Dostoevsky’s Novels and Sex Appeal

A while ago, when I was still teaching at Oberlin, one of my students told me that she loved Crime and Punishment and admired its protagonist, because Raskolnikov was such a sex symbol.

Wow —I thought —Some students are really kinky. The guy who whacks two women with an ax? A sex symbol?

And yet, there is something to that. Maybe for a shorter fiction, you can get away with highly revolting "anti-hero." Like Dostoevsky did with his "Notes from Underground," or "Gentle Creature."

But larger novels require something relatable, appealing, or plain heroic. Tolstoy said that you have to love the main idea of the book, as he loved "people's thought" in War and Peace, and "family thought" in Anna Karenina. But these thoughts should be translated into people. And Tolstoy does that. Pierre, Andrei, Natasha! They all are charming like hell. They are searching. They are failing and triumphing. They are alive. And so are Anna and Levin, and Kitty and even Stiva, inadequate as he is.

Dostoevsky, however, loved to experiment. That's commendable, but it is a recipe for failure, if you wish. Granted that there are plenty of great thoughts and astute observations in The Idiot, or Possessed (The Demons), still these novels are sort of weak. By Dostoevsky standards, of course, but weak. The protagonist of Demons -- Stavrogin, is a certified asshole. Supposed to be charming and attractive, but only because the narrator says so. So Dostoevsky tried to shove him down our throats and down the characters' throats, which has weakened the brilliant political satire that the novel was supposed to be. Same with the characters of The Idiot. Here he takes the protagonists of his shorter novellas, like “The Notes from Underground”: the tortured man and his victim: loving but helpless woman, and turns it around into a tortured woman and helpless and clueless Prince Myshkin. None of them are particularly appealing, despite the beauty of Nastasya or occasional insights of Myshkin. Consequently, despite all the efforts of enthusiasts trying to prop this failing enterprise, it is still failing. Because the characters are not sexy. They don't come close to the brilliant and searching Raskolnikov, or steadfast and loyal Sonya, or the amazing Brothers, be it Dmitry, Ivan, or Alyosha, or even the wickedly-charming father Karamazov, or saintly-charming Father Zosima. These guys, different as they are, are cool and appealing. You want to observe them and hear more about them.

The ideas, with which Dostoevsky entered his fifth great novel, Adolescent, are good. But here again: an Adolescent: the pubescent kid, who can't really carry a mature novel on his shoulders, and his past-their-prime fathers: one Stavrogin-light and one Zosima-light. Doesn't really work.

I understand, it is not the most scholarly approach to great fiction, but sometimes, through the mouth of Oberlin babes...