Uncle's Dream and Other Stories

by Fyodor Dostoevsky, David McDuff (Translator)

Gone is the contained, brooding, dream-prone atmopshere of his earlier stories; instead Uncle's Dream is narrated with firm objectivity, combining satire, social reportage, puppet theatre and farce in its comic send-up of small-town manners and morals.

Dostoyevsky's inspiration for The Meek Girl came from a newspaper report on the suicide of a seamstress who plunged from a garret window, holding a religious icon in her hands. According to the critic John Jones, it is "one of the most powerful studies of despair in world literature, a banging on closed doors imagined with abosolute fearlessness."

Genres: Russia, Fiction, Short Stories, Classics, Literature, Literary Fiction, Russian Literature

304 pages, Paperback

First published October 3, 1989

About the author

Фёдор Михайлович Достоевский (Russian)

Works, such as the novels Crime and Punishment (1866), The Idiot (1869), and The Brothers Karamazov (1880), of Russian writer Feodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky or Dostoevski combine religious mysticism with profound psychological insight.

Very influential writings of Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin included Problems of Dostoyevsky's Works (1929),

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky composed short stories, essays, and journals. His literature explores humans in the troubled political, social, and spiritual atmospheres of 19th-century and engages with a variety of philosophies and themes. People most acclaimed his Demons(1872) .

Many literary critics rate him among the greatest authors of world literature and consider multiple books written by him to be highly influential masterpieces. They consider his Notes from Underground of the first existentialist literature. He is also well regarded as a philosopher and theologian.

(Russian: Фёдор Михайлович Достоевский) (see also Fiodor Dostoïevski)

Reviews

[theheadofthequeen · Rating 3 out of 5]

one of the other short stories in this 'white night' is probably my favourite short story ever

[J.M. Hushour · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm rounding out all the Dosty I've never read, up to "Notes from the Underground", which is mostly his short fiction, notably "Uncle's Dream", his rebound-from-exile work. "Uncle" tends to get disparaged, I have to wonder if in part because Dosty himself didn't think too much of it. It's not bad at all and represents the first real glimpses of the shift in D-Bag's tone and focus.
With a dramatic structure, this play-as-novella takes place within strict, delineated confines which, for the first time in his works, I think, the characters are aware of how limited their scope is, provincial and pointless, but nevertheless live their lives in attempts to control the little universe they inhabit, with universally negative results.
Mozglyakov's revelation in particular, highlights one of these moments, when he stumbles through a snowy night, coming to realize the absurdity and, most importantly, the reality of his situation.
Dosty here moves away from the dreamy insouciance of characters in his previous works. Post-exile, having lived neck-deep in the shit for years, he no longer takes for granted the world of the idealistic dreamer. Here we have the beginnings of his coming to terms with the frank and underlying notion that life is absurd and horrific enough.
Another short work here is "A Weak Heart", another pivotal story in which hopes and dreams are dashed against the harsh realities of our own spiritual and mental fragility.

[Robin · Rating 4 out of 5]

My husband and I read this book years ago...we blew threw it in one night taking turns reading it out loud. One of the funniest books I have ever read. Of course, if I remember correctly, there Is a serious point to the story about humans and our behavior, but I love the way it is communicated. I will read this book again someday.

[Adam Goddard · Rating 4 out of 5]

A weak heart = 3.5/5
White nights = 4/5
Uncles dream = 3.75/5
The meek one= 4/5

[Ren · Rating 3 out of 5]

Uncle's Dream -- 3/5
Where ‘comme il faut’ is concerned, she has no rivals among the ladies of Mordasov. She knows, for example, how to slay.” (p.123)
"I involuntarily wrote that little thing of dove-like mildness." Dostoevsky's own words on Uncle's Dream, not mine. The 'involuntary' part presumably references the fact that after being released from prison after 10ish years of incarceration, he was pretty broke.

