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duffypratt 's review for:
Devils
by Fyodor Dostoevsky
challenging
dark
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Maybe the best way to describe this book is as a dark satire. It thoroughly skewers nearly every aspect of Russian provincial life, from the emptiness of the aristocracy, to the buffoonery, greed and vanity of the middle/merchant class, to the plight of the ex-serfs who are in no ways noble. And the worst of the bunch are the revolutionaries, who either believe in nothing at all or are entirely self-serving.
The extraordinary thing is how, while taking this entirely bleak and pessimistic view overall, Dostoevsky manages to individuate his extremely large cast of characters. These people are all extremely flawed and all utterly human, and they are all entirely distinct from each other. This goes for Nikolai, the prince, who basically only feels alive when he does something perverse, or when he is the victim of anothers outrageous insult. It also goes for Aleksei, who looks forward to committing suicide because that would be the only pure demonstration of his own freedom and would elevate himself to the status of a god. Then there are the more ordinary characters, like Pyotr, who was abandoned by his father as a child and is spending his life as a revolutionary entirely to service his own ends, and who also doesn't see that all of his actions are basically a way for him to avenge his father. (And that is my interpretation, the end result is much more complicated.)
There is so much here on the level of character, and in many ways, the structure of the book makes it feel more like it is a telling of the collision of these characters than it is the telling of some "plot." Indeed, there is so much interweaving of the stories here that I'm not sure whose story, ultimately, this book is. (Even in War and Peace, it's fairly easy to say that the story is Pierre's, on the one hand, and Natasha's on the other. Les Miserables is Jean Valjean's. Infinite Jest is Hal Incandenza's. Here, I'm not so sure.)
At the same time, the narrative of the book is a mess. It takes a long time for it to get going. Indeed, after 100 pages or so, I was so confused about what the book might be about that I considered putting it aside. I'm very glad I didn't, and now it's a sure candidate for rereading.
Also, the book pretends to be a first person account. The narrator is present for many scenes and plays a very small role in the story itself. But there are also large chunks of the book where the narrative appears to slip into third person omniscient. Not only are we told in full detail what people said at scenes where the narrator was not present. We are told what they thought. And I would have to go back and check, but I believe there are examples where the narrator could not know these things, or even have them reported to him, because the people in the scenes died.
On that, I just have to shrug my shoulders and accept that Dostoevsky did not follow his own rules. On that level, he is not like Nabokov or other modern writers. And I don't think he is like Faulkner - this is not Addie Bundren giving her stream of consciousness monologue from her coffin. It's just a minor weakness.
I don't think this book is as good as Crime and Punishment or Brothers Karamozov, largely because it is so unwieldy and so bleak. But it is extraordinarily in its own right and deserves more attention.
The extraordinary thing is how, while taking this entirely bleak and pessimistic view overall, Dostoevsky manages to individuate his extremely large cast of characters. These people are all extremely flawed and all utterly human, and they are all entirely distinct from each other. This goes for Nikolai, the prince, who basically only feels alive when he does something perverse, or when he is the victim of anothers outrageous insult. It also goes for Aleksei, who looks forward to committing suicide because that would be the only pure demonstration of his own freedom and would elevate himself to the status of a god. Then there are the more ordinary characters, like Pyotr, who was abandoned by his father as a child and is spending his life as a revolutionary entirely to service his own ends, and who also doesn't see that all of his actions are basically a way for him to avenge his father. (And that is my interpretation, the end result is much more complicated.)
There is so much here on the level of character, and in many ways, the structure of the book makes it feel more like it is a telling of the collision of these characters than it is the telling of some "plot." Indeed, there is so much interweaving of the stories here that I'm not sure whose story, ultimately, this book is. (Even in War and Peace, it's fairly easy to say that the story is Pierre's, on the one hand, and Natasha's on the other. Les Miserables is Jean Valjean's. Infinite Jest is Hal Incandenza's. Here, I'm not so sure.)
At the same time, the narrative of the book is a mess. It takes a long time for it to get going. Indeed, after 100 pages or so, I was so confused about what the book might be about that I considered putting it aside. I'm very glad I didn't, and now it's a sure candidate for rereading.
Also, the book pretends to be a first person account. The narrator is present for many scenes and plays a very small role in the story itself. But there are also large chunks of the book where the narrative appears to slip into third person omniscient. Not only are we told in full detail what people said at scenes where the narrator was not present. We are told what they thought. And I would have to go back and check, but I believe there are examples where the narrator could not know these things, or even have them reported to him, because the people in the scenes died.
On that, I just have to shrug my shoulders and accept that Dostoevsky did not follow his own rules. On that level, he is not like Nabokov or other modern writers. And I don't think he is like Faulkner - this is not Addie Bundren giving her stream of consciousness monologue from her coffin. It's just a minor weakness.
I don't think this book is as good as Crime and Punishment or Brothers Karamozov, largely because it is so unwieldy and so bleak. But it is extraordinarily in its own right and deserves more attention.