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The Devils: The Possessed (Penguin Classics) Paperback – February 28, 1954

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Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Author)
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Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Author), David Magarshack (Translator, Introduction)
4.2 out of 5 stars 31 customer reviews
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Product Details

  • Paperback: 704 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin Classics; Reprint edition (February 28, 1954)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0140440356
  • ISBN-13: 978-0140440355
  • Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 1.4 x 7.8 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #257,036 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsPolitically prescient, historically significant
By A.J. on March 26, 2003
Format: Paperback
I've always felt that fiction is like a window to the past, and with "The Devils," Dostoevsky gives us a clear glimpse at the underground politics brewing in Czarist Russia. At the same time, his propensity to write about criminals and people with criminal hearts is nowhere more emphasized among his major novels than in this one. There is not one character I could identify as a traditional hero, not even the semi-anonymous narrator, who relates the novel's events with the impartiality of a security camera; they are all antiheros -- a room full of Raskolnikovs.
The novel concerns a small band of Russian intellectuals, atheists, socialists, anarchists, and various other rabble who are distributing subversive leaflets in an attempt to incite the proletariat to revolt against the government. They are a motley group, destined to fail because they lack general competence, organizational skills, a clear agenda, definite plans, and even uniform ideas. The only thing they have in common is that they don't like the way things currently are in Russia and intend to change them, violently if necessary.
Among this group we meet Nicholas Stavrogin, an obnoxious, insensitive young man who is only looking out for himself and is not above having affairs with his friends' wives. The group's prime mover and instigator is Peter Verkhovensky, whose father Stepan had been Nicholas's tutor and is still living platonically with Nicholas's widowed mother, one of the wealthier citizens of the town in which the novel takes place.Read more ›
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4.0 out of 5 starsDostoevsky's "Problem Novel"
By Bruce Kendall VINE VOICE on October 2, 2000
Format: Paperback
Just as Shakespeare wrote what came to be termed "problem plays" (Measure for Measure, The Winter's Tale, etc.) Dostoevsky also presents us with a novel that really doesn't fit in with the rest of the cannon. The Possessed (or The Devils or The Demons, depending on translation) is generally regarded as fourth on the list of his major works (The Brothers Karamozov, Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, The Possessed, in descending order).
There is much to commend in this novel, including Dostoevsky's usual superb mastery of characterization. In this instance too, this Russian master makes each character come alive on the page.
One of Dostoevsky's unique qualities is his ability to create diverse, volatile, personalities who are fated to meet at the most inopportune times and in the most combustible circumstances. He builds suspense by characterization, rather than plot, then throws his combatants together in the most marvellous group scenes in literature. In The Brother's Karamazov, such a scene occurs at Zosima's Monastery, in Crime and Punishment, at the wake, in The Idiot, at Mishkin's birthday party, and in The Possessed, this attribute is displayed better than ever, but particularly in the scene where Nicholas Stavrogin and Pyotr Verkhovensky make their first appearances (yes, it is almost half-way through the novel that the main characers are introduced!). Dostoevsky constructs tension as well as any novelist who ever lived.
What is often overlooked in Dostoevsky discussions, however, is the fact that he is a great comic writer, in the tradition of Gogol. If one goes by Auerbach's definition of comedy, for instance, (that a happy ending determines whether a work is tragic or comic) then Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamozov would indeed fall under this rubric.Read more ›
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5.0 out of 5 starsQuintessential Dostoyevsky
By Yan Timanovsky on July 31, 2001
Format: Paperback
This is an amazing book. Pervaded by Dostoevsky's usual characterization, the author reaches into the souls of his numerous characters as only he and very few others can. This story has Dostoevsky's favorite existential philosophic undercurrents. The story is an account of how the budding socialist revolutionary movement affects one small Russian town. Dostoevsky gives this phenomenon the treatment it deserves - a mocking condescension with an amusing portrayal or people who are drawn to radical movements. The result is a novel filled with humor. The tragedy is is presented as a natural consequence of people who are making mistakes at every step, confusing sensibility for absurdity. That is what their "possession" really is. It is about a whole generation caught up in the materialization and nihilism of the 19th century resulting from the scientific revolution. To me, this book is on par or surpasses The Brothers Karamazov. It may be viewed as either an atheistic challenge taken up in the latter book or as a repudiation of atheism manifested in one level of the latter. Whatever it is, it's more proof that Dostoevsky is the greatest writer who ever lived.
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5.0 out of 5 starsThe Possessed, or, Demons
By Damian Kelleher on August 12, 2004
Format: Paperback
Demons opens up with a brief exposition on the two decade long relationship between the reckless, impulsive poet, Stepan Trofimovich, and the woman who keeps him, the rich, aloof, forever exasperated landowner, Varvara Petrovna. Theirs is a strange relationship, but perhaps not so uncommon then as it would be now. Stepan Trofimovich's reputation lies on the creativity of his youth, now, approaching fifty, these glory days are all but behind him. He has become little more than a celebrated scholar. Varvara loves him, but is waiting for him to declare it, something he will never do. While much given to spouting romantic phrases in both French and Russian at the drop of a hat, he is a flighty, inconsistent man. He loves her very much, but prefers to reveal his feelings to the mostly nameless narrator with moans and groans about his fate.

