234 bavi rostes waLtact you do, what ethical convictions have you worked out that permit you not justo eat bu to sor and enjoy lesh-based viands (since ‘ofcourse refined eyymant rather than mee ingestion, isthe whole point of gastronomy)? If, on the other hand, you'l have no ruck ‘with confusions or convictions and regard stu like the previous paragraph as just so much fatuous navebgarng, what makes it feel ‘aly okay, inside, o jst dismiss he whole thing out of hand? That | is your refusal w think about any ofthis the product of actual ‘hough, or isitjustthatyou doa’t want to think aboutit?And ifthe latter, then why not? Do you ever think, even ily about the por sible reasons for your reluctance to think about i? Tam not ying ‘bait anyone here —I'm genuinely curious, Afterall isn’t being fextra aware and atendive and thoughul about one's food and its overall context part of what distinguishes area gourmet? Or is all the gourmet’ extra attention and sensibility just suppoted to be sensuous? It realy al justa matter of ate and presentation? ‘These ls few queries, though, while sincere, obvouly involve ‘much anger and more abstract questions about the connections (if any) between aesthetics and morality— about what the adjective ina phrae lke “The Magazine of Good Living” really supposed ‘tw mean —and these quesons lead sraightamay into wich deep, and treacherous waters that's probably besto stop the public di cussion sight here. There are limits to what even interested persons can ask of eachother JOSEPH FRANK'S DOSTOEVSKY Have 4 PROLEGOMENOUS LOOK at two quotations, The first is Irom Edward Dahlberg, a Dostoewkygrade curmodgeon if ever in Engh there was one: “The doen cre himself agua genius by con worship. By the Touch ore wand the dine woublemaber ae ansatedint porcine embroider! “The second is from Turgenev’sFathen and Sons ‘hve preset me negation ithe mot el all — sande deny — Brehng?™ Brenthing™ “What: not ony artand poet... baceven hole oy “Breying repented Baars wth indexable compo, ‘iow Te nei heer New Deo 18As the backstory goes, in 1957 one Joseph Frank, then thiry- ight, 4 Comparative Lit profewor at Princeton is preparing lec- ture on existentialism, and he stars working his way through | Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostocthy’ Note rom Undeyround. As any fone who's read i can confirm, Nolet (1864) i 4 powerfl but extremely weird live novel, and both these qulides have to do vith the fact thatthe book sat once universal and parila. Is protagonists selfiagnosed “disease” —a blend of grandiostyand selfcontempt, of rage and comardice, of ideological fervor and a self-conscious inability to act on his convictions is whole paradox: lea and selnegating characut — makes hin a universal gure in whom we canal se pars of ourselves, she same kindof ageless it cerary archetype as Ajax or Hamlet Buta the same ime, Nas rom Undegrued and is Underground Man are impossible really t0| understand without some knowledge ofthe intellectual climate of Russa in the 1860s, particularly the frison of ueopian socialism | and aesthetic wultarianism then in vogue among the radical intel ligentia, an ideology that Dostoevaky loathed with the sort of passion that only Dostoevsky oul loathe with Anyway, Profesor Fran, at he's wading dhrough some of this partcularcontest background so that he can give his students a comprehensive reading of Nous, begins to get intersted in using Dostoevsky’ fiction asa kind of bridge between two distinct was of imerpreting iterature, a purely formal aesthetic approach vs. a socialdashideologial criticism that cares only about thematis| and the philosophical assumptions behind them? That interest, pls fort years of cholai labor, ha yielded he fret four vohumes| of projected Svetbook study of Dostoeshy’s fe and times and ‘wing, All the volumes are published by Princeton U. Pres. All ‘son tneeen hee wend a eri eur showing a ee Soresnanent rere cope re ethitanah true imnin ec | JOSERH TRANR'S DOSTOEVSKY 257 four ae dled Dasonsty and then