Wonderful stories - very Russian.

These early stories are compelling on their own, but their main interest for readers of Dostoevsky will be the way they anticipate his later, more fully realized works – in particular Notes from the Underground, Crime & Punishment, and The Brothers Karamazov. Many of the classic Dostoevskyan themes can be found here, like the idea that human freedom (especially the freedom to be immoral or to debase oneself) exposes the lie behind utopian ideals, or that human suffering (especially the suffering of children) throws a wrench into religious beliefs about universal salvation and eternal harmony.

Even some of the individual scenes in these stories echo in his later work, and you can tell they haven’t quite been worked out yet – it’s like a practice run, Dostoevsky working up the nerve to push his scenarios to their ultimate extreme. A couple of characters have scary dreams, for instance, but none holds a candle to Svidrigailov’s “triple nightmare” in Crime & Punishment, or Ivan Karamazov’s dream conversation with the Devil. Dostoevsky also sharpens his mastery of the scandalous scene, the set piece that drags out an outrage past endurance. The opening story, “A Nasty Anecdote,” is about a wedding reception that gets progressively more outrageous through the night, and the title story, “The Eternal Husband,” features an extended scene of humiliation for a suitor at a family dinner. You can sense, in these scenes, Dostoevsky ramping himself up to the great scandalous feasts of his later novels – the Underground Man beclowning himself before his old schoolmates, Katerina Ivanovna’s frenzy at Marmeladov’s funeral dinner, and of course the Karamazovs running amok at Father Zosima’s monastery.

As always, Pevear and Volokhonsky’s translation is excellent, the gold standard. They’ve done a great service, bringing not only the great classics of the Russian canon but also lesser-known works like these to American readers.

A Nasty Anecdote ★★★★
The Eternal Husband ★★★★
Bobok ★★★
The Meek One ★★★★
The Dream of a Ridiculous Man ★★★★½

It might not contain Dostoevsky’s greatest works but this collection of short stories translated by Pevear and Volokhonsky keeps a high level of quality and thematic consistency throughout.

With A Nasty Anecdote, Dostoevsky attacks liberal hypocrisy with a satire about a general who, under the influence, crashes the wedding party of one of his clerks. It would surely be labelled as ‘cringe humour’ if published nowadays. The central story, The Eternal Husband, surprises by its changes of focus. Initially a story about a man’s struggles with a lawsuit, then about his hypochondria and paranoia, it finally unfolds as the main character becomes reacquainted with the husband of his former lover, and their behaviour towards each other gets more and more erratic.

n  n    “He was convinced that there existed a corresponding type of husband, whose sole purpose consisted of nothing but corresponding to this type of woman. In his opinion, the essence of such husbands lay in their being, so to speak, ‘eternal husbands’, or, better to say, in being only husbands in life and nothing else.”n  n

There’s enough psychological insight in these stories as in any Dostoevsky novel and the irrational behaviour of the characters often approximates them to the narrator of Notes from the Underground. The story that most resembles Notes, though, is The Dream of a Ridiculous Man.

n  “Maybe because a dreadful anguish was growing in my soul over one circumstance which was infinitely higher than the whole of me: namely—the conviction was overtaking me that everywhere in the world it made no difference.”n

Although I by no means share the narrator's idea of a state of nature where humans are inherently good nor his realisation that “the main thing is [to] love others as [oneself]”, I still consider it the strongest story in the collection for capturing the feeling of existential angst that would be further explored in later existentialist works. It also features a powerful dream description that could possibly have influenced Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life.

n  “For instance, there suddenly came to me a strange consideration, that if I had once lived on the moon or on Mars, and had committed some most shameful and dishonorable act there, such as can only be imagined, and had been abused and dishonored for it as one can only perhaps feel and imagine in a dream, a nightmare, and if, ending up later on earth, I continued to preserve an awareness of what I had done on the other planet, and knew at the same time that I would never ever return there, then, looking from the earth to the moon—would it make any difference to me, or not? Would I feel shame for that act, or not?”n

This hodge-podge book of short stories was alright. I like Dostoyevsky a good deal, but I'm not going to praise him to the moon like another sheep if the works don't stand out to me. There were definitely some interesting stories here, but they didn't standout too much. And some were just eh.

"The Eternal Husband" was solid. I really liked the subtlety and the back and forth underlying the conversations between the two central characters.

I also really enjoyed "A Nasty Anecdote". It was really interesting to explore how something simple as a crowd not being receptive to your tone and comportment etc. can really cause them to reject everything you're saying and treat you like a nothing, even though the message be something really special, selfless, avante-guarde, and revolutionary. These two stories are precisely what I expected, and though they weren't fantastic, they were certainly good.

"Bobok" we just won't talk about. Suffice it to say: "What the hell was that?"

"The Meek One" was interesting enough, and still different enough. I like how in some of these stories Dostoyevsky doesn't rely on any crazy plot-twists and things of that nature. It just feels true and natural, and he shows how you don't need to be s extravagant in your writing to have a good story and tell it well. Yes, there is a suicide in this one, but he doesn't throw it in your face as much as another author would. He doesn't milk the emotion out of you and portray his story as the highest tragedy. He tells a true accounting of his story, and it reads nicely. That being said, again, nothing revolutionary here.

