Dostoevsky and the Christian Tradition by George s> Pattison Diane Oenning Thompson (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 723 Undoubtedly a stillricherharvestis yet to be reaped by the use of Valentino's approach,perhapson texts thatthisstudyhas left untouched,but thisis a very promising beginning indeed and executed throughout with a light and sensitivetouch. Department ofRussian andSlavonic Studies MALCOLM V.JONES University ofNJVottingham Pattison, George, and Oenning Thompson, Diane (eds). Dostoevsky and the ChristianTradition. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and New York,2001. Xi + 28I pp. Bibliography.Index. ?40?.? DESPITE more than a century of attention, Dostoevskii'sfiction continues to yield a rich crop for scholars of his theology. This latest collection of essays, consisting of contributionsfrom both Western and Russian academics, from facultiesof literatureand of theology, suggeststhat there remains much to be discussed. The collection is divided into three parts. The firstcovers Orthodoxy and its influence on Dostoevskii's creative process. Margaret Ziolkowski'sarticle discussesthe monasticideal of kenosis denial of selfand pursuitof humility, just as Christ emptied himself in the Incarnation -and its influence on Dostoevskii as he created the monks Tikhon and Zosima, and Zosima's brother,Markel.The trio of famousfourteenth-centurysaints,Aleksei,Sergei and Petr, she suggests,were used as models by Dostoevskii, albeit with some of his own nationalismthrownin. Diane Oenning Thompson's chapteris a usefuland organizeddiscussionof the biblical word (i.e. narrative) as it appears through allusion, images, symbols, etc. - in the novels. Her interpretation, influenced by Bakhtin, accounts for the 'double thoughts' of Dostoevskii'sheroes. He 'neverseals off the biblical word from other words, from the life depicted in his works, but makes everyone, from deniers to affirmers, respond to that word, thus maximising its sphere of contacts and opening it up to furtherdevelopment, and furtherrevelations'(p. 94). Dostoevskii sought to make the biblicalword 'internallypersuasive'for his protagonists,and a 'savingGrace whose source is the biblical word' (p. 96) is present in all his works, even the most bleak. Thompson's analysisof 7heIdiotand Demons is especiallystrong. A chapter by Irina Kirillova on Dostoevskii's markings in the Gospel according to St John, uses finger-nail markings made available since Geir Kjetsaa'sDostoevsky andhisNew Testament (Oslo, AtlanticHighlands, NJ, I984). Ordering these and the other markingsin several categories (the essence of Christ;the natureand conditions of faith;the darknessthat comes with loss of faith; the question of suffering;the resurrectionof all; the theology of love), Kirillova shows Dostoevskii to have been particularlyfascinated by passages emphasizingChrist'sdivinity.The Gospel of StJohn was clearlythe sourceof Dostoevskii'sChrist-centredtheology. Parttwo of the collection is more theological.AvrilPyman arguesagainsta strictlyOrthodox readingof Dostoevskii'sChristianity.IvanA. Esaulovseems to disagree, emphasizing the Orthodoxy in Dostoevskii. The world of the 724 SEER, 8o, 4, 2002 novels is suffused(likethe Orthodox liturgy)with the New Testament;little of the Old Testament law is evident. Moreover, in Dostoevskii, legality, says Esaulov,has littleto do with morality(pp. I26-29). Thus 'theprimaryguiltof Raskolnikovdoes not consist in the fact that he committed a murder,i.e. that he committed a legal crime. His true guilt lies in that he has forfeited Grace, that he has fallen out of the communal unity of people and set himselfagainst other people' (p. 128). According to Zosima every person is guilty before everyone and everything; so, says Esaulov, salvation, in Dostoevskii, is also communal (p. 128). Lessconvincing isDavid S. Cunningham'sTrinitarianinterpretationof 77he Brothers Karamazov. The presence of 'threes'in the novel is surelyno code for the Trinity, as Cunningham seems to suggest. Moreover, to say that the brothersrelate to one another in the manner that the three members of the Trinity 'interpenetrate'(p. I44) and share characteristicsis surely to say no more than that they are brothers, and that Dostoevskii sufficientlyexercised his artisticpowers in creating them. Cunningham's conclusion, that even in the 'blacksmear'of the Karamazovfamilyisthe image of God, does, however, seem in tune with Dostoevskii'stheology. Among four case studies in the third part of the collection is a symbolic interpretation of the names and colours in Crime andPunishment by Antony Johae. It failed to convince this reviewer. Crime andPunishment gets no better treatment from Henry M. W. Russell, who interpretsthe novel's 'disturbing message' as the 'insistence that humiliation is the necessaryprecondition for Christian life'. There is humiliation in the novel, in spades, but such an idiosyncraticreading...