Anyone who has ever read Fyodor Dostoyevsky, please comment

[virginiawang]

Hello, I read Notes from the Underground a few years ago, and my soul was immensely quaked by the description of a sick man in this book, during the time I read it, and for quite some time after I read it. Then I started to read some other books written by him and I soon read most of the books written by this Russian author through the course of some years. His stories always end in a deathly sadness, but they are all romantic. That made me wonder at times why people who act in a romantic way cannot enjoy felicity at the end, or is it only a story that does not need too much thought? The sadness in some of his stories adds a tinge of beauty to romance, when without it, they wouldn't have been so beautiful. Do beauty, romance and filicilty coexist in real life? What do you think?

[JCamilo]

Look, Dostoievisky is not romantic, neither his characters. He could write that Ivan, Dimitri and Aliocha are all happy. It would be a two pages book that nobody would read.
(In the end, you enjoy death, not felicity).

[virginiawang]

Sorry I don't agree with what you wrote. In my opinion, Dostoyevsky created all kinds of characters that act foolishly, romanticly, but end up in sadness. For example Dymitri had a childish heart, which he devoted entirely to Grunshenka. His passion and love for her couldn't have been more romantic, and that could be seen in all the rash actions he took in the story. Alshoya, in a sense, was romantic in another way. The way he looked at the world was from the angle of a child, who had not grown accustomed to the practical world we know. It best describes the viewpoints suggested in Emerson's Nature, that the rays of stars, which are the most magnificent blessings in the universe, only shot into the eyes of children, but seldom reach those sophiscated adults. Emerson is the most important writer of American Romanticism, and his idea about nature and children is nothing but beautiful. You can never feel romantic without beauty getting involved. I feel the essense of all Dostoyevsky's novel is the beauty of a soul, which can be found in many of his characters. Sadness only intensified beauty and romance, in my opinion.

[Gladys]

That made me wonder at times why people who act in a romantic way cannot enjoy felicity at the end

By romantic, do you mean passionately idealistic?

As you say, 'the beauty of a soul...can be found in many of his characters'. 'Do beauty, romance and felicity coexist in real life?' Probably Not. Dostoevsky seems to believe that 'in this vale of tears', heroic suffering redeems. Suffering implies sadness.

I'm inclined to disagree that Dostoyevsky's 'stories always end in a deathly sadness'. Of course, life is often punctuated by sadness, by tragedy, but the novels generally end with improbable hope rather than sadness. Admittedly, he disguises this hope in paradox.

You are mistaken if you think that the Dostoyevsky characters 'who act in a romantic way cannot enjoy felicity at the end'. Hope is the cornerstone of felicity. For instance, in 'The Idiot', Prince Myshkin dances bathed in flickering sunbeams, from beginning to end - from Swiss asylum to Swiss asylum.

[virginiawang]

I do not think to dance in an asylum till the end of one's life is felicitous. It is a real tragedy. The book, the idiot, portrays a really beautiful love story and a funny child-adult. At the moment the idiot saw the dead body of his beloved, he was shocked into everlasting idiocy. He could never ever wake up, and that was the end of the story. This love tragedy is brimming over with romance and beauty.
To be romantic is a rather abstract idea, but it can never be the same as to be idealistic, which is what an old monk does all his life. Some other words like moral, devoted, punctilious, can be used to describe such people who stick to the right path persistently. When one is being romantic, I think he follows his heart rather than his head and lets his feelings take the reign. By the way, when one feels being overcome by immense beauty, either of the soul or of anything beyond words, one is encountering romance.

[Gladys]

The book, the idiot, portrays a really beautiful love story and a funny child-adult. At the moment the idiot saw the dead body of his beloved, he was shocked into everlasting idiocy. He could never ever wake up, and that was the end of the story.

You do the brilliant Dostoyevsky an injustice.

A more nuanced interpretation of the ending of 'The Idiot' is given in: THE ENDING: ‘like a lamb dumb before his shearer’.

