Dostoevsky’s Struggle for Faith

Christianity and Literature Vol. 60, No.2 (Winter 2011) REVIEW ESSAY Dostoevsky's Struggle for Faith Deborah A. Martinsen Dostoevsky and the Russian People. By Linda Ivanits. New York, NY: Cambridge UP,2008. ISBN0521889936. Pp. 272. $103.00 Dostoevsky's Unfinished Journey. ByRobin Feuer Miller. New Haven, CT: Yale UP,2007. ISBN978-0300120158. Pp. 272. $38.00. The Brothers Karamazov: Worlds of the Novel. By Robin Feuer Miller. New Haven, CT: reprint Yale UP, 2008 (1992). ISBN0300125623. Pp. 192. $22.00. Dostoevsky: Language, Faith 0- Fiction. By Rowan Williams. Waco, TX: BaylorUP,2008. ISBN 1602581452. Pp. 285. $24.95. These four excellent studies all cast light on the complexity of Dostoevsky's work and belief. Linda Ivanits opens her seminal study of the interconnections between the narod (people) and Christianity in Dostoevsky's major novels with the premise that "any talk of God in the mature Dostoevsky must include talk of the narod ... Dostoevsky struggled to believe in Christ and in the Christian essence of the Russian people, but at times his striving and the dark face of Russian reality were uneasy bedfellows" (5-6). Ivanits' new readings demonstrate how the presence of the Russian people and folklore in Dostoevsky's works contributes to his probing of the eternal questions. In The Brothers Karamazov: Worlds of the Novel, a reprint of her 1992 monograph, Robin Feuer Miller poetically explores the web of connections which shape Dostoevsky's last novel. Itselfa work of art, Worlds of the Novel identifies The Brothers Karamazov's essential themes, characters, genre, and plot by exploring its narration, by follOWing its images and their transformations, and by exposing its ethical 309 310 CHRISTIANITY AND LITERATURE and metaphysical questions. In Dostoevsky's Unfinished Journey, Miller investigates Dostoevsky's representations of the dynamic of conversion and healing, or the failure of that process, while exploring questions of literary influence and intertextuality (xiii). She tackles the question of Dostoevsky's own conversion or inner transformation, explores questions of genre, and speculates on ways Dostoevsky's fiction grapples with issues that are alive today. Like Ivanits, she offers new readings ofDostoevsky's work, examines Dostoevsky's representation of the peasant in his fiction and nonfiction, and probes Dostoevsky's semi-autobiographical novel and prison memoir, Notes from the House ofthe Dead, for invaluable insights into his religious struggles. Rowan Williams' Dostoevsky: Language, Faith & Fiction contends that Dostoevsky's fictional practices have deep roots in Orthodox Christianity (7), that the novels' major issue is not theodicy but "a fictional picture of what faith or the lack of it would look like in the political and social world of his day" (4), and that the central question behind Dostoevsky's fiction is "What is it that human beings owe to each other?" (14). While exploring the novel's theological underpinnings, Williams demonstrates how Dostoevsky incorporates a notion of freedom into his narration, how the Dostoevskian novel resists the demonic by keeping multiple possibilities open, and how Orthodoxdoctrines regardingcreation and incarnation inform Dostoevsky's imagery. All three authors believe that Dostoevsky's investigation into the human spirit derives from the notion, as Ivanits puts it, "that to live is to be open to change and moral transformation" (36). Ivanits begins with a useful chapter on early Dostoevsky and his exposure to the Russian people and Russian folklore. Although Dostoevsky made his writing career in Petersburg, he was born in Moscow, where he was surrounded by peasant servants, including his beloved nanny. Ivanits discusses visits from former servants that become occasions for storytelling, the rape and death of a nine-year-old playmate, romps with his brothers and peasant children at the Dostoevsky's summer home Darovoe, the local holy fool Agrafena (who was raped and lost her child), and the burning of Darovoe. While the official record says that Dostoevsky's father died of a stroke, Dostoevsky probably believed the story (for which there is much evidence) that he was murdered by his peasants. Thus, early in life, Dostoevsky had conflicting experiences of the Russian people's kindness and cruelty. His time in Siberia taught him about the deep gulf between the people and the upper classes. As Ivanits demonstrates, these rifts and...