The American president can deny it as much as he wants, but he cannot explain away the works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, who was born 197 years ago in November. Just like Pyotr Verkhovensky in Dostoyevsky’s Demons, we now have a demagogue of a political figure who appeals to people’s baser desires. A skilled reader of the psyche, Dostoyevsky never saw violence as divorced from normal human behaviour. If Demons is a cautionary tale for hoi polloi, then A Gentle Creature is Dostoyevsky’s counsel for the egotist. Too bad the American president cannot spare a moment from reading tweets to crack the spine of a Dostoyevsky novel.

Source: The Telegraph November 15, 2018 21:22 UTC