Syndicate: Netochka Nezvanova

[Inke Arns <inke@snafu.de>]

Netochka Nezvanova (1848-49), Dostoevsky's first full-sized novel, remained
unfinished because of his arrest. It has a George Sandian narrator who
tells the story of her life, beginning with her childhood. The first of
three episodes is a psychological study, perhaps autobiographical, of an
artist's tragic failure caused by his misjudgement of his own talent. The
fiddler Efimov, Netochka's step father, fancies himself a virtuoso,
although he is merely a competent critic of the play of others (Dostoevsky
may have felt this about his own talent). In the second episode Netochka
experiences a torrid homoerotic love affair with another young girl (this
episode was apparently rifled from Eug?ne Sue's novel Mathilde). It also
features a profound study of neurotic behaviour in a child, Netochka's
playmate, a boy named Larya. The third episode, obviously still in the
draft stage, has Netochka, a teenager now, get caught up in a somber family
tragedy of guilt and jealousy.

(from: Victor Terras, History of Russian Literature)


- http://www.v2.nl/~arns/

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