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Article
“The Impression of Reality”: Fiction and Testimony in Dostoevsky’s Notes
Author(s)
Max Statkiewicz
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DOI:10.17265/2159-5836/2016.03.003
Affiliation(s)
University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, USA
ABSTRACT
Truth of fiction might sound like a paradox, at least within the Platonic doxa. But perhaps there is no truth without fiction; Plato’s own myths would testify to this necessary combination of “history” and “story” (histoire, storia, Geschichte, etc.). Still, it might be not enough simply to affirm the necessity of fictional narrative for an historical account. In some cases, it would be difficult to accept a fictional aspect of historical testimony. Jorge Semprún claims, on the other hand, that only fiction is able to communicate a traumatic, “unbearable” experience such as the one of prison camps. He refers to the work of Fyodor Dostoevsky as his model. My paper analyzes this testimonial aspect of Dostoevsky’s Notes, especially the Notes from a Dead House. It shows, the particularity of this work, which combines an intense personal experience with a fictional elaboration, a quasi-novelistic setting, plot, and characters. I claim that in a sense such a combination might be considered as a model for literature in general, for its testimonial value, for its truth.
KEYWORDS
historical testimony, fictional biography, Dostoevsky, Semprún, prison literature
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References
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Aristotle. (1995). Poetics. (S. Halliwell, Trans.). Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Barthes, R. (1989). “The reality effect.” In The rustle of language. (R. Howard, Trans.) Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Belknap, R. L. (1985). Dostoevsky. In V. Terras (Ed.), Handbook of Russian literature. New Haven: Yale University Press.
De Man, P. (1979). Allegories of reading: Figural language in Rousseau, Nietzsche, Rilke, and Proust. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
De Man, P. (1983). Blindness and insight: Essays in the rhetoric of contemporary criticism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1991). Qu’est-ce que la philosophie? (What is philosophy?). Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit.
Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1994). What is philosophy? (H. Tomlinson and G. Burchell, Trans.). New York: Columbia University Press.
Dostoevsky, F. M. (1949). The diary of a writer (Vol. 1). (B. Brasol, Trans.). New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
Dostoevsky, F. M. (1985). Письма 1832-1859 (Complete letters 1832-1859). In Полное собрание сочинений в триндцати томах (Polnoe Sobrane Sotchinenia in 13 tomah). Ленинград: Издательство Наука.
Dostoevsky, F. M. (1988). Complete letters 1832-1859 (Vol. 1). (D. Lowe & R. Meyer, Eds. &Trans.). Ann Arbor: Ardis.
Dostoevsky, F. M. (1993). Notes from underground. (R. Pevear & L. Volokhonsky, Trans.). New York: Vintage Books.
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Dostoevsky, F. M. (2004). The House of the Dead. (C. Garnett, Trans.). New York: Dover Publications, Inc.
Dostoevsky, F. M. (2006a). Записки из подполя (Zapiski iz podpolia—Notes from underground). Москва: АСТ Астрель.
Dostoevsky, F. M. (2006b). Записки из мертвого дома (Zapiski iz mertvovo doma—Notes from the dead house). Москва: АСТ Астрель.
Dostoevsky, F. M. (2011). Дниевник писателя (Dnievnik Pisatielia—The diary of a writer). Москва: Эксмо.
Dostoevsky, F. M. (2015). Notes from a dead house. (R. Pevear & L. Volokhonsky, Trans.) New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Foucault, M. (1986). Of other spaces: Utopias and heterotopias. (J. Miskowiec, Trans.). Diacritics, 16(1) (Spring).
Foucault, M. (2001). Des espaces autres. In Dits et écrits II. 1976-1988. Paris: Gallimard.
Frank, J. (1986). Dostoevsky: The stir of liberation, 1860-1865. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Heidegger, M. (1979). Sein und Zeit. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag.
Heidegger, M. (2010). Being and Time. (J. Stambaugh, Trans.; D. J. Schmidt, revised). Albany: State University of New York Press.
