Bésy (Russian: Бесы, singular Бес, bés) is the original title of one of four masterworks by Fyodor Dostoevsky, published in 1872. Demons is the title translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (1994) I read while listening (for 29 hours!) over the past month, off and on, to another translation. Some translate the title as Devils, or The Possessed, and they all convey different connotations, of course. The “demons,” Pevear and Volokhonsky see as better suited to these purportedly “demonic” ideas--nihilism, atheism--that Dostoevsky saw undermining his country in the mid-nineteenth century.

Dostoevsky alludes to the episode of the Exorcism of the Gerasene demoniac in the Gospel of Luke as the inspiration for his title: "Exactly the same thing happened in our country: the devils went out of the Russian man and entered into a herd of swine. . . " Near the conclusion of the book Stepan Verkhovensky, the unwitting perpetrator of unrest and chaos through his early ideas, echoes this story as a cautionary commentary on the political climate of the mid nineteenth century Russia.

The trigger for this book came from Dostoevsky’s shock at the murder of a man by his fellow revolutionaries. It was a sensational story in all the papers. It kind of reminded me of how the Weatherman bombing of a building in the sixties--and the killing of a man--led to some remorse about ideological violence. Some critics at the time and still now see Dostoevsky as both politically and spiritually conservative, but I think it’s a little more complicated than that. This is not a political screed, nor didactic. There's as Mikhail Bakhtin said a "polyphony" of voices exploring cultural ideas in this and every Dostoevsky novel, While some characters that are admired in his books do come to faith, Dostoevsky himself was filled with anguish and doubt. A gambler, a drinker, and an epileptic given to visions, he once said he was “possessed by this idea of God he could not let go of.”

Dostoevsky had also been, as a younger man, a revolutionary thinker, was jailed for it, and was even put before a firing squad for it before he was suddenly pardoned. I’m reminded of Bob Dylan’s reflective line: “I was so much older then; I’m younger than that now.” Maybe part of Dostoevsky’s shock at the killing was informed by the sense that it could have been one of his own group that had committed this act.

So this is a long and somewhat meandering book about a fictional town descending into chaos as it becomes the focal point of an attempted revolution, orchestrated by master conspirator Pyotr Verkhovensky, who was influenced by his father’s political writings. The aristocrat Nikolai Stavrogin is the central character throughout, a nihilistic upper-class, completely unempathetic anarchist; at one point he reveals he has sexually assaulted an 11-year-old girl, Matryosha, a chapter of the book that was for a long time censored as too shocking, and it is difficult to read, but it is at the heart of the nihilistic immorality Dostoevsky decries in the book.

Where’s the balance of light and dark in the book? Well, it is narrated by a secondary character, Anton Lavrentyevich G—v with Dostovesky’s characteristic philosophical insight, psychological acumen, and dark satirical humor. This is the darkest, most difficult work I have read from the master, Dostoevsky--violent and grim, born of his almost despairing concerns for his country--so there is almost no one to admire, except maybe Ivan Shatov, who represents an image of Dostoevsky’s idea of an authentically Russian culture growing out of the best of its people's inherent spirituality and goodness.

This is a masterpiece, one of four--at least--he wrote, and while I prefer all of the other three, I appreciate the passion in it, the sense of tragedy, filled as it is with violence, abuse, madness (always madness in Dostoevsky) and political unrest. And humor! In a time of twenty-first nihilism--the embrace of conspiracy theories, the murder of children in schools, the gang killings in my own Chicago, the climate denialism as the world burns up, the attack on the US Capitol by ill-informed “leaders,” waging sexual and political power, feeding vulnerable folks with lies, I feel a sense of prophecy in this spiritual and political allegory.

Die Bloßstellung der damaligen russischen Gesellschaft in bewährter Manier Dostojewskies! Sehr empfehlenswert!

«Como el descubrimiento del amor, como el descubrimiento del mar, el descubrimiento de Dostoyevski marca una fecha memorable de nuestra vida». Jorge Luis Borges.

Jo-der.

