Rating: 
Summary: Politically prescient, historically significant
Review: I've always felt that fiction is like a window to the past, and with "The Devils," Dostoevsky gives us a clear glimpse at the underground politics brewing in Czarist Russia. At the same time, his propensity to write about criminals and people with criminal hearts is nowhere more emphasized among his major novels than in this one. There is not one character I could identify as a traditional hero, not even the semi-anonymous narrator, who relates the novel's events with the impartiality of a security camera; they are all antiheros -- a room full of Raskolnikovs.The novel concerns a small band of Russian intellectuals, atheists, socialists, anarchists, and various other rabble who are distributing subversive leaflets in an attempt to incite the proletariat to revolt against the government. They are a motley group, destined to fail because they lack general competence, organizational skills, a clear agenda, definite plans, and even uniform ideas. The only thing they have in common is that they don't like the way things currently are in Russia and intend to change them, violently if necessary. Among this group we meet Nicholas Stavrogin, an obnoxious, insensitive young man who is only looking out for himself and is not above having affairs with his friends' wives. The group's prime mover and instigator is Peter Verkhovensky, whose father Stepan had been Nicholas's tutor and is still living platonically with Nicholas's widowed mother, one of the wealthier citizens of the town in which the novel takes place. The group's rank-and-file who figure most prominently into the plot include the suicidal Kirilov, a former member (and potential informer) named Shatov who just wants to put it all behind him, a useless drunkard named Lebyatkin who acts as the group's stooge, and an escaped convict named Fedka who becomes the group's henchman. That many of these people are dead by the end of the novel is not as surprising as how they get that way. The plot is built around intrigues, disloyalties, and the type of drawing-room confessions and revelations that characterize the best mysteries. It's not difficult to guess that there is a juicy secret about Lebyatkin's crippled, mentally disturbed sister Mary, or that the elegant fete arranged by Julia Lembke, the Governor's wife, will culminate in a spectacular, outrageous, and perhaps deadly climax; Dostoevsky likes sensationalism and never misses a chance to use human frailty and folly as hosts upon which the morally hollow feed like parasites. Dostoevsky's description of these men as "devils" is a biblical allusion to the book of Luke, translating Christ's power to drive the devils out of a possessed man into a herd of swine to the cleansing of Russia of its nefarious political elements. It would appear that "The Devils" is Dostoevsky's effort to demonize the soulless, devilish radicals who have no moral underpinnings and who would replace everything he considers good about Russia (namely, the Eastern Orthodox Church) with Western ideas. There is an obvious parallel to the Bolshevik Revolution of nearly half a century later, which shows that such Socialist sentiment had been bubbling under the Russian mainstream for many years prior to its twentieth century emergence. In that sense, this is a prescient novel of historical and political interest.
Rating: 
Summary: Dostoevsky's "Problem Novel"
Review: Just as Shakespeare wrote what came to be termed "problem plays" (Measure for Measure, The Winter's Tale, etc.) Dostoevsky also presents us with a novel that really doesn't fit in with the rest of the cannon. The Possessed (or The Devils or The Demons, depending on translation) is generally regarded as fourth on the list of his major works (The Brothers Karamozov, Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, The Possessed, in descending order). There is much to commend in this novel, including Dostoevsky's usual superb mastery of characterization. In this instance too, this Russian master makes each character come alive on the page. One of Dostoevsky's unique qualities is his ability to create diverse, volatile, personalities who are fated to meet at the most inopportune times and in the most combustible circumstances. He builds suspense by characterization, rather than plot, then throws his combatants together in the most marvellous group scenes in literature. In The Brother's Karamazov, such a scene occurs at Zosima's Monastery, in Crime and Punishment, at the wake, in The Idiot, at Mishkin's birthday party, and in The Possessed, this attribute is displayed better than ever, but particularly in the scene where Nicholas Stavrogin and Pyotr Verkhovensky make their first appearances (yes, it is almost half-way through the novel that the main characers are introduced!). Dostoevsky constructs tension as well as any novelist who ever lived. What is often overlooked in Dostoevsky discussions, however, is the fact that he is a great comic writer, in the tradition of Gogol. If one goes by Auerbach's definition of comedy, for instance, (that a happy ending determines whether a work is tragic or comic) then Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamozov would indeed fall under this rubric. The Possessed presents a more difficult assessment however, particularly the Penguin/Magarshak version which ends