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Demons

Name: Demons
Rating: 4.3 (61960 reviews)
Author: Fyodor Dostoevsky

Fyodor Dostoevsky January 1, 1872

4.3 62k Ratings

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Synopsis

Alternate Cover Edition ISBN 0679734511. (ISBN13: 9780679734512)

Inspired by the true story of a political murder that horrified Russians in 1869, Fyodor Dostoevsky conceived of Demons as a “novel-pamphlet” in which he would say everything about the plague of materialist ideology that he saw infecting his native land. What emerged was a prophetic and ferociously funny masterpiece of ideology and murder in pre-revolutionary Russia.

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Crime and Punishment

★ 4.29

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Seul l'être capable d'indépendance spirituelle est digne des grandes entreprises. Tel Napoléon qui n'hésita pas à ouvrir le feu sur une foule désarmée, Raskolnikov, qui admire le grand homme, se place au-dessus du commun des mortels. Les considérations théoriques qui le poussent à tuer une vieille usurière cohabitent en s'opposant dans l'esprit du héros et constituent l'essence même du roman. Pour Raskolnikov, le crime qu'il va commettre n'est que justice envers les hommes en général et les pauvres qui se sont fait abusés en particulier. « Nous acceptons d'être criminels pour que la terre se couvre enfin d'innocents », écrira Albert Camus. Mais cet idéal d'humanité s'accorde mal avec la conscience de supériorité qui anime le héros, en qualité de « surhomme », il se situe au-delà du bien et du mal. Fomenté avec un sang-froid mêlé de mysticisme, le meurtre tourne pourtant à l'échec. Le maigre butin ne peut satisfaire son idéal de justice, tandis que le crime loin de l'élever de la masse, l'abaisse parmi les hommes. Raskolnikov finira par se rendre et accepter la condamnation, par-là même, il accèdera à la purification. Crime et Châtiment est le roman de la déchéance humaine, l’œuvre essentielle du maître de la littérature russe. — Lenaïc Gravis et Jocelyn Blériot

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This award-winning translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky remains true to the verbal inventiveness of Dostoevsky’s prose, preserving the multiple voices, the humor, and the surprising modernity of the original. It is an achievement worthy of Dostoevsky’s last and greatest novel.

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Fathers and Sons enraged the old and the young, reactionaries, romantics, and radicals alike when it was first published. At the same time, Turgenev won the acclaim of Flaubert, Maupassant, and Henry James for his craftsmanship as a writer and his psychological insight. Fathers and Sons is now considered one of the greatest novels of the nineteenth century.

A timeless depiction of generational conflict during social upheaval, it vividly portrays the clash between the older Russian aristocracy and the youthful radicalism that foreshadowed the revolution to come—and offers modern-day readers much to reflect upon as they look around at their own tumultuous, ever changing world.

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Román vypráví o osudu mukla a věčného vyhnance Olega Kostoglotova, který se v polovině padesátých let přichází léčit na taškentskou onkologickou kliniku. Je to v době, kdy Stalin je již dva roky mrtev, Berija popraven a kdy se začínají objevovat první nesmělé náznaky změn. Na onkologické klinice se setkávají členové strany i vyhnanci, národy, které sem Stalin vysídlil, i původní obyvatelé, lékaři i pacienti. Jejich společným nepřítelem je rakovina: nemoc, smrt, konec života... V blízkosti smrti padají všechny dosavadní jistoty, všechny plány, všechna privilegia. A v tomto světě rozehrává Solženicyn příběhy svých hrdinů, jejich lásek a nadějí. Nádory, sarkomy a metanoblastomy jsou nejen krutou skutečností, s níž se potýkají hrdinové románu i lékaři, ale i metaforou pro rakovinu lži, přetvářky, násilí a útlaku, která metastázuje do všech vrstev ruské společnosti.

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★ 4.12

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Demons

Books similar to Demons

Crime and Punishment

The Brothers Karamazov

The Idiot

Notes from Underground

Pale Fire

Fathers and Sons

Cancer Ward

Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle

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