Demons (Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1872)

I find that I like Dostoevsky more and more.  There is so much going on in this particular novel - I won't try to summarize the plot or characters - all that's available on wikipedia and elsewhere.  Characters are interesting, nuanced, surprising.  Might be my favorite work of his.

Mostly in this work, it seems Dostoevsky was looking around at a rapidly-changing Russia - behind the West in many ways and grappling with a raft of ideas originating from the West - and was able to see that utopia (or even simply "here's the path to fundamental change and improvement") is often promised by folks who turn out to be the most dangerous type of charlatan.  The pitch - as offered today but typically in a more disguised fashion - is that the promiser knows what is good for all, better than the "all" could ever figure out on their own.  Dostoevsky also saw that these proclaimers of extreme change, nihilism and the like can so easily end up as "demons" in the society.  All of this might sound obvious now - but certainly mustn't have seemed that way for change-promisers and their hearers in the 1860s and early 70s.

He also observed the futility of the responses of the conservative ruling classes and government authorities in dealing with the new ideas.  

I loved how he started with an epigraph (from St. Luke's Gospel) and then brought the 700-page novel back around to it via a glimmer of sad understanding by Stepan Trofimovich ("Now a large herd of swine was feeding there on the hillside; and they begged him to let them enter these.  So he gave them leave.  Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned.")

Stepan's son is a key character - trying to organize a revolutionary cell.  Nikolai Stavrogin - enigmatic, cold, ultimately capable of experiencing guilt.

The discussions (most interesting) among the cell members and others go over many of the political philosophy ideas of the day.  And typically sound incredibly modern.  

With hindsight knowledge of how things turned out in Russia, it's pretty easy to call Dostoevsky more-than-prescient in this book.

A few others thoughts:

1.  Behaviors by some characters reminiscent of Turgenev's Bazarov.  I learned Dostoevsky thought very little of Turgenev, even caricatured him in this novel (via the writer Karmazinov).

2.  Stepan Trofimovich is perceptive:  "why is it that all these desperate socialists and communists are at the same time such incredible misers, acquirers, property-lovers, so much so that the more socialist a man is, the further he goes, the more he loves property?"

3.  His son is honest about these so-called people's revolutions:  "No, this democratic scum with its fivesomes [the cells were divided into groups of five] is a poor support; what we need is one splendid, monumental, despotic will, supported by something external and not accidental . . . then the fivesomes will also put their tails of obedience between their legs, and their obsequiousness will occasionally come in handy."  Lenin, Stalin, Castro et al would heartily concur.

4.  Very touching moment when Shatov's wife returned, and he borrows tea from Kirillov.

5.  The overriding mindset of too many of these social engineering types (who profess that goal while simply seeking power):  "We alone will remain, having destined ourselves beforehand to assume power:  we shall rally the smart ones to ourselves, and ride on the backs of the fools . . . This generation must be re-educated to make it worthy of freedom."  Exactly the discussion from this Communist-era novel.  

Birthday gift from Nedda and Paul Jr.  A good one.