Devils

In Devils Dostoevsky mercilessly and adroitly "... depict[s] those diverse and multifarious motives by which even the purest of hearts and the most innocent of people can be drawn in to committing such a monstrous offence." This fierce allegorical tale is prophetic of the present bout of nihilism which also threatens a "... triumph [that] will stand very far from the Kingdom of Heaven". In the words of another writer – A fool's dream oft is a wise man's nightmare, Yet visions render saints and madmen joy; As wak'd all at accord desire the fair, Though some to tender, others to destroy. To reiterate some often trite advice, this book is essential reading for our times.

KUDOS TO OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS FOR BRINGING OUT SCHOLARLY TRANSLATION OF FYODOR'S NOVELS; THE ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS OF FYODORS'S NOVELS BY OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS ARE REALLY EXCELLENT, THEY BEING SUPPLEMENTED BY COPIOUS EXPLANATORY NOTES AND MASTERLY INTRODUCTIONS BY TALENTED SCHOLARS; NOW COMING TO THE NOVEL I WOULD LIKE TO MENTION THE FOLLOWING : THE NOVELIST IS A GENIUS WHO IS CAPABLE OF DEVELOPING EVEN SMALL AND INSIGNIFICANT EVENTS INTO HIGHLY INTERESTING MATTER FOR THE AVERAGE READER; AN EXAMPLE WILL SUFFICE; WHEN THE READER IS EXPECTING EAGERLY THE FATE OF SHATOV, SUDDENLY THERE EMERGES THE FEMALE TRAVELLER ,SHSATOV'S WIFE; THIS PARTICULAR CHAPTER CONSUMES AT LEAST TWENTY PAGES OF NORMAL EVENTS WHICH DO NOT PRODUCE ANY SUSPENSE OR INTEREST IN THE READER; HOWEVER AT THE END OF THE CHAPTER THE UTTERANCE MADE BY SHATVOIA'S WIFE THAT MR.STROVIGN IS A WORST CRIMINAL INDICATES A SUSPENSE WHICH IS REVEALED ONLY IN THE NEXT CHAPTER ; I PARTICULRLY ENJOYED THIS LEVEL OF SUSPENSE STUFFED IN BETWEEN THE TWO CHAPTERS; THE CHAPTER RELATING TO FULL NIGHT'S WORK IS ALSO THRILLING TO READ AND I FOUND IT EXTREMELY DIFFICULT TO PUT DOWN THE BOOK TILL I COMPLETED THE CHAPTER; THE BOOK IS WORTH THE MONEY PAID BY ME WITH REGARDS MURALIDHARAN MADRAS

I got this for a neighbour of mine as a gift and it was an excellent quality copy of this book. I'm not much of a reader but my neighbour said it is a great read. One of his favourite authors.

Came as expected. Clean. Lovely edition from Katz, I hope to have my life changed by reading this masterpiece.

Just finished the book. The introduction, translation, notes, layout is perfect. Oxford did a great job this time.

Difficult novel but worth persevering with. The Oxford edition has a good introduction and helpful notes. I read some criticism after I had finished it and this helped to understand the historical and literary background. A demanding novel but a great one!

Attracted to this edition by the ease of the translation, additional notes and character listing.

Book arrive on time. It is a great read, like every book by Dostoevsky. Recommended.

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Excellent translation.

