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A review by glendonrfrank
The House of the Dead by Fyodor Dostoevsky
5.0
Yes, I read this in four days. No, I can't explain why Dostoevsky is an easier read for me than "Little Women."
Much has been said about the revelatory end to Dostoevsky's imprisonment, but in comparison, relatively little has been said about the four-year term that preceded it. Imagine my surprise to open this book and realize that Dostoevsky captured the subject himself, in a full novel. More of a memoir than a story, "House of the Dead" reveals just how it was that the Russian author got to be so good at casting rich, lifelike portraits for his characters. Though the context of the book is fictionalized, I have no doubt that many if not all of the figures he spends time lovingly reflecting on were real, vivid people. People living in profound darkness but with equally profound potential. While Dostoevsky paints a heavy atmosphere over the prison compound, it is never so heavy as to stop the moments of light fighting to break through.
Above all, the central motif here is humanity. The prison system is explicitly built to dehumanize, to subject. But Dostoevsky cannot help but pinpoint the humanity inside each of the figures he met over his four years, to see them in all their complexity, and see the aching hopes for freedom that everyone has.
Much has been said about the revelatory end to Dostoevsky's imprisonment, but in comparison, relatively little has been said about the four-year term that preceded it. Imagine my surprise to open this book and realize that Dostoevsky captured the subject himself, in a full novel. More of a memoir than a story, "House of the Dead" reveals just how it was that the Russian author got to be so good at casting rich, lifelike portraits for his characters. Though the context of the book is fictionalized, I have no doubt that many if not all of the figures he spends time lovingly reflecting on were real, vivid people. People living in profound darkness but with equally profound potential. While Dostoevsky paints a heavy atmosphere over the prison compound, it is never so heavy as to stop the moments of light fighting to break through.
Above all, the central motif here is humanity. The prison system is explicitly built to dehumanize, to subject. But Dostoevsky cannot help but pinpoint the humanity inside each of the figures he met over his four years, to see them in all their complexity, and see the aching hopes for freedom that everyone has.