I have a budding theory that writing projects with the least amount of care put into them might possibly offer the most insight into their authors. It's like the lack of interest in the project allows them to write with their id or something. It's the reason I think so much of what many consider 'bad' or at least non-literary fiction has so many internal inconsistencies or questionable messaging that appears with just a broad stroke of literary analysis.

Dostoevsky, obviously, is a very good writer, and so 'Uncle's Dream' is really well written (would that we could all write as well on our best day as Dostoevsky does at his most throwaway), but I do think that 'Uncle's Dream' says a lot about him that we already kind of gleaned in 'White Nights'. And being that 'Uncle's Dream' is a not so soft reboot of 'White Nights' it's unsurprising that this should be the case.

I don't know what happened to him, who hurt him, I don't know anything about his personal life, but something clearly led this man to have (at least at this point in his life) a deep and unsettling repugnance for women because piggy-backing off of 'White Nights' all of the women in 'Uncle's Dream' are horrible people, specifically in the ways in which they manipulate the men in their lives.

Now, granted, unlike in 'White Nights' (a story written with a painful lack of self-awareness), 'Uncle's Dream' does attempt introspection at a few points, but then manages to undermine itself again.

Much like in 'White Nights' the crux of the plot revolves around a cursed love triangle (or a box, as it turns out) involving a cold but beautiful girlie named Zina, an earnest but supercilious young man named Pavel Aleksandrovich Mozglyakov (Mozglyakov for our purposes), and a dottery and supercilious old man called Prince K.

Zina's mother (and the best and worst character in the story), Mariya Aleksandrovna Moskaleva, wants to marry her daughter off to Prince K on the assumption that he will die the next time caught out in a cold breeze, leaving Zina to inherit his money and lands (from which her mother will obviously also benefit greatly). Zina is not really into this plan and thinks it's morally repulsive to trick a senile old man into marrying her, but ultimately agrees to give it a go after her mother wears her down.

The other plot going on is this very painful 'not-even-friendzone' situation between Zina and Mozglyakov. He has apparently been attempting to woo her for some time at the point at which 'Uncle's Dream' opens, though she pretty openly despises him.

Partway through the novella, he confronts her when her betrothal to Prince K is leaked, and accuses her of leading him on. Much like in 'White Nights' she denies this (in a really good, very girlboss-y speech I might add), but this is later totally undermined when she admits that yes, she did lead him on, and was just trying to gaslight him. Wow, we're really just recycling that directly from 'White Nights'...

The true villain of the story, however, is Mariya Aleksandrovna Moskaleva (Mariya) who is so obsessed with social climbing that she will do whatever it takes to gain social clout. And she's proven pretty successful up until this point. I would have enjoyed her really campy and often unnecessary schemes were it not for the fact that Dostoevsky drops in an incredibly graphic and uncomfortable domestic violence plot point about how Mariya regularly beats her husband both physically and psychologically. And for what? He's just living his life and putting together outfits to go with his tie -- leave him alone!?

The prince is very funny, and his senility lends itself to a few good punchlines including this, my favorite: 'hydrotherapy is a useful thing and has brought me a power of benefit so that if I hadn't ended up falling ill, I do assure you that there'd have been absolutely nothing wrong with me." (p.147)

The tone of 'Uncle's Dream' is very breezy, much more in line with your Jane Austens or your Oscar Wildes what with its quippy dialogue and making fun of rich people, but it has a mean-streak on its underbelly that somewhat takes the fun out of the shenanigans of what would otherwise have been fairly lighthearted (certainly for Dostoevsky) aside from the consumption arc where Zina's ex-boyfriend gets consumption on purpose because she asked him to wait to marry her until he was more financially stable. That sounds ridiculous, and it is, but it was honestly the closest we got to a humanizing moment for the girlies or a moment of self-awareness for the lads, and I did like that part.

