Saviour or Superman? Old and New Essays on Tolstoy and Dostoevsky by Frank Seeley (review)

Abstract

MLR, 96. , 200I MLR, 96. , 200I MLR, 96. , 200I Proteus myth that naturallyattached to him: the personality that came to write 'I have erected'isabove allone concernedwith the simultaneityof good and beautiful, personaland impersonal,historyand myth, poetry and prose, secularand Christian immortality.' UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS GERALD E. MIKKELSON Saviour orSuperman? OldandNewEssayson Tolstoy andDostoevsky. By FRANK SEELEY. Nottingham:AstraPress. 1999. x + 148pp. ?I 7. Fourof the twelve essaysin thisbook, two each on Tolstoi and Dostoevskii,arenew. The remainderare reprintedfrom a variety of book andjournal publications.The new essaysinclude the title essay, a study of Raskol'nikov,which originallyformed part of a longer articlewhich the authorwas unable to complete because of illness. A preface by Malcolm Jones sets all the essays in context and helps the reader to adjustto such referencesas that to a 'recent Soviet article',which turnsout to date from 1959(p. 33), and thatto S. Lesser's'ultramodern'approachto TheIdiot,which dates from the previous year (p. 113). The essays, new and old alike, have an admirably old-fashioned quality about them, which includes clear, jargon-free English and a refusalto accord Bakhtinmore than one reference in the course of the seven articlesdevoted to Dostoevskii. Some of the issuestackledwill be familiar to any studentof Dostoevskiiand Tolstoi:does the presentationof Natasha Rostova in the firstepilogue of WarandPeace squarewith the picturegiven of her in the novel itself? Why did Anna marryKarenin? How can Ivan Karamazov accept God but reject his creation? Professor Seeley's succinct, cogent articles on the subject ('Natasha Rostova', 'The Fate of Anna Karenina' and 'Ivan Karamazov') are models of their type and will be read profitablyby teachersand learnersalike. The remaining articles are equally good, particularly the three devoted to a single character,AndreiBolkonskii,Svidrigailov,and Smerdiakov,which arefullof pithy, perceptive and, in the best sense, debatable, observations,such as 'Andrei'spride is untainted by vanity' (p. 36) and 'Mitya [Karamazov] is not a voluptuary, but a sensualist' (p. 134). If some of the supporting quotations, in Russian, French and Latin, are not always translated, this does not detract from the overall impact of Seeley'swriting. A laudableattempthasclearlybeen made to keepproductioncoststo a minimum, and there is a scatteringof non-crucial misprints,including two in the Cyrillic on page 65. These are minor faults, however, and should not obscure the fact that Astra Pressis one of two publishing houses in the city of Nottingham (the other is Bramcote Press)which have kept the flag flying for Russian studies at a time when too many universities have been hell-bent on lowering it. Overall, this book is anotherexcellent addition to Astra'salreadyimpressivelist. UNIVERSITY OF BATH MICHAEL PURSGLOVE Constructing RussianCulture in theAgeof Revolution: i88i-I940. Ed. by CATRIONA KELLY and DAVID SHEPHERD. Oxford: Oxford University Press. I998. xiii + 358 pp. ?L 14.99. RussianCulturalStudies.An Introduction.Ed. by CATRIONA KELLYand DAVID SHEPHERD.Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1998. xiv + 428 pp. 1?4.99. What is culture?What is Russian cultureand how differentis it from culturein the West? What is missing from current Western appropriationsof Russian culture? Proteus myth that naturallyattached to him: the personality that came to write 'I have erected'isabove allone concernedwith the simultaneityof good and beautiful, personaland impersonal,historyand myth, poetry and prose, secularand Christian immortality.' UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS GERALD E. MIKKELSON Saviour orSuperman? OldandNewEssayson Tolstoy andDostoevsky. By FRANK SEELEY. Nottingham:AstraPress. 1999. x + 148pp. ?I 7. Fourof the twelve essaysin thisbook, two each on Tolstoi and Dostoevskii,arenew. The remainderare reprintedfrom a variety of book andjournal publications.The new essaysinclude the title essay, a study of Raskol'nikov,which originallyformed part of a longer articlewhich the authorwas unable to complete because of illness. A preface by Malcolm Jones sets all the essays in context and helps the reader to adjustto such referencesas that to a 'recent Soviet article',which turnsout to date from 1959(p. 33), and thatto S. Lesser's'ultramodern'approachto TheIdiot,which dates from the previous year (p. 113). The essays, new and old alike, have an admirably old-fashioned quality about them, which includes clear, jargon-free English and a refusalto accord Bakhtinmore than one reference in the course of the seven articlesdevoted to Dostoevskii. Some of the issuestackledwill be familiar to any...