Book contents
- Frontmatter
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Dostoevskii and the Russian folk heritage
- 3 Dostoevskii and literature
- 4 Dostoevskii as a professional writer
- 5 Dostoevskii and money
- 6 Dostoevskii and the intelligentsia
- 7 Dostoevskii and psychology
- 8 Dostoevskii and religion
- 9 Dostoevskii and the family
- 10 Dostoevskii and science
- 11 Conclusion
- Further reading
- Index
11 - Conclusion
reading Dostoevskii
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 May 2006
- Frontmatter
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Dostoevskii and the Russian folk heritage
- 3 Dostoevskii and literature
- 4 Dostoevskii as a professional writer
- 5 Dostoevskii and money
- 6 Dostoevskii and the intelligentsia
- 7 Dostoevskii and psychology
- 8 Dostoevskii and religion
- 9 Dostoevskii and the family
- 10 Dostoevskii and science
- 11 Conclusion
- Further reading
- Index
Summary
You had to be there
‘At the very moment when our professor was insisting that life is thoroughly unpredictable and unplannable, and I was wondering “then why are his lectures so perfectly structured? ”, this person came in from the hallway and shouted rudely that the professor was lecturing too loudly and he couldn’t study next door. I wondered if that was part of the lecture, too, but the professor was so surprised it clearly wasn’t. Well, you had to be there.’
‘Yes, well something similar happened to me. Our philosophy professor told us grandly that the most important thing to remember in reading Nietzsche is that God is dead! – and just at that minute …’
‘Don’t tell me. There was a giant thunderclap.’
‘Well, you had to be there.’
(Overheard)You had to be there: when do we say this? It is usually when we narrate an incident that is just like a story even though there was no author. It really happened! If the professor had planned the rude student's interruption, he would not have created the same experience of life actually turning out like a story. Such events are striking because events happen as if already narrated and so evoke the eerie suspicion that we are like fictional characters.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Companion to Dostoevskii , pp. 212 - 234Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2002
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