Jackson, R. L. (1981). The art of Dostoevsky: Deliriums and nocturnes. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Kant, I. (1981). Kritik der Urteilskraft. In Werkausgabe Bande X. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
Kant, I. (2000). Critique of the power of judgment. (P. Guyer & E. Matthews, Trans.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lacoue-Labarthe, P. (1988). La vérité sublime. In Du Sublime. Paris: Belin
Lacoue-Labarthe, P. (1993). Sublime truth. In Of the sublime: Presence in question. (Jeffrey S. Librett, Trans.). Albany: State University of New York Press.
Lanzmann, C. (1994). Holocaust, la représentation impossible. Le Monde, Supplément Arts–Spectacles, (3 March), I, VII.
Lyotard, J. F. (1984). The Postmodern condition: A report on knowledge. (G. Bennington & B. Massumi, Trans.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Lyotard, J. F. (1988). Le Postmoderne expliqué aux enfants. Paris: Galilée.
Lyotard, J. F. (1991). Leçons sur l’analitique du sublime (Lessons on the analytic of the sublime). Paris: Galilée.
Lyotard, J. F. (1994). Lessons on the analytic of the sublime. (E. Rottenberg, Trans.). Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Magarshack, D. (1962). Dostoevsky. London: Secker & Warburg.
Mochulsky, K. (1947). Достоевский: жизнь и творчество (Dostoevky: zhizn’ i tvorchestvo—Dostoevsky: His life and work). Париж: YMCA-Press.
Mochulsky, K. (1967). Dostoevsky: His life and work. (M. A. Minihan, Trans.). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Morson, G. S. (1994). Narrative and freedom: The shadows of time. New Haven, London: Yale University Press.
Morson, G. S. (2002). Conclusion: Reading Dostoevsky. In W. J. Leatherbarrow (Ed.), The Cambridge companion to Dostoevsky. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nancy, J. L. (2003). “La representation interdite.” In Au fond des images. Paris: Galilée.
Nancy, J. L. (2005). “Forbidden representation.” (S. Clift, Trans.). In The Ground of the Image. (J. Fort, Trans.). New York: Fordham University Press.
Nietzsche, F. (1999). Kritische Studienausgabe. (G. Colli & M. M. Berlin, Eds.). New York: de Gruyter.
Nietzsche, F. (2003). Writings from the late notebooks. (K. Sturge, Trans.; R. Bittner, Ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Saxton, L. (2007). Fragile Faces: Levinas and Lanzmann. Film-Philosophy, 11.2 (August), 1-14.
Semprún, J. (1994). L’écriture ou la vie. Paris: Gallimard.
Semprún, J. (1998). Literature or life. (L. Coverdale, Тrans.). New York: Penguin Books.
Semprún, J. (2000). L’art contre l’oubli. Le Monde des Débats (May).
The Holy Bible: King James Version. (1974). New York: A Meridian Book.
Semprún, J. (2007). The art of fiction. no 192. Paris Review, 180 (Spring). (S. Sugihara, Trans.). Retrieved from http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/5740/the-art-of-fiction-no-192-jorge-semprun
Shklovsky, V. (1929). Искусство как прием (Iskustvo kak pryem—Art as devise). In О теории прозы (O teorii prozy—Of theory of proza). Москва: Российская Федерация.
Shklovsky, V. (1957). За и против: Заметки о Достоевском (Za I protiv: Zamietki o Dostoevskom—Notes about Dostoevsky). Москва: Советский Писатель.
Shklovsky, V. (1991). Art as Device. In Theory of prose. (B. Sher, Trans.). Normal, IL: Dalkey Archive Press.
Smyth, H. W. (1956). Greek grammar. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Thucydides. (1919/1956). History of the Peloponnesian war books I and II. (C. F. Smith, Trans.). Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Thucydides. (2013). The war of the Peloponnesians and the Athenians. (J. Mynott, Ed. & Trans.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.