Julian Mastakovich is fat with flesh and money. Julian Mastakovich (A Christmas Tree and a Wedding)

A real-life historical analogue stoked the interest of the author to produce this somewhat slight account of the story a man living in extreme frugality who turns out to be an example of the miser secretly protecting great wealth. The primary interest of this very example of Dostoevsky’s short fiction skills is its basis in fact. Ivan writes in his diary about the experiences in a cemetery of hearing a conversation between the recently buried which reveals that the depravity of living merely continues into the afterlife. The Ivan in this story is an adman and translator frustrated that he is not a journalist and writer of novels who ironically comes across a great true story that the process of telling seems certain only to confirm suspicions already in place concerning the state of his sanity. He suffers an even greater indignity as he is swallowed whole by the titular reptilian metaphor for the reptilian characteristics of bureaucratic efficiency…at swallowing whole the lives of those who prey to its giant snapping jaws. Ivan Matveich (The Crocodile)Īnother of the author’s tragic bureaucrats is Ivan Matveich. Having firmed up a new philosophy of treating people nicely, he crashes the wedding of a fellow bureaucrat in an attempt to transform theory into practice and winds up only making a fool of himself which forever taints his reputation. State Councillor Pralinsky stars in a story of nasty irony. We are thankful for their contributions and encourage you to make your own. Michael Wood's selection of Dostoevsky's shorter works is drawn from the timeless translations of Constance Garnett whose work, he says in his preface, gives readers the best of several worlds.These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community. These narrators all have a tendency to express themselves in crescendos of conflicting emotions, while the stories themselves steer clear of grand conclusions. They resemble jokes and anecdotes, told by volatile, voluble, morbidly sensitive and frustrated characters. Dostoevsky's stories inhabit similarly volcanic atmospheres as his novels, places of curiosity and exception. A man is swallowed by a crocodile, but not eaten nor seriously damaged.

A civil servant behaves like a monster at a wedding-party. 'I have always been ridiculous, and I have known it, perhaps from the hour I was born' A man goes mad because he is happy. Print The Crocodile and Other Stories (riverrun Editions) - Dostoevsky's Finest Short Stories in the Timeless Translations of Constance GarnettĪuthor(s): Fyodor Dostoevsky Michael Wood (Introduction by)

The crocodile dostoevsky