Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Dostoevsky: The Miraculous Years, 1865-1871 by Joseph Frank ISBN: 0-691-01587-2 Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr Pub. Date: 09 December, 1996 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.83 (6 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Monumental
Comment: As Frank emphasizes repeatedly in the Preface (and in the prefaces of subsequent volumes), he is not writing as a biographer, strictly speaking, but rather as a literary critic (and to a lesser extent a socio-cultural historian) - primarily of Dostoevsky's novels. (Frank does admit that things got a little rough for him during the period of Dostoevsky's imprisonment, as he has chosen to cover the man chronologically rather than book by book.) This kind of books I have never read before, I must confess. However, I think his expressed purpose serves my needs perfectly: I am more interested in what the novels mean, than what Dostoevsky was having for dinner on a particular day. Frank's is a serious and scholarly approach, and I am sure all five volumes - now in an honored place on my shelves - will stand the test of time as the definitive work on the great Russian novels (as opposed to the great Russian novelist).
Rating: 4
Summary: The Final Volume in the Biography of a Literary Giant
Comment: Dostoevsky: The Mantle of the Prophet, 1871-1881 is the long-awaited final volume by Joseph Frank, Professor of Comparative Literature Emeritus at Princeton University and Professor of Comparative Literature and Slavic Languages and Literature Emeritus at Stanford University.
Previous volumes in the series are: Dostoevsky: The Seeds of Revolt, 1821-1849; Dostoevsky: The Years of Ordeal, 1850-1859; Dostoevsky: The Stir of Liberation, 1860-1865; and Dostoevsky: The Miraculous Years, 1865-1871.
It was during the final decade of his life, 1871-1881, that Dostoevsky wrote Diary of a Writer and his greatest novel, The Brothers Karamazov. Many pages of Frank's fifth volume deals with analzying these two works (140 pages for The Brothers Karamazov alone).
With impressive literary scholarship, Frank throws light on the historical, political, economic, social, cultural, and literary setting within which Dostoevsky created his works of art, novels of great psychological depth.
For example, Friedrich Nietzsche wrote: "Dostoevsky, the only psychologist, by the way, from whom I had anything to learn; he is one of the happiest accidents of my life, even more so than my discovery of Stendhal."
Dostoevsky traced the roots of the evils in Russian society to a loss of religious faith. By "religious faith" he meant specifically the Christian faith of the Russian Orthodox Church. He thought the Roman Catholic Church was a distortion and perversion of true Christianity. (See the harangue Dostoevsky puts into the mouth of Prince Myshkin in Part Four, Chapter VII, of The Idiot.
Of particular interest is Frank's discussion of Dostoevsky's philosophical thinking (framed, of course, within a Christian worldview), such as his ruminations on Russian nationalism, rational egoism, and the freedom of the will, and his grave concerns over the adverse moral and political effects of atheism and nihilism.
Frank soft-pedals Dostoevsky's notorious anti-Semitism, seeking to exonerate his hero as being simply "a child of his time."
Although one finds many things to dislike about Dostoevsky, one cannot help being impressed by his literary genius. Recognizing the excellence of Dostoevsky's art, Frank devotes the lion's share of his volume not to the man himself but to the man's literary production.
While this is surely not the fault of Joseph Frank, one is depressed by the seemingly endless fare of Russian sectarian bickering and murky political maneuverings. One breathes a huge sigh of relief to escape this oppressive atmosphere.
Rating: 5
Summary: a crowning achievement
Comment: A truly triumphant conclusion to a massive and passionate undertaking. Frank shows the highest standards of scholarship in being objective, fair, yet sympathetic to one of the greatest of all writers. In this final volume, we have Dostoevsky living and breathing the Russian air of his beloved land seething with social, cultural and political issues of the day. An engaged and far-seeing artist if ever there was one. The complexity and paradoxical simplicity of his life presents us a real genius often at odds with the way he would be perceived by many of his readers, yet a humane and sincere human being. Now go back and read the magnificent works he has given us from his pen.
 |
Title: Dostoevsky : The Mantle of the Prophet, 1871-1881 by Joseph Frank ISBN: 0691115699 Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr Pub. Date: 02 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
 |
Title: Reading Dostoevsky by Victor Terras ISBN: 0299160548 Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press Pub. Date: January, 1999 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
 |
Title: A Writer's Diary: 1873-1876 by Kenneth Lantz, Gary Saul Morson, Fyodor M. Dostoevsky ISBN: 0810115166 Publisher: Northwestern University Press Pub. Date: July, 1997 List Price(USD): $27.00 |
 |
Title: Dostoevsky by Konstantin Mochulsky, Michael A. Minihan ISBN: 0691012997 Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr Pub. Date: 01 November, 1971 List Price(USD): $47.50 |
 |
Title: The Village of Stepanchikovo: And Its Inhabitants: From the Notes of an Unknown (Penguin Classics) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Ignat Avsey, Fyodor M. Dostoevsky ISBN: 0140446583 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: December, 1995 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
