Dostoevsky

A great psychological potrait of a titanic novelist.

Faisant des recherches concernant mon arrière grand père qui, je l'ai appris pat Goggle, est cité dans ce volume concernant six années de la vie de Dostoievski, j'ai voulu en savoir davantage. Mais je ne lis pas l'anglais couramment et cela me prendra "un certain temps". Je peux déjà dire que cette biographie est très sérieuse et que je m'en procurerai peut-être les autres volumes.

This is the best biographical work I have ever read all the books in the series are masterpieces

This is the third book in the series of Joseph Frank's five book series on Dostoevsky. It comprises of details of the five years (1860-65) of Dostoevsky's life. These are the years immediately following Dostoevsky's return from his exile in Siberia. This book is a bit different from the first two books. The first book covers 28 years of Dostoevsky's life and is more biographical in nature. The second book covers 9 years of his life. It is biographical and the key theme is the struggles that played a role in Dostoevsky's transformation as a person and as a writer. This book diverts from the theme of biography and ventures into political ideologies of the era.The first part is mainly focused on inception of the publication 'Time' (by Dostoevsky brothers) and its political skirmishes with 'the contemporary'. There is hardly any mention of Dostoevsky's life outside the publication and arguments involved in the skirmish. The details in this part break the natural flow of looking at the world from the Dostoevsky's eyes. Towards the end of first part and major portion of second part, the book focuses on some of the lesser known works of Dostoevsky including 'winter notes on summer impression', 'notes from underground' and 'house of the dead'. The author scatters details of Dostoevsky's love story and travel in between the details of Dostoevsky's books and political arguments in that era.The book, which otherwise may feel like a text diverting from its initial promise, towards the end finds its roots again and gets directed towards Dostoevsky thoughts and life. The reader may get lost in the beginning, may find some interesting arguments sprinkled in the text in the middle but would definitely find all the reasons to get to part four of the book by the time he/she reaches the last chapter. It was author's prerogative to include a 400 page description of 5 years of Dostoevsky's life although some of the details in the book could have been easily eliminated without losing the continuity.