[virginiawang]

Although prince Myshkin had a generous heart and treated everyone he knew benevolently, he was still a human being with senses to feel. At the moment he saw the portrait of Nastasya Filipovna, he was enchanted by her beauty.Throughout the whole novel, he couldn't resisit his impulse to love her, and that was the reason why he couldn't do anything but to rush away from Aglaya directly he saw Nastasya. It is a devastating love that makes a great diffrence from God's love, which is always described as generous and fair. He did not have even the slightest compassion for Aglaya at the moment he dashed away from her, with whom he agreed to spend the rest of his life already. He had even settled everything with the Yepanchin family about their marriage, but he just couldn't extinguish his flame of love for another woman, who always deceived him in the past. He could not conquer his heart with his head, and that's why I said in my last post that Dostoyevsky created an extremely romantic love story. By the end of the story, the idiot gave way to everlasting idiocy at the sight of the dead woman, whom he loved with every part of his heart. He couldn't have done otherwise, because he had no choice. It was a natural response. His love was so intense that it wrenched his heart and reason into pieces when he saw the woman lying dead on a bed.
Though he had great wish to save and treat people with extreme benevolence, his passion completely routed his good will or compassion for anyone who got involved. He did not care a bit what Aglaya would feel when he ran away to the other woman. I think Dostoyevsy laid a great emphasis upon human impulses and natural feelings, somthing that took place in your head when you don't even know it.
I think people called him an idiot because he did not know too much about the practical side of the real world. He chose to ignore it and acted as a child, who had not known too much about the real world where money, social status, etc are the main concerns. He often found some difficulty in understanding the language, the hints of many people he got associated with, so he became a laughing stock and a cause of amazement for those people. I don't think he had the wisdom to do what he was required at each moment.
I think the idiot was like a baby, totally new to the world. He had compassion for everyone but the most selfish and romantic love for a beautiful woman. Dostoyevsky had romantic ideas and his work, the Idiot, became a great piece of art.

[JCamilo]

Look, the romantic traits of many of the characters of Dostoievisky are not a reflex of Dostoievisky ideas and aesthetical, Mishikin life is really tragic, but Dostoievisky is using them to express his own experience and disapointment with the ideals. He is a reflex of a world were the romantic ideals are already under criticism. He is after the romantics, not one of them, the contrast (the so called sadness) is what is relevant.
And while it is nice calling his writing beauty, he is not a great aestheticist like Tolstoy, I find the use of this word a bit outplaced.

[Gladys]

Although prince Myshkin had a generous heart and treated everyone he knew benevolently, he was still a human being with senses to feel. At the moment he saw the portrait of Nastasya Filipovna, he was enchanted by her beauty rather, by the fragile beauty of her soul. Throughout the whole novel, he couldn't resist his impulse to love her rather, to save her from herself, and that was the reason why he couldn't do anything but to rush away from Aglaya directly he saw Nastasya.

It is a devastating love that makes a great difference from God's love, which is always described as generous and fair. He did not have even the slightest compassion rather, he had infinite compassion for Aglaya at the moment he dashed away from her, with whom he agreed to spend the rest of his life already.

He could bear it no longer, and with a look of entreaty, mingled with reproach, he addressed Aglaya, pointing to Nastasia the while:

"How can you?" he murmured; "she is so unhappy."

But he had no time to say another word before.

He had even settled everything with the Yepanchin family about their marriage, but he just couldn't extinguish his flame of love rather, ofcompassion for another woman, who always deceived him in the past. He could not conquer his heart with his head, and that's why I said in my last post that Dostoyevsky created an extremely romantic love story. Not even remotely romantic – like a soldier in battle, the prince is willing 'to give his life for his friend'.

By the end of the story, the idiot gave way to everlasting idiocy at the sight of the dead woman, rather, at the sight of Roghozin, whom he loved with every part of his heart. And afterward, no one understood his tears on Roghozin's cheek as infinite compassion. He couldn't have done otherwise, because he had no choice. It was a natural response. His love was so intense that it wrenched his heart and reason into pieces when he saw the woman lying dead on the ground. rather, when he saw Roghozin a sinner in need, whom he could no longer help.

Though he had great wish to save and treat people with extreme benevolence, his passion completely routed his good will or compassion for anyone who got involved. He did not care a bit what Aglaya would feel when he ran away to the other woman. rather, 'The prince made a rush after her, but he, was caught and held back'. I think Dostoyevsky laid a great emphasis upon human impulses and natural feelings, something that took place in your head when you don't even know it.

I think people called him an idiot because he did not choose to know too much about the practical side of the real world. He chose to ignore it and acted as a child rather, a saint, who had not known too much rather, was not concerned about the real world where money, social status, etc are the main concerns. He often found some difficulty in understanding the language, the hints rather, the lack of compassion of many people he got associated with, so he became a laughing stock and a cause of amazement for those people. I don't think he had rather: He had indeed the wisdom to do what he was required at each moment.
I think the idiot was like a baby, totally new to the world. He had compassion for everyone but the most selfish and romantic love for a beautiful woman. Dostoyevsky had romantic ideas and his work, the Idiot, became a great piece of art.

