“An Unpleasant Predicament” (1862)

The theme of “An Unpleasant Predicament” is similar to many of Dostoevsky’s other works: reality isn’t how I conceive it—it’s much more complex and paradoxical.  Ivan Ilyitch, a high ranking general, stumbles across the wedding of Pseldonimov, one of his petty clerks.  Ivan Ilyitch imagines what it would be like for him to go join the celebration.  When he does go, the reality is much different.

But not only are Ivan Ilyitch’s conceptions being challenged, the reader’s are, too.  This is perhaps a necessity for fiction.  If I was in no way challenged by a story, why would I read it?  When I open a book, I have a longing to be changed for the better.  This puts the author in a difficult place.  I want Dostoevsky to challenge me, but all the same, I find being challenged . . . well, challenging.  For fiction to challenge me, it necessarily confronts me with a side of reality that I have resistance to confronting.

Thus when Dostoevsky’s imagination unearth’s a challenging truth, his task then becomes to persuade the reader that it is, in fact, true.  Dostoevsky has several techniques for doing this that he relies on with some regularity.  

He makes use of the word translated “even.”  Here are two examples:

“[T]hree highly respectable gentleman were sitting in a comfortable and even luxuriously furnished room [ . . . ]”

“He [ . . . ] dreamed of a wealthy and even aristocratic bride.”

In both cases, the narrator seems to be correcting himself, supplanting a smaller adjective with a larger one, qualified with this word “even.”  Why?  Why not just use the larger adjective?  My guess is that this self-correcting style creates a sort of slope into the pool of the story that makes it easier to wade in than if he were suddenly to shove me into the deep end.  “Even” also contains the tone of surprise.  If the room had been merely luxurious, it would be a mere painted backdrop declaring without nuance that “THEY’RE RICH.”  The correction and the “even” makes me pause and wonder.  It captures a little better the subtlety of reality.

The word “even” is also subjective.  An objective camera doesn’t have any “even”s.  The “even” implies a personality behind the narration.  The adjectives are passing through a perception, and that perception is slightly uncertain.  The “even” seems to imply something like this: “My first take on the situation was this, but now that I say that out loud, it seems that the reality of the situation was actually more extreme.”  In both examples, the first round of adjectives seem to suggest a sort of rationalization:  “I just want to live comfortably,” or “I just want to marry well.”  The “even” reveals an almost slip of the tongue that admits, “Well, I seem to have done a bit more than make myself comfortable” or “It’s true, my dreams did at times take me further than just marrying well.”  

I tend to assume my thoughts are reasonable.  The notion that I might be rationalizing does not come naturally.  What’s bizarre about my day-to-day experience is that I often have quite outrageous thoughts without realizing it.  So when I am closely identifying with a protagonist, I naturally assume that his thoughts are reasonable, like mine.  Dostoevsky knows this.  If he were to barrage me with Ivan Ilyitch’s unreasonable thoughts, he’d lose me.  I’d probably think, “What a weirdo—thank heavens I’m not like that.”  But with his “even”s, Dostoevsky holds my hand and gently leads me to the mirror.

Another spoon he uses to help me swallow the unpalitable truth is his use of commentary.  Here’s an example:

“Stepan Nikiforovitch raised his eyebrows and remained mute, as a sign that he would not detain his visitors.”

If the narrator hadn’t explained this gesture, it would not have been near as vivid.  But the commentary brings the psychological motive for the image to light, which makes the character easier to picture.  For this story to live in my imagination, I don’t just need sense details, I need to know the spirit of what I’m seeing.

Dostoevsky also uses commentary as a courtesy to the reader.  I can get so used to clichés that I find fresh observations baffling.  Dostoevsky knows this.  So when he describes Ivan Ilyitch’s drunkenness in such a non-clichéd way, he gives me an explanation so that I don’t lose my belief in the reality of the story.  Here are two examples:

“It was so lovely that after walking some fifty paces Ivan Ilyitch almost forgot his troubles [ . . . ] People quickly change from one mood to another when they are drunk.”

“A minute later he got up, evidently meaning to go out, gave a lurch, stumbled against the leg of a chair, fell full length on the floor and snoored [ . . . ] This is what is apt to happen to men who don’t drink when they accidentally take a glass too much.  They preserve their consciousness to the last point, to the last minute, and then fall to the ground as though struck down.”

At first these commentaries seem odd.  They are bald statements about drunkenness without a shred of evidence to back them up.  Why include them?  Or, if Dostoevsky really does feel he’s straining my credulity, is simply stating that he’s right enough to put my doubts to rest?  

I have mixed feelings about this.  On the one hand, I think if Dostoevsky were to simply cut these commentaries, something would be lost.  It would be easier to assume that Dostoevsky’s imagination is getting sloppy.  But by telling us that he’s conciously making this decision based on his observations on drunkenness, I’m more likely to accept this new development.  And also, if Dostoevsky were to eliminate all commentary, we would lose the deepest layers of these characters.  I don’t have the insight into what’s really going on with people that Dostoevsky does—I want to hear his interpretation, even in bald statements like these.  And if commentary deepens characters, why on earth would he cut it?

But on the other hand, the “take my word for it” tone of this commentary is a bit hard to swallow.  Sure, it works for Dostoevsky, who proves his insight in other ways, but I’m hesitatant to employ such a tactic myself.  Nonetheless, I think there’s an important lesson in here for me.  Some corners of human experience simply can’t be shown.  They must be explained or the reader will miss them.  The adage “show, don’t tell” can be taken too far.

Dostoevsky’s commentary, at it’s best, make possible something rarely seen done so well in fiction.  He can use it to diliniate contradictions in a character’s inner world.  Look at this:

“[Ivan Ilyitch’s] drunken reflections could not rest long on one subject; there began to be apparent and unmistakably so, even to himself, two opposite sides.  On one side there was swaggering assurance, a desire to conquer, a disdain of obstacles and a desperate confidence that he would attain his object.  The other side showed itself in the aching of his heart, and a sort of gnawing in his soul.”

The only concrete descriptions in this passage are metaphorical.  What’s going on inside Ivan Ilyitch is too paradoxical to be shown through gesture.  But this brief commentary opens his experience to me.  I don’t read this passage and feel both of these feelings simultaneously like Ivan Ilyitch does (commentary can’t do that)—I can only feel the aching, gnawing side of the paradox.  But even though I can’t feel both sides, I’m glad Dostoevsky describes them—the description makes me recall times when I had similar conflicting feelings.  I read it and think, wow, yes, me too, only I’d never before seen it so clearly.