Notes From Underground Quotes

Crisis and Commitment

Dostoevsky’s Religion

Any reader of Dostoevsky is immediately struck by the importance of religion within the world of his fiction. That said, it is very difficult to locate a coherent set of religious beliefs within Dostoevsky’s works, and to argue that the writer embraced these beliefs. This book provides a trenchant reassessment of his religion by showing how Dostoevsky used his writings as the vehicle for an intense probing of the nature of Christianity, of the individual meaning of belief and doubt, and of the problems of ethical behavior that arise from these questions. The author argues that religion represented for Dostoevsky a welter of conflicting views and stances, from philosophical idealism to nationalist messianism. The strength of this study lies in its recognition of the absence of a single religious prescription in Dostoevsky's works, as well as in its success in tracing the background of the ideas animating Dostoevsky’s religious probing.

Dostoevsky and Social and Metaphysical Freedom

In asserting people's responsibility for their actions, and ultimately their fate, Buzina (global studies, Trinity College) contends that Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-81) constantly argues with his characters, who sometimes adhere to different and often much more deterministic representations of fate. She describes the full spectrum of ideas about fate encountered in his works, in order to demonstrate their interrelation, to trace their evolution, and to show how characters fluctuate between different notions of fate. Drawing on both anthropological and literary approaches, she juxtaposes his ideas with those of German philosopher Schelling. The text is double spaced. Annotation (c)2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).