"The Dream of a Ridiculous Man" was definitely a nice lesson and a pretty good entry. I still wasn't blown away, but this type of story is certainly up my alley. Main character has a revelationa fter he realizes there's more to life, upon realizing he's drawn to feelings of moral responsibility and regret, which brings him to a more purposeful life, culminating in a revelatory paradisal dream he has of what man could be, if only everyone loved each other like themself, and banished vice. He becomes a preacher, and there's a really nice quote towards the end of the story as well, that we can end with.

"They tease me now that it was just a dream. But does it make any difference whether it was a dream or not, if this dream proclaimed the Truth to me? For if you once knew the truth and saw it, then you know that it is the truth and there is and can be no other, whether you're asleep or alive. So let it be a dream, let it be, but this life, which you extol so much, I wanted to extinguish by suicide, while my dream, my dream-- oh, it pro claimed to me a new, great, renewed, strong life!

3.5 stars

4.5

It would be really easy to misinterpret this one. There's so much word play, and so reading a translated version, the precision is necessary. I read between two versions and ended up rereading long stretches in the better translation (this edition) because it brings the intentionally confusing threads together with clarity.

Ideas of masculinity, identity, self-esteem, reputation, and one's own understanding of themselves. Such a strange read. If that I was more familiar with biblical stories that I could catch the allusions, was it judas who kissed jesus on both cheeks before betraying him?

Calling on these ideas, Dostoevsky explores obsession, hero worship, resentment, revenge, and the plight of the scorned man seeking justice and redemption. He uses scandal, so well to reveal the true nature of people and society, the way that people in this novella interact is so interesting because these characters are comically opposites.

If anyone takes anything from this, always go for the Pevear-Volokhonsky translation.

An amazing one, but Ireally couldn't figure it out.It's the way too odd I suppose.

Dostoyevsky is amazing, even his short stories (some of them not that short at all) are great. I particularly liked "Вечный муж", "Село Степанчиково и его обитатели" and "Дядюшкин сон". As an author, he is an astonishing researcher of the human soul and likes bringing to the surface all the misery, greediness and hypocrisy mankind possesses. It's not an easy read but it's definitely worth it.

One need not read extensively into Dostoevsky writings to understand that with every work he never fails to address his social climate.
The book is a collection of five different stories, which include: A Nasty Anecdote, The Eternal Husband, Bobok, The Meek One and The Dream Of A Ridiculous Man. Amongst the five, The Eternal Husband being my favorite amongst them.

In The Eternal Husband, there abound varying things that were dear to me but lay beyond my ability to express them (maybe on multiple reads I would be able to, or not!).
The Eternal Husband digs into the recesses of two unlikely characters, inextricably linked in a toxic knot. One an hypochondriac plagued with insomnia and a lawsuit, the other a capricious drunkard. Formerly, acquaintances at a time, now reconnected by a shared tragedy that would define their character.
The unique chemistry displayed by its central characters was vivid, tangible, it was as though I could feel them in a manner one feels an old friend after an aging absence. I read the story at a sitting. This sharply points to Dostoevsky's mastery of the intricacies and subtleties inherent in human dialogue.
I also observed in the story, deeply among other things; an aching sensation of loss, how we like to think we have control, the limits of forgiveness, how some hurtful things linger eternally, the mocking "green eyed monster."

Like the other stories, Bobok strikes as a satire. Here, we come to a writer in a society where art as it should be is not given its voice, inverted and distorted. A 'necessary' visit to a cemetery by the writer, and with some mumbo jumbo we see the dead speak, and he hearing. If we could hear the dead speak, few of the best things they could say are in Bobok.

Nasty Anecdote has a lot of drinking. The story shows the relationship between humaneness and heroism. Of all, Nasty Anecdote to me, was the least profound.

The Dreams Of A Ridiculous Man shows a critical look into why Man is where he is and what he needs to do to get back on his feet. With evident existentialism, the idea that Dostoevsky addresses his social climate is observed.

Above all, looking across these stories, I see from Dostoevsky, an ability of the most refined quality to analyse the intricacies present in a given situation, to dissect and reach viscerally, the innermost regions which characterise the external outlook of that situation and still keep its essence. The Meek One confirms this assertion.

I consider "The Dream of a Ridiculous Man" to be one of the greatest short stores. Right up there with Joyce's "The Dead."

Barring one, all the stories have a sense of claustrophobic oppressiveness in them. It's like looking at the world through a filter of madness. All the protagonists are trying to live up to an idea and all of them are coming short by virtue of human foibles. You will not regret picking up this book.

A great compliation of Dosteovsky short stories. I didn't like all of them, but I did like "The Eternal Husband," "The Meek One" and "The Dream of a Ridiculous Man." The other two stories were ok, but nothing special. I recommend the book.

Masterpiece

There maybe some better writers in the history of the world than Dostoyevsky, but after reading the stories of the Eternal Husband one wouldn't think so. He is in a league by himself, never to be duplicated, and impossible to be copied. No one should complete their life without reading all of his works.