Dostoevsky clearly had an understanding of the inherent pathetic nature of incels because he wrote about it twice in a row. And twice in a row gave the girlie a speech to point out how and why that's a pathetic way to go through life only to (twice in a row) undermine that speech by having the girlie admit she did do the thing (and for what?), thus justifying the incel in each case's feelings that women are duplicitous bitches -- the pretty ones especially. Someone needs to Delorian back to show him the 'I'm Just Ken' music video or something.

In 'Uncle's Dream' this message is muddier than in 'White Nights', which is good given that 10 years separate the publication of those respective works, so maybe in 'Uncle's Dream' he was finally able to get out whatever his thing with this subject matter was, because I will be quite bored if I have to read it again.
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White Nights -- 2.5/5

'White Nights' has arguably some of Dostoevsky's best writing from the early part of his body of work, but it also has the dishonor of being the least introspective and therefore, least interesting.

The title of 'White Nights' ought to have been 'Nice Guys Finish Last.'

Our unnamed protagonist is a poor young man who begins the narrative by lamenting that he is twenty-six years old, but never yet had 'a woman of his own.' The story follows this guy (we can consider him 'not-Dostoevsky.') around St. Petersburg while he laments his loneliness.

While out wandering, he intervenes when a young woman is made to feel uncomfortable by an older man who is seemingly harassing her.

From there, our protagonist strikes up a friendship with this young woman, Nastenka, who tells him about her own romance woes; her beloved left a year ago, promising to come back and marry her when he had enough money, but a year has passed, and she's starting to worry that he isn't coming back for her.

The protagonist spends 4 days trying to help her reconnect with her lover, all the while harboring his own secret love for her. In the end, Nastenka, heartbroken by the fact that her lover has failed to make contact, paints him as not a very nice person and our protagonist finally admits that he loves her and would do better as her partner than the man she's been searching for.

Nasktenka reveals that she knew he loved her, and tells him she will shift her affections on to him, and they make plans for him to move in to the empty room in the apartment she shares with her grandmother. But just as it seems like our protagonist will be rewarded for his kindness, they run into Nastenka's old flame, who she immediately returns to. And then this happens:

"Hardly had she given him her hand, hardly had she rushed into his embrace, then she suddenly turned to me again, materialized beside me like the wind, like lightning, and, before I had time to think, she threw both her arms around my neck and gave me a violent, passionate kiss. Then, without saying a word to me she rushed back to him, took him by the hands, and drew him off after her." (119)

Unrequited love, especially coming from Dostoevsky's pen, could have been so interesting, and he could have taken it in any number of novel directions, but...he didn't. Instead of critiquing the mindset that a man is owed a woman's affections because he's been nice to her, he leans into it by having Nastenka admit outright that she was leading the protagonist on somewhat.

How very trite: the nice guy is jilted by a duplicitous woman for a man who isn't as deserving. Blah blah blah.

With 'White Nights' I can see why some might consider liking Dostoevsky to be a red flag. It's easy to imagine a lonely young man reading this story, seeing himself in the protagonist, and projecting his own failings in love onto it, and then having the satisfaction of being told by such an authority: 'it's not you, it's her.' But not only that, Dostoevsky creates a story in which that feeling of frustration is justified. The protagonist learns nothing, changes not at all, and ends up just as lonely and pathetic as when he started. More so, perhaps, because he fell for the trap this woman laid for him.

Nastenka says when they first meet that she is romantically unavailable. She makes this very clear: "You mustn't fall in love with me ... This is out of the question, I assure you. I'm ready to be your friend, here is my hand...But no falling in love if you please." (80)

He falls in love with her anyway, which in and of itself isn't the problem; that's not the kind of thing that's controllable.

Throughout their friendship, she is very open with him emotionally, and she's physically affectionate. All of which could be totally platonic. Which, indeed, was where I thought this was going. I thought the 'twist' would be that the mixed signals he thought he was getting were in his own mind. That he was misinterpreting platonic affection for something more.

But to have it be that she really was leading him on, that she really did know how he felt about her and acted that way towards him anyway is a lazy and harmful re-enforcement of the myth that men and women can't be friends, and moreover, that men should be incentivised to be kind to women based on the assumption that their reward is her romantic attention.

