Book Review: "The Adolescent" by Fyodor Dostoevsky

In my time I have read and enjoyed many works by Fyodor Dostoevsky. One of my all time favourite novels is “The Brothers Karamazov” which I read at about sixteen and I’m not going to lie when I said it took me some time, but I have read it a few times since and it never fails to amaze me. I have read the brutal and yearning “Crime and Punishment” and his dark “Notes from Underground” - I have enjoyed “The Idiot” and now, I have just finished a book quite different to any Dostoevsky novel I have ever read - I had never even heard of it before I started reading it. It is called “The Adolescent”.

The novel follows an illegitimate son named Arkady Makarovich Dolgoruky and even though he takes the name of his adoptive father, he is actually the son of a strange and detached rich landowner named Versilov. Arkady spends the book wanting to become rich like a member of the Rothschild family but ends up becoming involved with the makers of his time and the socialist revolutions taking place. He seems to respect his adoptive father because at the beginning of the novel, he kind of takes Makar for a ride, as if he were a fool. Arkady was used to preaching and boasting about his illegitimacy but then stopped when someone told him that it wasn’t something he should be proud of. He gets in a number of spats and arguments with the richer landowner, Versilov but ends up getting involved with a widow who’s future is dependent on Arkady.

I think I liked the character of Versilov the most because it felt the most like a Dostoevsky character. Versilov really did remind me of the character Fyodor Pavlovich from “The Brothers Karamazov” and makes for an excellent point of research when we look at the theme of scandal. It seems like both the father figures that Arkady has are in some way hindered in their public lives. Makar is taken for the fool and kept at the bottom of the barrel whereas, Versilov is made to look like an idiot out of all the scandals and rumours that surround him including being involved with various women including a woman who is mentally unstable and then further on into the novel, changing his faith and becoming a Catholic. Versilov makes for the more Dostoevskian father and Fyodor Pavlovich from “The Brothers Karamazov” has scandals surrounding him involving women as well. This is when he starts seeing his son’s lover - Grushenka. But I also think that Versilov has a quintessential something to him that makes the reader almost automatically hate him for all he is. He isn’t really a father in terms of anything but name to Arkady and yet, he tries to assert dominance over the child. It doesn’t work, but he tries all the same.

I believe that the irony is that even though Arkady doesn’t like Versilov - the kind of life that Arkady seems to be seeking out is the one that Versilov seems to be living. However, the nihilistic viewpoint that Arkady takes will always hinder him from achieving the goals he has set out for himself. It was an interesting read by Dostoevsky and I think that some people may know it to be named “The Accidental Family” or “A Raw Youth”, but I think “The Adolescent” is a fitting name for a man who is in between youth and adulthood and cannot seem to find his way toeing the line between his father from his adoption to his actually father whom he knows to be a strange character.