Product Description

This is an extraordinary book, which through the lens of Dostoevsky's novels enables the reader to consider the nature of God in the 21st Century - a societal landscape fraught with tensions and social inequalities.When an Archbishop of Canterbury takes time off to write a book about Dostoevsky, this is a sign of great hope and encouragement for The Church of England and for all those who seek God.The current rash of books hostile to religious faith will one day be an interesting subject for some sociological analysis. But to counter such work, is a book of the profoundest kind about the nature and purpose of religious belief. Terrorism, child abuse, absent fathers and the fragmentation of the family, the secularisation and the sexualisation of culture, the future of liberal democracy, the clash of cultures and the nature of national identity - so many of the anxieties that we think of as being quintessentially features of the early twenty first century and on, are present in the work of Dostoevsky - in his letters, his journalism and above all in his fiction.The world we inhabit as readers of his novels is one in which the question of what human beings owe to each other is left painfully and shockingly open and there is no place to stand from which we can construct a clear moral landscape. But the novels of Dostoevsky continually press home what else might be possible if we - characters and readers - saw the world in another light, the light provided by faith. In order to respond to such a challenge the novels invite us to imagine precisely those extremes of failure, suffering and desolation.There is an unresolved tension in Dostoevsky's novels - a tension between believing and not believing in the existence of God. In "The Brothers Karamazov", we can all receive Ivan with a terrible kind of delight. Ivan's picture of himself we immediately recognise as self-portrait. The god that is dead for him is dead for us. This Karamazov God of tension and terror is often the only one we are able to find. This extraordinary book will speak to our generation like few others.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #184426 in Books
• Published on: 2008-09-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 268 pages

About the Author
The Rt. Hon. and Most Reverend Rowan Williams is Archbishop of Canterbury. He was formerly Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at Oxford and Archbishop of Wales.

Customer Reviews

New Testament.
Focusing on the four major novels of Dostoevsky: 'The Idiot', 'Crime and Punishment', 'The Devils' and (above all) 'The Brothers Karamazov', Rowan Williams here in this subtle and sophisticated 100,000-word essay argues for Dostoevsky as a religious writer who's works are best understood through the lens of faith. In so doing he challenges and refutes the views of 20th century interepreters of Dostoevsky such as William Hamilton who viewed the narrative indeterminacy and "dialogist" strategies of the great Russian writers art as the expression of an "anguished agnosticism".
Williams however interprets these narrative strategies as Dostoevsky's
disinterest in presenting the dry abstract philosophical questions of faith; of arguments for or against the existence of God, for the exploration of ,and interest in, the reality of a life of faith lived in the presence and knowledge of the Divine by real historically and culturally conditioned individuals and also, conversely, the exploration of what it is like to live, again: "by real historically and culturally conditioned individuals" ,with the full ramifications of an absolute denial of that Reality and the questioning of the legitimacy of God and the experience of Him by people of faith in the face of the most grotesque and degrading forms of human suffering. As Dostoevsky famously wrote: "If someone were to prove to me that Christ was outside the truth, and it was really the case that the truth lay outside Christ, then I should choose to stay with Christ rather than with the truth".
This essay is evidence of a close reading of the primary texts and of a familiarity with the novels born of decades of study, both in translation and the original Russian. And it is not hard to see how both the "dialogism" and narrative indeterminacy of the Russians novels would prove intellectually seductive to a liberal Anglican of Dr Williams stripe. As the cultural critic Terry Eagleton dryly observed: " one could construct a far more unpleasent Dostoevsky than this one". And this is very much a liberal Anglican reading of the Russian author but a fascinating and deeply learned one that is both insightful and wonderfully pursuasive. This study is at the end of the day a meditation on the nature of language, the beautiful articulation of a profound love of the written word and ultimately a moving testimony to the enduring transformative power of the novel.
This is the work of a brilliant mind at the height of its powers and anyone who reads it will find themselves elevated and enriched by it.

Hard going!
This book was recommended when I chose a book by Timothy Radcliffe. I thought that probably meant that it would be equivalent "weight". To be honest -- being a scientist with theological interests, rather than a person with literary skills and knowledge (particularly regarding Russian authors), I was often out of my depth.

I appreciate that that is my problem,and not necessarily the author's. I found that the book did raise profound issues, and it was interesting to see how much Doestoevsky was up to speed on theological matters of his day. I can't imagine an English author seeing as much space to exploring the consequences of being God-anchored or a convinced atheist, against the uncommitted stance. It was also interesting to see how Dostoevsky endeavoured to avoid both collectivism and individualism in exploring the "real".

If you like hard mental work, this might be the book for you! (Perhaps not for anyone looking for an entre to a Russian author.)

A long-sought book, though just written
Overall this book is proving highly stimulating, helping me to see not only Dostoevsky's fiction more clearly but also my own. Often I have to read passages more than once to chase the meaning, but unlike John Jones's volume on the same subject the meaning does eventually give itself up. The argument steadily and convincingly advances, and my chief disagreement so far is with the author's portrayal of Prince Myshkin, which has prompted me to re-read The Idiot. Any lover of Dostoevsky's novels will find this a rewarding well of deep insights.