"It seems, in fact, as though the second half of a man's life is usually made up of nothing but the habits he has accumulated during the first half."

- Demons, Fyodor Dostoevsky, II, Chapter 2

Demons by Fyodr Dostoevksy responses to Part II.

i.

Even science would not exist a moment without beauty.

I am haunted by the ending of this book. At one point, I wanted to ascribe mystic genius or deep poeticism to the rhythm and musings of the characters’ inner worlds, but here it is inconsolable. Perhaps, this is, in fact, Dostoevsky’s exercise with us, the reader, to see how far our compassion will go? How much do we wish to protect others from suffering and at what cost? Who is the victim and who is the oppressor? And more importantly, of what?

What Tikhon says to Stavrogin in the appendix is the only balm for my heart.  Indeed, it is much easier to allow others to hate us, than it is to allow them to feel pity. Opening to the empathy of others, would mean them recognizing the same force of incredible “evil” within themselves, as Tikhon acknowledges when he forgives him for his actions. And yet there is so much horror… so little resolution or softness in the way of expression. At least, that which we are able to take refuge in. 

How painful it is to look so deeply into the mirror of our human condition and understand that beneath every “evil” action is another heart that just wants to be happy, and just wants to avoid suffering.

So many have made the ultimate sacrifice for the moral standing of their death (Matryoshka, Kirilov, Stavrogin), so many have been killed at the hands of others (Shatov, Marya and her brother, amongst others).

Dostoevsky’s message about what will happen in a world without faith reads as both prophecy and some sort of inverted parody. He has taken these characters from a place of renunciation of the world and its men.

I believe, still, that these characters are moral, that they are governed by justice. There is petty evil in the world, there is war. We see the unspeakable evils of some men, but they are only merely representative of the bigger evil, we are all inevitably a part of and caught up in.

Still, my heart is in knots. I don’t know whether I have read this book with all parts of my mind. In this too is laughter, for its notes are so beyond the ordinary world…

ii.

Man has done nothing but invent God so as to go on living, and not kill himself, that's the whole of universal history up till now.

Quite thrill, terror, and heart-rending – all at once seized me when reaching the end of this book. An endless train of humor, action and suspense began to race through when Marie came to Shatov. The beauty and poignancy in Shatov first seeing his former love again:
"Three years of separation, three years of broken marriage, had dislodged nothing from his heart. And perhaps every day of those three years he had dreamed of her, the dear being who had once said to him: 'I love you.'"
And then going straight from this to wanting to run out and sell his revolver so he could buy her tea! From Shatov having his moment of "eternal harmony" by having his wife back and a child being born, to crying "out a brief and desperate cry" out in the dark; but "not to cry out again" – his murder punched me hard.

The atmosphere of the scene between Pyotr and Kirillov is most disturbing and terrifying – the conversations about God in middle of the night right after committing murder when the sole mission of Pyotr is to convince Kirillov to kill himself, and how it all progresses towards two revolvers, a closed door, and finally – a suicide (and spatters of brain scattered on the floor and all that...).  

Then there was Stepan's walk on foot - to die with Varvara being there for his last days – all coming back to the relationship of the older generation, after all the horrors that their children brought about in their old town.

iii.

The convictions and the man are two very different things.

The narrator stands at the periphery of the novel as a demon in his own right. He loves to speculate about societal dynamics, to dwell on rumors, and to slip insults and personal anecdotes regarding both people and events into the narrative whenever possible. He enjoys the power of having the final say, which he shows when he gives little hints to the future, and then says that he’s getting ahead of himself, almost as if he’s gloating for having witnessed the chain of events in its entirety, for, as he says, “…generally speaking, the Russian man is boundlessly amused by any socially scandalous commotion” (461), and he more than anyone. He alludes to impending disaster throughout the course of Demons, and one such moment that was foretelling was when he describes, in the aftermath of Stepan Trofimovich’s death, Varvara Petrovna’s outburst to Dr. Salzfisch of “‘I have no son!’” as “…as if prophetically” (665).

At this point, death and disaster have taken Demons by force, and amidst it all, Stavrogin’s story almost seems finished, especially with the spotlight focusing so intensely upon our dear demonic Pyotr Stepanovich. It is interesting that out of everyone, it is Darya Pavlovna to whom Stavrogin last writes, for of the three women with whom he could have possibly loved, Darya is the last one left alive, and is also she for whom he cares most deeply. Varvara’s “prophetic” statement about not having a son is also intriguing when thought about here, for his last letter is not written to his mother. The interiority of Stavrogin that is provided in the “appendix” is the closest we as the readers get to truly knowing how he feels and what he thinks about any of the chaos that he is surrounded by, be his involvement in it voluntary or otherwise. The somewhat masochistic “pleasure” he derives from “every extremely shameful, immeasurable humiliating, mean, and, above all, ridiculous position…” (692) in which he finds himself reveals more about his character and its demonic aspects than just about any other moment.

