Category Archives: Uncategorized

Unpublished Notebooks (1860-1865) I’m no philosopher, but I couldn’t help but notice that the world seems to have problems.  So how do we solve them? Some problems can be solved through logic.  Diagnosing where a pipe is leaking, for example, can be solved in this way.  Because such rational thinking can be so successful inContinue reading

Letters 1860-1867 Someone once asked Flannery O’Connor why she wrote, and she answered, “Because I’m good at it.”   A great quote—an inspiring quote, really—but for every inspiring quote there’s a time.  And that time is not at two in the morning after reading a limp draft eleven.  The quote somehow fails to hit theContinue reading

Seven Articles from Time and Epoch (1860-1862)* Writing involves the whole person.  Commitment to the literary endeavor must involve a denial of self-promotion.  Dostoevsky believes that fiction at its best is concerned with Living Truth, that is, something higher than the writer.  The more an author elevates self over this Living Truth, the more doomedContinue reading

Five Articles from Time (1861) A chainsaw is great for felling trees.  It isn’t a great pillow.  Getting to know a chainsaw’s strengths and weaknesses can help me use it more effectively.  The same is true for fiction.  Dostoevsky explores what fiction does well in articles he wrote for his journal, Time.*   What FictionContinue reading

The Village at Stepanchikovo (1859) A quick glance out my window will tell me that the leaves beyond it are green.  But if I take the time to study those leaves, I will notice all sorts of shades within that green.  The same is true of any field.  What are just teeth to a laymanContinue reading

Uncle’s Dream (1859) Nothing is as it appears in Dostoevsky’s novella, Uncle’s Dream.  Marya hides her Machiavellian viciousness under the guise of a gracious hostess.  She and her arch-nemesis act like besties.  Her husband looks imposing in his white cravat—until he opens his mouth and reveals he’s an adorably absurd man-child.  The Prince looks youngContinue reading

Letters 1849-1859 A few years ago, I read several craft books that left me with the impression that the best writing was improvised—that the real authors were like jazz musicians who could just jam with a natural flow.  I heard that Robert Frost quote: “No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader,” andContinue reading

“A Little Hero” (1857) “A Little Hero” has a marvelous ability to render a breadth of situations and characters that give the story a lifelike quality, all the while unifying it all through a central theme, much like Netochka Nezvanova.  This theme of the dangers of the attention we can pay each other is wellContinue reading

Netochka Nezvanova (1849) One of the marvels of great fiction is its ability to embrace the complexity of experience and at the same time to shape it into a meaningful unity.  Part One of Dostoevsky’s Netochka Nezvanova is a masterpiece of such complex unity.  It opens with Efimov, Netochka’s step-father.  Efimov is both focused andContinue reading

“White Nights” (1848) I often think of desire as a fundamental element of fiction.  In most stories, a character wants something, but an obstacle hinders fulfillment.  The vast majority of stories operate this way. But there’s a snag to this sort of storytelling.  It just doesn’t square with my experience.  To want something wholly, withContinue reading