May Read: Fyodor Dostoevsky

Hey everyone! I’m back with May’s book review on the biography of Fyodor Dostoevsky by Peter Leithart. Now, since this is a non-fiction book, there will be no content review, just my own personal one. So let’s get started!

The Synopsis (Taken from Goodreads)

In his twenties, Fydor Dostoevsky, son of a Moscow doctor, graduate of a military academy, and rising star of Russian literature, found himself standing in front of a firing squad, accused of subversive activities against the Russian Tsar. Then the drums rolled, signaling that instead he was to be exiled to the living death of Siberia.
Siberia was so cold the mercury froze in the thermometer. In prison, Dostoevsky was surrounded by murderers, thieves, parricides, and brigands who drank heavily, quarreled incessantly, and fought with horrible brutality. However, while “prisoners were piled on top of each other in the barracks, and the floor was matted with an inch of filth,” Dostoevsky learned a great deal about the human condition that was to impact his writing as nothing had before.
To absorb Dostoevsky’s remarkable life in these pages is to encounter a man who not only examined the quest of God, the problem of evil, and the suffering of innocents in his writing but also drew inspiration from his own deep Christian faith in giving voice to the common people of his nation… and ultimately the world.

Personal Review

I honestly have mixed feelings about this book. It had some interesting facts about Fyodor’s life and about the Russian culture and people at that time, but he wasn’t exactly the sort of person who I’d aspire to be like.

It was definitely interesting to see how the Russian culture was during Fyodor’s lifetime, since I don’t know much about Russian culture before the Russian revolution. The book showed a lot of the political and philosophical ideals of the common people versus the government and tsar during those days, which was interesting, though some of it did bog down the reading process and bored me.

I did enjoy seeing how God brought Fyodor back to Him, since it seemed like he backslid somewhat from his childhood faith into some atheism. He used the frozen prison and a kind woman giving him a Bible, the only book the prison allowed, to bring him back to Christ.

It was also interesting to see his growth in his Christian walk, although he had a LOT of issues. For example, shortly after becoming a Christian, he met his first wife and fell in love with her. However, at this time, she was already married to someone else. Fortunately, they didn’t marry until after her husband died, but then he proceeds to go have affairs on her, while she’s sick and dying. All while supposedly being a Christian. However, after her death, he does look back and realize he sinned because of his ego, that he wasn’t truly following Christ, and when he marries his second wife, he never cheats on her, having grown in his Christian faith.

Another area he struggled with was gambling, but with Christ’s help, was finally able to overcome it after the birth of his second child.

I did like the character of Fyodor’s brother, Mikhail. He showed himself to be a lot more sensible and responsible than his brother, practically running the business they were supposed to do together all by himself because of Fyodor’s irresponsibility. He also warned Fyodor against getting involved in certain things which were unwise, but regardless of what happened, he stood by him and helped him whenever he needed help until he died. And in Fyodor’s defense, after Mikhail’s death, he took care of his widow and children for him, even to the point where they took advantage of his generosity.

Something I also liked was seeing Fyodor’s fierce loyalty to his country, and his rejection of the ideal of socialism and communism. He recognized that earthly communism would only result in violence, and that the true ideal of communism could not be recognized on this earth, but in Heaven with Jesus. America seriously needs to understand this today, and needs people who are as patriotic to America as Fyodor was to Russia.

I also related with Fyodor’s habit of writing late into the night and sleeping late into the day. For some reason, even he got inspiration late at night and would stay up until three, sometimes four in the morning to finish his writing. It must be a writer thing, haha!

I think I would have enjoyed this book more, however, if the author had changed the set-up of the book. He wrote it in a way where he had the character of Fyodor telling a friend about his life, skipping between the present and past, instead of starting the book at his childhood, moving on to his adolescence, and so on. It was quite confusing to me, and I didn’t understand everything because of the sudden changes between past and present. Some of the scene breaks even left me with more questions than answers, and a few sections I had to read over again to see if I missed something. So it was very hard for me to read as it confused me. (And I’ve read books where the author has set it up like this before and it hasn’t bothered me, so I’m not sure why this one did.)

In all, I’d probably give this three and a half stars out of five based on the above-mentioned things.

Thanks for reading! Have you read about Fyodor Dostoevsky? Have you read one of his books? Which is your favorite? Do you think you’ll read about him? Let me know in the comments below! God bless! ~ Kay Adelin