with "Stavrogin's Confession." But there is no denying that there is a great deal of humor, of the most sarcastic, driest, Dostoevkian variety, on display in The Possessed. The Possessed was written in part as a response to Turgenev's Fathers and Sons. Turgenev's "superfluous man" is represented in D's novel by Stepan Verkhovensky, a middle-aged idler who converses in half-French, half-Russian and whose allegiance is divided between the old school and the new. He goes out of his way to sympathize with the nihilist youths he sees gaining the horizon, yet holds onto his "European" cultural ties. In other words he represents what to Dostoevsky at this stage in his career is most reprehensible. By the 1860s D had become a near-reactionary Slavophile, who felt that European influence was an insidious plague that was besieging Russian thought and culture, and that the Fourier-inspired nihilists were sending Russia on a mad troika ride to her doom. He had little use for figures such as Turgenev, who attempted to synthesize European and Russian culture. In The Possessed, Turgenev is mercilessly lampooned, in the figure of Karamozinov, a character totally obsessed with the figure he presents to society. What most reviewers overlook, however, is the possibility that Turgenev is represented equally by Stepan Verkhovensy and Karamozinov. And actually if one considers Verkhovensky part of the portrait, Turgenev comes across as a more sympathetice figure, divided between his European "free-thinking" and his Russian "faith." The biggest problem of The Possessed, however, in terms of it being D's "problem novel" is the matter of narration. There is an abrupt shift in the narrative from Part One to Part Two. It is not until page 136 of the Penguin edition that we learn that the person telling the story is a Mr. Anton Lavrentyevich, a civil servant in the provincial town where the action occurs. For Part One of the novel, everything that the narrator reveals could have been gleaned second-hand, as he was privy to all the conversations that related to the events recorded. Suddenly, in Part Two, the narrator becomes omniscient, and relates events and thoughts to which he couldn't possibly have had access . This may indeed be the result of the fact that this novel was serialized, as was the case with most of Dicken's novels, for instance. Perhaps D just lost track of the narrative, or perhaps there was some unexplained purpose behind it, but this is the primary criterion I have for placing this as D's least successful major novel. Despite this flaw, I would still rank this as a "great" work, for it perfectly captures the Russian dilemma of the era depicted, much better, in fact, than D's nemesis, Tugenev, achieved in Fathers and Sons (though his was no minor accomplishment either).
Rating:
Summary: Most Prophetic Novel of All Time
Review: Most readers probably know that the character of the amoral nihilist Peter Verkhovensky is based--not too loosely, either--on the real-life figure of Sergei Nechayev (pronounced neech-aye-eff), who collaborated with the anarchist Bakunin while they were both hiding out in Western Europe. (Bakunin finally learned that Nechayev was a total fanatic who'd stop at nothing--even blackmail, betrayal, and murder--and disassociated himself with Nechayev, warning friends against him.) Nechayev murdered a member of his conspiratorial group, suspecting the victim of betrayal, a scene portrayed in the novel. What most readers may not know is that Lenin was fascinated with the career of Nechayev (who was eventually caught for the murder and extradited to Russia, where he died in prison), called him a "titanic revolutionary," and said that Bolsheviks should try to find everything Nechayev had ever written, and study it. Dostoevsky knew he'd be called a "reactionary" for implying that such ends-justify-means fanaticism--terror and immorality in the name of a "better world" to come--must end in utter destruction. But he nevertheless went ahead and wrote this novel to illustrate this theme. And Lenin, admiring Nechayev, did exactly what the great novelist foresaw--he created a monstrous tyranny that destroyed Russia, perhaps (as we are now seeing) even beyond repair. We admire Orwell's 1984 for its insights and innovative ideas, but THE DEMONS turned out to be the more accurate and prophetic book of the two. Russian novels tend to be long on characterization and short on plot--as well as very lengthy--but don't let that deter you from reading this masterpiece. Incidentally, I once queried the companies who write student guides for novels (i.e., Cliff's Notes; Monarch Notes) about why no such guide had EVER been written for this book (even though they do exist for Dostoevsky's CRIME AND PUNISHMENT), and even though the collapse of Communism should have produced a renewed academic interest in THE DEMONS. The reply was that professors assign Dostoevsky as class reading less and less, and that very few assign this book, so there wouldn't be enough of a market for such a guide. Class reading, hell -- the profs know full well how devastating this novel would be to their own efforts to instill their own utopian political beliefs in their students. As Malcolm Muggeridge once said, everything that happened in 20th century Russia was predicted in this novel. This was what originally inspired me to read it, and he was right.