Dostoevsky more so than probably anyone else understood the complexities of humanity. He understood with searing clarity the psychology of the people, the staggering ideas that they look to uphold, the future that they hope to build from those ideas, and the conclusions of those futures. He understood that man is a collective creature, and that the masses are easily coerced to fall behind the forces of subversion and be used as the main instrument of change through revolution. He foresaw the communist revolution that was to take place nearly 50 years before it happened. Yet, the principals on which he is expounding here are general in their penetration into the mind of man and how he is used collectively by others to pursue their own goals. The book opens with a passage in Luke which brilliantly frames the rest of the story,

“And there was one herd of many swine feeding on this
mountain; and they besought him that he would suffer them to
enter into them. And he suffered them.

“Then went the devils out of the man and entered into the
swine; and the herd ran violently down a steep place into
the lake and were choked.

“When they that fed them saw what was done, they fled, and
went and told it in the city and in the country.

“Then they went out to see what was done; and came to Jesus
and found the man, out of whom the devils were departed,
sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind;
and they were afraid.”

Luke, ch. viii. 32-37.

The story then follows the inner-workings of a small Russian town that is a perfect breeding ground for revolutionary ideas. Dostoevsky uses the many varied characters of the town and their interpersonal dialogues to slowly build up to a crescendo of revolutionary destruction and tragedy, demonstrating that this can befall any person and any town. That these ideas of revolution infect the minds of the masses and in that way are like the demons entering the swine in Luke. Thus, the title, The Possessed, or the devils, or demons depending on your translation. Ideas have a way of possessing the collective society and without thinking much about the validity of the idea or the consequence of the idea, they are driven down the hill and plunged into the waters ultimately drowning in tragedy. Dostoevsky demonstrates this at full force in the novel when Stepan Trofimovitch is giving a speech about aesthetics at the end of the reading preceding the ball, but insults the crowd which causes an uproar in the masses and an unknown man gets on the stage and begins to speak in a somewhat vague revolutionary tone that Russia has failed and the people blow up in a frenzy of passion. This is followed by a young girl who gets up to rouse oppressed students to protest. Immediately following is the long-awaited ball which the novel had been building up to, which culminates in someone yelling “fire!” and everyone running for the exits as a failed coup is attempted and a fire breaks out in the town. The governor is hit on the head with a beam because of the fire and loses his sanity, so that he is never again the governor, and we learn later that a Capitan and part of his family was killed. The concluding portion of the novel piles on more death and tragedy, but as is famous of Dostoevsky he does not end on that note. After plunging into the darkness of human depravity and dragging the reader through the muck and filth of sinful man he offers a beautiful transcendent hope to the reader in the concluding sections of his novel.

Dostoevsky is the greatest philosophical novelist because he understands humanity in a way that other philosophers fail to fully realize. He peers into the depths of man’s heart with its selfish ambition, and he asks us to think about the meaning of it all. The purpose of our ideas, the purpose of our desires, of our beliefs, the driving forces behind our politics, behind our ideals, and he rattles the reader’s worldview by the questions he asks. This book asks many such questions, but one of those penetrating questions from this book that held the most weight for me is, if God does not exist what does that mean for man? At the foundation of this question Dostoevsky is in accordance with Nietzsche. In Nietzsche’s The Gay Science he claims by way of the mad man that “God is dead.” The idea that in the wake of the enlightenment and in the birth of modernity, man killed God and the world will now deal with the consequences Dostoevsky and Nietzsche both observe to be true. Where they differ wildly is what that means for mankind. Nietzsche looked at the modern world built on Christian morality and wished that man would release himself from the historic and oppressive chains that bound him to a Christian foundation. Dostoevsky on the other hand peers into the void of Nietzsche’s philosophy and asks what man has to live for if God is not real. What purpose is there to anything at all? In doing so, he stabs a hole through the core of nihilism.
He does so most presciently through Pyotr Stepanovitch and Kirillov’s dialogue about suicide:

“Listen to a great idea: there was a day on earth, and in the midst of the earth there stood three crosses. One on the Cross had such faith that he said to another, ‘To-day thou shalt be with me in Paradise.’ The day ended; both died and passed away and found neither Paradise nor resurrection. His words did not come true. Listen: that Man was the loftiest of all on earth, He was that which gave meaning to life. The whole planet, with everything on it, is mere madness without that Man. There has never been any like Him before or since, never, up to a miracle. For that is the miracle, that there never was or never will be another like Him. And if that is so, if the laws of nature did not spare even Him, have not spared even their miracle and made even Him live in a lie and die for a lie, then all the planet is a lie and rests on a lie and on mockery. So then, the very laws of the planet are a lie and the vaudeville of devils. What is there to live for? Answer, if you are a man.”

