Source of book: I own this
It has been quite some time since I read some Dostoevsky. Before I started this blog, actually. I first read The Brothers Karamazov in my late teens - and it remains my favorite of Dostoevsky’s books. In my 20s, I read Crime and Punishment, and my opinion of that book is that it is kind of a college-level text, like The Great Gatsby, with simplistic morality and the lack of the depth that other, better books have. I read Notes From Underground in my early 30s, and remember it as being interesting, and more focused than most of Dostoevsky’s books.
I had been intending to read The Possessed for the last couple years, but it somehow ended up being put off again and again. Perhaps just the size of the book meant that I chose shorter ones. Recently, though, my brother (with whom I have had a lot of discussions about books over the years, and specifically about Dostoevsky) listened to it on audiobook, and wrote a few paragraphs about his impressions. I brought the book along on our most recent vacation together so I could read it and talk with him as I did so.
While I didn’t finish the book on that trip, I did make significant progress.
Having read it, I think it still falls short of the genius of The Brothers Karamazov, but does have some fascinating points.
First, a bit about the title. In English, you can find it as both The Possessed (the title my Heritage Press edition has) or Demons.
Acknowledging that translation is more an art than a science, it is still fascinating to see how the same word can be seen. “The Possessed” was the title that Constance Garnett used - her translation is the one I have, and has been the most well-known English translation for decades.
However, scholars these days think that “Demons” is a better translation, because it reflects the meaning that the word is active - “those who are doing the possessing” - rather than passive - “those who have possession happening to them.” It is an interesting thought.
I think it is helpful here as well to understand that Dostoevsky isn’t talking about invisible supernatural beings in this book. Rather, he is talking about the darkness in the souls of men, the nihilism both moral and political, that he saw as taking over Russia in the 1860s.
This idea of demons being about ideas and human darkness is something I wrote about earlier this year.
The book, like other giant Russian novels, has a complicated and meandering plot, with a bunch of loosely connected threads.
I am not sure how much to summarize here, maybe a bit will help with the quotes I want to talk about.
There are two central characters, in my view representing the political and moral nihilism that the author wishes to warn against.
Pyotr Stepanovich Verhovensky is the son of a somewhat failed professor and intellectual, Stepan Trofimovich, who has, for the last few decades, been essentially retained by the wealthy Madame Stavrogin. He represents the political nihilism that Dostoevsky sees in the leftist movements of the time.
And to be fair to the author, a lot of what he warns about in this book came to pass when the Soviets took over.
Madame Stavrogin’s son, Nikolay, represents the moral nihilism. For a time, the two work together in a radical anarchist/communist type cell, but Nikolay ends up being a disappointment, because he is too caught up in his personal problems to commit to the revolution.
And damn, does Stavrogin have problems. He married a developmentally disabled and likely mentally ill woman, Marya, on a lark, and has been paying off her alcoholic and violent brother, Lebyadkin, to keep quiet.
But he has probably also seduced Liza, who has now abandoned him for Mavriky, a military officer. And he also has impregnated Marya, the estranged wife of Shatov, another member of the radical group. It is also believed (although we never learn if it is true) that he has seduced Darya, Shatov’s sister, who is Madame Stavrogin’s protege. When Madame Stavrogin tries to get Stepan to marry her, he thinks he is getting sloppy seconds, leading to a falling out with his benefactor.
And one more thing: there is a chapter which was omitted from the original, because it was considered too scandalous to print. (It has been added back in modern editions.) It is the confession of Stavrogin to a priest of a sordid incident in his past, where he probably raped an 11 year old girl who then committed suicide while he failed to intervene.
So, it’s…complicated.
Pyotr, on the other hand, is playing politics. He has come to influence Yulia, the wife of the new governor, Andrey. Neither of them fully realizes the danger, leading to catastrophe.
As with any Dostoevsky book, it is not easy to separate his own views from those of his characters. I was left with a lot of questions. Was the author seriously trying to argue that his society’s biggest mistake was freeing the serfs? Did he really think that the “cure” for the political troubles of Russia stemming from decades of corruption and violent oppression of the poor was for everyone to return to the Russian Orthodox Church? Was he really advocating for ethnonationalism to Make Russia Great Again?
It is, as I said, hard to tell, because everything in this book comes from the mouths of the characters, all of whom are unreliable narrators (including then unnamed narrator of the book), and all of whom seem deeply morally flawed.
