From Goodreads for today’s 52 Living Ideas meet-up

Demons by Fyodor Dostoevsky
January 9, 2022

Getting into the first chapter was a bit of a chore, different country, different language, different names, different type of society. But bit by bit, by the end of the first chapter, I was on the edge of my seat and chomping at the bit, so to speak, wanting to know about these strange people in this strange place at this strange time. By the end of the 2nd chapter, settled in to the action, it was easy to see the depiction of the human condition, and even seeing Stepan and Vavaras as character types among my own friends and associates.

I kept asking myself, who is the narrator? He finally identified himself near the end of Chapter 2, well, not exactly, but he gave the reader the first and last letter of his name and some elements of his personal description. Clearly good at keeping secrets.

Some early notes posted to my blog here: https://raymmaxx.wordpress.com/2022/0… Reading tip/hint: read the Wikipedia article on the book before getting into chap. 2, just for navigation.

Will try to add bits and pieces each two weeks before or after we meet.
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Some post-discussion thoughts.

1. As Americans, perhaps as westerners, we have an inherent bias towards categorization. In reading fiction, we seek to categorize characters quickly, to put them in a box that somehow explains all their actions. I think we err if we attempt to do that with characters in the first two chapters of a 700+ page novel. Further, I think the author is not only aware of that bias, across time, but exploits it as part of both his character and plot development.
2. I immediately assumed that Vavara and Stepan were principal characters and their relationship, the main plot in the story. Apparently I couldn’t have been more wrong, though it is where I thought the bread crumbs were leading me.
3. Throughout the reading I kept asking myself, who is the narrator? He finally reveals himself, kinda sorta, as G–v, at the close of chapter 2. Why the big secret? I think the narrator is a good secret-keeper.
4. In all these discussions, Russia seems to be described in ways that suggest having an identity crisis. She wants to be Germany, but she is not. She wants to be France, but she is not. In our discussion, we talked about the idea that the evolution of so-called Western political reform and even culture had left Russia behind, that Russia had missed the boat and was undergoing a period of “darkness.”
5. I think it is most interesting that Russia ended its system of serfdom in 1861, prior to America’s legal end of slavery. Of course, forced servitude and peonage continued well into the 20th century, aided by a cutout in the 14th Amendment, the same 14th Amendment that ended slavery. The legal end of both systems of forced servitude sent shock waves through the cultural and political fabric of society. I’ll be anxious to see how it all played out in Russia.
6. Four names mentioned by Stepan Trofimovich I had to look up in actual history: Chaadaev, Belinsky, Granovsky, and Herzen. More on them later. But keep in mind that Stepan Trofimovich is a teacher, and his character is teaching us, the readers, throughout.
7. Related links: Belinsky letter to Gogol, The Revolutionary Catechism, Sergey Nacheyev, Besy, God of the Machine