have subsites: The Sed of Rel 1821-1849 (1976); The Yar of Orel, 1850-1839 (1984); The Si of [ibertion, 1960-1865 (1986), and this ear, in incredibly expesive hardcover, The Miraculous Yor, 1865-187. Profesor Frank must row be about seventy-five and judging by his photo on The Mira los Tearv's back jacket he's not exactly hale and probably alls tou scholars of Dostoetsky ae wating bated to see whether Frank coe hang on long enough to bring his eneylopedic study al the vray up to the early 1880s, when Dostoevsky finished the fourth of hie Great Novels gave his famous Pushkin Speech, and died Even if he ith volume of Doty doesn't get written, though. the appearance now ofthe fourth ensures Frank's ats asthe defi tive literary biographer fone ofthe best fin writers ever s+ am Ta good person? Deep down, do I even really want w be a good person. or do only want wo eon ke a good person 0 that people (inchding mae ill approve of me? I there a ier chee? How do Lever actually kaow whether I'm bullshiting myseh, morally speaking? ** tna way, Frank's books aren't realy ieray biographies atalat least totin the wa that Elmana's book on Joye and Bateson Kents are For one thing, Frankie as much cultural historian as he ia biog per —his aim isto create an accurate and exhaustive content for FM's works to place the author ife and writing within a coherent account of nineteenthcentury Rusia’ intellectal fe, Eman “ome oe, prety much the adard by which mot trary bios Fe Treasured, doesnt go into avthing ke Frank's detail on ideology oF ‘jac zoan Oy ome thn pinout ae essing oath Lt gph tte ie a oF nao SESE Son Nana NT eee on re brah ine mrad gw ngasf pavip FOSTER WALLACE politics or tocil theory, What Frank i about is showing that a com prehensive reading of Dostoemiy’s fiction i impoasbe without & dele understanding of the cultural circumstances in which the ‘books were concened and to which they were meant to contibute. “This, Frank argues, becaue Dostoesky's mature works are fund mentally ideological and cannot uly be appreciated unless one understands the polemical agendas that inform them. In other words, the admisture of universal and particular that characterizes Nou from Under realy marks all the best work of FMD, a writer whose “evident desire,” Frank ye, "o dramatize his mora spiral hemes aginst the background of Ruslan history” Another nonstandard feature of Frank's blo ls dhe amount of| critical atention he devotes to the actual hooks Dostoevsky wrote “Ieis the production of such masterpieces that makes Dostoesky's le worth recounting a all” his preface to The Miraculous Yor ses, "and my purpote atin the previous volumes, to keep them ‘constantly in the foreground rather than weating them a8 acces sonyto the life per se” Atleast third of this atest volume is given over to close readings of the suf Dostoevsky produced in this mating half decade — Crime and Punishment, The Gamble, The i, ‘The Eternal Hushond, and Demons These readings aim to be ex- plcaive rather than argumentative or theorydrven; thei im isto show at clearly at posible what Dostoewy himself wanted the books to mean, Even though this approach assumes that there's no hae Fes tea ces Si epee rnin ig ‘gets pune nepy iho spe sae oe 6 Cer Saat ter ehenay Cascada a ay apr cE Pant eps re Sen mrningal Naat peope ‘Sitiaw eters epg andne me Osman SUitiipndtan sist anes hr) sob epi ED tearm el snd ded ane pecan oft Soest een iyo est cin Ta ‘Spe wayComsy np rho ‘SLUR ee ran i ef oat poe ane ‘utgansy acs at tin a Packie rae ga a= (Setar on Oops ra ed tha ot ae JOSEPH FRANK'S DOSTOEVSKY 359 ‘sch thing asthe Intentional Fall isl seems prima facie just fed by Frank's oral project, which is alway to trace and explain the novel’ genesis out of Dostoemky' own ideological engage- ment with Rusian historyand culture’ “+ what exactly does “ith” mean? Asin religous filha in (God, ete n't basically ray to believe in something that there's re proof of? Ie there really any diference between what ww all Tsetse eee sere eeeeeatoeas 2S