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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5700.The_Adolescent?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="The Adolescent" border="0" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/photo.goodreads.com/books/1165541712m/5700.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5700.The_Adolescent?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">The Adolescent</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3356.Fyodor_Dostoevsky">Fyodor Dostoevsky</a><br/><br/>
  <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/22326291?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a>
  rating: 5 of 5 stars<br/>It's possible that Dostoevsky overstuffed the sandwich on this one, but even so I love him for his infectious exuberance for sandwiches and I devoured the messy thing with relish.  
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<br/>The Adolescent is a little like The Sound and the Fury (which I read 20 pages of), in that both are presented through the eyes of a narrator who's a little off.  Much of the fun of The Adolescent comes from diagnosing the narrator, whose symptoms change significantly over the course of the book.  Much of the frustration of The Adolescent comes from trying to follow the plot, which is an impossible knot of society intrigues reported by a narrator who may be a lunatic or a simpleton and is certainly arrogant, hot-tempered, inconsistent, desperately lonely, and under-informed.  This was the last book Dostoevsky'd write before Brothers Karamazov, and he struggles with mostly the same themes, though less gracefully due to the restrictiveness of the single narrator.  He does however have an uncanny talent for writing maniacs; he can bring the reader frighteningly, viscerally deep into the irrational mind (Crime and Punishment is the best example), and I can only believe he was some kind of maniac in real life.  
<br/>
<br/>But the primary reason I'm loving Dostoevsky so much right now is the spiritualism in his work.  There's a heart-breaking grapple between the necessity for the cold-eyed, modern society man to conclude that there there is no god, and the beauty of simple and unreflecting peasant religion.  This is why he celebrates the innocence of children; they can believe in god perfectly, and growing up is in every case harmful.  But it is possible for a wise man to heal from the damage caused by growing up and occupy both positions; cold-eyed atheism and rapturous love of god.  It's an irrational position, obviously, the kind you can't look directly in the eye, but perhaps it's possible to believe in impossible things, because perhaps impossible things are true.  I'm struggling with it, but I feel a strong resonance.    Soon I'll be ready for another sandwich.
  <br/><br/><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/123201?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>

Graeme's review
rating:

It's possible that Dostoevsky overstuffed the sandwich on this one, but even so I love him for his infectious exuberance for sandwiches and I devoured the messy thing with relish.

The Adolescent is a little like The Sound and the Fury (which I read 20 pages of), in that both are presented through the eyes of a narrator who's a little off. Much of the fun of The Adolescent comes from diagnosing the narrator, whose symptoms change significantly over the course of the book. Much of the frustration of The Adolescent comes from trying to follow the plot, which is an impossible knot of society intrigues reported by a narrator who may be a lunatic or a simpleton and is certainly arrogant, hot-tempered, inconsistent, desperately lonely, and under-informed. This was the last book Dostoevsky'd write before Brothers Karamazov, and he struggles with mostly the same themes, though less gracefully due to the restrictiveness of the single narrator. He does however have an uncanny talent for ...more It's possible that Dostoevsky overstuffed the sandwich on this one, but even so I love him for his infectious exuberance for sandwiches and I devoured the messy thing with relish.

The Adolescent is a little like The Sound and the Fury (which I read 20 pages of), in that both are presented through the eyes of a narrator who's a little off. Much of the fun of The Adolescent comes from diagnosing the narrator, whose symptoms change significantly over the course of the book. Much of the frustration of The Adolescent comes from trying to follow the plot, which is an impossible knot of society intrigues reported by a narrator who may be a lunatic or a simpleton and is certainly arrogant, hot-tempered, inconsistent, desperately lonely, and under-informed. This was the last book Dostoevsky'd write before Brothers Karamazov, and he struggles with mostly the same themes, though less gracefully due to the restrictiveness of the single narrator. He does however have an uncanny talent for writing maniacs; he can bring the reader frighteningly, viscerally deep into the irrational mind (Crime and Punishment is the best example), and I can only believe he was some kind of maniac in real life.

But the primary reason I'm loving Dostoevsky so much right now is the spiritualism in his work. There's a heart-breaking grapple between the necessity for the cold-eyed, modern society man to conclude that there there is no god, and the beauty of simple and unreflecting peasant religion. This is why he celebrates the innocence of children; they can believe in god perfectly, and growing up is in every case harmful. But it is possible for a wise man to heal from the damage caused by growing up and occupy both positions; cold-eyed atheism and rapturous love of god. It's an irrational position, obviously, the kind you can't look directly in the eye, but perhaps it's possible to believe in impossible things, because perhaps impossible things are true. I'm struggling with it, but I feel a strong resonance. Soon I'll be ready for another sandwich....less

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message 1: by jordan

06/03/2008 12:54PM

you really must read the idiot