Demons

[Radio Saturday]

hey radiohead...I'd like to hear the story about how the book got lost and how it reappered two years later. Can you elaborate?

I didn'ty loose it, really, since I knew exactly where it was the entire time. See, I had it with me in France when I was here two years ago. I left it here, thinking I would be back at the end of the summer. Well, stuff happened with the dad-man's job and we haven't been able to come back until now.

But it was exactly where I left it -- in a box in my Godmother's attic. So unless you broke into her house, Foxhead (which I hope you didn't) I doubt that it's yours.    

[vanka]

a question on the summary from the http://community.middlebury.edu/~beyer/courses/previous/ru351/novels/devils/summary.shtml website..

"Stavrogin, preceded by Peter Stepanovich, enters the scene after having been away from home for quite some time. He denies his marriage to Marya, but calls her his good friend and then escorts her home. Peter remains to unveil the truth of the actual marriage, explains why Stavrogin denies the marriage, and disgraces his father Stephan. Varvara leaves to take Stephan home and in the her absence: Shatov strikes Stavrogin in the face, Stavrogin intentionally restrains himself, Shatov slips away, and Liza begins having fits."
--
who denies his marriage to whom? is stavrogin saying that he's not married to marya, or is he telling marya he's not married. and what does marya (the cripple?) have to do with either of them being married? i'm confused..

[underworld men]

a question on the summary from the http://community.middlebury.edu/~beyer/courses/previous/ru351/novels/devils/summary.shtml website..

"Stavrogin, preceded by Peter Stepanovich, enters the scene after having been away from home for quite some time. He denies his marriage to Marya, but calls her his good friend and then escorts her home. Peter remains to unveil the truth of the actual marriage, explains why Stavrogin denies the marriage, and disgraces his father Stephan. Varvara leaves to take Stephan home and in the her absence: Shatov strikes Stavrogin in the face, Stavrogin intentionally restrains himself, Shatov slips away, and Liza begins having fits."
--
who denies his marriage to whom? is stavrogin saying that he's not married to marya, or is he telling marya he's not married. and what does marya (the cripple?) have to do with either of them being married? i'm confused..

Well Stavrogin's intent would or could be motivated by his marriage to M. I think that is what your asking?

[vanka]

i think i havent read the book thoroughly enough..  

but as i said, i was confused.. re-read it, and am on top of it  

[myshka]

I have just finished reading it, and the book is simply beautiful.

Nikolay Stavrogin's meeting with priest Tikhon's shows why Fido is by far one of the greatest authors.. it is breath taking how every cause was analyzed how every thought was interpreted. IS there any Russian writer who is half as good now days ?  

on a different note :
 
"No one is to blame, I did it myself" wasn't this line used in TKB?

[Grinderman]

First of all, I would like to say hello, and apologize for language mistakes i may probably make (if I make any, please correct me), because I'm Polish and I don't use English that good .

So...

Don't you think that Stepan Trofimovitch Verhovensky probably represents the man in Luke's gospel who is possessed by demons (occidentalism, fourierism etc.). He influences the younger (60's) generation, and then before death he turns to believe in God, so it's like his "demons" left him, and possessed the swines (the younger generation consisting mostly of people without "moral backbone", unable to carry the ideals - that's why they are swine, not men).

Or  maybe what I wrote is too obvious to mention?

Best regards!

[Lia]

Hello and welcome!

I think Stephan Trofimovich is half insane when he turns to God - he understands what’s going on but can’t do anything about it, his son is a monster, everybody is heading towards disaster, his ideals are shattered and his entire life proves to be a lie, an illusion.

But they all act like they are possessed – whenever they must make a major decision, every time one of them should see the strings and the master of puppets, they are blinded by greed, stupidity, ambition or passion (like it usually happens to most of us).

[Lia]

What I meant is that they act this way BEFORE poor Stephan Trofimovich’s personal demons could leave him. After all, Kirillov, Stavroghin and even Shatov had the power to stop Piotr Stephanovich almost from the beginning, but none of them does anything.

[Grinderman]

Well, you're right, he turned to believe a lot later, but... maybe D. wrote it that way to make it realistic (He needed a reason for Stepan to change his mind, starting to believe just like that wouldn't make that much sense), I think, that the symbolism doesn't have to be exactly the same?

P.S.
I hope this forum will get back to life

[Scoundrel]

>>Stavrogin remains enigmatic because he is imperfectly drawn (even great writers can get it wrong sometimes). If the deleted chapter, ‘At Tikhon’s’ is taken into account, his character becomes even more improbable, so that it’s not surprising the author took the conscious decision to leave this chapter out in later re-prints. <<


I thought that 'At Tihon's' was censored by the Tzarist regime...no?

[Worm]

Yes, it was... but it remained preserved, and later it got published..

.. it's an amusing thought that a book can get published ... without several chapters in it ... and that the chapters get published many many years later..

[Oblomov]

Interesting to read these comments having just finished the book...

The Stravogin/Dracula theory & Mitya's "unsuperintellectual thoughts" about the parents were things I didn't originally pick up on, that I can see the merit in...

Prince Myshkin (or was it the narrator from notes from underground? ) sounded slightly unhinged, but I think some of his points were unfairly shot down:

Surely the serpent was Peter, and not Stavrogin? You could argue for either character tempting others to do bad things a la the biblical snake, but I thought the clue was in the chapter 'The Wise Serpent' being the one in which Peter made his first appearance...

Myshkin was also right about Peter not changing his mind about disposing of Shatov, he was merely waiting for the right moment.

re Peter's motives, I thought they were basically just pursuit of power, in a rather psychotic way.
Obviously he was based on the historical Sergey Nechayevan, but I also thought it was quite scarily prophetic of the likes of Stalin.
What a thoroughly nasty character, besides the psychosis, being alternately bullying and toadying, depending on who he was talking to... there are people like that in world, The Man knew what he was writing about!

re whose fault, I agree this is a wishy-washy question, Butterfly's talk of wouldn't Peter have done x if Stavrogin hadn't existed is meaningless- if any of the main characters didn't exist, things would have turned out differently, but the point is they did all exist in the novel's situation, just as events in real life happen the only way they can, because once they've happened there's no alternative.
The different instigators' (the would-be revolutionies from the 40's like Stephen or 60's like Shigalyov/Virginsky + obviously the main 2 characters) varying levels of blame can be argued to the toss, but I took the key (and cautionary) point to be how Shatov's murderers were easily led into doing something they either didn't really want to do or were incapable of thinking about properly.
Again, perfect insight of human nature by Dostoevsky, as has been seen time & time again both on a large scale (Nazism, Rwanda, Balkans etc) and small; cast your mind back to school (it sometimes still happens with adults in offices!), when one kid was being bullied by a larger group, there's normally only one or two instigators with the rest just following...

In reply to the original poster (5 years later!), my translation was by Magarschack. I thought it was really good, definitely the easiest to read Dostoevsky novel (as opposed to short story) I've read so far (such a page-turner that I read it in 2 weeks flat, unheard of for me for a 700 page serious work of literature) - don't know if that's due to the quality of the story or translation though.

Anyway, I really enjoyed it. Aside from the obvious tragedies, I thought a lot of it was funny too, appealing to my slightly puerile English humour:
Did anyone else notice the parallels to Peter Cook & Dudley Moore in the scene with Semyon Yakovlevich (kick her in the ___     ), & with Rik's 'wevolutionary' friends from The Young Ones in the meeting At Virginsky's?

Sorry for the long (first) post, I hope 2 years isn't too long to resurrect this discussion!