During this long 'Not an Introduction', we are introduced, also, to the many and varied inhabitants of the small Russian town. Most of the characters - and even many of the very minor ones - are fully fleshed out, with families, backgrounds, desires, thoughts, hopes, dreams, motives. A few in particular stand out. There is Krillov, the man who is determined to end his life not through depression or melancholy, but through a choice, allowing himself to be the first man to have free-will, and thus to become God. But he is burdened with this responsibility, endlessly philosophising with himself through sleepless nights. Shatov, the bitter student, a man who wants to fight God but cannot, who tried his luck in America and failed. Karmazinov, the once-great author, losing his talent and perhaps his mind, inflated by an unjustifiable sense of self-worth. Lebyadkin, the drunken captain with the lame sister, a secret shame he never reveals.Read more ›
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 starsNot The Easiest Read

I think that 'The Brothers Karamazov' and 'Crime and Punishment' were Dostoevski's greatest achievements. Read more

Published 1 month ago by Phil B
4.0 out of 5 starsDostoyevsky. A classic. Not for all tastes, ...

Dostoyevsky. A classic. Not for all tastes, but valuable if you stick with it. My main criticism (about the same for all of Dostoyevsky's books)are the long monologs. Read more

Published 5 months ago by Linda Villesvik
5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

thank you

Published 8 months ago by Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 starsGood.

Good.

Published on September 28, 2014 by Dragon Irish
5.0 out of 5 starsAn Unjustly Ignored Translation

Magarshack's translations of Dostoevsky have been eclipsed by the more recent Peaver and ... can't recall the spelling of her name for the moment ... Read more

Published on November 30, 2013 by reading man
5.0 out of 5 starsDostoevsky's third best novel

The title in Russian is "Besy". English translations have appeared under the titles "The Devils", "Demons", and "The Possessed". Read more

Published on February 1, 2012 by R. M. Peterson
5.0 out of 5 starsDostoyevsky's The Devils is one of the world's greatest political...

Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-81) along with Count Leo Tolstoy is at the very apex of Russian novelistic masters. Read more

Published on January 25, 2010 by C. M Mills
5.0 out of 5 starsone of dostoyevksy's best

this poor novel does not get the attention it deserves. it is far better than the idiot and on par with notes from underground. Read more

Published on December 19, 2006 by defendant k.
4.0 out of 5 starsThe Laodiceans

The four years that Dostoyevski spent in a Siberian prison for "liberal" activities during his mid-twenties indelibly influenced his later literary efforts. Read more

Published on September 1, 2006 by Jerry Clyde Phillips
5.0 out of 5 starsRats with perverted minds

Dostoyevsky's possessed are not only the politically perverted minds, but also the psychic, religious or amorous possessed. Read more

Published on August 25, 2006 by Luc REYNAERT

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