5/31/2023 0 Comments Dostoevsky a writer in his time![]() ![]() For those who don't know the story, Dostoevsky's first novel Poor Folk was passed before publication to a legendary critic/blowhard called Vissarion Belinsky who promptly declared that Dostoevsky was the heir to Gogol. Meanwhile I have been reminded of Dostoevsky's dramatic life story: his father's murder his mock execution and exile his gambling madness and his calamitous debut on the St Petersburg literary scene. It's fascinating to observe how both the racy volume and dryly critical work were constructed from the same source materials. (I'm saving Joseph Frank's five-volume epic for later). It's a great read, so much so that I decided to ride the wave of pleasure and seize the moment to simultaneously plough through some of the heavier Dostoevsky tomes sitting on my shelves, including the selected letters and the joyless prose of Konstantin Mochulsky's critical biography. Recently I picked up Henri Troyat's Firebrand which is an old-fashioned, novelistic account of FD's life. My favourite Russian author is Dostoevsky, whose best books are not just profound examinations of the human soul etc, but also nasty, violent, ironic, caustic, and (at times) extremely funny. ![]()
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