Saint Fyodor

  • In “Ortho­dox Spir­i­tu­al­ity,” a lit­tle vol­ume by “A Monk of the East­ern Church” that I’ve been mak­ing my way through, there was an appen­dix with an inter­est­ing overview of where the Church is on a lot of dif­fer­ent fronts — sort of a State of the Union address for the Ortho­dox. I assume this por­tion was writ­ten by the edi­tor that issued the 1987 revised edi­tion. Since the orig­i­nal book was writ­ten in 1945, it could hardly have had this con­tem­po­rary of an analy­sis on where we are.

    This pas­sage in the appen­dix caught my attention:

    The names of Dos­toyevsky, of Bul­gakov and Berdyaev are those which come to mind most eas­ily when one dwells on the spir­i­tual atmos­phere of the ear­li­est Russ­ian emi­grants. Many Rus­sians, and, mis­led by them, many West­ern­ers, have seen in these men three rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Ortho­dox spir­i­tu­al­ity. In fact, none of these three, whose tal­ent was unmis­tak­able, was such. Dos­toyevsky can move us deeply, but nei­ther his pri­vate life, nor his exces­sive nation­al­ism, nor his hatred for the Jews, nor his cul­tus of the Mother Earth, cor­re­sponds with the Gospel of Christ; and the monks of Optina refused to reckon as “theirs” Aliocha Kara­ma­zov and his spir­i­tual father, Zos­sima, how­ever attrac­tive they may have been.

    Well, I had won­dered about that. The Dos­toyevsky I’ve read I’ve really liked, but I’ve heard Ortho­dox peo­ple quote “Broth­ers Karamo­zov” as if they were quot­ing the Desert Fathers. I haven’t read the book, and I hope that if I do, I can see why it is so near and dear to our hearts. But I find myself a lit­tle wary of the cult sta­tus of Dos­toyevsky, and so I’m a lit­tle cau­tious of jump­ing into it.

    In the spirit of full dis­clo­sure, I’ll men­tion that I read “Crime and Pun­ish­ment” not long ago and was a lit­tle dis­ap­pointed. Though it’s def­i­nitely good, it didn’t seem to me to come up to the “clas­sic lit­er­a­ture” mark. And more specifically:

    • I didn’t think it came up to the mark of some of the short sto­ries that I liked very much, like “Notes from the Under­ground” and “The Dream of a Ridicu­lous Man.”
    • I’ve been try­ing to find out if it was first pub­lished in ser­ial install­ments in a mag­a­zine. That always gives things a plot that is more like a trip down the Grand Canyon by burro than the more trimmed down jour­ney I’m used to in a book — full of stops and starts, plod­ding along, but cer­tainly enough to fill the eye at any given time.
    • I was pre­pared for some of the Russ­ian dark­ness, but I wasn’t pre­pared for the chap­ters and chap­ters of grind­ing poverty, alco­holism, hunger, sleep­less­ness, depres­sion, fever and mad­ness. I was really look­ing for­ward to the big Chris­t­ian turn­ing point I had heard about, only to dis­cover that if you blink, you miss it.

    I’ll prob­a­bly go ahead and read “Broth­ers Karamo­zov” soon, because I feel like it’s just some­thing an Ortho­dox reader is sup­posed to do. And maybe I’ll be post­ing an entry after that going into rap­tures as well. But if I find myself want­ing to put the book jacket photo of him on my icon stand, I’m going to con­fes­sion for it, that’s all.


    Related posts:

    1. Spir­i­tual Coun­sels by Fr. John of Kronstadt
    2. Becom­ing Ortho­dox by Peter E. Gillquist
    3. Hillary does Ebonics
    4. A Trea­sury of Russ­ian Spir­i­tu­al­ity by G. P. Fedotov
    5. Got a favorite Lenten book?

    April 15th, 2007 | Grace | 12 Comments |

12 Responses and Counting...

  • Cather­ine K. 04.15.2007

    Broth­ers Kara­ma­zov I found won­der­ful, and indeed is the best novel I’ve ever read. It is dark, yes, but he is good at not only show­ing those dark places that are in the heart, but Dos­toyevsky doesn’t leave you there — he shows the way back to the light — though not in the way a west­ern writer would. The Idiot is another good book as well — some say it is bet­ter to read The Idiot first and THEN the Broth­ers, but I don’t think it matters.

