Shock of a lifetime...

The day I fell in love with a 200 year old Russian (Dostoevsky content)

Public Service Announcement: Dostoevsky can be highly addictive and damaging to your sleep cycle. Think before you read - or you might just find yourself thinking a little too much afterwards!

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He had become so completely isolated in himself, and isolated from his fellows, that he dreaded meeting not only the landlady, but anyone at all. He was crushed by poverty, but the anxieties of his position had of late ceased to weigh upon him. He had given up attending matters of practical importance. He had lost all desire to do so.

Crime and Punishment - Page 1 (Dostoevsky, 1866)

And that was that. I was ready to stop washing my hair, buy a trench coat from the army surplus store, and start hanging around independent coffee shops trying to look interesting. How was it possible that a single page of text could so quickly destroy nearly 40 years of baseless and loosely held opinions?

Let’s backtrack quickly. In my recent literary wanderings - wonderings? - I have been focussing my attention on theories of cognitive psychology (specifically focussing on decision making). I’ve made an earnest effort to leave pop-science behind and read what would be considered ‘foundational works’. I wanted a solid and serious line of enquiry before I started filling in the gaps with journal articles etc.

As someone who has always enjoyed reading - but never moved far from fiction - I’ve found this to be an immensely rewarding task. I’ve enjoyed learning and applying new thoughts and opinions directly to some of my day-to-day challenges at work.

I wasn’t planning to move away from non-fiction any time soon, but then bloody Nick Chater (The Mind is Flat: The illusion of mental depth and the improvised mind) went and distracted me with a beguiling introduction; using Anna Karenina to illustrate his uncomfortable conclusion that our inner depths are as fictitious as the details of Anna’s life that Tolstoy never wrote.

I’ll be honest, I didn’t love Chater’s book. I agree with much of what he says, and would particularly like to explore how the flat mind theory should influence our views on morality and ethics, but I found the contents of that particular book about as deep as he views my - and your - mind to be (sorry Nick, I have no doubt your academic work is far more thorough). However, I was suddenly struck with a desire to put my critical thinking to the test by reading works of fiction that are known for their moral depth.

I won’t bore you with the details, suffice to say a pleasant hour or two down a rabbit hole led me away from Tolstoy and eventually to Dostoevsky’s door. So, what to read? Fuck it, in for a penny in for a pound, let’s go for the 700+ page Crime and Punishment.

So let’s establish my expectations and assumptions at this point:

• Olden days Russia was depressing. Therefore the people writing were depressing, their characters were depressing and their storylines were depressing. This will be a slog of nihilism, which is inherently (and necessarily) shallow and lacking in purpose.

• I’m not going to enjoy reading this book, but that’s fine because no-one really does. I’m reading specifically to engage with thought processes that I disagree with and then haughtily disassemble them with my modern understanding of the world.

• Like reading the very dry Gigerenzer et al. (Simple Heuristics That Make us Smart) I will be proud of myself for completing the task, but thankful when it’s over.

• This will look fucking brilliant on my bookshelf.

With all that in mind, we find ourselves back at the start of this post. With a heavy heart I take a seat and open that intimidating, big beast of a book - is this how I’d be feeling at the start of a marathon I’d signed up for when I was drunk?

And then KABAAM! I’m slapped in the face with a few lines of text that make me understand this foreign character from 150 years ago. He’s human, he has feelings - or rather a numbness where they used to be. What’s scarier is that I internalise the description instantly. I’m not looking down on Raskolnikov from the safety of the narrator’s seat high in the sky - I am within him. I instantly remember the lowest moments of my life, where I couldn’t bear to hear kind words or be close to the people who loved me.

But this isn’t a miserable experience for me. I’m not dwelling on, or indulging in, the past. I’m suddenly in the company of someone who can describe and understand me - but doesn’t want to judge, help, change or cure me. Depression is not sadness. It is a malignant and oppressive force that draws all motivation and desire out of you - and it hurts you while it’s doing it. This is why Raskolnikov dreads meeting anyone at all and has isolated himself so thoroughly.

How can it be that this passage has existed for over a century, yet so many people misunderstand depression, anxiety and loneliness?

I must stress, I’m writing this post while still happily munching my way through the pages of Crime and Punishment. I acknowledge I’m influenced by boyish wonder, and don’t claim to have deep contextual knowledge of this book or the author. However, I find myself somehow emotionally connected to this author and enriched by what I’m reading.

The story is intriguing and fast-paced, the book is worth reading for that alone.

Critically, the academic exercise I was seeking is in abundance. Each evening, I contemplate the philosophy of the different characters and wrestle to find my own moral position within the narrative, for example:

• I’d love to have the intellectual athleticism of Razumikin (without the elitism that blinds him to Raskolnikov’s guilt). He challenges his peers openly, while acknowledging his own errors are what makes him human. He is loyal and brave enough to test his fellow men and condemn those who fall short.

• I fear being unknowingly limited, like Luzhin. Here is a man who has intelligence, ambition and success, yet has failed to grasp that morality is not a tool to be used to manipulate others. He truly thinks he’s justified in his actions and beliefs, how would I feel if I discovered I’ve got my outlook so wrong?

• I feel my personal pragmatism leads me to respect (if not love) Porfiry. He’s a strategist who is willing to observe and lead others to their own natural conclusion, which may explain why I’m sometimes slow to act as a manager when an HR issue requires direct intervention rather than subtle manipulation.

• I sincerely believe that an atheist version of Sonya would remain a heroic and virtuous character. While her family lives and needs her, she will persevere and evade madness. This would still offer the dissonance that Raskolnikov needs to begin questioning his beliefs.

But, what has caught me so off guard is the writing itself - I can only describe it as beautiful. As I read I have the same feeling that one might get from staring at a Monet or listening to Strauss.

Which brings me back to those assumptions and just how wrong I was! For me, this is an indictment on the arrogance of modern thinking. If Monet and Strauss can move me, why the hell shouldn’t a Russian writer - whose experiences were profound and whose genius undeniable.

The real question is why did I ever assumer otherwise?

Why, when access to great writers and thinkers is so available, do we choose to limit ourselves? I joke about the greasy haired weirdo that I feel I must become if I want to openly talk about Dostoevsky, but feel no shame in admitting to binging yet another series on Netflix that I’ll forget next month.

We dismiss films that are in black and white, we avoid Shakespeare because he was poorly taught to us in school and we refuse to engage with philosophers of the past - the very shoulders of whom we profess to stand on.

So here I am, a (nearly) 40 year old virgin to Russian literature wondering if I’ve popped my cherry to the literary version of Helen of Troy or whether I’ve wasted half my life in celibacy. Luckily it doesn’t matter. I’m a modern man with access to Amazon - let the orgy begin.