Dostoevsky comes out with fists up in full swing against Nihilism here when he says,

“Answer, if you are a man!”

And in Stepan Tofimovitch’s last words in the novel,

“what is more precious than love? Love is higher than existence, love is the crown of existence; and how is it possible that existence should not be under its dominance? If I have once loved Him and rejoiced in my love, is it possible that He should extinguish me and my joy and bring me to nothingness again? If there is a God, then I am immortal. Voilà ma profession de foi.”

“The mere fact of the ever present idea that there exists something infinitely more just and more happy than I am fills me through and through with tender ecstasy—and glorifies me—oh, whoever I may be, whatever I have done! What is far more essential for man than personal happiness is to know and to believe at every instant that there is somewhere a perfect and serene happiness for all men and for everything.… The one essential condition of human existence is that man should always be able to bow down before something infinitely great. If men are deprived of the infinitely great they will not go on living and will die of despair. The Infinite and the Eternal are as essential for man as the little planet on which he dwells. My friends, all, all: hail to the Great Idea! The Eternal, Infinite Idea! It is essential to every man, whoever he may be, to bow down before what is the Great Idea. Even the stupidest man needs something great. Petrusha … oh, how I want to see them all again! They don’t know, they don’t know that that same Eternal, Grand Idea lies in them all!”

Dostoevsky reaffirms this idea that man needs God. That God and love are the transcendent pieces to the puzzle of human existence that provide meaning and hope to all people. That this idea of eternal love and life in God is infinitely great and glorious and that it lies within us all in our very nature.

best book ive ever read.
society is on the brink of collapse and what better way to fuck it all up than to bring our angsty extremist teens. on a serious note, i dont even know where to begin with this book and nothing i can say can do it justice. this doesnt only reflect the chaos within society, but within every single one of us. you’re not judging the characters you’re finding yourself in them realizing you’re just a stone’s thrown away from that same abyss. the “evil” isnt some grand sinister villain cloaked in shadows: it’s intangible, creeping through the cracks like rot. it is seen in stavrogin, void overshadowed by his charisma, and reflects our willingness to submit to moral decay. it’s the numbness that accompanies the mind when apathy becomes survival.

"at the inquest our doctors absolutely and emphatically rejected all idea of insanity.”.

dosteovsky uncovers the question: youth vs older generations, what tension? how can ideology mutate into fanaticism? is identity what a person clings to; their own distorted mirror of self? or is it warped and transient as the ideologies they cling to? the destructive power? what does it mean to be anyone when we’re just masks of our fears and fractured beliefs?.

i wanted to say how while reading it i couldnt stop comparing the parallels with attack on titan especially between eren, pyotr and stavrogin. their descent into madness isnt just bound by political factors or the “society” but rather an existential confrontation with the limits of our human autonomy.
stavrogin’s madness is rooted in internal void— a lack of meaning and purpose. it is a surrender to collapse of their inner world under the weight of their own despair. which reminded me so much of eren’s quest for liberation that ended up in existential nihilism.

both eren and stavrogin find themselves trapped in cycles of destruction that mirror the very madness theyre trying to escape. it confronts the paradox of freedom.

here is one of my favorite parts in the book:

"having devoted my energy to studying the question of the social organization of the future society which is to replace the present one, i have come to the conclusion that all creators of social systems from ancient times to our year have been dreamers, tale-tellers, fools who contradicted themselves and understood precisely nothing of natural science or of that strange animal known as man. plato, rousseau, fourier, aluminum columns-this is fit perhaps for sparrows, but not for human society. but since the future social form is necessary precisely now, when we are finally going to act, so as to stop any further thinking about it, i am suggesting my own system of world organization. here it is! i wanted to explain my book to the gathering in the briefest possible way; but i see that i will have to add a great deal of verbal clarification, and therefore the whole explanation will take at least ten evenings, according to the number of chapters in my book. besides that, i announce ahead of time that my system is not finished. i got entangled in my own data, and my conclusion directly contradicts the original idea from which i start. starting from unlimited freedom, i conclude with unlimited despotism. i will add, however, that apart from my solution of the social formula, there can be no other."

