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105 of 126 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Most Prophetic Novel of All Time, August 31, 1999
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.
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Just another opinion, May 6, 2007
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.
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A re-affirmation of life, August 13, 2003
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.
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