![]() ![]() Pevear writes in the introduction, ``These demons, then, are ideas, that legion of -isms that came to Russia from the West: idealism, rationalism, empiricism, materialism, utilitarianism, positivism, socialism, anarchism, nihilism, and, underlying them all, atheism.'' Dostoevsky, taking as his starting point the political chaos around him at the time, constructs an elaborate morality tale in which the people of a provincial town turn against one another because they are convinced of the infallibility of their ideas. Mistakenly translated in the past as ``The Possessed,'' the title refers to the infestation of foreign political and philosophical ideas that swept Russia in the second half of the 19th century. ![]() Now they have successfully tackled one of Dostoevsky's most complex and dense works. The previous translations of the husband-and-wife team of Larissa Volokhonsky and Richard Pevear-The Brothers Karamazov, Crime and Punishment, and Notes From Underground-have been universally praised for capturing Dostoevsky's force and subtlety, and all three works are now considered the English standards. Dostoevsky's sprawling political novel is given new life in this fresh translation. ![]()
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