Characters-Readers in Dostoevsky’s Novel The Possessed. The Sad Triumph of the Apocalypse

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Author: Liudmila I. Saraskina

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DSc in Philology, Leading Researcher, State Institute for Art Studies, Kozitskii Lane 5, 125009 Moscow, Russia.

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For citation:

Saraskina, L.I. “Characters-Readers in Dostoevsky’s Novel The Possessed. The Sad Triumph of the Apocalypse.” Dostoevsky and World Culture. Philological journal, no. 4 (24), 2023, pp. 172–201. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.22455/2619-0311-2023-4-172-201

Received: 31 Oct. 2023

Published: 25 Dec. 2023

Issue: 2023 no. 4 (24)

Department: POETICS. CONTEXT

Pages: 172-201

DOI: https://doi.org/10.22455/2619-0311-2023-4-172-201

EDN:

https://elibrary.ru/VIFQZX

UDK: 821.161.1.0

BBK: 83.3(2=411.2)

Keywords: Dostoevsky, The Possessed, passion of being an author, characters- readers, experience of being a reader, well-thumbed books, Apocalypse, Book in the book.

Abstract: The paper analyses the phenomenon of being a reader compared with the phenomenon of being an author in Dostoevsky’s novel The Possessed, which has got the reputation of the most literary novel of the writer. For Dostoevsky, who was an intense and all-consuming reader from early youth, the purpose of reading was to draw from the books he read the art of creation, to take lessons in the craft of writing from fellow writers. In The Possessed the characters, engulfed by the powerful passion of literary creation with all its risks and adversities, form a kind of “authors’ union.” However, it is also a “readers’ union,” and the selfless experience of being a reader, devoid of egoism and ambition, proves to be constructive and transforming. Various and multifaceted books are involved in the lives of the characters of The Possessed. They turn to books for advice, consolation, or as a warning of danger. Of special importance are “well-thumbed books”: quite often, they tell us about their readers more than words and actions. The book that the author set on a character’s writing desk sometimes contains both the riddle of the character and the solution to it. The paper shows how, as the events in the novel become more and more macabre, leading to the disaster, the tone and the contents of literary reflections change radically. After many calamities in the universe of the novel remains the only Book around which the characters try to gather: the Apocalypse. The Apocalypse in The Possessed is indeed a Book in the book, and we can see how the novel’s characters strive to understand its message and accept it.

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