> The way he proposed to Anna, Christofi writes, “is so quietly bashful that you can’t help wanting to hug him”. He is quite right, but I won’t give away the plot.
Spoiler alert, this is how he proposed, it's quite sweet:
Anna describes how Dostoevsky began his marriage proposal by outlining the plot of an imaginary new novel, as if he needed her advice on female psychology.[5] In the story an old painter makes a proposal to a young girl whose name is Anya. Dostoevsky asked if it was possible for a girl so young and different in personality to fall in love with the painter. Anna answered that it was quite possible. Then he told Anna: "Put yourself in her place for a moment. Imagine I am the painter, I confessed to you and asked you to be my wife. What would you answer?" Anna said: "I would answer that I love you and I will love you forever". [0]
> Christofi, also a novelist, describes "Dostoevsky in Love" as less a biography than a “reconstructed memoir”. His method, he explains, has been to “cheerfully commit the academic fallacy” of eliding Dostoevsky’s “autobiographical fiction with his fantastical life.”
Although I have not read Christofi's book, I am willing to admit that this could be a potentially fruitful method of interpreting the writer and his work. But for those interested in authentic history, I would recommend Joseph Frank's magnificent study "Dostoevsky: A Writer in His Time" (2010), a fascinating yet critical biography that examines Dostoevsky's life, letters and philosophy.
This part seems to be a direct contradiction of the Guardian intro:
> [...] It was these mutual attitudes which enabled both of us to live in the fourteen years of our married life in the greatest happiness possible for human beings on earth.
His marriages really were disastrous, and his second wife really did say that. She (and he) even really might have felt that way, despite the immense problems in their relationship.
Just to give you a sense of the problems in their famous relationship, Dostoevsky was once lost all of her belongings while gambling.
If you're interested further, Joseph Frank's five volume biography of Dostoevsky is a masterpiece in itself, and would give you a sense of how difficult, but also how strongly emotional their relationship was.
That does give a bit more merit to the Guardian's take, although I'm still not convinced that 'disastrous' is the right word to describe their marriage.
Thanks for the recommendation! 2500 pages for the five volumes is quite the read, but it seems well worth it.
Russian surnames have gender. So a female surname would be Isaeva, but the male Isaev.
English writers that want to avoid what happens to a Russian family name when involving several members (it's complicated) take the smart way out and do it like this:
"after the Isaev family relocated" [1] https://theamericanreader.com/4-june-1855-fyodor-dostoevsky-...
But the reviewer at the guardian (or is it the writer of the book?) goes for "When the Isaevas moved" when writing about husband and wife. If you can't get the surnames right, how much trust should a charitable reader extend towards the review?
If you stumbled across "Hemingway she wife" in an essay on Papa's love life biography, instead of "Hemingway's wife" how much trust would that carry?
Source: I first read the D-dude at nine years of age, in the original, and then went back to him on multiple occasions. What a downer. Also, genius. I prefer Pushkin, the only optimist of Russian literature, but you gotta respect Dostoevsky: how much ahead of the time his realism was, and what an influence he left. And then lots of people simply enjoy his work. If you haven't read "Crime and punishment", strongly recommended.
As for his love life, I read many opposing viewpoints, but I prefer to limit my judgement to the work, not the person. Too messy. Unreliable sources.
Most courses on Russian literature include at least some addressing of the whole Russian surnames thing. The misspelling may signal the writer has not read much on the subject. Russian literature is influential enough in world literature that the mistake is a big tell, feel free to consult any lit department.
One of the common actions taken when analyzing a work of literature is writing out and mapping the main characters. Anyone that has done that has wondered about the "Russian females often get an a at the surname end" thing. It's standard to address it in Russian lit studies, because it confuses non-native speakers.
I speak English and two slavic languages. I dont speak Russian much, but I do understand some things in it.
I was not confused by this essay in English at all. It was not just clear what it meant, it was completely usual way to express the familly name when talking in English about Russians.
When talking about people from another country, it is acceptable to use grammer, specifically plural form, of language to are using.
If someone wrote a review on a book on Python, with the following statement: "as any algol-derived language, Python has array indexes start at 1", this would be false on 2 accounts and a significant tell on one.
Falsity 1: Not all algol-derived languages have arrays start at 1.
Falsity 2: Python has indexes zero-based.
Tell : the person has not programmed in Python enough to have even basic experience such as familiarity with off-by-one errors and array basics. Although entitled to their own opinions, they should not be doing a review on the topic.
(We leave out the complexity of lists / arrays being available in Python, NumPy etc from this discussion).
Such a statement in a programming book review would be quickly called out by the programming community a) because it is false and b) potentially harmful information (for new-comers).
Despite some opinions that literature, literature analysis and criticism are artsy-fartsy hand-wavy activities, there is significant rigor involved in studying literature seriously.This, as I wrote, involves character analysis.
If the guardian reviewer, or whoever made the surname mistake, had done literature studies involving Russian literature, they would be aware of the surname usage specifics.
It is as big a tell as the above programming example. It has nothing to do with being able to speak Russian. As I wrote, it is a common topic of interest to readers of Russian literature in translation.
I have participated in multiple book-clubs and was briefly a TA on a Russian literature class (taught in English). We had a hand-out, updated from the 60s, on the topic, as it almost always got brought up by attentive readers.
Would you happen to have a source? The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th ed, does not give credence to your statement. The general position in the field of Russian literature studies (non-native speakers) is similar to mine.
Maybe one analogy that would make the error more jarring would be if someone wrote a piece about Anna Karenina and said "The Kareninas moved to ... " when referring to Alexei Karenin and Anna Karenina.
Spoiler alert, this is how he proposed, it's quite sweet:
Anna describes how Dostoevsky began his marriage proposal by outlining the plot of an imaginary new novel, as if he needed her advice on female psychology.[5] In the story an old painter makes a proposal to a young girl whose name is Anya. Dostoevsky asked if it was possible for a girl so young and different in personality to fall in love with the painter. Anna answered that it was quite possible. Then he told Anna: "Put yourself in her place for a moment. Imagine I am the painter, I confessed to you and asked you to be my wife. What would you answer?" Anna said: "I would answer that I love you and I will love you forever". [0]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Dostoevskaya