Quit at 20 %. Soporific, so soporific…

I normally write my reviews as soon as I have finished reading a book. I have been sitting on this one for several weeks because I really do not know what to say. I struggled with finishing this at all, forcing myself through a chapter and then breaking for a long while before taking up the next chapter. That might explain why it never gelled for me. It was boring and laborious and dark.

I love Russian literature as a general rule and after reading n  Crime and Punishmentn the first time, I would have said I was a fan of Dostoevsky. But, it took me three tries to finish n  The Brothers Karamazovn, a novel that was replete with worthy themes and difficult structure. After finishing it, I was glad I had made the third try; it was not a book I could regret reading. I am having no such feeling with regard to this one.

The novel is a highly political novel, concerned with the factions operating in Russia at the time. Without at least a fair understanding of Russian history, I believe it would be virtually incomprehensible.

It is sad to say, but I have several other Dostoevsky’s on my must read list and I am thinking about either removing them or moving them to the bottom. I certainly could not face another right now and I’m having a hard time imagining facing them at all. The edition I have is beautifully bound, with exquisite illustrations. I am now torn about leaving it on my shelf or passing it on in hopes that someone else can appreciate it more than just aesthetically.

Ci sono dei secondi, non ne vengono che a cinque o sei per volta, in cui sentite tutt'a un tratto la presenza di un'armonia eterna compiutamente raggiunta. Non è una cosa terrestre; non dico che sia una cosa celeste, ma dico che l'uomo, nel suo aspetto terrestre, non la può sopportare. Bisogna trasformarsi fisicamente o morire. È un sentimento chiaro e incontestabile. Come se a un tratto aveste la sensazione di tutta la natura e a un tratto diceste: sì, è vero. Dio, quando creava il mondo, alla fine di ogni giornata della creazione diceva: "Sì, è vero, è bello". Questo... questo non è un intenerimento, ma soltanto così, una gioia. Non perdonate nulla, perché non c'è più nulla da perdonare. Non è che amiate, oh! qui si è più su dell'amore. Il più terribile è che tutto è così tremendamente chiaro e la gioia è così grande. Se durasse più di cinque secondi, l'anima non resisterebbe e dovrebbe sparire. In quei cinque secondi io vivo una vita e per essi darei tutta la mia vita, perché vale la spesa.

recensione in haiku de "I demoni"

Ideologia!
Il male? Superato -
Uomini vili

جلال آل احمد در باره‌ی داستایفسکی می‌نویسد:
"من از داستایفسکی می‌ترسم، حتی وحشت دارم. یعنی هروقت کتابی از او خوانده‌ام وحشت کرده‌ام‌. نه از این باب که نوعی داستان جنایی سر داده باشد به قصد کشیدن اعصاب و ایجاد ترس و از این فوت و فن‌ها، بلکه از این جهت که در برابر دنیای پیچیده ذهن او احساس حقارت می‌کنم. احساس هیچی، نیستی."
این دقیقا واکنش هر دفعه‌ی من بعد از خواند کتاب‌های داستایفسکی است. یک احساس وحشت،پوچی و بهت‌زدگی.
بعد از به پایان بردن هر کتاب داستایفسکی با خودم می‌گویم این دیگر تهِ تهِ‌اش است اما باز کتاب بعدی مبهوتم‌ می‌کند.
تیخسیرشدگانش، منِ خواننده را نیز تسخیر کرد.
از حیث روایت و تعداد شخصیت با قبلی‌هایی که خواندم پیچیده‌تر بود.
شخصیت‌ها واقعا دیوانه کننده بودند.
شخصیت‌هایی مریض، متعصب، افراطی و با ایدئدلوژی‌های خاص خود.
هرکدامشان را کم‌کم توانستم بفهمم و درک کنم. در میان تمام این‌ها درک آن پتراستپانوویچ شیطان برایم سخت‌تر و تنفرم نسبت به او از همه بیشتر بود‌.
تسخیرشدگان یکی از بهترین‌ تجربه‌های داستایفسکی خوانی من بود.
_
حس این لحظه‌ی من:
خوشحالم هم‌چنان کتاب‌هایی از داستایفسکی باقی مانده که نخوانده‌ام.
99/11/13

