Customer Reviews

The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

At about twenty pages length, I found this short story to be the most tractable of Dostoyevsky's works. The story is similarly set-up as much of his are: a reclusive, narcissistic man in a seemingly meaningless world. The narrator in this story is so self-centered and embittered that he chooses suicide wondering if all the universe will be extinguished with his decease. However, a random event causes the Ridiculous Man to recall his conscience and a strange dream gives the Ridiculous Man a opportunity of redemption - one that he embraces unlike the Underground Man.

A nice little story - much more positive than some of Dostoyevsky's work.

This story can be found in many Dostoyevky anthologies so there's no reason to shell out the big bucks for it in the solitary version.

"The Dream of a Ridiculous Man" is one of Dostoevsky's best, most original, and most influential short stories. It epitomizes several of his defining preoccupations - alienation, Christian charity, etc. - and is a preeminent example of his characteristic psychological realism. A first-person tour de force, it shows yet again that no one matches him for psychological verisimilitude. It is also heavy on his core philosophical concerns and, perhaps most notably, pioneered important concepts that had not even been defined, namely psychoanalysis and solipsism. One can easily see why Freud frequently cited Dostoevsky, as this story essentially prefigured much of his work on dreams by several decades. Fantastic as the story is in some ways - recalling the wilder flights of Paradise Lost and arguably even being almost a science fiction precursor -, it is one of Dostoevsky's most moving and deeply human works. Anyone interested in him must read it. However, the fact that it is available in many collections -- such as The Best Short Stories of Dostoevsky -- makes a standalone very hard to justify.

Let's just say that Dostoyevsky is always getting at the big picture, whatever subtleties he might employ. Here, it could only be possible to dismiss the scale of this story as 'minor' as critics often will if the fictional events are seen as too fantastic and exaggerated, or, if you will, ridiculous. And of course it is precisely this condition of being ridiculous that not only has the narrator come to terms with, but has even understood to be his salvation as and not just his downfall. As for the 'dream.' That is the question. As is the relevance of whether or not this story is a work of fiction, as is the relevance of if Jonah was really in the belly of a whale. All of these distinctions becoming irrelevant is precisely where Dostoyevsky is taking the reader. Because--if it has been imagined, if it exists in figuration, story, and most especially, if one can get the logic to work, it is real and there is only one layer of reality. Truth on the other hand is an altogether a different matter.

I believe that this book brings one so close to the core of Dostoevsky's brilliance that it is a treasure. And hopefully you will buy this story and agree and hold on to this as a treasure. The short works of authors are often overlooked. Consider Tolstoi. I believe the only thing he wrote in the 20th Cent. (death thereafter) was a five page story, 'Alyosha the Pot.' Also there is 'The Death of Ivan Illych.' And of course Tolstoi was always on some gigantic mission like writing war and peace. But I'll tell you, I'd trade either of those stories, yes, even the 5 page Alyosha the Pot for its stunning poetic beauty & do without War & Peace.

Now with Dostoyevsky I am not that extreme. His novels are unmatched in scale and the detail is startling. He is amongst the world's greatest novelists. Yet, to look over his short stories, and I do mean very many more beyond Notes From the Underground, is missing out and creates an incomplete perspective on the man's abilities as a writer. As for the translation, it is the good-old ever-faithful Constant Garnett that is still redeeming us from ignorance of Russian Literature though many things have be re-translated. By the way, She did a wonderful job! The language is perfect!