Rene Girard, one of the greatest philosophers of our time, published in Russia with a great delay, analyzes the works of F. M. Dostoevsky.
René Girard is one of the greatest philosophers of our time. In Europe, he became popular after the student revolution of 1968, but he came to Russia very late: his first book was translated only in 2000. This, the third «Russian» book by Girard, includes essays on Hugo, Proust and Camus. The philosopher reads Proust and Camus in defiance of Freud. Girard believes that the main conflict of the existential novel is not the Freudian exposure of allegedly deeply hidden «children’s symbols», but «duality», rivalry, the eternal confrontation between the «I» and the Other. The European novel, according to Girard, begins with Don Quixote and reaches its peak in the work of Dostoevsky. It is Dostoevsky who is the main character of the Critique. Girard traces a favorite plot of duplicity from Notes from the Underground to The Brothers Karamazov. This novel is not about temptation, but about «the impotence of the devil,» says Girard. The Devil is recognized as the Other, he is named and banished, he no longer frightens. Evil, separated from the person it persecutes, seems even ridiculous and absurd.
UFO, 256 p.