Notes From Underground - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Even though my last Dostoyevsky did not live up to the expectations I had for it, I still explored the services of flipkart with this Dostoyevskian. For what else could have been apter? And upon its reception I immediately took it up because it was just a hundred and some pages thick! By now I have got accustomed to voluptuous Russian novels. Ones that intimidate even before you flip the cover to read the publishing credits. So it was with surprise and wonder that I plunged into this new novel by, if I may dare to revere him, my most revered author of late.

"Notes From Underground" was unlike anything I have ever read. The "Notes" were probably written during Dostoyevsky's most trying phase of life (as I read in a blog : "... his finances were disappearing fast, his wife was dying, and his reputation, which had at one time enjoyed the backing of Russia’s liberal reading public, was fading"). Anyhow, the writing is a deplorable story, invoking sentiments and empathy for the anti-hero, but at the same time filling one with a resent for him that borders on hatred. The narrator degrades himself relentlessly. Dostoyevsky flirts with the banes of an intelligent mind in this story. The narration uses the general philosophies of the materialists and there is a strong existentialist disdain for that philosophy. Dostoyevsky also explores the socialist issue through the un-named narrator.

The story starts with the narrator explaining himself to the readers (and at the same time maintaining that he did not intend his writing to be read; that he was writing for himself). The narrator describes the reasons why the truly intellectual fail to act. He also attempts a description of the conflict between the instinct and intelligence in such men. The narrator is depicted as a man withdrawn from the society, mostly due to spite and partly due to his failure to cope. Finally, the narrator goes on to describe an event of his life that occoured 'on the occasion of wet snow'. The occasion centres on a day when he particularly longed for human companionship (as was opposed to his usual desires). He describes his eventful meeting at a school friend's farewell, his obnoxious behaviour during the katzenjammer and then his following them to a brothel. There he meets Liza and stirs emotions in her, all the time pretending to care when he did not. And when his bookish fantasy is realised and Liza comes to him out of love and reverence, he fails to live up to his own dream and drives her away in the most callous way. He ends by justifying his ugly acts as just an extremity of what everyone else does and asks the readers (though he never intended to have any) to take a closer look at themselves.

I did sympathise with the narrator at times. Understanding why and how he was capable of those acts. But at other times, the narrator's deliberate condescension for himself was too fantastic for me. However, no! I am not even close to being done with Dostoyevsky. Despite the philosophies becoming a little idiosyncratic, his style of writing is still binds me to his books. 

The introduction was a drag. It was one of those introductions that do not introduce, but relay the story on their own. Utterly insufferable! But it educated me in a certain aspect. Existentialism, the philosophy that Dostoyevsky held. I intend to look deeper into it, Kafka and Camus being two names I have come across till now.

A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess

The movie has been one of the biggest influences on me since my days in college. Stanley Kubrik was to me the revealer of pure art. But I do not intend to write about the movie or the artistic demi-god director here. The book was borrowed from the table of a friend who had not as yet read it. And I, having had forgotten most of the film (though not the fact that Kubrik hacked at my imagination) decided I could do with a revision of the storyline. And what better way to do it than read the story that inspired such a fascinating movie.

The title could not have reflected the story better! "As queer as a clockwork orange",  the book in no way lacks the creativity that Kubrik so well shows. I compared the book to the movie throughout my reading (as I tend to do here) simply for the fact that "A Clockwork Orange" had, in my mind's eye, been the epitome of the realisation of ingenuity! What I fail to remember about the movie though is whether the nadsat language that Burgess creates has been used in the movie. And even if it has been used, I seemingly failed to appreciate it back then. The book has been very truly criticised to be a straining read as it must be for all those who would rather follow the known and the mundane rather that rapture with delight at a rare spark of novelty. Anthony Burgess creates the slang seamlessly. So much so that I was forced to look up the dictionary disdaining him as an exhibitionist of a writer, flaunting his vocabulary blatantly for the world to awe at! But I couldn't have been more wrong! Apart from the language in general, there is the pseudo prophetic character of the story (a sneak peek at the hallucinogenic culture of late 60's and the "Anarchy in the UK" (if I may use the Sex Pistols' song title)). The story also has a lot of subtle satirical content in it (regarding music, civilisation, politics, etc.).

The story revolves around Alex, a fifteen year old protagonist. Set in a futuristic society, he and his gang (a total of four droogs) go about abusing drugs, stealing, gang wars, rapes and break-ins as a way to "live life". However, Alex is betrayed by his gang at a crime scene and arrested by the police. Sent to a prison, he learns the worldly ways of agreeing to the authorities on the face and the fact that kissing up to the right people could win him favours in the right places. However, blamed for another murder in the prison, he is set or a government reform programme that brainwashes him to be good. Reformed and let out in society, he finds himself unnecessary and decides to kill himself but is caught up in politics. Finally when he does manage to jump out of a window and still fails to die, he is re-brainwashed to his former violent ways. Time however has had an effect of its own on the anti-hero. He finally has the epiphany that it was his animalistic immaturity that led him to find pleasure in the old violent ways. He now longs for a family and a civilised life.

Burgess was astounding in multiple ways. The foremost being the slang that he created so impeccably. However, the ridiculing of the machinisation of humans to make them do good is the crux of the debate. Burgess (like Kesey) argues that a man should choose to be good rather than be forced against socially unacceptable character. Going back to the comparison with the movie, I agree with Kubrik (and the American publishers who dropped the last epiphanic chapter) that showing Alex as having a moral turn over is too strict a conclusion. That however is for an author to decide and though a little binding, it never-the-less ends a novel that has rightly been immortalised in a number of ways; notorious being the primary. Burgess evidently wrote quite a lot and I do intend to read a bit more of him. He has certainly managed to clutch my attention in the sincerest.

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The Devils - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

My third Dostoyevsky was picked up at random. I even forget where it was that I picked this one. It had been lying for quite some time on my shelf but being humongous, as is characteristic of Russian novels, I decided to let it be until I felt I was ready for another voluminous piece of writing.

This Dostoyevsky was for some reason less interesting than my last few. Perhaps because of the issue that it explored. Or maybe it is because at times Dostoyevsky fails to live up to the drama and thrill that he creates. Or maybe it was the irrelevant connections made between events in this story. The book delves into the rising socialistic views of the time and shows how the concept was misused by nihilists. There was all the usual drama : scandals, murder, angry mobs, eccentric individuals and even a shocking and disturbing confession. The style of writing has been commented upon enough by me in the previous posts.

The story starts as the narration of the life of a particular Stephan Verhovensky, a retired professor. The story describes his last days of life and the sequences of events that created a big riot in his town. The reason of this entire pandemonium is the arrival of a few young people into the town. Pyotor Verhovensky, son of Stephan, and Nikolay Stravrogin, son of Varvara Petrovna who is an old friend and love of Stephan and has also taken care of him for the past years. Pyotor is running an underground quintet of socialists and nihilists who are distributing manifestos and creating upsets in town. Then follow a series of abstruse events : Pyotor's ego-centric usage of the quintet, Shatov's (a former member of the socialist group) betrayal and murder, Nikolay's confessions, a town ball full of scandals. In the end we return to the travelling Stephan and watch him die like the eccentric he was.

What I perhaps found lacking in this book was a connection that I had previously established with Dostoyevsky's narrators. Here he is a simple narrator with little to do with the story. A bystander who observes and logs. And also I somehow found the series of scandals less scandalising than the behaviours of his central characters, which in my opinion should have been stressed upon a bit more. Either way, the philosophy behind the book was well conveyed and though a bit too drag on the whole, the book was interesting in bursts.