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Character is destiny. Surely, that belief embedded in every psychoanalyst's heart cannot apply to the major characters of Dostoevsky. Dostoevsky's characters above all others of the world's great literature are regarded as compelled to action by ideas, philosophical theories, or spiritual conviction.
Bernard J. Paris believes otherwise. Proceeding from a psychoanalytic base, he shares the view that character is destiny. As in his prior studies of Shakespeare, Conrad, George Eliot, and others, character is foundational. Whereas other authors create characters with points of view, Dostoevsky seems especially to employ his characters to represent conceptions of life. Their personalities and relationships seem somehow in the service of their philosophical postures. Often his characters exhibit considerable struggle, but their iconic representations remain firm. Paris argues against this more usual interpretation. Rather than regarding Dostoevsky's characters as structured through belief systems, he sees matters reversed: the beliefs of Dostoevsky's characters proceed from character structure, not the other way around. Paris earns our congratulations for taking this on, for swimming against the more conventional interpretive tide—and he succeeds.
In his low-keyed, clear and economical prose, Paris considers the protagonist of “Notes from the Underground,” Raskolnikov, Ivan and Alyosha, and offers some exposition of other characters from the novels in which these figures appear. Paris is interested in characters that are well developed and multidimensional, rounded, often conflicted, and, most importantly, mimetically true—characters that are real, characters like ourselves. Paris does omit other possible candidates to his catalog of Dostoevsky's greatest characters, notably Prince Myshkin and Stavrogin. What accounts for the omission goes unstated. The lapse matters little. A superb chef is not faulted