Stavrogin’s confession of guilt to Lizaveta Nikolaevna on page 525, after the news of the Lebyadkins’ murder reached them, was striking. Though I had initially attributed it to that murder, the “appendix” made me wonder if it was also related to his assault of the ten-year-old Matryosha and her subsequent suicide that is revealed in the pamphlet he shows to Tikhon. Tikhon’s comment about different types of crimes was fascinating, especially when thinking about the types of crimes that appear in other works by Dostoevsky. I am thinking in particular of Raskolnikov’s murder in Crime and Punishment, and the loftiness that it maintains throughout the novel that enables his ability to still move through society, despite his obvious guilt and delusions. Stavrogin’s awful secret has no loftiness, in spite of the sort of dark grandeur attributed to him by those who surround him and are so impacted by his presence, and Tikhon even says that Stavrogin will not only have to endure the people’s hatred if the secret is to come out, but also their “laughter” (709). I think that society’s romanticization of Stavrogin is a result of the combination of his sort of masochism, his desire for ridicule, and the guilt that haunts the periphery of how he interacts with people, because it fulfills society’s search for the twisted mystery of that demonic which is perfectly sane.

iv.

If Stavrogin has faith, he does not believe that he has faith. If he hasn't faith, he does not believe that he hasn't.

It was satisfying to finally have an insight into Stavrogin's mind in his confession, which made me reevaluate, among other things, the slap at the end of Part One. The narrator compared Stavrogin's restraint (if that is the word) after being slapped by Shatov to "a man, for example, as would seize a red-hot bar of iron and clutch it in his hand, with the purpose of measuring his strength of mind, and in the course of ten seconds would be overcoming the intolerable pain and would finally overcome it" (205). We could not see "what was inside the man" at the time but the confession reveals that whatever it was wasn't a desire to measure one's "strength of mind." We learn that Stavrogin received the highest, most intoxicating pleasure from the awareness of his own depravity and that nothing, apparently, called this awareness up as strongly as being slapped: "When I was slapped (and I have been slapped twice in my life), it was there as well, in spite of the terrible wrath. But if, for all that, the wrath can be restrained, the pleasure will exceed anything imaginable" (693). What I had taken as a supreme act of self-control, the sacrifice of his pride (which at the time I thought was very dear to Stavrogin) for some higher goals (political or otherwise), turns out, in light of the confession, to have been almost the opposite. Stavrogin lost nothing by public humiliation, he rather gained the highest pleasure he was capable of, and whatever plans he had at the time, like making his marriage to Maria Timofeevna public, served the same purpose as the slap: humiliation. Whether this passion for humiliation is just the most powerful stimulus available to someone as thoroughly tired of life as Stavrogin or whether there is something redemptive in it, I don't know.

v.

God is necessary and so must exist. But I know He doesn't and can't.

The third and final part of this novel felt like a spiraling deeper into madness.  Not just the main characters, but the town and all who come to it were 'possessed' by demons.  From the debauched ball to the fires and murders, it is sad to say the Pyotr, successfully enacted his plan for the fracturing of society.  Much of the final actions of the novel revolve around Pyotr, Shatov, Kirillov, Nikolai, and Stepan.  Pyotr contempt for society, I think, stems from his own insecurities.  Each of the characters comes upon their own revelations about God and Godlessness, and it seems the second they divine their own truth, they meet their maker.  But are these profound moments, moments of revelation, or the continuing deceit of the demons that possess them?  

Are their actual demons? No, probably not, but there is a good case as to explain the behavior of the characters.  For me the suicides of Nikolai, that mimicked the suicide of Matryosha, and Kirillovs were the most impactful.  Nikolai, in his quest for feeling and empathy grew so tired that the only way to maybe feel something was to kill himself, as he has often thought about.  And Kirillovs suicide stands in complete contrast, as his suicide was in a fit of passion rather than empathy.  

As with all good Dostoyevsky novels, there is no shortage of death and tragedy, but this one felt particularly ludicrous, in a good way.  I'm especially thinking of Stepan's slow demise and how deluded and funny his little adventure was.  I hate to say it was comical, but his entire existence was like that so it only seemed fitting.

vi.

I maintain that Shakespeare and Raphael are more precious than the emancipation of the serfs, more precious than nationalism, more precious than socialism, more than the young generation, more precious than chemistry, more precious than almost all humanity because they are the fruit, the real fruit of all humanity and perhaps the highest fruit that can be.