Because in reality it's incredibly toxic and disingenuous to be nice to someone only because you expect something in return that you aren't up front about, and then get angry when you're denied what you weren't promised in the first place. That mindset, I have to say, means you aren't actually a 'nice guy.'

Thank you, but no thank you, Fyodor.

Next.

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bleak, as a compliment, bleak. Uncle’s Dream kind of lost me, but the other stories here were worth the effort.

[Senne De Hertefelt · Rating 4 out of 5]

A weak heart: 3/5
White nights: couldn't finish it
Uncle's dream: 4/5, funny and entertaining
A meek girl: 4/5

[Olive A · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dostoyevsky is classic, and his writing was much easier to understand than i thought it would be, considering it’s from 19th century russia. A lot of the themes are very applicable.

[Dr Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

In his decade of exile, the first few years of which he spent in hellish prison conditions, Dostoevsky produced little written work. You could argue that all of his great works couldn't or wouldn't have been produced in the same way without his 1850s experience. After all many writers don't immediately draw on traumatic life experience in their own work. I'm thinking of JG Ballard whose work specifically on his childhood in occupied Shanghai came relatively late on in his work or the prolific Dennis Potter where only his later TV dramas like the Singing Detective (currently repeating on BBC4) dealt with his own youthful trauma.

There was another problem for FD though - he was living in a feudal dictatorship which he had been arrrested and exiled for opposing. Although by the end of exile he supported the new Tsar. They had controls of publication and also in his prison time he was not permitted any writing material.

So the sum total of that time was two ostensibly light novellas - Uncle's Dream being the first. Seemingly a literary confection, a bauble as Mark Cousins would say, this short work explores the machinations of a provincial village elite trying to marry off an elderly, possible senile, member of the aristocracy to a young beautiful woman. Lots of visits to country houses, aristocratic balls and comic misunderstanding.

The tone is very theatrical and I wasn't surprised to see it had been turned into a play something like 20 times. The lightness is obvious and it flies past as you read it. However I have a sense there are glimpses here of deeper issues. One theory is that FD stuck to this path so there would be no issue around censorship.

Given all that the characterisation is pretty dark - the key villain - the manipulative mother who believes she controls all the comings and goings of the village and equally can control the doddery old Prince: Maria Alexandrovna is a sophisticated creation that could come from a modern writer. I could see similar issues being done and a similar woman in an English play by Alan Ayckbourn or a TV comedy drama by Victoria Wood. The pathetic thwarted suitor of the intended for the Prince and indeed the nominal nephew Pavel Mozglyakov also stands out.

What is missing from the work I have read so far of FD are the contemporary literary and artistic references. This village is in a bubble where banal worries about who is going to marry (and trick) an elderly aristocrat are to the fore. Although there are references to light French novels like Dumas and constant quotes in French - these stand out because they are so isolated. I guess this is not surprising because FD himself was miles away from the literary milieu he had cultivated.

Yet in passing the number of "souls" -peasants - controlled by these figures is thrown about pretty lightly. The deference to the feudal structure, a constant them in FDs work, is there in spades in fact the whole plot revolves around it. The Prince even raises the issue of serf emancipation, one of FD's crimes in the eyes of the Tsarist state, before almost as quickly dismissing it - he speaks of being influenced by foreign ideas. And in a very unusual last chapter the issues of mortality are raised darkly and really out of kilter with the rest of the piece.

So all those things are touched on but I have to say it is actually funny - maybe unusually for a nineteenth century literary comedy. I could see some influence perhaps of Dickens whose jokes have not all stood the test of time. There is a funny line about a boring male character who often "looks blankly like a sheep that has seen a new gate" well it made me chuckle. And the plot whilst derivative is pretty well paced and structured for humour. Also in quite a modern way FD contrasts the lightness with quite dark and bitter ideas- Maria's essential prostitution of her daughter and her relationship with her husband is quite shockingly violently cruel.

