Memoirs from the House of the Dead (Oxford World's Classics) - Softcover

Dostoevsky, Fyodor; Coulson, Jessie

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0192838687 ISBN 13: 9780192838681

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2001

Synopsis

In this almost documentary account of his own experiences of penal servitude in Serbia, Dostoevsky describes the physical and mental suffering of the convicts, the squalor and the degradation, in relentless detail. The inticate procedure whereby the men strip for the bath without removing
their ten-pound leg-fetters is an extraordinary tour de force, compared by Turgenev to passages from Dante's Inferno. Terror and resignation - the rampages of a pyschopath, the brief serence interlude of Christmas Day - are evoked by Dostoevsky, writing several years after his release, with a
strikingly uncharacteristic detachment. For this reason, House of the Dead is certainly the least Dostoevskian of his works, yet, paradoxically, it ranks among his great masterpieces.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

In this almost documentary account of his own experience of penal servitude in Siberia, Dostoevsky describes the physical and mental suffering of the convicts, the squalor, the degradation, in relentless detail - even down to the intricate procedure whereby the men strip for the bath without removing their ten-pound leg-fetters. The steam-bath scene itself, where the livid branded bodies seem to burn in the fires of Hell, is an extraordinary tour de force, compared by Trugenev to passages from Dante's 'Inferno.'

About the Author:

Fedor Dostoevsky is considered one of the greatest Russian writers, whose works have had a profound and lasting effect on twentieth-century fiction.

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0192838687
• ISBN 13: 9780192838681
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 400
• Editor: Hingley Ronald