" Theologian Georges Florovsky describes Tikhon thus:

His grace and lucidity, his freedom—and not merely freedom from the world but also in the world—is the most striking quality in St. Tikhon's personality. He has the easy grace of a pilgrim or traveler neither deflected nor restrained by this world. "Every living being on earth is a wayfarer." However, this conquering grace was achieved through painful trial and ascetic effort. The dark waves of deep weariness and despair are quite clearly visible in Tikhon's limpid spirit as they rush over him... His peculiar subjective despair, his special temptation to melancholy as a form of uncustomary disclosure of the soul, is wholly unique in Russian asceticism and more readily suggestive of the Dark Night of the Soul by St. John of the Cross. At times Tikhon would fall into a helpless torpor, confinement, and immobility, when everything around him was dark, empty, and unresponsive. Sometimes he could not compel himself to leave his cell; at other times he seemingly tried to escape physically from despair by moving about. Tikhon's whole spirit had been overwhelmed in this ordeal, yet that trial left no traces or scars. The original luminosity of his soul was only purified in his personal progress.[5]"

In this description, he does not fall far from Stavrogin's inner torment. In a modern novel, they would probably both be understood to be clinically depressed. The painful and affecting conversation that bookends the actual letter speaks to their deep and instinctive understanding of one another (when they trade "I love yous", tears sprang to my eyes). I am not fully versed on the particularities of Orthodox Christianity, but I did grow under a pretty rigid Roman Catholic catechism, and the centrality and power of confession and absolution are really no joke--what Tikhon is offering is no joke, and the fact that Stavrogin so loathes himself that (while almost able to accept Tikhon's pity and mercy) he cannot submit to the faith and humility that would lead to his forgiving of himself tells me that Stavrogin is no paradigmatic sociopath. There is something broken in him, "a mortally wounded heart", as Tikhon says, "a great idle force being spent on abomination". Again, a modern novel (or superhero movie) might try to point to the backstory that created this damaged being, but in this chapter, all we need to know is that God will forgive even these sins, no matter where they came from. That the desire for repentance expressed fully and sincerely is enough. That is real faith; that is faith that Stavrogin either won't admit to or cannot allow for himself.

Incidentally, Tikhon's description of Stavrogin's self-sabotaging presentation of himself in the letter, his challenge to anyone to dare find the ability to forgive him, and the preemptive anger he feels at their pity such that he will destroy himself for it is not unlike the circular self-destruction that addicts find themselves mired in. (Ahem, based on experiences of a friend...) And Tikhon's attempt to reach him is not unlike what occurs in a 12-step recovery--first by putting himself on the same level as Stavrogin ("I don't believe perfectly", "there is no isolated sin...and I am a great sinner"), and by offering him a solution (to study under the monk, to give himself time to forgive himself). That is also my understanding of why God sent his son in the form of a man to save the world, a man who could sit across from another human and speak to her essence. I no longer practice any faith, but still find myself shaped by ideas of redemption and humility. Sadly, Stavrogin cannot face the shame and effort of seeking true redemption; suicide is his only option.

vii.

What is far more essential for man than personal happiness is to know and to believe at every instant that there is somewhere a perfect and serene happiness for all me3n and for everything. The one essential condition of human existence is that man should always be able to bow down before something infinitely great.

Wow, what an experience! After reading Demons I had to put the book down and take a big ole deep breath. Even though I had an idea that this world was going to implode, death was going to reek the streets, and Pytor was going to be the worst of them all, it hit me harder than expected.

First off, I brought this up towards the later part of class, but at the end of the first chapter in Part Three we read, "How could one not subscribe? Everyone subscribed." This made me laugh, and I had to mark it just for the mere fact that a few weeks ago we were discussing the similarities in Dostoevsky's world and our world, when it comes to social media and performance. Our narrator describes the soon to be Fête in a way that promotes spectacle, not just promotes but desires. We also see this earlier when the group goes on their pilgrimage and gawks at the man who killed himself.  We all subscribe. We all look up the YouTube videos that terrify us, or humor us, or make us angry. It's just easier to subscribe now, just hit the button and watch.

Something else mentioned in class was Dostoevsky's ability to be outside looking in, not inside looking out regarding his characters. I keep thinking about this. And I keep thinking about Kirillov. There's a big part of me that didn't understand him, and his (complicated) belief in the after. But when it comes time for him to do it, yes, being forced into it, I suddenly saw those layers peel off of him. It's like it almost peeled off so much that he became non-human, a creature, an animal close to the scariest thing of all, death. I respected that scene so much. It was supernatural without being supernatural, it was haunting, and real.

The last thing I'll put out there is Stravrogin's search for his authentic self. I find it relative today. The bullshit idea (pardon my French, that isn't French) that we are constantly searching for our truest self is, to me, the most dangerous journey there is. And I believe we watch this happen to Stravrogin. He is so aware, he slowly fades away. He can't stop himself form himself anymore, and sure, from that banned chapter we get some explantations, perhaps, why he is the way he is. That in itself is possession and in some way, a quality of unfreedom.

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Culture is the rule, and art is the exception. Everybody speaks the rule; cigarette, computer, t-shirt, television, tourism, war. Nobody speaks the exception. It isn’t spoken, it is written; Flaubert, Dostoyevsky. It is composed; Gershwin, Mozart. It is painted; Cézanne, Vermeer. It is filmed; Antonioni, Vigo. Or it is lived, then it is the art of living; Srebrenica, Mostar, Sarajevo. The rule is to want the death of the exception. So the rule for cultural Europe is to organize the death of the art of living, which still flourishes. When it’s time to close the book, I have no regrets. I’ve seen so many people live so badly, and so many die so well." (Jean-Luc Godard, Je vous Sarajevo, 1993)