Rating: 
Summary: The thing about Dostoevsky is...
Review: My mother reads a lot. She goes to the library frequently and she asked me if there was anything I might be interested in reading. I was visiting from college at the time--I studied literature--and I said something vague about criticism. My mom returned with some obscure(?) book about great novels, that I read from cover to cover, and that turned me on to an interpretation of Dostoevsky, at the time one of my favorite writers, that I hadn't considered before. The author of this book I read claimed , w/r/t, specifically "The Brothers Karamov", that Dostoevsky was really a way-ahead-of-his-time comic novelist. No one really speaks and behaves like people in Dostoevsky novels; everyone is hysterical, wound up, overly sensitive, always occupied with abstract speculation. I had just assumed this was the Russian character or, perhaps, that any hysterical quality was merely a feature of Russian/English translation peculiararities. But this book though... It dawned on me: Dostoevsky is often hilarious. "Notes from Undergorund"--the first book that turned me on to "literature"--is a comic novel, isn't it? We know that comic novels are often the most serious novels of all. "The Idiot" is a riot. I guess I always knew this, but I never considered seriously that Dostoevsky was having us on. His reputation is that of a Serious writer. And his life: that whole thing with the radicalism, the firing squad and last-minute reprieve, the (later) devotion to Christianity... Well, it seems to suggest that here is someone who could have, indeed, been very serious. Who knows; translations will always distort, I guess. Enough rambling on. "Posessed" is Dostoevsky at his comic best. That duel. The literary party with the play-actors embodying "ideas". The absurd warping of characters to their commitments... and yet, they are all identifiably human. That's the thing about Dostoevsky. His novels manage to invent characters who represent ideas, yet they are always real enough to seem like characters rather than allegorical figures. It's a neat trick which probably isn't possible any more.
Rating: 
Summary: Reactionary hysteria
Review: So Dostoyevsky didn't like revolutionaries: fair enough, though it' shard to believe that all revolutionaries were unprincipled scoundrels like Verkhovensky, or psychopaths like Stavrogin. But Dostoyevsky didn't like liberals either, people who were at least aware of the monstrous social injustices of Czarist Russia. The caricature of Turgenev in this novel is mean-spirited, petty, and nasty. What possible aesthetic justification could there be for this? The novel isn't very well written either, with very little sense of structure or of pacing. Need to invoke a bit of sympathy for a character before he gets killed? Bring in a childbirth, and have the character tending to the newborn baby - that'll do! It is facile. Even as a polemic, it's not very good: consistently caricaturing your enemies is not the subtlest form of criticism. And what is Dostoyevsky's own solution? A return to religious mysticism, to obscuranticism. This is simply reactionary hysteria. Why is this writer ranked with the great Tolstoy?
Rating:
Summary: I've read over 500 classics in my lifetime- this is the best
Review: That's right, I consider this book the best that I have ever read. Never before in my life have I read a book so gripping, so compelling, with such lively, vivid, and insightful characterizations. "Crime and Punishment" and "Brothers Karamazov" are excellent yes, but I consider "Devils" to be Dostoevsky's masterpiece. Where to begin? The book is about many things, but it is not easy to just pin down one specific thing it's about. It's about the lives of many people in a typical Russian town of the time, and how these lives are affected by a few newcomers and a secret "society" that may or may not exist. Among the wonderful characters are the perpetually nervous and harried Stephan Trofimovich, who feuds constantly with the shrewish Varvara Petrovna. Nikolai Stavrogin is the hero of the book, a most Byronic hero: tortured by a checkered past, mentally unstable, intelligent, cunning, and very dashing. But you cannot predict this character's actions with any reasonable accuracy. Peter Stepanovich is such a sly, cunning, and devious villain that he could could give Iago "evil lessons" for lack of a better way of putting it at the moment. And Marya Timofeyevna, the mentally ill cripple with the heart of gold who holds secrets of her own, what of her? And that's just a few of the marvelous characters that make up this book. But not only is this book intellectually stimulating, it is hilarious as well. From juvenile pranks conducted by the society, from black, absurd social commentary and humour, to the unflattering cariactures painted of (contemporary author of the time) Turgenev by Dostoevsky, "Devils" quite literally had my sides aching from laughter. Read this book. It may take a while to get into, but once you do, you'll be glad you did.