ee, sitee amen creecreageenrae See Setoeoa ranma Scare eo Hie eeshicomeeareneees ee ae, i beeetnnteme tices dzn cane one bree tener poem eae eieeemen reagent Faroe reas efeetermperaescear Sgretaeeeeaeeee, ‘Shirt ppcosays ays oe on EN ne eee reenact eet emanate -iaaeenceteesameene ee sehr eyaemeaeeoeo eee tanec cts nena See a cnepemmareee Seok eee See Sheheae eeeereeeeemeneetce Sse oseeonmn # ee nae emerfaith and some primitive tnbe's enifeing virgins o voleanoes| becatte they believe itl produce good weather? How can some- ody have faith before he's presented with suliient reason to have faith? Or i somehow nading to have faith a sulicent reason for having ith? Bu then what kind of need are we aking abou? ** ‘To really appreciate Profesor Frank's achievement —and not just, the achiesement of having absorbed and decoctad the milion af extant pages of Dostoevsky drafts and notes and leers and jour nal and bios by contemporaries and crtal studies in a hundred diferent languages — is important to understand how many di ferent approaches to biography and crtcsm he's ying to marry. Standard trary biographies spotlight an author and his personal _e (especialy the seam or neurotic tf and prety much ignore the specific historical context in which he wrote, ther stades — ‘specially those with a dhoresicl agenda — focus almost exclusively ‘on context, eating the author and his books as simple functions of the prejudices, power dynamics, and metaphysical delusions of his ea. Some biographies proceed asf their subjects! own works have all been figured out dso they spend al their hme tracing ‘out personal i's relation to literary meanings that che biogra+ her asumes are already fixed and inarguable-On the other hand, many of our er’ “real studies teat an authors books hermet cally, ignoring facts about that author's circumstances and beliefs that can help explain not only what hit work isabout but why i has ‘he particular individual magie of a particular individual write’ personality, se, voice, vision ete.” "Than np nan imal one fhe mages rade conto orange pg te ‘Seip deve scout fr srg out~ mony ree ibe, Serpe fees ier porno JOstrN FRANs's DosroEVseY 361 ++I the real point of my life simply to undergo as ite pain and as much pleasure as posible? My behavior sur seems to indicate that this is what believe at eat lot ofthe time, Bunt this hind of selfish way olive? Forget selsh — inital lonely? ** So, biographical speaking, what Frank’ uying to dois ambidous and worthwhile. At the same time, his four volumes consiute avery detailed and demanding work on a very complex and dificult suhor, Beton writer whose time and culeue are allen to us It seems hard to expect much credbiiy in secommending Frank's study here unes I can give some sort of argument for why Dosto- con's novels ought tobe important ours readers in 1996 America “This Lean do ony crudely because I'm notaterar cri ora Dost ‘ky expert Lam, though living American who both testo write Fiction and hikes to read it and thanks to Joseph Frank I've spent prety much the whole lat two months immersed in Dostoewkynalia. Dostoevsky i iterary titan, and in some way this can be the is of death, because it becomes easy o regard im as yet another sepia tinted Canonical Author, belovedly dead. His works, and the tal il frum they've inspired, are all equted acquisions or college libraries... and there the books usally st yellow smelling the way rally od brary books smell, mating for somebody to have to do.a term paper. Dahlberg is monty right, {eink To make someone an icon isto make him an abstraction, and abstractions are incapable of vital communication with ising people.” rhesus Pte eden encore ote ‘Tipe tem ie mie bern see ene or ete icuting Seb toe et Sw coe Walenn hing We omega angen emateaeetae** Butt decide w decide there'salferent, es sesh, les lonely point tomy life, won't the reaton for this decision be my dese to be let lonely, meaning to slr let overall pain? Can the decision to be les selfish ever be anvhing other than aselfsh