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A review by millennial_dandy
The Insulted And Injured Translated from the Russian by Constance Garnett by Unknown
4.0
3.5 rounded up to 4
"It was a gloomy story, one of those gloomy and distressing dramas which are so often played out unseen, almost mysterious, under the heavy sky of Petersburg, in the dark secret corners of the vast town, in the midst of the giddy ferment of life, of dull egoism, of clashing interests, of gloomy vice and secret crimes, in that lowest hell of senseless and abnormal life." p.159
I think Dostoevsky may have bitten off a bit more than he could chew with this one. Despite coming in at a fairly standard novel length of 330 pages, 'The Insulted and Injured' feels rushed and jam-packed with more than it was structurally able to carry.
We follow two plots, which do come together in the end, though inelegantly, and then two additional subplots that are intriguing, but not given space to be fleshed out.
The plot that kicks things off becomes a quasi-framing device, and is the tragic tale of a father scorned by a daughter who falls in love with someone he disapproves of, and when she's abandoned by this lover, her father refuses to forgive her and she dies in poverty, leaving behind a young daughter who is taken in by the narrator, Vanya.
Vanya is also neck deep in the other main plot which involves his ex-fiancé, Natasha, becoming estranged from her father when she runs off to live with the son of a prince, Alyosha, against her father's wishes. As it turns out, Natasha and Alyosha are not very well suited for each other, but sunk-cost fallacy being what it is, they kid themselves into believing they're still madly in love and stay together even though staying together despite the relationship having run its course is what is making them miserable, especially Natasha, who spends most of the novel crying.
Vanya tries to comfort her, accepting his new role in her life as her friend rather than her lover while also struggling to be the caretaker of the orphan, Nellie.
Then we have the subplots: One, Vanya struggling to complete a novel he's promised to his publisher (Vanya is our 'not-Dostoevsky' character of this tale, and the novel is obviously meant to be Dostoevsky's own 'Poor Folk.'). We begin the entire novel with him pondering his writing process and how he prefers mulling over his ideas to actually putting them to paper. We get some interesting insight into the mind of the author when this comes up within the narrative, most memorably when Nellie reads his novel and demands to know why it has such a tragic ending:
Vanya: It couldn't be helped. It had to be so, Nellie.
Nellie: It didn't have to be at all. (p.189)
This isn't the only time the question of 'what is the purpose of a novel?' comes up. When first introducing the idea of a novel to Nellie, she asks if everything he writes is true. He tells her that in fact, he "made it all up," to which she replies: "Why do you write what isn't true?" (p.154)
He doesn't have an answer for her, but continues to wrestle around with his manuscript throughout the story.
In the end, he sits down and writes feverishly for two whole days to complete the novel, which he turns in to his publisher, and he and Natasha debate whether the surer sign of a literary talent is the ability to pump out a novel quickly or only publishing one novel every ten years. (Dostoevsky poking fun at himself perhaps? Of Tolstoy? This felt very pointed)
The other subplot involves Alyosha, the son of a prince, meeting a group of young intellectuals his father derides as being, essentially, woke (derogatory), for discussing the immorality of the bulk of Russia's wealth being held by only a handful of elites. To this scoffing dismissal of his newfound progressivism, Alyosha says:
A poignant and pertinent quote to bust out during those holiday dinners with conservative (derogatory) family members, sneering down their noses at your leftist hot takes with a condescending: 'Oh, it's so cute you're so fired up about social change, but you'll grow out of it, sweetie.'
Alyosha's father, the prince, is a great villain. As far as we are told he doesn't have a mustache, but he's still got mustache-twirler energy. He is determined to break up Alyosha and Natasha so that he can marry Alyosha off to a rich heiress and thereby enrich himself. And he takes great pleasure in doing so, sparing no opportunity to stir the pot and then managing to at the same time maintain plausible deniability while rubbing everyone's faces in the fact that he's the source of their misery.
Indeed, in one memorable chapter, he invites Vanya to go out for drinks for the express purpose of evil villain monologuing at him as he gets progressively more drunk. He tells Vanya about how many women he's purposefully screwed over (a lot), and just how much of a general menace to society he's been for years, and all just because... he likes being the bad guy (one could argue that Billie Eilish’s Bad Guy' was expressly written to be this guy's theme song -- 'duh!').
