The Annihilation of Inertia: Dostoevsky and Metaphysics

328 Pages·1996·19.586 MB·English

by  Liza Knapp

The Annihilation of Inertia
Northwestern University Press
Studies in Russian Literature and Theory
Founding Editor
Gary Saul Morson
General Editor
Caiyl Emerson
Consulting Editors
Carol Avins
Robert Belknap
Robert Louis Jackson
Elliott Mossman
Alfred Rieber
William Mills Todd III
Alexander Zholkovsky
The Annihilation of Inertia
DOSTOEVSKY AND METAPHYSICS
Liza Knapp
NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY PRESS / EVANSTON, ILLINOIS
Northwestern University Press
625 Colfax Street
Evanston, Illinois 60208-4210
Copyright © 1996 by Northwestern University Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
ISBN 0-8101-1372-4
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Knapp, Liza.
The annihilation of inertia : Dostoevsky and metaphysics / Liza Knapp.
p. cm. — (Studies in Russian literature and theory)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8101-1372-4 (alk. paper)
1. Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, 1821-1881—Philosophy. 2. Dostoyevsky, Fyodor,
1821-1881—Religion. I.Title. II. Series.
PG3328.Z7P545 1996
891.73'3—dc20 96-8500
CIP
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the Ameri­
can National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed
Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.
For Alan, Lucas, and Thomas

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Note on Translation and Transliteration xi
Chapter One Introduction:
Dostoevsky and the Metaphysics of Inertia 1
Chapter Two The Force of Inertia:
Dostoevsky’s Confessional Heroes and
the “Tragedy of the Underground” 15
Chapter Three The Resurrection from Inertia in
Crime And Punishment 44
Chapter Four The Verdict of Death in The Idiot 66
Chapter Five The Dead Machine of European Civilization:
Inertia in The Devils 102
Chapter Six Death by Ice:
The Poetics of Entropy in The Adolescent 131
Chapter Seven The Dimensions of Providence in
The Brothers Karamazov 172
Chapter Eight Afterword: “Except a Com of Wheat” 217
Notes 222
Select Bibliography 294
Index 307
Acknowledgments
I am grateful to all those who have helped and encouraged me in the various
stages of writing this book: Robert Belknap, who shared his knowledge
of Dostoevsky and his intellectual horse sense; Richard Gustafson, who
introduced me to Russian Orthodox thought; Robert Maguire, whose literary
sensibility I tried to emulate; and to Robert Louis Jackson, whose work on
Dostoevsky has inspired me. More recently, colleagues at Berkeley have
provided me with advice, valuable information, and encouragement, for
which I am thankful: Olga Raevsky Hughes, Hugh McLean, Johanna Nichols,
and Irina Paperno. I am also grateful for the research assistance I have
had from Jennifer Foss, Anne Hruska, Mary Rees, and Jennifer Wilder. I
feel very fortunate to have had Susan Harris as my editor at Northwestern
University Press.
Work on the present study was supported in 1993-94 by a fellowship
from the National Endowment for the Humanities, for which I am very
grateful. I am also grateful for the support of the Heller Fund of the College
of Letters and Science at the University of California at Berkeley to defray
cost of publication.
This book elaborates a line of thinking outlined earlier in “The Force of
Inertia in Dostoevsky’s ‘Krotkaia,’ ” Dostoevsky Studies 6 (1985): 143-56 and
the introduction to my Dostoevsky as Reformer: The Petrashevsky Case (Ann
Arbor, Mich.: Ardis, 1987), 7-26, and “The Fourth Dimension of the Non-
Euclidean Mind: Time in Brothers Karamazov, or Why Ivan Karamazov’s
Devil Does not Cany a Watch,” Dostoevsky Studies 8 (1987): 105-20.
ix