The New Dostoevsky Biography

Hello my six followers (that sounds cult-like). After intending to jump into Dostoevsky's work with an analysis of a handful of his early short stories, I've hit a somewhat serendipitous snag. I was asked by a friend to write a review of Joseph Frank's new biography of Dostoevsky for "Politics and Culture". To be precise, it's not entirely "new" but rather an abridgment of Frank's existing work on Dostoevsky, which include a modest five volume biographical study (!) written over the course of several decades. I had never encountered any of these five volumes before (confirming my amateur status as a Dostoevsky enthusiast) but have held a certain curiosity about the forces that beget such a towering literary figure since I picked up Crime and Punishment in high school. This being the case, I am putting aside Dostoevsky's writing for now and focusing on Frank's biography. In a few weeks I will copy a draft of my final review here and then pick back up with reading and blogging. In the meantime, a little about Frank's biography so far...

If one can presumptuously say anything about Frank's work (200 pages in) it is that he appears to have turned Dostoevsky's famously meticulous and painstakingly thorough lens on the author himself. If Dostoevsky's impassionate and eternally conflicted characters convey the great moral complexity of the time, then Frank's careful placement of Dostoevsky in an era's ideological milieu adds a rich and at times sobering substratum to his literature. It is this ideological milieu that Frank intentionally focuses on from the beginning of the biography on, claiming that his work is best interpreted and understood by the torrent of ideas and social tensions in 19th century Russia. So far, this is understandable if not a bit overstated. For instance, Frank focuses almost conspicuously, and perhaps rightly so, on the notion that Dostoevsky's characters are always enfleshed ideas, simply stated. And, that those ideas are usually gotten at second hand or in pursuit of social standing and recognition. Now admittedly, I've only just started the 1,000 page tome but I am anxious to see how Frank treats the more mature Dostoevsky vis a vis his social and ideological context.

The literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin, commenting on the theme of 'agonizing' self consciousness, claims that in Dostoevsky's work one sees not who a character is but rather how a character is conscious of him or herself. Hoping to achieve the same penetrating insight into Dostoevsky's personality and psychology doesn't seem to be Frank's primary concern here if only to retain an air of objectivity in his analysis early. Frank does however set a grand historical stage of ideas and forces that naturally connect to the author and his subsequent work.

I only expect this stage to get grander as the next 800 pages bear down. More on that later...