Of the encounter, Vanya says: "It seemed to me (and I understood it) that he took a certain pleasure, found certain sensual gratification in the shamelessness, in the insolence, in the cynicism with which at last he threw off his mask before me. He wanted to enjoy my surprise, my horror." (p.230)
But to justify reading out his ledger of sins to a relative stranger, the Prince tries to imbue his debaucherous lifestyle with a little bit of philosophy (or anti-philosophy as the case may be):
It's really kind of a shame that something compelled Dostoevsky to rush the publication of 'The Insulted and Injured' because individually all of the elements are really intriguing and could have worked together with a little bit of extra effort and tightening other plot threads (especially the number of scenes of Natasha and/or Alyosha crying in Natasha's apartment and as well the number of scenes of Vanya going to Natasha's parents' house and one or both of them crying about the fact that Natasha has gone off an tarnished both her own and by extension their reputation. Just...much too much of that with little development or payoff since the resolution occurs within the blink of an eye.
The strongest of all the storylines was probably the story of the orphan girl, Ellie, and her relationship to Vanya. But once it connected in with the story of Natasha and Alyosha, Ellie felt less like a fully developed character and more of a parallel cautionary tale to resolve the falling out between Natasha and her father.
Very messy all around there at the end.
Nevertheless, if you go into it with the understanding that you're not staring down a satisfying ending to anything that's set up, there is some good stuff here, including, but not limited to, the fact that it's one of the only times thus far (chronologically speaking) that Dostoevsky didn't employ the 'duplicitous friend-zoning woman' trope he's usually so fond of. Vanya is actually a really good friend to Natasha and caregiver to Ellie without expecting anything from them in return, and then neither of them turn out to have been leading him one. Natasha indicates some unspoken regrets about having left Vanya for Alyosha, but it isn't presented as being malicious as is the case in such works as 'White Nights' or 'Uncle's Dream'.
We'll consider that character development on Dostoevsky's part.
In particular, the very opening chapter in which Vanya describes his encounters with a man who will soon thereafter be revealed to be Ellie's grandfather, is a wonderful and melancholy short story on its own even if you stop there. And the Prince's monologue is also pretty interesting and delightfully unhinged.
"It was a gloomy story, one of those gloomy and distressing dramas which are so often played out unseen, almost mysterious, under the heavy sky of Petersburg, in the dark secret corners of the vast town, in the midst of the giddy ferment of life, of dull egoism, of clashing interests, of gloomy vice and secret crimes, in that lowest hell of senseless and abnormal life." p.159
I think Dostoevsky may have bitten off a bit more than he could chew with this one. Despite coming in at a fairly standard novel length of 330 pages, 'The Insulted and Injured' feels rushed and jam-packed with more than it was structurally able to carry.
We follow two plots, which do come together in the end, though inelegantly, and then two additional subplots that are intriguing, but not given space to be fleshed out.
The plot that kicks things off becomes a quasi-framing device, and is the tragic tale of a father scorned by a daughter who falls in love with someone he disapproves of, and when she's abandoned by this lover, her father refuses to forgive her and she dies in poverty, leaving behind a young daughter who is taken in by the narrator, Vanya.
Vanya is also neck deep in the other main plot which involves his ex-fiancé, Natasha, becoming estranged from her father when she runs off to live with the son of a prince, Alyosha, against her father's wishes. As it turns out, Natasha and Alyosha are not very well suited for each other, but sunk-cost fallacy being what it is, they kid themselves into believing they're still madly in love and stay together even though staying together despite the relationship having run its course is what is making them miserable, especially Natasha, who spends most of the novel crying.
Vanya tries to comfort her, accepting his new role in her life as her friend rather than her lover while also struggling to be the caretaker of the orphan, Nellie.
Then we have the subplots: One, Vanya struggling to complete a novel he's promised to his publisher (Vanya is our 'not-Dostoevsky' character of this tale, and the novel is obviously meant to be Dostoevsky's own 'Poor Folk.'). We begin the entire novel with him pondering his writing process and how he prefers mulling over his ideas to actually putting them to paper. We get some interesting insight into the mind of the author when this comes up within the narrative, most memorably when Nellie reads his novel and demands to know why it has such a tragic ending:
Vanya: It couldn't be helped. It had to be so, Nellie.
Nellie: It didn't have to be at all. (p.189)
This isn't the only time the question of 'what is the purpose of a novel?' comes up. When first introducing the idea of a novel to Nellie, she asks if everything he writes is true. He tells her that in fact, he "made it all up," to which she replies: "Why do you write what isn't true?" (p.154)
He doesn't have an answer for her, but continues to wrestle around with his manuscript throughout the story.
