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Evil Memes And How To Defeat Them
30 July 2005
Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky tr. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky - Vintage 2004
* * * * *
I saw a television adaptation of this last year, and was somewhat annoyed by the director's decision to film it in a Dogme style using hand-held wobbly camera work and extreme close-ups, which struck me as an artistically pretentious attempt to sex up a staid Victorian novel. Having now read the book, I have to say that it was actually an appropriate style - Dostoevsky's extreme emotionalism means that the book has a febrile, frenetic atmosphere which could not have been conveyed through conventional settled camera work. My misunderstanding was natural though, for Crime and Punishment is about as unconventional a Victorian novel as you could possibly imagine.
The book opens with a pungent evocation of the streets of St Petersburg in high summer. The impoverished student Raskolnikov wanders through them apparently semi-delirious with hunger, all the while contemplating an act of huge import that is not made clear to the reader. He has a drink with Marmeladov, an alcoholic minor official who tells him about his upper class wife Katarina Ivanovna and his daughter Sonya, who has become a prostitute. Returning to his miserable garret, he reads a letter from his mother about a loveless offer of marriage for his sister Dunya, who had been unjustly accused of having an affair with a married man. Then he acquires an axe and carries out his great act, which turns out to be the brutal murder of a female pawnbroker and, due to an unlucky coincidence, her entirely innocent sister (the depiction of this scene is shockingly vivid and detailed - no decorous Victorian veil-drawing here). He makes his escape (just), buries his victims' stolen valuables, and tries to return to his life as if nothing had happened.
Now in a normal Victorian novel, the plot trajectory would be fairly obvious - Raskolnikov (which means "schismatic" in Russian) would suffer agonies of conscience which would cause him ultimately to commit suicide in some dramatically appropriate fashion (like throwing himself under a train, perhaps). But this book, possibly the world's first psychological thriller, is rather cleverer than that. For a start, Raskolnikov's motives for murder are not what they initially appear to be. It isn't a simple case of a desperately poor man without a friend in the world murdering for money so that he can eat. The buried valuables aren't dug up until the end of the novel. It turns out that Raskolnikov is middle class and has a network of friends and relatives who support him. His mother and sister, though impoverished, care about him and love him and give him what they can. His friend Razumikhin has offered him translation work which he refused. Dostoevsky makes clear that the sort of environmental influences that charitable readers might want to ascribe to him are not appropriate here.
The reason that emerges, in the long, brilliant duels of wits between Raskolnikov and the seemingly clumsy but loquacious policeman Porfiry Petrovitch, is that Raskolnikov's mind has become infected by an idea. Based on the works of the Nihilists and of course the example of Napoleon, he has become convinced that Great Men (and obviously he considers himself to be one) are not bound by the same moral laws as everyone else - if they were, they could not carry out the deeds that make them great and which benefit humanity. Transgressing the moral law is therefore a sign that one is a Great Man and is a necessary part of becoming one, a rite of passage. And what better transgressive act to perform than to kill a wicked old pawnbroker whom no-one will miss?
Now the foregoing is more of a spoiler than I usually give, but I mention it because of its scary contemporary relevance. For, of course, Raskolnikov is a prototype suicide bomber. They too are willing to perform a transgressive act because of a toxic, dangerous set of ideas, an evil meme. So how does Dostoevsky go about detoxifying the meme in Raskolnikov's head (for the book does have a sort of happy ending)? Firstly, he makes clear the way in which the meme took root - through isolation, cutting oneself off from friends and family, and through too much abstract thought. Raskolnikov's mother, Dunya, Razumikhin and Porfiry Petrovitch constantly interact with him, refusing to leave him alone despite his oft-expressed desire that they do so. Porfiry Petrovitch challenges the assumptions of his tottering intellectual edifice by pointing out that the carefully laid plans of Great Men often go wrong because of human emotionalism or sheer bad luck, with the implication that whether an act turns out to be great or not is more down to chance than reason. Finally, Raskolnikov is attracted to Sonya (a doormat in human form and the least satisfying character in the novel), and, seeing the absurd and tragic drama of her father's demise and the ensuing funeral, begins to realise for himself that life is too complex and chancy to fit his neat philosophical model.
It is too simplistic to say that Raskolnikov is redeemed by the love of a good woman or the wiles of a clever policeman. Rather, it is the connection to the real world, complex, ridiculous and futile though it is, that saves him. Dostoevsky emphasises the point by contrasting his fate with that of the amoral Svidrigailov, who attempts to seduce Dunya and ends up - well, let's just say that the words "going to America" will have a new meaning for anyone who has read this book.
What Dostoevsky is telling us is that the way to defeat the evil memes of the suicide bombers and other criminals is, paradoxically, to engage with them and their ideas rather than demonise them. We need not fear infection, for no evil meme will survive being reality-tested. Only connect!
Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky tr. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky - Vintage 2004
* * * * *
I saw a television adaptation of this last year, and was somewhat annoyed by the director's decision to film it in a Dogme style using hand-held wobbly camera work and extreme close-ups, which struck me as an artistically pretentious attempt to sex up a staid Victorian novel. Having now read the book, I have to say that it was actually an appropriate style - Dostoevsky's extreme emotionalism means that the book has a febrile, frenetic atmosphere which could not have been conveyed through conventional settled camera work. My misunderstanding was natural though, for Crime and Punishment is about as unconventional a Victorian novel as you could possibly imagine.
The book opens with a pungent evocation of the streets of St Petersburg in high summer. The impoverished student Raskolnikov wanders through them apparently semi-delirious with hunger, all the while contemplating an act of huge import that is not made clear to the reader. He has a drink with Marmeladov, an alcoholic minor official who tells him about his upper class wife Katarina Ivanovna and his daughter Sonya, who has become a prostitute. Returning to his miserable garret, he reads a letter from his mother about a loveless offer of marriage for his sister Dunya, who had been unjustly accused of having an affair with a married man. Then he acquires an axe and carries out his great act, which turns out to be the brutal murder of a female pawnbroker and, due to an unlucky coincidence, her entirely innocent sister (the depiction of this scene is shockingly vivid and detailed - no decorous Victorian veil-drawing here). He makes his escape (just), buries his victims' stolen valuables, and tries to return to his life as if nothing had happened.
Now in a normal Victorian novel, the plot trajectory would be fairly obvious - Raskolnikov (which means "schismatic" in Russian) would suffer agonies of conscience which would cause him ultimately to commit suicide in some dramatically appropriate fashion (like throwing himself under a train, perhaps). But this book, possibly the world's first psychological thriller, is rather cleverer than that. For a start, Raskolnikov's motives for murder are not what they initially appear to be. It isn't a simple case of a desperately poor man without a friend in the world murdering for money so that he can eat. The buried valuables aren't dug up until the end of the novel. It turns out that Raskolnikov is middle class and has a network of friends and relatives who support him. His mother and sister, though impoverished, care about him and love him and give him what they can. His friend Razumikhin has offered him translation work which he refused. Dostoevsky makes clear that the sort of environmental influences that charitable readers might want to ascribe to him are not appropriate here.
The reason that emerges, in the long, brilliant duels of wits between Raskolnikov and the seemingly clumsy but loquacious policeman Porfiry Petrovitch, is that Raskolnikov's mind has become infected by an idea. Based on the works of the Nihilists and of course the example of Napoleon, he has become convinced that Great Men (and obviously he considers himself to be one) are not bound by the same moral laws as everyone else - if they were, they could not carry out the deeds that make them great and which benefit humanity. Transgressing the moral law is therefore a sign that one is a Great Man and is a necessary part of becoming one, a rite of passage. And what better transgressive act to perform than to kill a wicked old pawnbroker whom no-one will miss?
Now the foregoing is more of a spoiler than I usually give, but I mention it because of its scary contemporary relevance. For, of course, Raskolnikov is a prototype suicide bomber. They too are willing to perform a transgressive act because of a toxic, dangerous set of ideas, an evil meme. So how does Dostoevsky go about detoxifying the meme in Raskolnikov's head (for the book does have a sort of happy ending)? Firstly, he makes clear the way in which the meme took root - through isolation, cutting oneself off from friends and family, and through too much abstract thought. Raskolnikov's mother, Dunya, Razumikhin and Porfiry Petrovitch constantly interact with him, refusing to leave him alone despite his oft-expressed desire that they do so. Porfiry Petrovitch challenges the assumptions of his tottering intellectual edifice by pointing out that the carefully laid plans of Great Men often go wrong because of human emotionalism or sheer bad luck, with the implication that whether an act turns out to be great or not is more down to chance than reason. Finally, Raskolnikov is attracted to Sonya (a doormat in human form and the least satisfying character in the novel), and, seeing the absurd and tragic drama of her father's demise and the ensuing funeral, begins to realise for himself that life is too complex and chancy to fit his neat philosophical model.
It is too simplistic to say that Raskolnikov is redeemed by the love of a good woman or the wiles of a clever policeman. Rather, it is the connection to the real world, complex, ridiculous and futile though it is, that saves him. Dostoevsky emphasises the point by contrasting his fate with that of the amoral Svidrigailov, who attempts to seduce Dunya and ends up - well, let's just say that the words "going to America" will have a new meaning for anyone who has read this book.
What Dostoevsky is telling us is that the way to defeat the evil memes of the suicide bombers and other criminals is, paradoxically, to engage with them and their ideas rather than demonise them. We need not fear infection, for no evil meme will survive being reality-tested. Only connect!
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