Sensational novel - does take nearly 100 pages to gather momentum, but then takes off like a shot. Peter Stepanovich Verkhovensky is one of literature's great villains, a character you wish you could grab by the scruff of the neck and shake him senseless, then turn him over to the police. But "Devils" is packed with memorable characters and, of course, Dostoyevsky's philosophy. And some humor, actually. Right off we are introduced to Stepan Trofimiovich, a washed up intellectual, Peter's father, who has been sponging off Varvara Petrovna, Stavrogin's mother. He affects more influence than he's ever had, yet is a good friend of the "narrator." "Yet he was a very intelligent and talented man, even, so to say, a scholar, although, in fact, his scholarship...well, in a word, his scholarship had accomplished very little, in fact, it seems, it had accomplished nothing at all. But then that happens all the time with men of learning in Russia." Later, one Russian man wakes up following a bout with vodka, in "the heavy, oppressed, hazy condition of a man who's suddenly awaken after a long drinking-bout. He looked as though a couple of slaps on the back and he'd be drunk again immediately." There is, as always with Dostoyevsky, some implausible developments a reader just has to accept. Dostoyevsky loves to have scenes where two guys meet in a St. Petersburg bar, and they look at each other as if they recognize some deep connection. One will say something like, "I've just come back from Nova Scotia," and the other will cry, "Do you know, I had a feeling you were going to say you'd just gone to Nova Scotia." Ridiculous, but it's a familiar device with him. But all that pales before his monumental theme, that nihilism and socialism are tearing the society apart, that revolutionaries inevitable destroy but don't build, and that life divorced from a Christian sense of ethics leads to violence and chaos. D. famously took a real event, where a nihilist group led by the criminal Nechaev, murdered one of their own. "It was a peculiar time; something new was in the air, quite unlike the previous tranquility, something very peculiar indeed, and it was perceived everywhere..." Peter Stepanovich (Nechaev) first comes to our attention via nasty letters to his old man, who asks, "why is it all these desperate socialists and communists are also so incredibly miserly, acquisitive, and proprietorial? In fact, the more socialist someone is, the further he's gone in that direction, the stronger his proprietorial instinct." When we finally meet Peter, in a section "The wise serpent," he is described in satanic terms: "No one could say he was unattractive, yet no one liked his face. His head was elongated at the back, and seemed flattened at the sides, so his face appeared pointed. His forehead was high and narrow, but his features were small; his eyes were sharp, his nose small and pointed, his lips long and thin." Time and again, Peter Stepanovich has "an obvious desire to provoke by a naivete that was arrogant, premediated and intentionally rude." He is patently insincere with most everyone, a despicable man on most every level. The tortured soul Stavrogin, who Peter wants to use as a figurehead for his absurd dreams of revolution, sees through Peter repeatedly. Nevertheless, Peter's plans, which he sets in motion with his handful of accomplices, rip the town apart, leaving at least four people murdered and a good section of the town in smoldering, charred ruins. He is explicit in one passage where he lays out his infamous thinking to Stavrogin, in what was an eerie presentiment of Lenin's actual program. Peter is referring to the writings of another member of the group, Shigaylov: "The great intellects have always seized the power and been despots. The great intellects cannot help being despots and they’ve always done more harm than good. They will be banished or put to death. Cicero will have his tongue cut out, Copernicus will have his eyes put out, Shakespeare will be stoned - that’s Shivagolism. Slaves are bound to be equal. There has never been freedom or equality without despotism, but in the herd there is bound to be equality, and that’s Shigalovism!” “...Down with culture. We’ve had enough science! Without science we have material enough to go on for a thousand years, but one must have discipline. The one thing wanting in the world is discipline. The thirst for culture is an aristocratic thirst. The moment you have family ties or love you get the desire for property. We will destroy that desire; we’ll make use of drunkenness, slander, spying; we’ll make use of incredible corruption; we’ll stifle every genius in his infancy. We’ll reduce all to a common denominator! Complete equality!...Only the necessary is necessary, that’s the motto of the whole world henceforward. But it needs a shock. That’s for us, the directors, to look after. Slaves must have directors. Absolute submission, absolute loss of the individuality, but once in thirty years Shigalov would let them have a shock and they would all suddenly begin eating one another up, to a certain point, simply as a precaution against boredom...Shigalovism is for the slaves.” In the end, he gets his group to murder Shatov who, in one of those improbable Dostoyevskian turn of events, is unexpected joined by his pregnant wife the night before he is to be clipped. It changes his outlook, of course, and Dostoyevsky has a wonderful passage when the child is born and how it impacts Shatov. From that point on, Shatov seems to speak for Dostoyevsky. He has split from the socialist group. "But who was it I deserted? Enemies of real life; antiquated little liberals afraid of their own independence; lackeys of thought, enemies of personality and freedom, decrepit preachers of death and decay! What do they have? Old age, the golden mean, base philistine mediocrity, envious equality, equality with no sense of dignity, equality as understood by lackeys or Frenchmen in 1793...But the main thing is, they're all scoundrels, scoundrels, scoundrels, and more scoundrels." Just who the narrator is of "Devils" is a topic scholars have pondered for decades. It seems to be different people, yet much of it is told in the first person. But most readers won't get tangled up in that. The whole is an amazing, powerful book that deserves rereading.

Great story and writing style

Very good novel by one of the greatest novelists