Dostoevsky: Russian Wizard

How Love and Prison Changed a Writer

Photo by Avery Evans on Unsplash

Dostoevsky: Russian Wizard

Really, you don’t need to read anyone other than Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky to become a serious writer, or, basically, to understand The Human Condition.

Joseph Frank, author of “Dostoevsky: A Writer in His Time” (2009) said, in his introduction to “Crime and Punishment” (1866) that the 19th century Russian master nailed “something permanent about the human condition.” Another way of saying this would be: He struck at something Universal to the human experience. Or, again, to go in a more Kierkegaardian direction: He located something eternal. This is what great literature is and does.

I’ve been obsessed with Dostoevsky for a long time. I remember walking into a random bookstore when I was in my early twenties (I don’t recall what city anymore; Manhattan?) and seeing a dozen of his thick masterpieces on the shelf (Crime and Punishment; The Brothers Karamazov; The Idiot; The Double; etc). Back then—17 or 18 years ago now—I felt both drawn to and overwhelmed by the author. Intimidated, certainly. For one thing: Most of his books were gigantic. Door-stopper books. I recalled a book which was a “fictional memoir” about his years in a Siberian hard-labor prison.

But back then I opted for thinner, easier reads, such as the Jack Kerouac classics, “On the Road” and “Dharma Bums.” As most early twenties American male writers are, I was “into the Beats.” Of course. How could I not be? And as I’ve said many times I actually lived that life in real-time, between 23 and 28 hitchhiking around and across the country, hopping trains, going into the mountains for days at a time. And reading, of course; always reading.

In my early thirties I rediscovered Old Dost, as I affectionately refer to the Old Modern Bard who’s been dead for 142 years now. He truly was the Homer of the 19th century, not just for Russia but for Europe, America, the globe. He wrote tragedies reminiscent of Homer, yes, but also Shakespeare, Virgil, Dante. He captured something so visceral, so real, so maddeningly profound about the lurid details of the human comedy we call life, that he is still, even now, in 2023, The Man.

Recently I started reading “The Sinner and the Saint: Dostoevsky and the Gentleman Murderer Who Inspired a Masterpiece,” by Kevin Birmingham (2021). The main theme is about “Crime and Punishment,” but much of the book is a biography of the author himself. (Which you need to grasp in order to understand the masterpiece he wrote.) Simultaneously, I bought eight books from “Paperback Alley” in Goleta the other day using a $100 certificate my mom got me for my 40th birthday. Eight books, and I still have $40 left! One of these books was “Crime and Punishment.”

I should tell you about my first time reading “Crime and Punishment.” Or should I say: Listening. It was quite a magical experience. It was spring of 2016, early April. I’d been traveling around Europe for six weeks. And, somehow, I’d found myself (long story) unexpectedly walking 500 miles across El Camino de Santiago, the “Walk of St. James,” a well-trod spiritual path which leads to St. James’s remains and runs east-west across the entire northern tip of Spain. I hadn’t prepared for this trip. But here I was. I wanted to get away from the big, bustling cities I’d been in (New York City, Berlin, Naples) and go deeply within myself. Having been a backpacker all my life, and having always been someone who loves long, rigorous walks, I decided to walk El Camino.

About halfway through my month-long walk I decided to start listening to books through my ear buds a la Audible. I plowed through about four books (Including a reread of several Kerouac classics) before landing on “Crime and Punishment.” It was a long bastard; something like 40 hours in length, if I remember correctly. But once I started, I couldn’t stop. It took me about five days to finish the book. I was walking roughly 10-18 miles every day. I walked, listening, through wide open green fields, along mountains, through tiny Spanish villages with stone steps and stone buildings, past bars and restaurants, and for about two days through brutal, relentless, pouring rain and mud so thick each time I lifted a leg an inch of wet mud stuck to my boot.

I remember finishing the book vividly. I’d been tromping for almost three weeks straight. I was alone, lonely, exhausted and thrilled. I decided to stay the night in a tiny village. No one else was around. I was literally the only person that night at the pension. (Little backpacker’s motel.) I got a room for $25 Euros, rested, showered, and went out to get some food. I entered a small, hidden bar by a fast-moving, rumbling creek. Watching the water rush out the window, sipping hot chocolate and eating Paella, I listened to the final hours of the book. It was breathtaking.

The main character—Raskolnikov—an early twenties ex-student in St. Petersburg, Russia, had murdered two women, a pawnbroker and her sister. Throughout the novel he’d tried his absolute best to rationalize his actions, trying to prove to himself that, since he’d done it “for his sister and mother,” it was somehow OK. (The protagonist’s mother and sister were sacrificing a happy life so that he could pay off his debt.) But of course the rancid, turgid guilt assaulted him non-stop. It simply would not let him rest. And eventually he gives up the ghost. He is arrested and sent to prison. The woman he loves, Sonia (a prostitute) sees him in prison and he is “raised up like Lazarus.” He achieves inner redemption, in other words. It was beautiful.

After finishing the book I left the bar and wandered around the little village. It was empty and stone-cold quiet. Down a ways and across another bend in the creek I saw an old medieval-looking cathedral. Slowly, I approached. It was dark outside now, around seven, and the stars were brilliant and pulsating in the black sky. I felt alive and tender and spiritual. Something had been knocked loose inside of me. Dostoevsky had rattled both my intellectual and my emotional cages. It wasn’t just the style of his writing, or the fact that he created a master murder-mystery (not for the reader, but for the detective) and could weave a plot like an author from 2021, but, much deeper, that he could (and did) force you to get up close and personal; to really SEE and FEEL what it is to be alive on this Earth. He understood the gritty nuance of life. Of pain. Of struggle. Of compassion. Of love. Of forgiveness. Of redemption.

As I got closer to the church I saw a set of a dozen ancient stone steps. And I heard something. Voices. Voices singing as one. It was mild. Quiet. Beautiful. Reminiscent of a choir. I moved towards the steps.