Dostoevsky's Incarnational Realism. Paul J. Contino
over the years: Monsignor John Sheridan, Edward Weisband, Louis Dupré, Robert Kiely, Mary Breiner, Karin Hart, Rich Mitchell, Hans Cristoffersen and many others whom I’m sure—and am sorry—to be forgetting.
And I am grateful to the brilliant and hospitable scholars of Slavic literature. In the late 1980s, I discovered the work of Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin, and contacted a scholar whose studies of his thought I’d found especially illuminating: Caryl Emerson responded with generosity beyond what I could have imagined. In the years since then, I have been grateful for Caryl’s friendship, good counsel, and for the careful reading she gave an earlier version of this manuscript. Caryl’s suggestions have been invaluable in improving the quality of my book, the remaining faults of which remain my own. I am also very grateful for Caryl’s willingness to write the luminous Afterword to this book.
Dostoevsky scholars are some of the most thoughtful and kind people a scholar could ever hope to meet. Some of the scholars with whom I conversed are now of blessed memory: Joseph Frank, Robert Belknap, Victor Terras, and Diane Oenning Thompson. Others remain vital contributors to the study of Dostoevsky: Carol Apollonio, Brian Armstrong, Robert Bird, Julian Connolly, Yuri Corrigan, Octavian Gabor, Robert Louis Jackson, Deborah Martinsen, Greta Matzner-Gore, Susan McReynolds, Gary Saul Morson, Riley Ossorgin, Maxwell Parlin, Robin Feuer Miller, George Pattison, Randall Poole, Amy Ronner, Gary Rosenshield, Rowan Williams, Peter Winsky, Alina Wyman, Denis Zhernokleyev, and many others whom I am sorry to be forgetting. At one time or another, each has given their kind attention to my work. My focus upon Dostoevsky’s Christian dimension follows decades of work by distinguished scholars, among them Boyce Gibson, Sven Linner, Robert Louis Jackson, Steven Cassedy, Malcolm Jones, Susan McReynolds, Rowan Williams, Wil Van Den Bercken, George Paniches, and P. H. Brazier, and many other international and Russian scholars, such as Vladimir Nikolaevich Zakharov.2 Books focused solely upon The Brothers Karamazov and closely attuned to its spiritual dimension—especially those by Robin Feuer Miller, Diane Oenning Thompson, and Julian Connolly—have been consistent sources of insight. I have found the works of countless scholars to be helpful, and hope this small contribution may be heard in dialogue with theirs, and contribute to what continues to be a vital conversation, especially timely in our “secular age.”
In the book’s final stages, Hilary Yancey’s expert typesetting and careful indexing proved to be indispensable. My gratitude, too, to the attentive team at Cascade Books / Wipf and Stock—especially Robin Parry, but also Matt Wimer, Ian Creeger, Zechariah Mickel, George Callihan, Adam McInturf, Savanah Landerholm, Jim Tedrick, and Joe Delahanty.
Finally, I am deeply thankful for the support of my family: to my parents, Salvatore and Kathryne, for their love and guidance during their earthly lives. My Mom passed on to me not only her love of reading, but also her love for our Catholic Christian faith and tradition. Many years ago, when I was vocationally at sea, my sister Kathy encouraged me to become a teacher: I’m very grateful she did. Nick Pellicciari was always interested, always kind. My wife’s parents, Harriet and Peter Mullins, always thoughtfully granted me space to work while we visited. Above all, I am very grateful to my wife Maire Mullins, who for thirty years has been my companion, conversation partner, source of good humor, counselor, sometime-typist, perceptive reader, and daily support in writing, teaching, parenting, and living. I thank our beautiful daughters, Mai Rose and Teresa Marie, who learned to pronounce “Karamazov” earlier than any child should ever be asked to attempt. While I worked on this book, they excused my absence from some of the family fun. All their young lives, they have encouraged me by their kindness, good humor, insight, and grace.
