Volume 33, Number 14 · September 25, 1986
On the Verge
By V.S. Pritchett
Dostoevsky: The Stir of Liberation, 1860–1865
by Joseph Frank
Princeton University Press, 395 pp., $29.50
We now have the third volume of Joseph Frank's exhaustive and responsive examination of Dostoevsky and his works. We see Dostoevsky returning to St. Petersburg after his infamous imprisonment with common criminals in Siberia, which had been prolonged by enforced military service there, and lasted a total of ten years. He arrives with a crowd of released political prisoners who have been freed by the reforms of Alexander II at the end of 1859. In 1861 the curse of serfdom will be done with. Dostoevsky brings with him the wife he has married in Siberia, a widow, and her son by her previous husband, and they are met by Fyodor's brother Mikhail who sees at once that Dostoevsky is not a broken man. He looks strong and self-confident; he is no longer the timid nervous figure who was so mocked in the malicious literary society of the capital. Military service has improved his physical health and his commission has given him confidence. The haunting weakness is his inescapable epilepsy. The fits—it is now agreed—started in prison, after the notorious and sadistic mock execution after his trial. (In the earlier volume we remember Dr. Frank's account of the euphoria or 'aura' which precedes the onset of attacks.) Dostoevsky's wife is the victim of advancing tuberculosis. The private omens clearly threaten a marriage that has all the marks of an attempt by both parties to live with the ineluctable.
Review, 2006 words
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