Perhaps the better conclusion is that Dostoevsky is exploring the inner demons of all the characters - and arguing that these demons live in us all.
The better arguments - the ones that Dostoevsky succeeds at better, particularly in retrospect, are worth noting.
Political movements that lose their moral center - that embrace nihilism and “might makes right” - will always become oppressive, violent, and evil. The 20th Century certainly gave evidence of this truth. Likewise, the MAGA movement has proven to be a modern nihilistic behemoth, devoid of any core morality beyond “we hate those people.”
Second, Stavrogin’s life is an excellent example of how a view of women as disposable toys leads to immense destruction of lives. Sadly, the author himself was often a misogynist pig, so I doubt there was much self-awareness here. Just saying.
The book was apparently loosely based on a number of real people, so the seemingly over-the-top and unrealistic characters may not be as out there as they appear. The philosophical arguments, while they feel strawmanned at times, don’t come out of the imagination, but out of real discussions of the era. The book often feels full of caricatures, but subsequent history seems to have proven that the book was rather prophetic.
I jotted down a bunch of random lines that I thought were interesting. Because of how rambling the book was, I won’t claim these are all particularly connected to each other or to the themes, but they were still interesting.
Varvara Petrovna [Madam Stavrogin] was left a widow and put on deep mourning. She could not, it is true, deplore his death very deeply, since, for the last four years, she had been completely separated from him owing to incompatibility of temper, and was giving him an allowance.
Kind of a reminder that one of the benefits for women of having their own money is the ability to separate from a problematic spouse.
There are a lot of philosophical discussions in this book, of course, and they are quite fascinating. (In fact, I found them more interesting than the plot.) Here is one between the narrator and Kirillov, who is more of a philosophical nihilist - he intends to and eventually commits suicide for purely philosophical reasons. Perhaps Camus was influenced by this in one of his most famous - or infamous - ideas.
“Man fears death because he loves life. That’s how I understand it,” I observed, “and that’s determined by nature.”
“That’s abject; and that’s where the deception comes in.” His eyes flashed. “Life is pain, life is terror, and man is unhappy. Now all is pain and terror. Now man loves life because he loves pain and terror, and so they have done according. Life is given now for pain and terror, and that’s the deception.”
Another passage involves Lebyadkin, who is not only a violent drunk, but also a poet - a bad one who thinks he is good. Excerpts of his poem “The Cockroach” end up being read loudly, against everyone’s wishes, and Lebyadkin grows increasingly unhinged.
“Madam, I’m not mad yet! I shall be mad, no doubt I shall be, but I’m not so yet.”
Stepan Trofimovich may be a bit of a buffoon in the book, and clearly the author has no love for academic sorts, but occasionally, he has what I think is a real insight.
“My dear, the real truth always sounds improbable, do you know that? To make truth sound probable you must always mix in some falsehood with it. Men have always done so. Perhaps there is something in it that passes our understanding.”
And also:
“Do you understand that if you have the guillotine in the foreground of your programme and are so enthusiastic about it too, it’s simply because nothing’s easier than cutting off heads, and nothing’s harder than to have an idea.”
One of the few truly humorous things in the book is the parody that Dostoevsky makes of Ivan Turgenev. You have to read the book completely to understand the depth of the satire, but a decent portion of the middle section of the book has to do with this literary takedown. Perhaps I need to read some Turgenev?
There are also a number of seemingly unrelated incidents in the book that I think the author is using to make his case that society has descended into nihilism. For example, an unknown person commits suicide, and all the women in the party going to visit Turgenev clamor to see the body.
I remember one of them said aloud on the occasion: “Everything’s so boring, one can’t be squeamish over one’s amusements, as long as they’re interesting.”
And another observation about the same scene:
In every misfortune of one’s neighbor there is always something cheering for an onlooker - whoever he may be.
As Madame Stavrogin and Stepan’s relationship crumbles, she makes a fascinating observation that I have thought about a lot since - and also before reading this book. The problem with charity as a way of addressing inequality is that it maintains a hierarchy.
“You laugh ironically. And what used you to say to me about charity? Yet the enjoyment derived from charity is a haughty and immoral enjoyment. The rich man’s enjoyment in his weath, his power, and in the comparison of his importance with the poor. Charity corrupts giver and taker alike; and, what’s more, does not attain its object, as it only increases poverty.”