I hope that whoever picks up this book—be it a teacher, student, pastoral counselor, therapist, general reader (and we all inhabit each of these roles at some time)—will be guided toward a recognition of the uniquely transformative and edifying potential of Dostoevsky’s final novel. Readers —especially those exploring the novel for the first time—may wish to use the Norton Critical (Second) Edition of the novel as my analysis is keyed to that translation. First-time readers sometimes find Russian names to be a challenge, and will find assistance in Appendix II here. I’ve sometimes said that my vocation is simply to get people to read The Brothers Karamazov. If this book gets more people to read that book, I’ll consider it a success.
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In part, this book draws upon and revises work on Dostoevsky I have previously published. Below, I list these publications with gratitude to the publishers for any permissions that may be required. In this book I’ve integrated some of this past work, in different form, and employed words and ideas that first appeared there:
“Catholic Christianity.” In The Cambridge Companion to Literature and Religion, edited by Susan M. Felch. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016.
“‘Descend That You May Ascend’: Augustine, Dostoevsky, and the Confessions of Ivan Karamazov.” In Augustine and Literature, edited by Robert Kennedy, Kim Paffenroth, and John Doody. Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2006.
“Dostoevsky.” Entry in The New Catholic Encyclopedia. Gale Research, 2011.
“Dostoevsky: The Brothers Karamazov.” In Finding a Common Thread: Reading Great Texts from Homer to O’Connor, edited by Robert C. Roberts, Scott H. Moore, and Donald D. Schmeltekopf. Notre Dame, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 2011.
“Dostoevsky and the Ethical Relation to the Prisoner.” Renascence: Essays on Values in Literature 48.4 (1996).
“Dostoevsky and the Prisoner.” In Literature and the Renewal of the Public Sphere, edited by Susan VanZanten Gallagher and M. D. Walhout. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000.
“Incarnational Realism and the Case for Casuistry: Dmitri Karamazov’s Escape.” In “The Brothers Karamazov”: Art, Creativity, and Spirituality, edited by Pedrag Cicovacki and Maria Granik. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag C. Winter, 2010.
“Merton and Milosz at the Metropolis: Two Poets Engage Dostoevsky, Suffering, and Human Responsibility.” Renascence: Essays on Values in Literature 63.2 (2011).
“The Prudential Alyosha Karamazov: The Russian Realist from a Catholic Perspective.” In “Dostoevsky and Christianity: Art, Faith, and Dialogue,” a special volume of Dostoevsky Monographs, Volume VI, edited by Jordi Morillas. St. Petersburg: Dmitry Bulanin, 2015.
“Zosima, Mikhail, and Prosaic Confessional Dialogue in The Brothers Karamazov.” Studies in the Novel 27.1 (1995).
Thank you to all.
Orthodox Christmas, January 7, 2020
Preface
The Brothers Karamazov as Transformational Classic
Near the end of his life, as Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky was completing The Brothers Karamazov, he was invited to Moscow to give a speech in honor of the poet Pushkin. Most people there had been reading the novel as it was published in serial form,3 and Dostoevsky wrote a letter to his wife Anna, describing the way they greeted him: “crowds of men and women came backstage to shake my hand. As I walked across the hall during intermission, a host of people, youths and graybeards and ladies, rushed toward me exclaiming, ‘You’re our prophet. We’ve become better people since we read The Karamazovs.’ (In brief, I realized how tremendously important The Karamazovs is.)” (Selected Letters, 504).4 The author was, of course, delighted. He’d hoped his novel—which would be his last—would have such a positive impact on readers.
But can a work of literature really make one a “better” person? Early in the novel, the eldest brother, Dmitri Fyodorovich Karamazov, declares his doubt. He’s read great poets like Schiller and Goethe—he quotes them by heart!—but confesses to his brother, Alyosha: “Has it reformed me? Never! . . .” (96).5 A literary classic may move the reader by its aesthetic beauty, its integrity of form, its radiant representations of goodness. But, assuming the reader aspires to be good, can it move her or him further toward that goal—toward the “reformation” or transformation, for which Mitya yearns?
The premise of this book is that it can—and that The Brothers Karamazov has an especially powerful capacity to inspire its readers to be