Page:Crime and Punishment - Garnett - Neilson - 1917.djvu/21

Rh early as on the second page of the book, we learn that Raskolnikov is making up his mind to murder an old woman who lends out money, and it is only at the close of the volume that we become aware of the additional fact that he has published a review article, in which he has endeavoured to set forth a theory justifying this hideous design.—From "A History of Russian Literature" (1900).

HE novels of Dostoevsky may seem to discover a very strange world to us, in which people talk and act like no one that we have ever met. Yet we do not read them because we want to hear about these strange Russian people, so unlike ourselves. Rather we read them because they remind us of what we had forgotten about ourselves, as a scent may suddenly remind us of some place or scene not remembered since childhood. And as we have no doubt about the truth of the memories recalled by a scent, so we have none about Dostoevsky's truth.

It is strange, like those memories of childhood, but only because it has been so long sleeping in our minds. He has no need to prove it, and he never tries to do so; he only presents it for our recognition; and we recognize it at once, however contrary it may be to all that we are accustomed to believe about ourselves.

The strangeness of Dostoevsky's novels lies in his method, which is unlike that of other novelists because his interest is different from theirs. The novel of pure plot is all concerned with success or failure. The hero has some definite task to perform, and we read to discover whether he succeeds in performing it. But even in novels where character is more considered it is still the interest of failure and success which usually makes the plot. The hero, for instance, falls in love and the plot forms round this love interest; or he is married, and there is a suspense about his happiness or unhappiness. But in the greatest of Dostoevsky's books, such as "The Brothers Karamazov" or