Dostoevsky

by Richard Freeborn

Fyodor Dostoevsky is known as the author of some of the most important Russian novels of the 19th Century, such as Crime and Punishment, The Idiot and The Brothers Karamazov.

Richard Freeborn MA DPhil DLitt, is Professor Emeritus of Russian Literature at the University of London. He is the author of Turgenev: The Novelist's Novelist; A Short History of Modern Russia; The Rise of the Russian Novel and The Russian Revolutionary Novel. He contributed to The Cambridge History of Russian Literature; The Age of Realism; Encyclopedia of the Novel; Reference Guide to Russian Literature; and The Cambridge Companion to Tolstoy and has co-edited Russian Literature Attitudes from Pushkin to Solzhenitsyn; Russian and Slavic Literature and Ideology in Russian Literature. He has also translated several works by Ivan Turgenev, as well as Dostoevsky's An Accidental Family.

'Freeborn is a learned guide and struggles manfully with the impossible task of squeezing Dostoevsky into a pint pot.' -- John Carey Culture Sunday Times

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, History, 21st Century

183 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2005

About the author

Richard Freeborn is Emeritus Professor of Russian Literature at the University of London. he has published widely on Russian literature, including Turgenev, A Study and The Rise of the Russian Novel.

Reviews

[C.P. Cabaniss · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a snapshot of Dostoevsky's life and works. It was an interesting overview of some of what he experienced and how this shaped his novels. It delved a little more into the actual plot of several of his stories rather than focusing on his life, which I had not expected as much.

A good overview with some fascinating information, but if you don't want to be spoiled about what happens in some of his major works (Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, The Idiot) then you may want to read this after you've read his major works if you want to delve a little more into the mind behind the writing.

[john lambert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sort of an interesting book... It gave a general overview of his life, family, struggles, along with maybe too much on the meaning of his books. It seemed to be literary criticism in the sense of reading in a lot of politics and religion into his books. Didactic this, nihilism that...

Since Dostoevsky is one of my all time favorites, it was pretty interesting. I learned that his last book, The Brothers Karamazov, was part 1 of a 2 part plan but he died before starting the second part. He had a devoted much younger second wife who helped him throughout their time together. He had several children.

All in all, pretty good.

[Nicholas Pokorny · Rating 4 out of 5]

In what is my introduction into the works of Fyodor Dostoevsky, Richard Freeborn's abridged history on the life of Dostoevsky is a marvelous academic work, explaining the wheres, the whats, and the whos in Fyodor's life that gave life to his many and strange character profiles in his stories. Armed with this knowledge (the author uses/cites an obscene amount of primary sources), a person is able to see the world of Dostoevsky's St. Petersburg and its many terrible and realistic characters and the injustices they all faced.

[Sead · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good book, a clear, crisp and precise biography of the tragic life of one of the most intriguing writers to have walked the face of the earth, and one where admirably Freeborn pulls no punches about his less successful work, e.g. An Accidental family, a.k.a. the Raw Youth (a bizarrely impotent and insignificant brick), but while I'd like to have seen more development of the earlier episodes, such as his childhood in the provinces and relationship with his father Mikhail, which I think were far more formative than other events, e.g., his subsequent gambling trips across Europe, although I enjoyed reading about his relationship with Turgenev, on the whole, this is very well balanced and poses an intriguing synopsis of his greatest work (The Brothers Karamazov), so that by the time of his death the impassioned tone of this book rings with insight and resonance, and on the whole this is a far more useful study of his life than some of Dostoevsky's own utterings in The New Dostoevsky Letters (ed. S.S. Koteliansky), but sadly emphasizes to me at least that I have absolutely no interest in reading his Writer's Diary. As a final point I'd like to add that apart from perhaps Nastasya Fillippovna in The Idiot or Plotina in The Gambler (Crime and Punishment's Sonia is unconvincing, whatever you say, not that anyone is reading this, but what the hell) Dostoevsky wrote very little of the women in his life, and given his intensity of emotion and high ideals of universal love, despite all the suffering, I would have liked this book to include greater analysis of this and perhaps include extracts of further scholarship, e.g. his letters to Apollinaria Suslova (the imprint for Plotina). There also remains the curious success of his first novel Poor Folk, and its subsequent approval by Belinsky, but I suppose that this was important enough to go in the final draft, because it emphasizes the reactionary nature of the Russian literary scene circa 1845, and it also includes an amusing description by Turgenev that Dostoevsky was 'the red pimple on the nose of literature'. Ultimately a biography can never offer the claustrophobic and uncompromising psychological insight, philosophical sweep, or emotional and intellectual intensity of the actual writings of this unique man who was seeking to break out of humanity, but this is a very good attempt at capturing not only the story of Dostoevsky's life, but that of Russia itself during the 19th Century.

[Lewis · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fine summary of a great man. It is short but I believe it is long enough for the reader to get the right message of Dostoevsky. There is a depth of Historical backdrop outlining the progression of the Biography and at the bottom of every page there is a reference word or sentence for quick and easy access to specific points. There is so much i did not know about this shrewd gentlemen, this wise and loving Everyman, soft and gentle in his nature, though harsh and coarse in his depiction of Russian, and indeed world life. His Xenophobic and provincial life style leaves much to be desired but created one of the true Geniuses of the 19th century literature scene. Richard Freeborn, being a translator of various works such as Turgnevs Fathers and Sons and Dostoevsky's An accidental family is the perfect man to talk of the man and the period he lived through, i recommend this for the curious man or woman wanting to find out more about the great man though not already knowing that much; it may not give a great deal to one who is familiar with his life, works and times.
WARNING: If you plan to read the main Dostoevsky novels this book does give Spoilers on some key events so beware.

[Doug K · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting biography of Dostoevsky and overview of his major works. A good place to start to get an overview before diving into his deeper works. The background is very useful to better understand the context and cultural influences on his writing as well as offers insight into what each of his major novels is about.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good little biography that focused mostly on his work.

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great biography, chronology, in-depth info on his works and even a section for "further reading." Amazing that there is so much info for such a small book of 137 pages.

[Fabiela · Rating 2 out of 5]

I just starting reading this book as companhion for Crime and Punishment. Understood more about Dostoevsky. Decided not to finish it.