    Back in the old days, when I lived a very dif­fer­ent life and was in total rebel­lion, the “Broth­ers K.” (as I gen­er­ally refer to the book), really got past my bar­ri­ers and showed me that there was always hope no mat­ter what we may have done.

    The most pow­er­ful thing I ever heard about Dos­toyevsky is that he was a man who knew how to repent (which I think may have been said by one of the Optina Elders) — may that be said of me when my time has come…

  • Grace

    Boy, talk about a ring­ing endorse­ment (for the author and the book)!

    I had been won­der­ing about “The Idiot.” Just based on sub­ject mat­ter, it sounds like it has the more pro­nounced Chris­t­ian mes­sage. But it doesn’t seem to get any­where near the rave reviews of “BK” (– if I may make so bold as to abbreviate).

  • Cather­ine K.

    I have heard it sug­gested that a good order to read them in is Crime and Pun­ish­ment, The Idiot and then Broth­ers Kara­ma­zov. They, and all of his other nov­els are well worth read­ing — though the trans­la­tor really does mat­ter (look for the trans­la­tions by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhon­sky) — but Broth­ers K. is my favorite. The same trans­la­tors also do a good job with Gogol (and prob­a­bly any­one else they translate).

    There are also lesser known nov­els that are well worth read­ing, such is “Demons”, some­times it has the title “The Pos­sessed” — it shows what hap­pens to a town when cer­tain peo­ple come to town.…

    I really don’t think that kids should be forced to read Dos­toyevsky in school — it is my opin­ion that a lit­tle life under our belts, and a com­ing acknowl­edg­ment of our sins, really does help to delve into his nov­els. I am not say­ing kids SHOULDN’T read him, just that they shouldn’t be forced into it. But that is just my opin­ion :)

    I have recently learned of a novel of his I haven’t heard of before: “The Ado­les­cent”, it is on my list :)

  • Grace

    With that in mind, maybe I’ll read “The Idiot” next. It prob­a­bly doesn’t mat­ter too much, but since I have the lux­ury of tak­ing it in what­ever order I want, I might as well make the most of it.

    The idea of the books that you SHOULDN’T read in school is worth its own post, or maybe its own blog. And some peo­ple would totally dis­agree and think that you have to give kids big shoes to grow into. But a pub­lic school edu­ca­tion being what it is, there are cer­tainly kids who just don’t get the read­ings they’re given and think lit­er­a­ture just isn’t for them.

  • Cather­ine K.

    When I said they “shouldn’t” read them I wasn’t say­ing that Dos­toyevsky is too large for them — but that (at least these days), so many of them haven’t been exposed to lit­er­a­ture that expects things of them — and that they haven’t grown enough yet to really “get it” — thus they get turned off entirely.

    Cer­tainly not all kinds fit that descrip­tion, but I still think a lit­tle life under the belt helps one to read Dos­toyevsky — but that is sim­ply one woman’s thought :)

  • Cather­ine K.

    ummmm, I meant not all KIDS fit that descrip­tion :)

  • Mimi

    I’ve read “BK” twice, and nei­ther time felt very smart by the time I got to the end. I remem­ber it in snip­pets, which upon my recent (Last Lent) re-read is really because it is a series of snippets.

    I need to re-read “Crime and Pun­ish­ment” how­ever, that one I loved.

  • Grace

    Cather­ine:
    Actu­ally, “kinds” works too. :-)

  • Grace

    Mimi,
    I think I might get more out of re-reading C&P another time. I was expect­ing some­thing a lit­tle dif­fer­ent, but there really is a lot there to think about.

  • Cather­ine K.

    Be sure to look for a trans­la­tion by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhon­sky. The trans­la­tor REALLY makes a dif­fer­ence, and they do beau­ti­ful work.

  • Mimi

    I’ve heard good things about that trans­la­tion, I have the older Con­stance Gar­nett one, which isn’t as good. But, it was the one assigned in college.

  • Cather­ine K.

    From what I have been able to tell, that par­tic­u­lar team of trans­la­tors always do an excel­lent job and have a very good rep­u­ta­tion. They don’t only trans­late books from Russ­ian, but I’ve seen some of the French clas­sics and some oth­ers that they have worked on.

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