Rating:
Summary: I've read over 500 classics in my lifetime- this is the best
Review: That's right, I consider this book the best that I have ever read. Never before in my life have I read a book so gripping, so compelling, with such lively, vivid, and insightful characterizations. "Crime and Punishment" and "Brothers Karamazov" are excellent yes, but I consider "Devils" to be Dostoevsky's masterpiece. Where to begin? The book is about many things, but it is not easy to just pin down one specific thing it's about. It's about the lives of many people in a typical Russian town of the time, and how these lives are affected by a few newcomers and a secret "society" that may or may not exist. Among the wonderful characters are the perpetually nervous and harried Stephan Trofimovich, who feuds constantly with the shrewish Varvara Petrovna. Nikolai Stavrogin is the hero of the book, a most Byronic hero: tortured by a checkered past, mentally unstable, intelligent, cunning, and very dashing. But you cannot predict this character's actions with any reasonable accuracy. Peter Stepanovich is such a sly, cunning, and devious villain that he could could give Iago "evil lessons" for lack of a better way of putting it at the moment. And Marya Timofeyevna, the mentally ill cripple with the heart of gold who holds secrets of her own, what of her? And that's just a few of the marvelous characters that make up this book. But not only is this book intellectually stimulating, it is hilarious as well. From juvenile pranks conducted by the society, from black, absurd social commentary and humour, to the unflattering cariactures painted of (contemporary author of the time) Turgenev by Dostoevsky, "Devils" quite literally had my sides aching from laughter. Read this book. It may take a while to get into, but once you do, you'll be glad you did.
Rating:
Summary: I've read over 500 classics in my lifetime- this is the best
Review: That's right, I consider this book the best that I have ever read. Never before in my life have I read a book so gripping, so compelling, with such lively, vivid, and insightful characterizations. "Crime and Punishment" and "Brothers Karamazov" are excellent yes, but I consider "Devils" to be Dostoevsky's masterpiece. Where to begin? The book is about many things, but it is not easy to just pin down one specific thing it's about. It's about the lives of many people in a typical Russian town of the time, and how these lives are affected by a few newcomers and a secret "society" that may or may not exist. Among the wonderful characters are the perpetually nervous and harried Stephan Trofimovich, who feuds constantly with the shrewish Varvara Petrovna. Nikolai Stavrogin is the hero of the book, a most Byronic hero: tortured by a checkered past, mentally unstable, intelligent, cunning, and very dashing. But you cannot predict this character's actions with any reasonable accuracy. Peter Stepanovich is such a sly, cunning, and devious villain that he could could give Iago "evil lessons" for lack of a better way of putting it at the moment. And Marya Timofeyevna, the mentally ill cripple with the heart of gold who holds secrets of her own, what of her? And that's just a few of the marvelous characters that make up this book. But not only is this book intellectually stimulating, it is hilarious as well. From juvenile pranks conducted by the society, from black, absurd social commentary and humour, to the unflattering cariactures painted of (contemporary author of the time) Turgenev by Dostoevsky, "Devils" quite literally had my sides aching from laughter. Read this book. It may take a while to get into, but once you do, you'll be glad you did.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating Study Of Manipulation & Political Fervor
Review: The way the characters, led astray by blind political passion & smooth lies, fall so easily into the hands of the villain is shockingly believable. This is definitely the best of Dostoevsky's lengthier works.
Rating:
Summary: Consequences of philosophical and political grandiosity
Review: This book illustrates the dangerous perspectives when theories of moral, values and applied politics are created solely by mental reasoning. It is a warning of what can be the consequence of letting rationales rule over feelings and letting arguments defeat intuitive sense of right and wrong. It is a prophety of what should later happen in our now ending century, when mans grandiosity made him believe that he had found the universal political theory, that seemed more truthful the more it showed disrespect to all the established. This did not only mean empirically proven principles of forming a society but more seriously, disrespect to the basic human nature and its sense of rightfulness and beauty. The nihilist, Pjotr Stephanovich Verkhovensky, would propably agree with later Sovjet and Chinese communist leaders about the irrationallity of being more loyal to ones parents than to the party, and so would probably also Stephanovichs farther, as loyalty to parents is beautiful and quote: "Only without beauty, can man not live..."
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