Dostoevsky and the Affirmation of Life

Dostoevsky’s philosophy of life is unfolded in this searching analysis of his five greatest works: Notes from the Underground, Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, The Possessed, and The Brothers Karamazov. Predrag Cicovacki deals with the fundamental issue in Dostoevsky’s opus neglected by all of his commentators: How can we affirm life and preserve a healthy optimism in the face of an increasingly troublesome reality? This work displays the vital significance of Dostoevsky’s philosophy for understanding the human condition in the twenty-first century.

The main task of this insightful effort is to reconstruct and examine Dostoevsky’s "aesthetically" motivated affirmation of life, based on cycles of transgression and restoration. His central figures claim that, if life has no meaning, it is absurd to affirm life and it is pointless to live. Since Dostoevsky’s doubts concerning the meaning of life resonate so deeply throughout our age of pessimism and relativism, the central question of this book is whether Dostoevsky can overcome the skepticism of his most brilliant creation.

This volume includes a thorough literary analysis of Dostoevsky’s texts, yet it proceeds in such a way that even those who have not read all of these novels will find Cicovacki’s analysis interesting and enthralling. The reader will easily extrapolate Cicovacki’s own philosophical interpretation of Dostoevsky’s literary heritage.