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It seems strange to me, Virginiawang, that you appreciate the great compassion of the Prince Myshkin but fail to see that it is boundless, and so extends without limit to Aglaya and Nastasia Philipovna. In the case of the latter, from as early as Chapter 1.

The character of the prince is devoid of the romantic. He is driven by boundless compassion to do good works: works of love (as advocated by the epistle of James).

[virginiawang]

When a man left a woman, to whom he was engaged, and chose to stay with another woman and marry her after a few days, he did not have any compassion for the first one. If you insist on his unwillingness in the whole affair, I believe you are joking.
If prince Myshkin had had the wisdom to do the right thing at the right moment, he wouldn't have broken the vase and made a ridiculous scene at the evenig party near the end of the novel. It was only because he couldn't check his impulses and feelings that seized him on the spur of the moment. Feelings and insticts are what Dostoevsky emphasized in most of his novels. These aspects belong to the realm of Romanticism.
In the end of the novel, if you think that the prince became an idiot only because he sympathized a great deal over Rogazin, you are looking at these events on a surface level. You have to admit that from the very beggining of the novel the prince could not get Nastasya out of his head for no reasons at all. One time he even wondered why that woman always seemed to turn up at the most critical moment and change the course of his life immdiately. Many times poeple don't say love to really love a person, they feel and act. You may say you did something out of compassion, social decency, or even politeness, but you don't really know what was going on in your head or your mind all the time. That's what makes love fascinating.

[billl]

You may say you did something out of compassion, social decency, or even politeness, but you don't really know what was going on in your head or your mind all the time. That's what makes love fascinating.

i haven't read the book, but virginiawang is making a lot of sense.

[Gladys]

If Prince Myshkin had had the wisdom to do the right thing at the right moment, he wouldn't have broken the vase and made a ridiculous scene at the evening party near the end of the novel.

Thanks, Virginiawang, for drawing my attention to the significance of the valuable china vase of Lizabetha Prokofievna. Loving this novel, I've had fun tracing impact of the broken vase.

Before 'the evening party at the Epanchins'', Aglaya says frivolously to the prince:

I'm sorry for it then, for I should have had a good laugh at you otherwise. Do break something at least, in the drawing-room! Upset the Chinese vase, won't you? It's a valuable one; do break it. Mamma values it, and she'll go out of her mind--it was a present. She'll cry before everyone, you'll see! Wave your hand about, you know, as you always do, and just smash it. Sit down near it on purpose.

And later the anxious prince:

I shall say something foolish out of pure 'funk,' and break something for the same excellent reason; I know I shall.

And a repentant Aglaya:

And you won't reproach me for all these rude words of mine--some day--afterwards?" she asked, of a sudden.

At the party he inadvertently topples the vase:

He saw them gather up the broken bits of china; he heard the loud talking of the guests and observed how pale Aglaya looked, and how very strangely she was gazing at him. There was no hatred in her expression, and no anger whatever. It was full of alarm for him, and sympathy and affection, while she looked around at the others with flashing, angry eyes.

Aglaya's mother dotingly responds with:

"Oh, what a dreadful calamity! A wretched vase smashed, and a man half dead with remorse about it," said Lizabetha Prokofievna, loudly. "What made you so dreadfully startled, Lef Nicolaievitch?" she added, a little timidly. "Come, my dear boy! cheer up. You really alarm me, taking the accident so to heart."

And to the prince the next morning, with strains prophetic of the last page:

"Oh, that's nothing," replied Lizabetha; "I'm not sorry for the vase, I'm sorry for you. H'm! so you can see that there was a 'scene,' can you? Well, it doesn't matter much, for everyone must realize now that it is impossible to be hard on you. ... and be assured, once for all, whatever happens, and whatever may have happened, you shall always remain the friend of the family--mine, at all events. I can answer for myself."

A fortnight after Nastasia Philipovna 's murder, the narrator reports the local gossip:

It was rumoured that he had purposely waited for the solemn occasion of a large evening party at the house of his future bride, at which he was introduced to several eminent persons, in order publicly to make known his ideas and opinions, and thereby insult the "big-wigs," and to throw over his bride as offensively as possible; and that, resisting the servants who were told off to turn him out of the house, he had seized and thrown down a magnificent china vase. As a characteristic addition to the above, it was currently reported that the young prince really loved the lady to whom he was engaged, and had thrown her over out of purely Nihilistic motives, with the intention of giving himself the satisfaction of marrying a fallen woman in the face of all the world...