It is ironic, of course, that she is rich, and Stepan is dependent on her. But she is leaning in the right direction, if imperfectly, that inequality needs to be addressed not with charity, but with justice. That is, a more equitable distribution of wealth and income.
One of the secondary characters in the book, but one who plays an important role at the end, is Madam Virginsky, the midwife. One of the contrasts in this book is between the way patriarchal society looks down on her, even while depending on her, and her true importance to the community.
Madame Virginsky was a midwife by profession, and by that very fact was on the lowest rung of the social ladder, lower even than the priest’s wife, in spite of her husband’s rank as an officer.
Another secondary character is Shigalov, who is essentially the philosopher of the anarchist cell. He is made into a strawman, and his ideas a caricature. However, subsequent history showed that Stalin in particular seems to have taken the worst of Shigalov’s ideas entirely too literally. Here is a bit of a speech. Having concluded that everyone before him had come up with stupid ideas, he follows his to the unfortunately logical conclusion.
“I am perplexed by my own data and my conclusion is a direct contradiction of the original idea with which I start. Starting from unlimited freedom, I arrive at unlimited despotism. I will add, however, that there can be no solution of the social problem but mine.”
And, unfortunately, he also concludes that 100 million Russians need to be killed before society can be rebuilt. That’s pretty close to the number Stalin killed.
And, naturally, to the rule by a minority of the population.
“Mr. Shigalov is too much devoted to his task and is also too modest. I know his book. He suggests as a final solution of the question the division of mankind into two unequal parts. One-tenth enjoys absolute liberty and unbounded power over the other nine-tenths. The others have to give up all individuality and become, so to speak, a herd, and, through boundless submission, will by a series of regenerations attain primaeval innocence, something like the Garden of Eden. They’ll have to work, however.”
This is where the extreme left and extreme right for the horseshoe. When despotism becomes necessary to accomplish the goals, as Stephen Pinker noted, there is no level of murder that cannot be completely excused. When it is okay to kill for ideology, no one is safe.
(To be clear here: the US does not have an actual leftist party, and barely a leftist movement, let alone an extreme left. That is a myth pushed by the extreme right, which currently stands for ethnic cleansing and the elimination of dissent, as well as the rule by a small minority. It all sounds very….Stalinesque.)
The formerly omitted chapter is, in my view, both one of the best in the book, and also the key to understanding its moral core. In addition, the priest, Tihon, is one of the few characters in the book that isn’t horrible. He seems a bit impotent, but he isn’t a bad person.
The chapter also contains a number of interesting lines about God and morality which make it well worth reading. Definitely find a copy of the book with this included. This particular bit stood out to me.
“Is it possible to believe in the devil without believing in God?” asked Savrogin with a laugh.
“That’s quite possible. It’s done right and left.” Tihon lifted his eyes and smiled.
To a degree, this is where I find myself these days. No, I do not believe in a literal Satan - the word itself simply means “the adversary” or “the accuser” - it’s a title, and a metaphor. But I do find that the most compelling part of the historical theological superstructure of Christianity is the existence of evil as a real thing, not a human construct.
It is easier to believe in the devil than in God, because we see pure evil reflected in humans far more commonly than pure good. All our heroes are flawed and human, while the Hitlers and Stephen Millers and Trumps of the world are all too abundant.
After all this discussion, however, we get to the heart of Stavrogin’s problem. He is haunted by his role in the death of a child - which he correctly notes that Christ said was the worst of sins, causing a little one to stumble - to the degree that he is haunted by her apparition.
He thinks that even if he can never be forgiven, he can at least make a confession and punish himself enough to assuage some of the guilt.
“Listen to me, Father Tihon: I want to forgive myself. That’s my chief object, that’s my whole aim! This is my entire confession, the whole truth; all the rest is a lie. I know that only then will the apparition vanish. That is why I seek measureless suffering. I seek it myself. So, do not frighten me, or I shall perish in my viciousness.”
Yet even here, Stavrogin is not being honest. He has intentionally omitted a page of his confession, the one where he admits whatever he did to the girl. He claims that he didn’t do anything to her, but it is obvious that he has. And, in the end, he never does actually release the confession and come clean.
