Fyodor Dostoevsky stands shivering in the middle of Semenovsky Plaza in St. Petersburg, Russia, the next in line to die. It is December 22, 1849, and it looks like he will not see Christmas.
After eight months in solitary confinement the twenty prisoners, all members of an intellectual circle suspected of disloyalty to the government, have been marched into this square and are commanded to remove their clothes in the -20 degree (Celsius) weather. The first three are shrouded in white smocks for execution. They are allowed to kiss the cross, hoods are placed over their heads so that they will not see the rifles trained on their hearts, and then they are shackled to three posts.
Dostoevsky waits in the freezing cold, dressed only in his underwear, and counts out the last minutes of his life. He estimates that there are about five minutes remaining to him, and with his remarkable sense of detail, he divides them in the following manner: two minutes to think of his beloved brother Mikhail and others in his family, two to look around him one last time, and one last moment to think of God.
It is at this last moment, when he has exchanged last words with his two fellow prisoners and offered his last prayer to God, that the rifles are suddenly lowered and a new sentence is read. The Czar has extended clemency – prison in Siberia and enforced service in the army for a total of eight years. Dostoevsky is a man reborn. A few hours later he writes to his brother:
As I look back upon the past and think how much time was spent to no avail; how much of it was lost in delusions, in mistakes, in idleness, in not knowing how to live; what little store I set upon it, how many times I sinned against my heart and spirit – for this my heart bleeds. Life is a gift. Life is happiness. Every moment could have been an age of happiness (Mikulski, 142).
From Postman to Novelist
In the same month (December) of the same year (1849), Anthony Trollope sits swaying to the rhythm of an Irish express train. Trollope’s life, though no picnic, is certainly easier than Dostoevsky’s. He is not shivering in his underwear, nor is he a political prisoner. Instead, he is living comfortably in Ireland, a mid-level official in the Postal Service, with a wife and two sons to support.
His upbringing, a series of catastrophes induced by his father’s many financial failures, is behind him now, and from it he has developed a plan to advance his own fortunes. When his family had fled to France to escape their debts, his mother had supported the family by her writing. Well, if she could do it, so could he.
Trollope has a goal to write a certain amount every day, and adheres to it with remarkable tenacity. (By the end of his life, he will write 47 novels, several plays and an autobiography.) He is determined to succeed as a novelist.
Raised as a gentleman, yet mired in poverty, Trollope was bullied at school and always felt like an outsider. Thus, like Dickens, he developed the capacity to see society from above and below. “The novelist who has a populist ear for the voice of the people, yet at the same time commands the resources of high culture, is likely in such circumstances to outflank all competitors,” writes Terry Eagleton. (Eagleton, 128.)
And so, with more dogged determination than inspiration, Trollope writes. However, the first three novels are miserable failures. Then, while on a trip to Salisbury, Trollope tours the cathedral and conceives of the idea for a novel about a clergyman, simply called, The Warden. Trollope wanted to explore what would happen when a good man got mired in a corrupt system (in this case, the Anglican church) and, as the system was exposed in the press, the innocent man became embroiled in the controversy.
In 1855, Trollope published The Warden , his first successful novel and his first attempt to write about a “truly good man.”
Prince Myshkin is Born
In 1855, Dostoevsky was finally out of prison and serving four years in the army, and it would be another thirteen years before a similar idea that occurred to him during his time in prison would come to fruition.
“For a long time already,” he wrote, “there was an idea that had been bothering me, but I was afraid to make a novel out of it because it was a very difficult idea and I was not ready to tackle it… The idea is – to portray a perfectly beautiful man …
The Idiot , published in 1868, was Dostoevsky’s attempt to place a “Christ-like man” in a contemporary setting. In novels of that day, there were a few examples of such an attempt, but though characters like Don Quixote, Jean Val jean, and even Dickens’s Mr. Pickwick exhibit certain Christ-like qualities, they are somehow unsatisfactory as models of a “perfect man.”
Dostoevsky’s years in prison and his life-changing brush with death had made of him a confirmed Christian. He was fascinated by the life of Christ, which he referred to as “an infinite miracle,” and he was curious to know how such a man would fare in modern society.
After some permutations, Dostoevsky settled on the character of Prince Myshkin, a curious soul and the most autobiographical of his characters. Myshkin, like his creator, suffers from epilepsy, and the ailment and its seizures are described in fascinating detail. (Myshkin also describes in detail the near-execution that so affected Dostoevsky.)
Though he inherits a fortune at the beginning of the story, the Prince is truly poor in spirit. His meekness does not attract sympathy; in fact, he repels many by what seems to be his weakness coupled with stubbornness. As the dramatic events of the novel unfold we are troubled by Myshkin’s inability to “fit in” anywhere. In the end, is there a place for a man of his type in society? It appears not. Aglaia, one of the women whose life is touched by Myshkin, uses a poem to describe him, then comments:
“That poem simply describes a man who is capable of an ideal, and what’s more, a man who having once set an ideal before him has faith in it, and having faith in it gives up his life blindly to it. This does not always happen in our day.” (229)
A Man without Guile
Trollope’s Dr. Septimus Harding is a more benign, likeable character, yet he can be frustrating as well. He simply refuses to “go along” with the crowd, with his children’s wishes, even with the directives of his church superiors. At each turn of events, it is easy to see how Dr. Harding could enjoy the benefits of his position without compromising his integrity too much, but he will not compromise at all. Thus, he is deemed a failure by most people who know him.
The Warden is the first of a wonderful series, commonly referred to as the Barchester novels. Dr. Harding appears in several of them, and toward the end of Barchester Towers , Trollope (who has a delightful habit of dropping the “fourth wall” and directly addressing his readers) sums up his protagonist in terms as simple as they are eloquent:
The Author now leaves [Dr. Harding] in the hands of his readers; not as a hero, not as a man to be admired and talked of, not as a man who should be toasted at public dinners and spoken of with conventional absurdity as a perfect divine, but as a good man without guile, believing humbly in the religion which he has striven to teach, and guided by the precepts which he has striven to learn (271).
Recently I posed the question to my family: “If we do as Jesus would do, will we be more or less socially acceptable?” To my surprise, a heated debate ensued. Some felt that gospel principles always benefit us – make us more charitable, easier to talk to, more useful to society in general. On the other hand, others pointed out that Jesus was often on the wrong side of any given social situation, and that He often caused people to feel very uncomfortable, and even offended many.
Both of these novels give us an opportunity to think about Jesus, the kind of man he was, and the kind of people we might become if we try to act more like he would act in any given moment. I’d be interested to hear what you think as you read these novels and others that attempt to answer that age-old question: What would Jesus do?
The Warden , by Anthony Trollope, and The Idiot , by Fyodor Dostoevsky, are the current selections for the The Best Books Club, a gathering of readers who enjoy the classics. Write me at be*******@me**************.com” target=”_blank”>be*******@me**************.com and share your thoughts. I’ll put them in my next article.