Demons

The most political of Dostoyevsky's novels, "Demons" (1872) is also one of his most enjoyable. In a provincial city in the heart of Russia Dostoyevsky set the stage for a showdown between the Westernizers and the Slavophiles. The title has been a point of contention over the years, however "Demons" is the only possible translation of the Russian title "Бесы". With all due respect to Constance Garnett, Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky have translated the title correctly. What are the demons? The demons are all of the Western ideas which Dostoyevsky the Slavophile saw infiltrating Mother Russia: nihilism, republicanism, socialism, materialism, individualism, anarchy and atheism. Rather than writing just a political tract Dostoyevsky produced a tale of political intrigue, social unrest, murder and suicide. What else could result from the importation of Western demons to Russia? "Demons", then, is an attack on the Westernizers and their cherished ideas, ideas best left in Europe. The cold-blooded murder of one of the conspirators by his comrades foreshadowed the callous disregard of life shown by the Bolsheviks; in this Dostoyevsky was a true prophet. "Demons" is a novel in which Dostoyevsky's moral insight shines brightly. It is also a good story, a tale well told by a great author. This edition contains an introduction by the translators, a list of characters with stress marks to aid in correct pronunciation and it also contains the chapter entitled "At Tikhon's" which was rejected by the magazine in which "Demons" first appeared serially. It is a chapter which Dostoyevsky valued but was never able to rewrite to the magazine editor's satisfaction. This chapter, included as an appendix, is worth reading as it does a lot to illuminate the character of Nikolai Vsevolodovich Stavrogin.

A compelling read that delves into the depths of the human psyche and ideological extremism.

Good. Folded pages.

Book is good but the fonts and the paper quality is despicable. Not something that can archived for a long time.

A classic. Dostoyevsky’s lampooning of his fellow writers at a soirée is hilarious. Was Pyotr Stepanovich, who escapes on the train at the end, part of a wider network of nihilists or just a sadist? We’ll never know but I’d say the former. The core group and the other nihilists didn't seem like they could organize a night out in a brewery, at one point they had a mini meeting to decide if they were having a meeting, and when they took the stage at the event near the end of the book a female student kept interrupting and throwing out leaflets about student rights. Pyotr Stepanovich got out of in the nick of time at the end. At one point Dostoyevsky has him tell Von Lembke that he 'lost' von Lembke's manuscript for his first novel, not yet sent to the publisher, which shows how Dostoyevsky rated his Pyotr Stepanovich's character.