He also points out that Dostoevsky's life as an author differentiated from that of his Russian contemporaries in the sense that for him, writing was the only source of income, thus he strived to create stories that, apart from endorsing universal themes, also contained elements of mystery and suspense that made them more alluring to the masses. In order to better grasp the nuances between the two phases, Frank provides information on Dostoevsky's first years of life as an educated youngster who, defying his father's wish to become an army engineer, consciously chose to become a writer. There is a clear distinction between the Russian author's early work that includes the first four titles and his mature period that begins with the publication of his masterpiece, Crime and Punishment in 1866. It came as a surprise to me to realize that Frank chose to left out one of the most profound and emotionally charged Dostoevskyan works, that is Demons, even though the book is mentioned in several other parts of the lectures.
Frank's penetrative gaze leaves no question unresolved and this compilation proves to be an invaluable companion to Dostoevsky's most significant writings.Īfter a brief introduction in which Frank clarifies that the main target of the lectures is to "introduce the main literary and ideological elements" of Dostoevsky's work, the American academic presents an in-depth analysis of seven novels: Poor Folk, The Double, The House of the Dead, Notes from Underground, Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, and The Brothers Karamazov. Dostoyevsky's novels are explored through the lens of the socio-political reality in Russia at the time as well as the peculiar idiosyncrasy of the writer himself that is often projected to some of his most well-known characters. Frank's five-volume biography on the Russian literary giant, an iconic work that exceeds the 2500 pages, deem him the aptest person to analyze Dostoevsky's body of work and these never-before-published collection of Stanford lectures examine one-by-one the most significant novels that marked modern literature and earned the author a place among the greatest European philosophers and intellectuals of the two previous centuries. Joseph Frank was an American professor of comparative literature at the Universities of Stanford and Princeton and his name is inextricably linked with the painstaking study of one of the most influential writers of the 19th century, Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky.
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