Dostoevsky And the Dynamics of Religious Experience

This exciting addition to Dostoevsky studies deals with the religious dimension of the novelist’s life and fiction. Malcolm Jones takes a fresh reading of Dostoevsky’s representation of religion in his fictional world, that allows for both mystery and fear. The author argues that the spiritual map of human experience that Dostoevsky offers includes only the occasional small island of serenity in vast, turbulent oceans of doubt, rebellion, rejection, indifference and disbelief. Dostoevsky is also viewed as an artist, revealing glimpses of salvation through subversive narrative techniques and destabilized, vulnerable characters. Dostoevsky’s fictional characters experience the dread of a meaningless void as well as a desperate longing for the restorative binding idea that religion offers. Dostoevsky and the Dynamics of Religious Experience offers a balanced and authoritative argument. The book is structured through six clearly defined and self-reliant essays that take into account past and current criticism and offer a close textual analysis of Dostoevsky’s works, including The Double, Notes from Underground, Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, The Devils and an in-depth study of The Brothers Karamazov. This work is a major contribution to the study of Dostoevsky and Russian Literature in Europe, the USA, Russia and throughout the world.