Netochka Nezvanova

Fyodor Dostoevsky (Jane Kentish)
Penguin Classics • 1985

Netochka Nezvanova - a 'Nameless Nobody' - tells the story of a childhood dominated by her stepfather, Efimov, a failed musician who believes he is a neglected genius. The young girl is strangely draw...n to this drunken ruin of a man, who exploits her and drives the family to poverty. But when she is rescued by an aristocratic family, the abuse against Netochka's delicate psyche continues in a more subtle way, condemning her to remain an outsider - a solitary spectator of a glittering society. Conceived as part of a novel on a grand scale, Netochka Nezvanova remained incomplete after Dostoyevsky was exiled to Siberia for 'revolutionary activities' in 1849. With its depiction of the suffering, loneliness, madness and sin that affect both rich and poor in St Petersburg, it contains the great themes that were to dominate his later novels.
Viac

Keď sa povie Fiodor Michajlovič Dostojevskij, väčšine napadnú diela ako Zločin a trest, Idiot či Bratia Karamazovci. Tie nepochybne patria k tomu najlepšiemu, čo tento Rus napísal, u mňa sa k spomínaným titulom radia aj Zápisky z mŕtveho domu, venujúce sa jeho skúsenostiam zo sibírskeho pracovného tábora. Dostojevského odchod z domova mal vplyv na jeho práve rozpísané dielo, a tým je román[...]

Netochka Nezvanova - a 'Nameless Nobody' - tells the story of a childhood dominated by her stepfather, Efimov, a failed musician who believes he is a neglected genius. The young girl is strangely drawn to this drunken ruin of a man, who exploits her and drives the family to poverty. But when she is rescued by an aristocratic family, the abuse against Netochka's delicate psyche continues in a more subtle way, condemning her to remain an outsider - a solitary spectator of a glittering society. Conceived as part of a novel on a grand scale, Netochka Nezvanova remained incomplete after Dostoyevsky was exiled to Siberia for 'revolutionary activities' in 1849. With its depiction of the suffering, loneliness, madness and sin that affect both rich and poor in St Petersburg, it contains the great themes that were to dominate his later novels.