Customer Reviews

Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics (Theory and History of Literature)

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Bakhtin's critique of Dostoevsky's work has revealed so much more to me about the form of this great author's novels than I would have ever been able to understand for myself. What makes Bakhtin such a masterful theorist is his methodical approach to understanding an author's work discussing the historical influence of form and the critical misinterpretations that have preceded the work. He is so attentive to levels of narration that he is able to identify voices in relation to the author and the other characters. This helps to clarify the structure of the narrative and the many ways we can interpret it. Many people have marvelled at the brilliance of Doestoevsky's work but haven't been able to put their finger on why it is so great. Bahktin not only names the reason, but also gives an incredible amount of thorough evidence as to why this is so in a comprehensible way. The technical theory is easy to understand as he is very careful to define his terms and the reasons he uses them. His survey of the development of literary forms, particularly the carnavelesque is informed and inspiring, but be careful as it is slightly idealistic and, though perfectly relevant, you feel that he is assimilating it a little too easy to his critique of Doestoevsky. The narrative techniques he identifies are not only useful in understanding Doestoevskys work but are incredibly useful in thinking about current authors. This is a very important piece of critical work I have come back to again and again.

This book is the ideal introduction to the thought of Mikhail Bakhtin. Bakhtin is becoming established as one of the giants of 20th century literary criticsm, despite his work being unknown in the West until the 1970's. This book is less about Dostoyevsky per se, rather a profound meditation on how Dostoyevsky's art exemplifies the central concern of Bakhtin, the concept of 'dialogism'. This idea defies a simple definition; the book in exploring manifold aspects of it, itself becomes truly dialogic. If you value Dostoyevsky as an artist, require an antidote to the chill winds of modern 'Theory', or simply appreciate genius at work, catch up with one of the best kept secrets in literature

Bakhtin's seminal work owes a lot to thinkers like Nietzsche, buy by gum, does he stand on his own. The most brilliant exposition I've read on Dostoevsky (with Rozanov in second place) and perhaps the most perceptive and insightful comments on the literary process and theory this century.

The ideas are evaporating.

Try to imagine a place called Saint Paul
where anyone who raises a finger finger
will be sucked up in a mushroom cloud
of stupidity. Then you need the two songs
at the end of the Mutineer (1995) CD by Warren Zevon.

Monkey Wash
Donkey Rinse
(by Warren Zevon and Duncan Aldrich)

Hell is only half full
Room for you and me
Looking for a new fool
Who's it gonna be?

Mutineer (by Warren Zevon)

You're my witness
I'm your mutineer
Grab your coat - let's get out of here

Instead of engaging in apple pie social activities, people have become excited about trying to solve the world's problems. I am disappointed that the index of Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetic (1984) by Mikhail Bakhtin does not locate what has been said about Earth as a level in the works of Dostoevsky. For Otto Kaus, the struggle in Dostoevsky's world that can never be resolved reflects the spirit of capitalism. The spirit of apple pie was destroyed, as I quote:

Capitalism destroyed the isolation
of these worlds, broke down the
seclusion and inner ideological
self-sufficiency of these social spheres.
In its tendency to level everything,
to leave intact no divisions except
the division between proletariat and
capitalist, capitalism jolted these
worlds and wove them into its own
contradictory evolving unity. (p. 19).

each of these pieces gravitates
toward the integral field of vision
of a specific character;
each makes sense only
at the level of a specific
consciousness. (p. 21).

The essence of polyphony
lies precisely in the fact
that the voices remain
independent (p. 21).

Engelhardt distinguishes
three planes in which
the action of the novel
can unfold. The first plane is
the "environment." (p. 23).

The second plane is the "soil." (p. 23).

And finally, the third plane
is the "earth." (p. 24).

"that wonderful garden
planted by the Lord," (p. 24).

As 2012 begins for us with everything so electrified that a bad storm can disrupt what people who normally have minimal contact with the weather expect to accomplish, our cracks in time also expose how we don't have any answers for questions that God had usually been pictured as a reason for having an answer. On a political level, stability is challenged by a cultural divide that can be pictured as the opposite of fair and square:

Sparta x x x x x x Spartacus
x
finger x x x x x x x finger us

Regimentation for uniformity still attempts to rid itself of dead wood that is not growing in productivity. The global village seems to search for a place where the press might have an answer, but the results merely finger the point at which people get turned into playgrounds. Bakhtin tells us:

Actually, the interrelationships
of worlds and planes in the novel -
in Engelhardt's terms, "environment,"
"soil," and "earth" - are in no sense
present in the novel as links in a unified
dialectical sequence, as stages along the path
in the evolution of a unified spirit. (p. 25).

Apple pie used to believe in itself as an ultimate justification, but each attempt "would cancel out all preceding links as abstract and totally superseded." (p. 26).

Privatization, as a movement to make resources like water a private commodity rather than a social good provided as a society sees a need to support areas or activities within its power to add or subtract, may succeed in changing society into a form of productive workers who accept little responsibility for anyone else, as in a song about:

Going to a party in the center of the earth
Monkey wash donkey rinse
Honey, don't you want to go?

Left eye, right eye
Take a look around
Everybody's heading
for a hole in the ground

What we live for now is parody:

in contrast to stylization parody
introduces into that discourse
a semantic intention that is
directly opposed to the original
one. The second voice, once having
made its home in the other's discourse,
clashes hostilely with its primordial host
and forces him to serve directly opposing aims.
Discourse becomes an arena of battle between
two voices. In parody . . . the deliberate
palpability of the other's discourse must be
particularly sharp and clearly marked. (p. 193).

Smart fellows have become sharp and extremely diverse.

Analogous to parodistic discourse
is ironic . . . use of someone else's
words; . . . conveying aspirations
that are hostile to it. (p. 194).

People who interact are constantly being driven crazy by expressions of doubt, indignation, irony, mockery, ridicule, and the like. Using "and the like" (p. 194) in this context exposes how people think.

Dude, I mean, like, Dostoevsky's poetics have, like, lossa problems man. I mean, like, what's the deal with that Marmaledov dude? Is he related to Ziggy or something? I don't get it man. It's all voodoo to me. But it's a good read, I mean, making love with his ego is such an, ahhhh, maybe I should keep this to myself. But I really dig that stuff about the landlady and the axe, that was inspirational, metatarsal, trippy dude. Whatever.