The Master of Petersburg by J. M. Coetzee
finished 10/20 ...... contemp. literary (Nobel)
....... rating 10
This is a reread and I did a close reading of
chapters 5-8 for the Pynchon group.
This remarkable book is the fictional story of Dostoevsky's inspiration for Demons (The Possessed) and more specifically, Stavrogin's Confession or At Tikon's, the unpublished middle chapter of Demons.
Dostoevsky is called back to Petersburg because of the death of his stepson, Pavel. He stays in his son's room at a boarding house where he falls in love with the landlady and gets involved with her adolescent daughter. He is questioned by the police as to a list of victims found in Pavel's room. He's called on by the revolutionary Sergie Nechaev and pulled into a plot masterminded by him. Dostoevsky is obsessed and tormented by Pavel's death, he's guilt-ridden and confused. He has seizures. He tries to pull Pavel back from the grave. And he envisions a book about a man who goes to the boarding house he's at, has an affair with the landlady and her daughter, but with a different ending from what came to be published in Demons.
Meanwhile, Coetzee's own son died from a fall not long before Master was written. His presence also haunts the novel.
On another level the question arises, how far can an author of fiction play with the lives of real people? To what extent are the novelists capitalizing, using, this other person? Coetzee went on to explore the father/daughter relationship in Disgrace but then started examining his own authorship, his own head in Elizabeth Costello and Slow Man.
Coetzee reimagines the life of Dostoevsky during the time he conceives and starts to write "Demons" including the censored section, "At Tikhon's." In Coetzee's version Dostoevsky goes to Petersburg to take care of the details surrounding the death of his stepson, Pavel. It seems that Pavel has been running with a rather fast crowd - the revolutionary Nechaev and his companions. So Dostoevsky is investigated by the police commissioner Maximov - a fantastic gritty character.
And Dostoevsky stays in Pavel's old room where he and the widowed landlady fall in love. The landlady has a young daughter and Dostoevsky violates her emotionally but giving rise to the confessions of Stavrogin in "At Tikhon's." The revolutionaries are portrayed far more sympathetically here than in "Demons" and there are allusions to "The Brothers Karamazov" as well. The history is a bit skewed for the sake of the fiction.
Fwiw, Coetzee was grieving his son at the time he wrote this book - much of the emotional content, the "fathers and sons" theme, is based on his own experience.
This remarkable book is the fictional story of Dostoevsky's inspiration for Demons (The Possessed) and more specifically, Stavrogin's Confession or At Tikon's, the unpublished middle chapter of Demons.
Dostoevsky is called back to Petersburg because of the death of his stepson, Pavel. He stays in his son's room at a boarding house where he falls in love with the landlady and gets involved with her adolescent daughter. He is questioned by the police as to a list of victims found in Pavel's room. He's called on by the revolutionary Sergie Nechaev and pulled into a plot masterminded by him. Dostoevsky is obsessed and tormented by Pavel's death, he's guilt-ridden and confused. He has seizures. He tries to pull Pavel back from the grave. And he envisions a book about a man who goes to the boarding house he's at, has an affair with the landlady and her daughter, but with a different ending from what came to be published in Demons.
Meanwhile, Coetzee's own son died from a fall not long before Master was written. His presence also haunts the novel.
On another level the question arises, how far can an author of fiction play with the lives of real people? To what extent are the novelists capitalizing, using, this other person? Coetzee went on to explore the father/daughter relationship in Disgrace but then started examining his own authorship, his own head in Elizabeth Costello and Slow Man.
Coetzee reimagines the life of Dostoevsky during the time he conceives and starts to write "Demons" including the censored section, "At Tikhon's." In Coetzee's version Dostoevsky goes to Petersburg to take care of the details surrounding the death of his stepson, Pavel. It seems that Pavel has been running with a rather fast crowd - the revolutionary Nechaev and his companions. So Dostoevsky is investigated by the police commissioner Maximov - a fantastic gritty character.
And Dostoevsky stays in Pavel's old room where he and the widowed landlady fall in love. The landlady has a young daughter and Dostoevsky violates her emotionally but giving rise to the confessions of Stavrogin in "At Tikhon's." The revolutionaries are portrayed far more sympathetically here than in "Demons" and there are allusions to "The Brothers Karamazov" as well. The history is a bit skewed for the sake of the fiction.
Fwiw, Coetzee was grieving his son at the time he wrote this book - much of the emotional content, the "fathers and sons" theme, is based on his own experience.
Posted: Sun - October 19, 2008 at 03:41 PM
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Published On: Dec 15, 2008 09:17 PM
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Published On: Dec 15, 2008 09:17 PM