So you could argue this got FD back in the saddle of published work and it's a good distraction for a few hours read. Also have to give word of praise to edition I picked up by Hesperus press. Lovely lay-out and good translation and introduction - published last year. I think it specialises in publishing more obscure literary works from the great writers. Lucky for me!

[Insidebooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of short stories includes tragedy, humour and an insight into how people lived and survived in a Russia that was hard for both peasant and aspiring aristocrat alike.

The main story Uncle's Dream was penned by Dostoyevsky after a five-year exile in Siberia and covers the tale of a provincial family desperate to better itself through a marriage of their daughter to a senile prince. The old man is hoodwinked and almost forced into a wedding that is expected to last for a short period before he dies and leaves his fortune to the young girl. There are complications however with the young girl Zina already in love with a teacher who is on his death bed. That relationship is frowned on by her ambitious mother and the only other suitor is disliked by Zina.

The mother tries to manipulate everyone to her own advantage but it all comes crashing down and with great humour the plans to marry the Prince fall apart.

What you are left with is a brilliant insight into the desperation for provincial merchants to better their station in life and the gossip and rivalry that is created by their efforts.

A Meek Girl takes the form of a diary like narrative recounting the story of a pawn broker and his wife. She has just committed suicide and the husband dwells on what happened to their relationship. His ambitions to escape to the country and get away from the poverty he sees everyday in the shop is kept from her and the silence that builds up gets to the point where the damage is irreversible.

Along with those two there is A Weak Heart and White Nights which are a tragic tale of the pressures of working to live and the tale of a loner who over four nights falls for a girl who then moves out of his reach.

As a collection it runs along well, sometimes there can be a jarring between stories, and combines a good mix of tragedy and satire. The themes that Dostoyevsky is famous for are all here with the grinding misery of the clerks in A Weak Heart not being a million miles away from the hardship Raskolnikov finds himself in at the start of Crime and Punishment. Its hard not to think of the muddled and manipulated Prince Gavrila in Uncle's Dream as not that far away from Prince in The Idiot.

[- Jared - ₪ Book Nerd ₪ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Told in a narrative in the wonderful Russian style of Dostoyevsky. This story set in the town of Mordasoff about an ambitious mother, Maria Alexandrovna Moskaleva, set upon the goal of matching up her daughter, Zina, with a rich, prominent, old, and senile prince of the old aristocracy visiting from abroad.

The mother attempts to manipulate the prince into marrying her daughter by getting him drunk and arranging a commitment to marry. She also tries to manipulate others to her own advantage but, among a small crowd of people, her carefully contrived plans for her daughter's marriage to the Prince, all comes crashing down and with great tragedy and humor.

Something that struck me in reading this particular work of Dostoyevsky, is that it shows strong traces of influence by Charles Dickens. To me, Dostoyevsky, though very unique in his own way, is the Russian Dickens. Also as far as I can determine, this was the first novella that Dostoyevsky wrote after 5 years of his exile in Siberia making this particular work somewhat iconic and significant. It is evident that during or after this period of desperation, he became great at character analysing which contributed, in no small part, to his excellence in writing and thus making him a genius in his time.

This work, however good, is not quite on par with some of his better writings. Compared to most contemporary Novellas, it is a 5 star book. However, compared to his other works, it is maybe a 3. Therefore, I'll compromise at a 4 star rating.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

An odd collection of stories, taken from all different periods of Dostoevsky's career. The title story was the first fiction he published after prison life in Siberia. It is so different than his pre-Siberian work, and so different from his later, major, novels. A rural fae Marya A goes off to drag her husband back from the country estate. rce. And quite funny at that - loved the scene when Marya A goes off to drag her husband from the country estate.

"The Meek Girl" gives us a chance to compare older translations to Pevear and Volokhonsky's.

Working my way chronologically through his complete career - fiction, occasional writings, the Frank multi-volume intellectual bio, letters, and diary.