Four More Books on Dostoevsky
Some More Books Dostoevsky-related In my last post in this blog, I expressed rather passionately my virtual besottedness with anything by or on Fyodor Dostoevsky. Here I will review four books, one by the author and the other three about him from different perspectives. They are all short books that can be read quickly or even dipped into. As a seventeen-year-old boy, writing to his brother Mikhail, he stated his ambition as a writer in a rather passionate way; indeed, one would say in a precocious manner, but nonetheless true, given the majesty and universality of his oeuvre: “My soul is not subject to my former violent upsets. All is calm within it, as in the heart of a man who has harboured a deep mystery; ‘to learn what life and man means’ – I am being reasonably successful in this; I can study characters from the writers with whom the best part of my life is passed in joy and freedom; I can say no more about myself. I am sure of myself. Man is...