Sämtliche Werke 20 : Aus dem Dunkel der Großstadt : Acht Novellen by Dostoyevsky
"Sämtliche Werke 20 : Aus dem Dunkel der Großstadt : Acht Novellen" by Dostoyevsky is a collection of novellas written in the mid to late 19th century. The volume gathers eight Petersburg-centered tales of urban alienation and moral struggle, spotlighting clerks, students, and other castaways as they battle conscience, poverty, and the pressures of a rapidly modernizing city. The opening of the collection frames Dostoyevsky as the poet of the modern metropolis:
an introductory essay contrasts the city’s feverish experimentation with the steadier life of the countryside and sets St. Petersburg as a tragic, artificial crucible of Russian destiny; a foreword then outlines the eight included works and explains the title choice. Immediately after, the first novella begins with the famous voice of an unnamed former civil servant in his “corner,” a self-lacerating, contradictory narrator who calls himself sick and spiteful. He recalls petty cruelties at his desk, admits that hyper-consciousness paralyzes action, and dissects the perverse “pleasure” found in humiliation, pain, and even toothache. He contrasts impulsive “men of action” with his own mouse-like inertia, invokes the “stone wall” of natural law, and launches a fierce attack on rational egoism and utopian schemes, insisting that humans will sometimes choose against their own interest simply to assert freedom. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
Sämtliche Werke 20 : Aus dem Dunkel der Großstadt : Acht Novellen
Alternate Title
Sämtliche Werke 20 : Aus dem Dunkel der Grossstadt : Acht Novellen
Original Publication
München: Piper, 1907.
Contents
Aus dem Dunkel der Großstadt -- Herr Prochartschin -- Polsunkoff -- Der ehrliche Dieb -- Eine dumme Geschichte -- Die Kleine -- Bobock -- Der Traum eines lächerlichen Menschen.
Credits
Alexander Bauer and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at www.pgdp.net
Reading Level
Reading ease score: 79.8 (7th grade). Fairly easy to read.
