Travis Kroeker and Bruce Ward, Remembering the End: Dostoevsky as Prophet to Modernity
I read this book in part because I had hope of entering doctoral studies this fall to study under one of the authors (a hope that, alas, is not to be -- at least not for a while).
Dostoevsky is frequently pegged as a key existentialist figure and thus thoroughly "modern." (I won't attempt here to define those last two dense terms and disentangle the relationship between them). Kroeker and Ward try to describe what they see as Dostoevsky's impassioned plea for repentance (a reversal from the current course) from his beloved Russia -- and ultimately, the West.
Ivan Karamazov famously claimed that if God no longer exists in any meaningful way -- as all would-be enlightened and progressive Westerners were presumably believed -- then "everything is permitted."
While Crime and Punishment is Dostoevsky's most focused meditation on that nihilistic creed and its dehumanizing implications through dramatic narrative, Kroeker and Ward spend the majority of their discussion on The Brothers Karamazov and its most famous segment: "The Grand Inquisitor": Ivan's fable about the brief return of Christ to Earth during the Spanish Inquisition. Wading into deep waters of critical discussion, they portray the Grand Inquisitor as Dostoyevsky's supreme artistic achievement, as he gives different and powerful perspectives their integrity while raising profound questions to both the modern West and Christianity. However, the authors argue that Dostoyevsky intended the last word on the subject to be the response given by the pious and mystical monastic, Elder Zosima.
This is a dense text, and I read it much too quickly to cite authoritatively in building some kind of analytic case. But these were my major impressions:
At some thoughts one stands perplexed, especially at the sight of men's sin, and wonders whether one should use force or humble love. Always decide to use humble love. If you resolve on that once for all, you may subdue the whole world. Loving humility is marvellously strong, the strongest of all things, and there is nothing else like it.
