Transcendent Love: Dostoevsky and the Search for a Global Ethic

Friesen, who teaches Russian history and global ethics at Wilfrid Laurier University in Canada, knows his Dostoevsky. Readers and critics have long been enthralled by the 19th-century Russian novelist's impassioned exploration of existential questions about God, the limits of freedom and reason, and the nature of evil. Friesen argues that Dostoevsky develops an ethic that is both distinctly Russian and Christian, seen in his nonfiction but more powerfully and imaginatively put forth in his novels. Their unforgettable characters, from the tortured and brilliant young murderer Raskolnikov of Crime and Punishment to the monks Zosima and Alyosha of The Brothers Karamazov, ask, answer, and doubt the basis for an ethic that would guide people in daily living. Friesen situates the writer in his late 19th-century era, when Russia was torn between liberalizing European influences and nationalistic and mystical views of Russian identity. His argument is deeply rooted in texts, and so will be best followed by those in the academy who know the Russian writer well. But Dostoevsky engaged timeless concerns of thoughtful legatees of Western Enlightenment, and Friesen's subject is more than academic. Readers interested in the ethics at play in Dostoevsky's novels will find Friesen's reading perspicacious and engaging. (May)