Demons (Everyman's Library, 182)
by Fyodor Dostoevsky

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Book Reviews of Demons (Everyman's Library, 182)

Book Review: 'Demons' the best translation
Summary: 5 Stars

This quotation from the novel indicates why I think "Demons" makes a far better title than "The Possessed" or "The Devils". This is a novel more about ideas than about people -- the ideas surrounding the Russian radicalism of the 1860s (atheism, nihilism, utilitarianism, socialism, and so on). The title, of course, comes directly from the story in the gospel of Luke where demons possess a herd of swine, impelling them to run down a hill into a lake where they drown themselves. To call the novel "The Possessed" is to essentially make it about a herd of swine, when it is truly of a bigger scope than that. "The Devils", on the other hand, gives too great a quality of personification to the faceless, unseen ideas infecting the characters. "Demons", however, seems to best capture the author's intention in naming the novel.

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• World Literature > Russian
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