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244 matches in All Departments
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The Idiot (Paperback, Reissue)
Fyodor Dostoevsky; Translated by Constance Garnett; Introduction by Agnes Cardinal; Notes by Agnes Cardinal; Series edited by Keith Carabine
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R132
Discovery Miles 1 320
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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Translated by Constance Garnett, with an Introduction and Notes by
Agnes Cardinal, Honorary Senior Lecturer in Comparative Literature
at the University of Kent. Prince Myshkin returns to Russia from an
asylum in Switzerland. As he becomes embroiled in the frantic
amatory and financial intrigues which centre around a cast of
brilliantly realised characters and which ultimately lead to
tragedy, he emerges as a unique combination of the Christian ideal
of perfection and Dostoevsky's own views, afflictions and manners.
His serene selflessness is contrasted with the worldly qualities of
every other character in the novel. Dostoevsky supplies a harsh
indictment of the Russian ruling class of his day who have created
a world which cannot accomodate the goodness of this idiot.
With an Introduction and Notes by David Rampton, Department of
English, University of Ottowa. Notes from Underground and Other
Stories is a comprehensive collection of Dostoevsky's short
fiction. Many of these stories, like his great novels, reveal his
special sympathy for the solitary and dispossessed, explore the
same complex psychological issues and subtly combine rich
characterization and philosophical meditations on the (often) dark
areas of the human psyche, all conveyed in an idiosyncratic blend
of deadly seriousness and wild humour. In Notes from Underground,
the Underground Man casually dismantles utilitarianism and
celebrates in its stead a perverse but vibrant masochism. A
Christmas Tree and a Wedding recounts the successful pursuit of a
young girl by a lecherous old man. In Bobok, one Ivan Ivanovitch
listens in on corpses gossiping in a cemetery and ends up deploring
their depravity. In A Gentle Spirit, the narrator describes his
dawning recognition that he is responsible for his wife's suicide.
In short, as a commentator on spiritual stagnation, Dostoevsky has
no equal.
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The Karamazov Brothers (Paperback)
Fyodor Dostoevsky; Translated by Constance Garnett; Introduction by A.D.P. Briggs; Series edited by Keith Carabine
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R149
Discovery Miles 1 490
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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Translated by Constance Garnett, with an Introduction by A. D. P.
Briggs. As Fyodor Karamazov awaits an amorous encounter, he is
violently done to death. The three sons of the old debauchee are
forced to confront their own guilt or complicity. Who will own to
parricide? The reckless and passionate Dmitri? The corrosive
intellectual Ivan? Surely not the chaste novice monk Alyosha? The
search reveals the divisions which rack the brothers, yet
paradoxically unite them. Around the writhings of this one
dysfunctional family Dostoevsky weaves a dense network of social,
psychological and philosophical relationships. At the same time he
shows - from the opening 'scandal' scene in the monastery to a
personal appearance by an eccentric Devil - that his dramatic
skills have lost nothing of their edge. The Karamazov Brothers,
completed a few months before Dostoevsky's death in 1881, remains
for many the high point of his genius as novelist and chronicler of
the modern malaise. It cast a long shadow over D. H. Lawrence,
Thomas Mann, Albert Camus, and other giants of twentieth-century
European literature.
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The Idiot
Fyodor Dostoevsky
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R1,206
Discovery Miles 12 060
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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Translated by Constance Garnett with an introduction by Anthony
Briggs. Dostoevsky's fascination for mental breakdown and violence
(20 murders in his four main novels) was based on his own life, and
these two unmistakably autobiographical works bear this out. The
House of the Dead is fiction, but based on his four years in a
Siberian prison. An educated upper-class man is condemned to live
among criminals and brutal guards, with arbitrary punishments,
lousy food, disgusting living conditions, hard toil and many
floggings. Somehow he avoids bitterness and recrimination; faith in
humanity survives. With its breadth of characterisation, acute
sense of detail and strong narrative interest, this work can still
shock, entertain and inspire. In The Gambler we see the Russian
community in a German spa town. Drawn to the casino, Alexey becomes
obsessed with roulette. In a gripping story, full of psychological
interest, his growing mania eclipses even his interest in Polina, a
heroine of demonic and vibrant sexuality. Dostoevsky himself was
rescued from a similar gambling obsession by the young stenographer
who took down this work at his dictation and married him soon
afterwards.
