Product Description

The great Russian novelist Dostoevsky, obsessed with discovering whether his stepson's sudden death was murder or suicide, finds himself drawn into the violent revolutionary subculture of 1869 Russia, in a work of fiction that is both mystery and psychological portrait. Reprint.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #425031 in Books
• Published on: 1995-11-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

From Publishers Weekly
South African novelist Coetzee takes Fyodor Dostoyevski as his protagonist in a novel set amidst the political ferment of 19th-century Russia.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
St. Petersburg is poised for revolution as Fyodor Dostoevsky returns from Germany to claim his deceased stepson's papers. Although the police rule Pavel's death a suicide, the famous writer is drawn into a group of shady characters, including the anarchist Nechaev, who is possibly Pavel's killer. Plagued by seizures and tormented by a torrid affair with his stepson's landlady, Dostoevsky struggles to ascertain once and for all a writer's responsibility to his family and society. The strength of South African writer Coetzee (Age of Iron, LJ 8/90) lies in his ability to draw characters and scenes evoking the dark mood of the master's novels. Unfortunately, this story of action and ideas lapses into monotonous debate in its final chapters, but there is much to enjoy despite the flagging plot. Recommended for literary collections.
Paul E. Hutchison, Bellefonte, Pa.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Here is an imagined glimpse into the mind of Fyodor Dostoevsky, poised between his completion of Crime and Punishment and creation of his masterpiece The Brothers Karamazov. South African writer Coetzee gains entry to the Russian's soul by weighing down his thoughts on settling the affairs of stepson Pavel, who fell to death from St. Petersburg's shot tower. While collecting Pavel's meager possessions--a symbolic white suit, diaries and letters--Dostoevsky strains to define his relationship with Pavel, and these strains Coetzee skillfully translates into a picture of fevered, psychological confusion, even panic at times. In part, this stems from the discovery of Pavel's involvement with the "People's Vengeance" (modeled on the historical People's Will, the Russian revolutionary terrorists of the 1870s). Structurally, the plot produces the effects of confusion and disturbance via Dostoevsky's dialogues with the terrorists' leader, who had recruited Pavel to the cause. In due course, another suspicious death occurs and the parricide theme (central to The Brothers K) germinates in the writer's mind from reading his stepson's stories. A complicated evocation of a great writer's inner stresses, this interior novel pays dividends for readers attuned to the times it evokes and the great writer it examines. Gilbert Taylor

Customer Reviews

Prose that reads like an authentic Russian text
What is amazing about this book is that Coetzee's prose reads like an authentic translation into English of an original Russian text. To some that may not seem like an impressive accomplishment, or even a desirable characteristic of a novel. But think about how difficult it must have been to do this. He had to have abandoned his practiced and perfected prose in order to learn an entirely different style of writing. He must have read countless translations of Russian novels, particularly Dostoevskiy's (and perhaps even the original texts?) in order to begin to feel the cadence and rhythm of the language. The result is a feeling of period and environment that rings of authenticity. The prose actually serves as a conduit for getting closer and more intimate with the story's main character of Dostoevskiy.

Other than that, this is a fairly mediocre book, certainly not worthy of mention in the same breath as Disgrace or several other works by this Nobel Prize winning author. But for lovers of things Russian or for fans of Dostoevskiy, it could be an interesting read.

Not the best of Coetzee's novels, but a good read
Dostoevsky and Coetzee readers might find this novel interesting. It seems that Coetzee and Dostoevsky have the same temperaments as writers, that both explore the same crevices of the human psyche. However, I'm not too sure whether Coetzee succeeds in interpreting Dostoevsky's frame of mind between 'Crime and Punishment' and 'The Brothers Karamazov.' In some passages, the novel becomes too obscure to follow, and perhaps someone with a better knowledge of both Dostoevsky's life and his novels might understand what Coetzee is trying to get at in them. In this sense, 'The Master of Petersburg' doesn't stand on its own. But Coetzee's favorite fiction themes--isolated suffering, glimpses of madness, rivalries between family members, revenge, oppression by the known and unknown, the burdens of empathy--are abundantly represented in the novel, and the tension he creates at some moments through his language and images is truly enviable. I definitively recommend this book to those interested in Coetzee's ideas.

Rather difficult to read
After the death of his stepson Pavel Isajev, Fjodor Dostojevski returns to St. Petersburg to say farewell and to find out the true cause of his death. He meets Pavel's landlady and her unpleasant daughter and he also finds out that things are not the way they seem to be: Pavel's death (he had fallen to his death) is less clear than it appears. Fjodor finds out that Pavel was part of the entourage of the vague, anarchistic Netsjajev, who now also wants to use Dostojevski. The police suspects this and sends a police spy who is dressed as a beggar to see what Dostojevski is doing while in St. Petersburg. And in the meantime Dostojevski has to come to terms with the unexpected death of a son that he loved dearly, but that did not love his stepfather in return.

I read the book while in St. Petersburg and the Russian atmosphere is very well described, but all the main characters, side characters and psychological twists and turns do not make this book very easy to read.