Review: 1/3 of Dostoevsky's House of the Dead
Small post that is not about the X-Men but rather Dostoevsky's House of the Dead.
I read about 1/3 of The House of the Dead and could easily have enjoyed reading all of it if I had the time to read these days, which I haven't. At about 20 minutes/day of reading time, the time investment involved in an almost non-fiction text with little "story" was not worth it. That said, I do recommend the book.
The House of the Dead is a lightly fictionalized account of Dostoevsky's experiences in prison in Siberia. He frames the narrative as the chronological notes of a former inmate, arrested for killing his wife, who served ten years and died not long after his release. I'm sure various names and details are fictionalized, but the basics of prison life are clearly intended (and were seen at the time) as a realistic exposé.
The basic message is that prisoners are people. Each one is unique: some nasty, some very nice (one is clearly an Alyosha prototype), some intelligent, some dull, some leaders, some followers, some clownish, some quiet. Almost all more or less "behave" in prison. They bicker, swear, steal, smuggle in vodka, and so on, but they don't seriously injure or terrorize each other; they're not a great "danger" to live with. The circumstances don't favor it.
In this particular prison, they were also an enormously diverse bunch: gentlemen and commoners, soldiers, civilians, Christians, Jews, Muslims, Muscovites, tribesmen from the Caucasus, Poles, young, old. Overall, the narrator observes, a greater percentage were literate than in the general Russian population.
While each convict is unique, each is human and will respond his treatment in a human way. For example, when the convicts are set a vague and pointless job (break up this old ship somehow), they hem and haw and appear universally inept. But when they are given a specific, motivating task (break up 1/3 of the wood and if you finish that early, you can go "home" early), they fall to and instantly become a well-oiled machine.
Convicts need work, says the narrator. Depriving them of it is soul-destroying. He notes that almost everyone picked up a sideline apart from enforced manual labor. In their spare time, they cobbled shoes, made furniture, etc., for people in town and used the money they earned to augment their prison rations, buy a new coat, get vodka, or perhaps bribe a guard into giving them an afternoon with a prostitute, or play cards. They didn't save money, he notes, because it would just be stolen: logical response to circumstances.
And thus the book runs, detailing various aspects of convicts' lives, experiences, and perceptions of freedom, imprisonment, future, and no future.
The message is not surprising: people are people, criminal or not. It's as true today as it was in the 19th century. The sad part is that, in the US at least, the penal system still hasn't gotten the memo.
I read about 1/3 of The House of the Dead and could easily have enjoyed reading all of it if I had the time to read these days, which I haven't. At about 20 minutes/day of reading time, the time investment involved in an almost non-fiction text with little "story" was not worth it. That said, I do recommend the book.
The House of the Dead is a lightly fictionalized account of Dostoevsky's experiences in prison in Siberia. He frames the narrative as the chronological notes of a former inmate, arrested for killing his wife, who served ten years and died not long after his release. I'm sure various names and details are fictionalized, but the basics of prison life are clearly intended (and were seen at the time) as a realistic exposé.
The basic message is that prisoners are people. Each one is unique: some nasty, some very nice (one is clearly an Alyosha prototype), some intelligent, some dull, some leaders, some followers, some clownish, some quiet. Almost all more or less "behave" in prison. They bicker, swear, steal, smuggle in vodka, and so on, but they don't seriously injure or terrorize each other; they're not a great "danger" to live with. The circumstances don't favor it.
In this particular prison, they were also an enormously diverse bunch: gentlemen and commoners, soldiers, civilians, Christians, Jews, Muslims, Muscovites, tribesmen from the Caucasus, Poles, young, old. Overall, the narrator observes, a greater percentage were literate than in the general Russian population.
While each convict is unique, each is human and will respond his treatment in a human way. For example, when the convicts are set a vague and pointless job (break up this old ship somehow), they hem and haw and appear universally inept. But when they are given a specific, motivating task (break up 1/3 of the wood and if you finish that early, you can go "home" early), they fall to and instantly become a well-oiled machine.
Convicts need work, says the narrator. Depriving them of it is soul-destroying. He notes that almost everyone picked up a sideline apart from enforced manual labor. In their spare time, they cobbled shoes, made furniture, etc., for people in town and used the money they earned to augment their prison rations, buy a new coat, get vodka, or perhaps bribe a guard into giving them an afternoon with a prostitute, or play cards. They didn't save money, he notes, because it would just be stolen: logical response to circumstances.
And thus the book runs, detailing various aspects of convicts' lives, experiences, and perceptions of freedom, imprisonment, future, and no future.
The message is not surprising: people are people, criminal or not. It's as true today as it was in the 19th century. The sad part is that, in the US at least, the penal system still hasn't gotten the memo.