contemporary radicals whose presence was lushly painted with angry strokes of danger and of depravity. Base on an actual accident that took place in 1869, Demons retells the story of an ailing radical, Shatov, whose emerging faith makes him an obstacle in the way of one obscure town's intellectual circle. The murder of Shatov is by no means a beginning of Dostoyevsky's lustrous characterization going deep into the dark psyche of revolution; instead, it is marked as an ending to a period of great turmoil and of intellectual unrest that wake blinded followers as well as the observant surrounding to the painful truth of progress. At the beginning, the readers are introduced to a Nihilist father Stepan Trofimovich Verkhovensky, a retired lecturer and educator who has been under the patronage of a local aristocrat Varvara Petrovna Stavrogin. Stepan Trofimovich's mind of uncertainty leaves behind a tremendous mess of doubts and of hatred in his son, Pyotr Stepanovich, head of the local secret society.

The true hero of the story is Nikolai Vsevolodovich Stavrogin, son of Varvara Petrovna, a troubled young man whose dubious past haunts his present in the small town. Like other heroes of Dostoyevsky, Stavrogin is handsome, rich, and dashing; unlike Raskolnikov or Dimitri Karamazov, Stavrogin commits himself to worldly evils unawarely as if in a state of dreams. The heart of Demons is the possession of unguarded intellect turning into a possessive spirit, and at the center of the dark confusions of ideas, of theories, and of rebellions, Stavrogin is chosen to unveil the face of the demons. Pyotr Stepanovich, on the other hand, is characterized by his pretentious presence in front of the weak and obsequious malice facing the powerful. His real-life counterpart being Nechaev who led his political society against Ivan Ivanov's (Shatov) struggle to break free, Pyotr is portrayed with care, shrouded in shadow, and hidden in intellectualism.

With some of the most provocative suggestions on revolution, Demons seems to challenge the rigid intellect that is obsessed with replacing the old with something revolutionary. DO READ WITH AN OPEN MIND.

Most of these reviews are about the ideas and politics of Demons (aka The Possessed), or how it compares to Dostoevski's other novels and its place among the "great" books. But you probably know what the book is about already and prefer to make up your own mind about its position in the canon--after you read it.

What you really want to know is "will I like it?" The answer is emphatically YES! If you like Dostoevski, Turganev or Tolstoy, you love it. If you read Henry James, Thomas Hardy or George Eliot, you'll love it. If you have a taste for historical fiction, ideas and politics, you'll love it.

The great strength of Devils is its characters. Each person is motivated by an `ism (liberalism, feudalism, atheism, nihilism, socialism, etc) which posses him or her like a demon, but they are not flat types or puppets. All the main players are fully drawn flesh and blood people. They have quirks and contradictions that make them completely real. You may not like these people, but they will fascinate you.

There's not much plot in Demons. But so do a lot of superb novels: Zorba the Greek, Pale Fire, and David Copperfield, for example. Mark Twain admits Huck Finn has no plot, it's a series of escapades. Jake goes fishing, Brett picks bad men--that's The Sun Also Rises.
The dramatic momentum of Demons comes from your own attempts to find a plot in the tensions between the characters (and literally in plotting of the plodding conspirators). Something is definitely going on, you're just never sure what. Part One feels very much like a typical Victorian novel. Men talk at their club. Women jockey for social gain. Rumors fly about linking and relinking the young people into love affairs and scandals. And then just below the surface, the (rather thick) narrator suddenly and nonchalantly exposes a mirroring network of links more sinister than social and anarchic than romantic. As these develop the machinations of the story move from marriage to murder. In this Dostoevski cleverly captures the reader in the same web of dread and paranoia that grips the characters. So it is the interplay of forces, the murkiness and dread that make Demons a page-turner. It's marvelous to experience

Here's something else rarely mentioned: Dostoevski had a great sense of humor. There are a number of great comic scenes, gags and zippy one-liners. It's not his popular image, but old Teddy D was a funny guy. This translation (Pavear & Volokhonsky) is very successful at bringing out the humor and rendering into English the zestiness of the dialogue.

"I also know that it was not you who ate the idea, but the idea who ate you..." from Part III, Chapter 4.

This quotation from the novel indicates why I think "Demons" makes a far better title than "The Possessed" or "The Devils". This is a novel more about ideas than about people -- the ideas surrounding the Russian radicalism of the 1860s (atheism, nihilism, utilitarianism, socialism, and so on). The title, of course, comes directly from the story in the gospel of Luke where demons possess a herd of swine, impelling them to run down a hill into a lake where they drown themselves. To call the novel "The Possessed" is to essentially make it about a herd of swine, when it is truly of a bigger scope than that. "The Devils", on the other hand, gives too great a quality of personification to the faceless, unseen ideas infecting the characters. "Demons", however, seems to best capture the author's intention in naming the novel.