اگر شما گیوتین را به جلو صحنه آورده اید و آن را با این شادمانی و افتخار برافراشته و به آسمان رسانده اید فقط برای این است که بریدن سر از همه کار آسان تر است و پروردن اندیشه در سر از همه کار دشوارتر.
.
رمان شیاطین(جن‌زدگان)، یکی دیگر از شاهکارهای فیودور داستایفسکی نویسنده بزرگ روس است که می‌توان آن را کتابی متفاوت با دیگر آثار او دانست. شیاطین را سیاسی‌ترین کتاب داستایفسکی می‌دانند.داستان این کتاب که یک تراژدی واقعی است داستایفسکی بر اساس شنیده هایش از برادرزنش که از ماجرا خبر داشت نوشته است.شیاطین درباره دسته‌ای از آدم‌های انقلا��ی است که برای رسیدن به آرمان‌های خود از هیچ جنایتی رویگردان نیستند و برای رسیدن به اهداف خود ترسی از کُشتن ندارند. می‌توان گفت، مسئله اخلاقی مطرح شده در کتاب جنایت و مکافات در اینجا به مسئله اخلاقی-سیاسی تبدیل شده است.جن زدگان پر از مطالبی است که باعث شد او را پیامبر انقلاب روسیه بنامند و پر از پیش گویهایی علیه کمونیسم شوروی.در ابله داستایفسکی میخواست تصویری آرمانی از چگونه زیستن به ما ارائه بدهد اما در شیاطین عکس این کار را می کند.نمونه هایی از بدترین شیوه های استفاده از آزادیمان را به ما می نماید.شخصیتهای زیادی در این رمان اعتقادات هولناکی دارند و به آن عمل می کنند و جسدهای بسیاری پشت سرشان به جای می گذارند.داستایفسکی نگران زمانه خطرناکی بود که در آن می زیست.داستایفسکی بیشتر نظراتش را از زبان شخصیت شاتوف بیان می کند.او مخالف کاتولیک روسی است که به اعتقاد او می کوشد از حکومت یک خدا بسازد و همچنین منتقد سوسیالیسم هم هست که با تلاش برای سازمان دادن جامعه صرفا براساس اصول علم و عقل منکر خدا می شود.او در این رمان بر ما فاش می کند که از چه چیزی بیشتر از همه می ترسد و آن بدترین راههای ممکنی است که در تصور او آدمها می توانند از آزادیشان استفاده کنند.داستایفسكی انسان را محصول تحولات تاریخی، اجتماعی، سیاسی، فرهنگی، اقتصادی و … در هر عصر میداند و بدون در نظر گرفتن تاثیرات این عوامل بیرونی نمی‌توان تصویری عمیق و دقیق از شخصیت، و به تبع آن از تقابل شخصیت‌ها كه پدیدآورنده جامعه است، به دست داد. به این ترتیب است كه آثار داستایفسكی، به خصوص شیاطین كه سیاسی‌ترین كار اوست، تبدیل می‌شوند به بلوری چند وجهی، كه برای دركشان باید از تمام وجوه به آنها نگاه كرد. به همین دلیل است كه شیاطین، هرچند از سایر کتبش سخت‌خوان‌تر است و كندتر پیش می‌رود، اما به وضوح رمان عمیق‌تری است و توان به فكر واداشتن مخاطب در آن شگفت‌انگیز است

There's no doubt about this. This is one of the classics. Also known as The Possessed, this Dostoyevsky is right up there with The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment, but in my head, it's not QUITE as good as the other two.

That isn't to say this isn't a true classic, however. As I was reading it, I kept pointing at the text and saying, "Hey! That's TOTALLY Fight Club! They're totally dissing social norms in the same way, flirting with disaster in increasingly epic ways." and "Hey! That's a total reference to intellectual nihilism and a whole 'God is Dead' vibe a whole DECADE before Nietzsche!"

I was thrilled. I mean, this is a time machine to the eras that led, 50 years later, to the end of the Russian royalty. But then, we have the whole feel of anarchism, conspiracies, social reform, and pure idealism within these pages.

That shouldn't discount the tiny details, however. All the little steps and stages that let us decline, ever so gradually, into turpitude, moral degradation, and some of the weirdest pure-intellectual/religious reasons for suicide in literature.

The fact is, this is not only a total soap-opera full of people toying with the ideas of going evil, but it's also a philosophical tract that skewers Russia, progressives, the religious, and all the major political structures of the day.

And it's also a portent for our modern world. Not to mention that it RESEMBLES our modern world.

Yes, we're all devils.