The Eternal Husband and Other Stories - Softcover

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0553379127 ISBN 13: 9780553379129

Publisher: Bantam, 1997

Synopsis

The centerpiece of this collection , "The Eternal Husband" (1890) is one of Dostoevsky's most perfect works. Classical in form, it presents his most profound exploration of mimetic rivalry and the duality of human consciousness. Told from the point of view of a rich and idle man who is confronted by a younger rival, the husband of his former, and now deceased, mistress, the story portrays the interchanging hatred and love of the two men.

Along with "The Eternal Husband" is "A Nasty Anecdote" (1862), a satire on the "reform period of Russia," which portrays a high-ranking official who is convinced that "humaneness" will unite all people in a regenerated society. The other three stories, "Bobok" (1873), "The Meek One" (1876) and "The Dream of A Ridiculous Man" (1877), are taken from The Diary of a Writer, which Dostoevsky published between the completion of Demons and The Brothers Karamazov. Together they represent the culmination and final synthesis of Dostoevsky's philosophical ideas.

About this title

From the Back Cover

DOSTOEVSKY'S SHORT MASTERPIECES BROUGHT TOGETHER IN A BRILLIANT NEW TRANSLATION

The Eternal Husband and Other Stories brings together five of Dostoevsky's short masterpieces rendered into English by two of the most celebrated Dostoevsky translators of our time. Filled with many of the themes and concerns central to his great novels, these short works display the full range of his genius. The centerpiece of the collection, the short novel The Eternal Husband, describes the almost surreal meeting of a cuckolded widower and his dead wife's lover. Dostoevsky's dark brilliance and satiric vision infuse the other four tales with all-too-human characters, including a government official who shows up uninvited at an underling's wedding to prove his humanity; a self-deceiving narrator who struggles futilely to understand his wife's suicide; and a hack writer who attends a funeral and ends up talking with the dead. The Eternal Husband and Other Stories is sterling Dostoevsky -- a collection of emotional power and an uncompromising insight into the human condition.

About the Author

Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky have twice been awarded the PEN Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize (for their version of Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov and for Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina), and their translation of Dostoevsky’s Demons was one of three nominees for the same prize. They are married and live in France.

About this edition

• Publisher: Bantam
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0553379127
• ISBN 13: 9780553379129
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 308