Poverty-stricken and cut off from society, former law student
Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov leads a desolate life in a dreary
little room in St Petersburg. Having abandoned all hopes of
sustaining himself through work, he now obsesses over the idea of
changing his fortunes through an extreme act of violence: the
killing of an elderly pawnbroker. His mind baulks at the horror of
his plan, but when he hears that his sister Dunya is about to agree
to a loveless marriage in order to escape the advances of her
employer, his disgust for the world becomes unbounded, and his
feelings of rebellion and revenge push him closer and closer to the
edge of the precipice. A masterpiece of psychological insight,
Dostoevsky's 1866 novel features some of its author's most
memorable characters - from the temperamental protagonist
Raskolnikov to the amoral sensualist Svidrigailov and the immoral
lawyer Luzhin. Presented here in a sparkling new translation by
Roger Cockerell, Crime and Punishment is a towering work in Russian
nineteenth-century fiction and a landmark of world literature.
"Mesmerizingly good ... the best, truest translation of
Dostoevsky's masterpiece into English. It's a magnificent, almost
terrifying achievement of translation, one that makes its
predecessors, however worthy, seem safe and polite."-STEVE
DONAGHUE, Open Letters Monthly
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Devils (Paperback)
Fyodor Dostoevsky; Introduction by A.D.P. Briggs; Translated by Constance Garnett; Series edited by Keith Carabine
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R138
Discovery Miles 1 380
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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Translated by Constance Garnett with an Introduction by A.D.P.
Briggs. In 1869 a young Russian was strangled, shot through the
head and thrown into a pond. His crime? A wish to leave a small
group of violent revolutionaries, from which he had become
alienated. Dostoevsky takes this real-life catastrophe as the
subject and culmination of Devils, a title that refers the young
radicals themselves and also to the materialistic ideas that
possessed the minds of many thinking people Russian society at the
time. The satirical portraits of the revolutionaries, with their
naivety, ludicrous single-mindedness and readiness for murder and
destruction, might seem exaggerated - until we consider their
all-too-recognisable descendants in the real world ever since. The
key figure in the novel, however, is beyond politics. Nikolay
Stavrogin, another product of rationalism run wild, exercises his
charisma with ruthless authority and total amorality. His
unhappiness is accounted for when he confesses to a ghastly sexual
crime - in a chapter long suppressed by the censor. This prophetic
account of modern morals and politics, with its fifty-odd
characters, amazing events and challenging ideas, is seen by some
critics as Dostoevsky's masterpiece.
This acclaimed English version of Dostoevsky's magnificent last novel does justice to al lits levels of artistry and intention; as murder mystery, black comedy, pioneering work of psychological realism, and enduring statement about freedom, sin and suffering.
A seemingly well-reasoned justification of murder comes to pieces
as the murderer is forced to confront the true nature of his crime.
After much thought Rodion Raskolnikov determines that certain
special people deserve the right to step outside of normal law and
order to accomplish difficult deeds for the good of others and even
humanity as a whole. Trapped in desperate poverty, he justifies his
plan to rob and kill a rich, unpopular pawnbroker, reasoning that
he will take the money, survive and go on to do good things for
others. The terrible act of murder, and the unstoppable cascade of
events that follow, throw Raskolnikov into a nightmare of mental
unbalance and moral torment. One situation after another arises
that drives home his guilt and shows how his brutal act has
resulted in nothing but destruction and pain. A surprise visit from
family and a policeman who seems teasingly, sardonically aware of
his guilt thrust Raskolnikov into a position where he can't tell if
even confession will supply meaningful redemption. First published
in 1866, Crime and Punishment stands as one of the most acclaimed
novels of all time and remains unsurpassed in its penetrating
psychology and raw glimpses of a mind wracked by moral confusion
and fundamental questions of how to do the right thing. With an
eye-catching new cover, and professionally typeset manuscript, this
edition of Crime and Punishment is both modern and readable.
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Discovery Miles 3 300
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