decison? ** Andis tre that there are features of Dostoeeh’s books that are lien and offputing, Russian i notoriously hard to tranlate into English, and when you add to this difficulty the archaisms of nineteenth** “What seem moat important it that Dostevsy's neardeath expert cence changed a pially vain and trendy young writer —a very talk ented write, true, but il one whose basic concerns were fr his ‘mn literary glory —into a penton who believed deeply in moral/ ‘pirical values. more into someone who believed that a life apg nt renee np Pooks Sans tases npg er cen eh het ‘SSSLES iy, bc tur caect enue sem ob Rama arc SSTa Cae sient ames pac ney epee {SILT feta reper mae Emin nr a SS Epes chow wena Stra doe ety penomeny ete i te names SS Sag SE ESTEE Spc can Rrowepoee ‘Scitech mm enna ind an gosta SUSIE SE SE STa een a SSSI SSR eerste “Conn ecraon ped nw or und ne ab eo SERS anon renetensemsntay ets Eepfianoadhetnarn pmo sane maar etc Sis Secicean ipl way ancora ‘Sova anette hen Josten FRANK'S DOSTOHYSRY 271 ved without moral/spiritul values was aot just incomplete but depraved? “The big thing that makes Dostoenky invaluable for American eaders and writes ia that he appear to postest degrees of passion, ouvicton, and engagement wth deep moral (sues that we — here today cannot or do not permit ourieles. Joseph Frank docs an admirable job of tracing out the interplay of factors that vad this engagement possible —FMD's own beliefs and tales, ‘pe tdeolgial and aestheecimates of his day ete. Upon hit n+ ishing Franks books, though, I think that any serious American feader/writer il find himtelf driven to think hard about what ‘ractly ri that makes many of the novels of our wm place and {Gme look so thematically sallow and lighoweight, 0 morally i ‘overs, in comparison 9 Gogol of Dostoesky (or even (© Tose ight like Lermontov and Turgeney). Frank's bio prompe ss Teak ourselves why we seem to require of our art an ironic dit tance from deep convictions of desperate question, s0 that con temporary wrlters have to either make jokes of them of el UY to work dem in undercover of some formal wick ke intertexta ‘juotaion or incongruous justapesition,acking the really urgent shu inside asterisks a part of some multivalent defamiliarzaion- flourish or some such shit. ‘Part of the explanation for our own Its thematic poverty ob cusly includes our eentury and situation, The good old modernists, Gong their other accomplishments elevated aesthetics t0 the | k flevel of ethics — maybe even metaphysics —and Serious Novels alter Joye tend to be valued and shied manly for their formal Ingenuity. Such isthe modernist legacy that we now presume a 8 ‘matter ofcourse that “serious” literature will be aesthetically di ‘anced from real lived life. Add to this the requirement of textual selfconsiousnes imposed by postmodernism and literary theory. and is probably fai to say that Dostoctky etal. were free of ce ‘ain cultural expectations that severely constrain our own novelist bili tobe “serious” Buti’ jst as ui to observe, wth Frank, that Dostoevsky oper sted under cultural constrains of is own: arepresive government, state censorship, and especially the popular of post Enlightenment European thought, much of which went directly aginst beliefs he held deat and wanted to write about. For me, the realy siking, Inspiring thing about Dostoevsky isn't just that he was a genus: he ve alo brine, He never stopped worrying about his literary repo ‘acon, bute aio never stopped promulgating unfashionable tu {in which he believed. And he did this not by ignoring (now aka. “transcending” or “subverting?) the unfriendly cultural circum stances in which he was writing, but by confronting them, engaging ‘them, specifallyand by name. Ws actually not eue that our Hterary culture i mii, at least notin the radial sense of Turgenev’s Bazaror. For there are certain tendencies we belive are had, qualities we hate and fea. ‘Among these are sentimentality, naive, archaism, fanaticism, It ‘would probably be beter to eall