In the end, he sits down and writes feverishly for two whole days to complete the novel, which he turns in to his publisher, and he and Natasha debate whether the surer sign of a literary talent is the ability to pump out a novel quickly or only publishing one novel every ten years. (Dostoevsky poking fun at himself perhaps? Of Tolstoy? This felt very pointed)
The other subplot involves Alyosha, the son of a prince, meeting a group of young intellectuals his father derides as being, essentially, woke (derogatory), for discussing the immorality of the bulk of Russia's wealth being held by only a handful of elites. To this scoffing dismissal of his newfound progressivism, Alyosha says:
Suppose I am in error, suppose this is all wrong, mistaken, suppose I am a little fool as you've called me several times; if I am making a mistake, I'm sincere and honest in it; I've done nothing ignoble. I am enthusiastic over lofty ideas. They may be mistaken, but what they rest upon is holy. I've told you that you and all your friends have never yet said anything to me that could guide me, or influence me. Refute them, tell me something better than they have said, and I will follow you, but do not laugh at me, for that grieves me very much." p.172
A poignant and pertinent quote to bust out during those holiday dinners with conservative (derogatory) family members, sneering down their noses at your leftist hot takes with a condescending: 'Oh, it's so cute you're so fired up about social change, but you'll grow out of it, sweetie.'
Alyosha's father, the prince, is a great villain. As far as we are told he doesn't have a mustache, but he's still got mustache-twirler energy. He is determined to break up Alyosha and Natasha so that he can marry Alyosha off to a rich heiress and thereby enrich himself. And he takes great pleasure in doing so, sparing no opportunity to stir the pot and then managing to at the same time maintain plausible deniability while rubbing everyone's faces in the fact that he's the source of their misery.
Indeed, in one memorable chapter, he invites Vanya to go out for drinks for the express purpose of evil villain monologuing at him as he gets progressively more drunk. He tells Vanya about how many women he's purposefully screwed over (a lot), and just how much of a general menace to society he's been for years, and all just because... he likes being the bad guy (one could argue that Billie Eilish’s Bad Guy' was expressly written to be this guy's theme song -- 'duh!').
Of the encounter, Vanya says: "It seemed to me (and I understood it) that he took a certain pleasure, found certain sensual gratification in the shamelessness, in the insolence, in the cynicism with which at last he threw off his mask before me. He wanted to enjoy my surprise, my horror." (p.230)
But to justify reading out his ledger of sins to a relative stranger, the Prince tries to imbue his debaucherous lifestyle with a little bit of philosophy (or anti-philosophy as the case may be):
I still believe it is possible to live happily on earth. And that's the best faith, for without it one can't even live unhappily: there's nothing left but to poison oneself. They say that this is what some fool did. He philosophized till he destroyed everything [...] The sum total came to nil, and so he declared that the best thing in life was prussic acid." (p.238)
It's really kind of a shame that something compelled Dostoevsky to rush the publication of 'The Insulted and Injured' because individually all of the elements are really intriguing and could have worked together with a little bit of extra effort and tightening other plot threads (especially the number of scenes of Natasha and/or Alyosha crying in Natasha's apartment and as well the number of scenes of Vanya going to Natasha's parents' house and one or both of them crying about the fact that Natasha has gone off an tarnished both her own and by extension their reputation. Just...much too much of that with little development or payoff since the resolution occurs within the blink of an eye.
The strongest of all the storylines was probably the story of the orphan girl, Ellie, and her relationship to Vanya. But once it connected in with the story of Natasha and Alyosha, Ellie felt less like a fully developed character and more of a parallel cautionary tale to resolve the falling out between Natasha and her father.
Very messy all around there at the end.
Nevertheless, if you go into it with the understanding that you're not staring down a satisfying ending to anything that's set up, there is some good stuff here, including, but not limited to, the fact that it's one of the only times thus far (chronologically speaking) that Dostoevsky didn't employ the 'duplicitous friend-zoning woman' trope he's usually so fond of. Vanya is actually a really good friend to Natasha and caregiver to Ellie without expecting anything from them in return, and then neither of them turn out to have been leading him one. Natasha indicates some unspoken regrets about having left Vanya for Alyosha, but it isn't presented as being malicious as is the case in such works as 'White Nights' or 'Uncle's Dream'.
We'll consider that character development on Dostoevsky's part.
In particular, the very opening chapter in which Vanya describes his encounters with a man who will soon thereafter be revealed to be Ellie's grandfather, is a wonderful and melancholy short story on its own even if you stop there. And the Prince's monologue is also pretty interesting and delightfully unhinged.