From there on, things start to spiral. Pyotr decides to get Stavrogin out of his marital difficulties by having a convict murder Marya and Lebyadkin. The grand fete thrown by the governor turns into a debacle, with Lebyadkin disrupting the proceedings, the Turgenev character blithering, and Stepan embarrassing himself and everyone else. A fire starts in the town. And the anarchists start turning on each other.
The unnamed narrator talks about the fact that the fete ended up drawing a number of undesirables, largely because of the false rumor that there was free food and booze.
In every period of transition this riff-raff, which exists in every society, rises to the surface, and merely does its utmost to give expression to uneasiness and impatience. Moreover, this riff-raff almost always falls unconsciously under the control of the little group of “advanced people” who do act with a definite aim, and this little group can direct all this rabble as it pleases, if only it does not itself consist of absolute idiots, which, however, is sometimes the case.
One can see both possibilities present in the MAGA movement. There is a small group of people - the billionaire-predator class which is in fact acting with the definite aim of enriching themselves. But there is also Trump and his sycophants, which are, unfortunately, absolute idiots. As the Iran War debacle shows.
As the fatal conclusion nears, Pyotr and Kirillov end up talking, with Pyotr trying to get Kirillov to follow through on his suicide plans, after taking the fall for a murder; and there are some interesting lines here.
“No, you were right in what you said; let it be comfort. God is necessary and so must exist.”
“Well, that’s all right then.”
“But I know He doesn’t and can’t.”
“That’s more likely.”
“Surely you must understand that a man with two such ideas can’t go on living.”
“Shoot yourself, you mean?”
“Surely you must understand that one might shoot oneself for that alone? You don’t understand that there may be a man, one man out of your thousands of millions, one man who won’t bear it and does not want to.”
Kirillov eventually comes to his point:
“I am bound to show my unbelief. I have no higher idea than disbelief in God. I have all the history of mankind on my side. Man has done nothing but invent God so as to go on living, and not kill himself; that’s the whole of universal history up till now. I am the first one in the whole history of mankind who would not invent god. Let them know it once for all.”
This is Dostoevsky’s strawman version of atheism, of course. The existentialists came to a very contrary conclusion. And Camus himself argued that it took more courage to live than to die, and so was a more noble calling. Where Kirillov is correct is that the most profound argument against religion is the history of mankind. Nobody has done more to debunk religion than religious people - they themselves are the most profound argument in favor of atheism.
The last chapter belongs mostly to Stepan, who flees his existing life to go…he isn’t even sure. As his life eventually ebbs away, he gives the last look at his philosophy - and perhaps that of the book itself. He talks about the parable of the demon possessed man (and yes, I believe it is a parable, not a historical event) and the swine.
“You see, that’s exactly like our Russia, those devils that come out of the sick man and enter into the swine. They are all the sores, all the foul contagions, all the impurities, all the devils great and small that have multiplied in that great invalid, our beloved Russia, in the course of ages and ages. But a great idea and a great Will will encompass it from on high, as with that lunatic possessed of devils…and all those devils will come forth, all the impurity, all the rottenness that was putrefying on the surface…and they will beg of themselves to enter into swine; and indeed maybe they have entered into them already! They are we, we and those…and I perhaps at the head of them, and we shall cast ourselves down, possessed and raving, from the rocks into the sea, and we shall all be drowned - and a good thing too, for that is all we are fit for.”
The final speech of the dying man is what I will end this post with:
“The mere fact of the ever-present idea that there exists something infinitely more just and more happy than I am fills me through and through with tender ecstasy - and glorifies me - oh, whoever I may be, whatever I have done! What is far more essential for man than personal happiness is to know and to believe at every instant that there is somewhere a perfect and serene happiness for all men and for everything. The one essential condition of human existence is that man should always be able to bow down before something infinitely great. If men are deprived of the infinitely great they will not go on living and will die of despair. The Infinite and the Eternal are as essential for man as the little planet on which he dwells.”
Decide for yourself whether Dostoevsky means this to be a final mockery of Stepan’s futile and ultimately meaningless life, or if he means it to be his own idea, that humans without a belief in the Eternal are destined to die of despair.
What perhaps is true is that humans need hope, and need purpose. Whether that comes from a belief in something external, or if we make our own meaning in community with each other - the existentialist view - there is something in us that seeks to transcend, to find meaning.
