The Eternal Husband and Other Stories by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Translated by: Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky
Genre: Novella/Short Stories
Publication Date: 1997
Pages: 308
Challenges: Russian Reading #4

I don’t read many collections of Short Stories or Novellas, but I wanted to include some for the Russian Reading Challenge. This book was not an easy read, but I expected that. It included 4 short stories by Dostoevsky along with the novella The Eternal Husband.

The Eternal Husband was really the centerpiece of the book. It’s a story whose two main characters have an interesting connection. One is the widower of a woman who died about 3 months prior to the beginning of the story. The other man is her former lover who had not seen her or her husband for 9 years. The two men meet in St. Petersburg and as the story progresses their relationship is observed. Are they friends? Are they enemies? Does the husband know about the affair? What does he want from the other man? These questions drive the story and it makes for interesting character study.

The other stories in this book are “A Nasty Anecdote” which is a satirical look at the efforts of a civil servant to demonstrate his kindness for the lower class by crashing the wedding of one of his employees. “Bobok" is the story of a writer who overhears the conversations of the recently deceased in a cemetery. “The Meek One” is a sad tale of a man tyring to understand his young wife’s suicide. “The Dream of a Ridiculous Man” completes the collection and is a wonderful story of a man who is contemplating suicide himself and the dream he has.

None of these were quick easy reads and at times I struggled to continue with the book. I think I enjoyed Bobok and The Dream of a Ridiculous Man the most. They are both darkly satirical. It was a book that was quite a departure from my usual reading, but a detour that ultimately I felt was worth the effort, even if not necessarily one I’d want to take on a regular basis.