Why a broken vase? The incident is Dostoyevsky’s way of showing that Prince Myshkin was on the best possible terms with the Epanchin family: ‘whatever happens...you shall always remain the friend of the family’.

While the prince has human weakness, social ineptitude and mild epilepsy for instance, he is a man of peerless integrity and compassion. Nevertheless, the family soon spurns him when he selflessly strives to rescue ‘the fallen woman’, the suicidal Nastasia Philipovna, from herself.

[bazarov]

Fyodor's intention was not to show romance and happiness where it doesn't exist (if you like that, try with Hugo); he just showed how people and world really are.

Originally Posted by virginiawang
Sorry I don't agree with what you wrote. In my opinion, Dostoyevsky created all kinds of characters that act foolishly, romanticly, but end up in sadness. For example Dymitri had a childish heart, which he devoted entirely to Grunshenka. His passion and love for her could never be more romantic, and that could be seen in all the rash actions he took in the story. Alshoya, in a sense, was romantic in another way. The way he looked at the world was from the angle of a child, who had not grown accustomed to the practical world we know. It best describes the viewpoints suggested in Emrson's Nature, that the rays of stars, which are the most magnificent blessings in the universe, only shot into the eyes of children, but seldom reach those sophiscated adults. Emerson is the most important writer of American Romanticism, and his idea about nature and children is nothing but beautiful. You can never feel romantic without beauty getting involved. I feel the essense of all Dostoyevsky's novel is the beauty of a soul, which can be found in many of his characters. Sadness only intensified beauty and romance, in my opinion.

I don't see what is romantic in Dimitri's love toward Grushenka? Insulting and beating of his own father and brother while she is laughing to him?
Alyosha is a bit too good to even be true; when he realized world is ugly he leaved monastery immediately.

You're mentioning Emerson as a most important writer of American Romanticism - then why are you comparing him with Dostoevsky? It is totally different perspective on humans and world.

Seriously, try with Hugo.

P.S. Mishkin is even not a human, his ''romanticism'' just isn't real.

P.P.S. Welcome!

[virginiawang]

There are situations where you can act quite romanticly but you don't enjoy happiness at all, and many times we muddled the two words " romantic" and " happy" when indeed they are diiffrent fundamentally. For example, I am sure you can remember having read romantic stories that end up sadly. The sadness only makes us feel the romantic sentiments all the more. In my opinion, Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novels presented only a part of the world where most people act instinctively, and in a sense, romanticly. When people follow their hearts rather than their heads, they are being romantic. Instincts and intuitions can often be found as the motives of acts in Dostoevsky's characters, and those are the part over which our head or rational faculties have no control. Ralph Waldo Emerson, the mainstream writer of American Romanticism, laid stress upon human instincts, the most natural part of human faculties, in most of his works, because he considered everything natural as being beautiful and romantic. That's the reason why I said in my previous posts that Fyodor Dostoyevsky was a romantic writer. You cannot say the story is not romantic because it is sad. More often than not, we find people who act romanticly do not enjoy the happiness they deserve in real life, but perhaps they do.
By the way, you mentioned Dimitri as void of romance, and I don't quite understand you. If he were not considered as romantic, who else could have been classified as being romantic? He could do anything for his love, and that included all you've mentioned there, for example, beating his father, stealing money from his bethrothed, and wounding the old man who raised him in his childhood. It is an unconditional love on his part. Grashenka, though made fool of him always, accepted him and loved him truly toward the end of the novel.
It is fairly romantic to create such a character as Alyosha, who had an infant-like mind that most people couldn't have imagined in a dream. I agree with you that he was not fit for reality, too naive, innocent, and sincere.
As far as Myshkin is concerned, I believe he had the truest love for Nastasya.
Who is Hugo? I never read him before. If, according to you, he ended up all his novels in great felicity, I don't think I should like to read them. Oftentimes, sadness inspires romancce.

[bazarov]

Romance is, at least for me; Romeo and Juliet or Sonya and Raskolnikov - I really don't see nothing of that in Dimitri's case. That's just my point of view.

Who is Hugo?? Victor Hugo, French writer from 19th century. His novels doesn't always end happily, but they are romantic.