our own a’ culture now one of| ‘congenital skepticiem. Ovr inteligentsa® disirust strong belie, ‘open conviction. Material pasion it one thing, but ideological pa sion disgusts us on some deep level, We believe that ideology snow the province ofthe ral SIGs and PACs ll ying to get their sce ofthe big green pie... and, looking around us, we see that indeed Josten raase's DOSTORVSEY 273 tis so, But Fran's Dostoenky woul point out (or more ike hop ‘upand down and shake his stand fly at sand shout) hati isis so, its at least pry because we have abandoned the eld, That ‘reve abandoned it to fundamentalists whose pts rigidity and agemes to judge show that dhey'e clueless about the “Christian values chey woud impose on others. To rightist ilitas and com ‘piracy theorists whote paranoia about che government supposes the government oe ort wy mote onganized and efficient than it really is And, im academia and the ars, to the increasingly absurd tnd dogmatic Political Correctness movement, whose obsession ssith the mere forma of usterance and discourse show too wel how ‘Mfewe and aestheticized our best ber instnes have become, how removed roan what's realy important — mote, feeling, ele Have a culminative look at just one snippet from Ippoits famous “Necesary Explanation” in Th dive “Anyone who ack indvdl cary” Tegan “tacks human aurea contempt on personal dignity Bat he ogasizaon public diy’ and she problem onda feedom ae ow die {int questions, and not ally exch Inia indnes wil ‘hay remain, beni an ind impale, dhe og nphe ‘one personality to exert diectinfsence ypon another... How ‘Gh yow et Bahmoton what sgnance sch an asociation of ne feonaliy with anater may hve ome deny of hoe aociated?™ Can you imagine any of our om major novelists allowing a charae- ter to sy suflike thi (not, ind you just as hypocritical bombast $0 that some iron hero can stick apn init, but as part of tex pig monologue by somebody tying to decide whether to commit tice)? The reason you cant the reason he wouldnt such & ‘ovels would be, by our lights, pretentious and overwrought and sily, The straight presentation of such a speech ina Serious Novel today would provoke not outage oF iavectve, but worse —one raised eyebrow and a very cool smile. Maybe, ifthe novelist was ‘really major a dry bit of mockery in The Nav Yinka. The novelist ‘would be (and this is our own ages truest vision of hell) laughed out of town,Sobe —e, ition writers — won't (can) dare ty ows ser usar to advance ideologies The projet woud be like Menards ust People would either Inugh be embarrased for us. Given «his (and tina gen) who sto blame forthe unseriousnes of our serous ction? The culture, the lugher? But they wouldn't (could ot lug apiece of moral paonate, pasonatly mor con ‘ea ako ingenious and radiant human ction. But how to make that How —for a writer toda. even ented writer tay — get up the gus to even try? Tere are no formula or guarantees “There are, however, model, Frank's books make one of them con. ‘ crete and alive and terbyinsrctive. aoe 1996 o Mx. Jon Ztecten, thieyseven, late of Louise's WHAS, is i tow on the ait, “Live and Local” from 1009 ry co 1.00 a every is | swechnight on Southern California's KL, 2 50,000-att megasaton ! [whose hourly ID and sweeper, desied by the sasion’s Imaging FOC ropes ogre avaton I be broadest ery hour Ths D om Proc tonto cles tnd and eqn. and he rao ae + Fececd seve jutsu ery crus commeral tan (hich AFT ey sch) append tol ID swept wih te Ste agne by which he ton aes be known: ant el aaah | {pom ne emer nch Where America Cotes Fi. KF mn al Secepert'More Simulating Ta ai” bat sal gseconday veeper Dhar kues ono he hlfoae nea ate upeats sree a ory athe how and sadonpromon Souter Caria Newaroom “THE Radio HomeofFox News and enV Se New Break Dont statment [Reranaowrenateinaite Seance (Gi ome ester omit, [oltre | | tee | ea oo thou has ae ph ee. ban oe aay bneaieen alee ‘twobe KFTsimge inthe A markt ing sor ofthe ro version of he seeps let KF cormunate nape personaly and “dein scompeemed ay |