Sign-In
Cart
Humiliated And Insulted: A New Translation
Paperback
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Dec 28 2024
Pages: 350
Weight: 0.93
Height: 0.87 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
Love that destroys. Wealth that corrupts. And suffering elevated to philosophy.
Ivan Petrovich is a struggling writer in St. Petersburg, tubercular and impoverished, surviving on the margins of literary life. He loves Natasha Ikhmeneva hopelessly-she considers him merely a friend. She has abandoned her respectable family to live with Prince Alyosha Valkovsky, the charming but weak son of a predatory aristocrat who has systematically destroyed the Ikhmenev family through fraud and manipulation.
Natasha has sacrificed everything for Alyosha: family, reputation, security, dignity. Yet Alyosha, while genuinely fond of her, is too shallow to reciprocate adequately. He plans to marry a wealthy heiress while expecting Natasha to accept this betrayal magnanimously. Rather than leaving him, Natasha decides to facilitate his marriage-reasoning that true love demands she prioritize his happiness over her own dignity.
Meanwhile, Ivan rescues Nelly, a dying orphan girl whose mysterious past gradually reveals connections to the Valkovsky family's crimes. Her grandfather has been ruined by Prince Valkovsky senior. Her mother was seduced and abandoned by him, driven to prostitution and early death. Nelly herself is dying of consumption, traumatized by cruelty she witnessed but cannot fully articulate.
As Ivan navigates between these suffering figures-attempting reconciliations, uncovering secrets, witnessing degradations he cannot prevent-Prince Valkovsky senior articulates his philosophy: sophisticated nihilism that acknowledges no moral constraints, pursues pleasure and advantage without guilt, manipulates others as tools, and mocks conventional morality as hypocrisy masking universal selfishness.
Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote this immediately after returning from Siberian exile-a decade of prison camp and compulsory military service following his arrest and mock execution. The novel bridges his early sentimental realism and the psychological depth of his mature masterpieces. It contains melodramatic plotting, excessive coincidence, and Victorian sentimentality that he would later transcend. Yet within these conventional forms, one detects the developing genius: the psychological penetration, the obsession with suffering and humiliation, the philosophical seriousness struggling to emerge from melodrama.
Contemporary critics recognized its emotional power while noting its structural weaknesses. Modern readers will likely find it dated compared to Dostoevsky's later works. Yet those willing to accept its Victorian conventions will discover a novel of genuine intensity-flawed but fascinating, showing a major writer finding his voice while still constrained by the traditions he would soon revolutionize.
The insulted and injured-not merely poor but systematically degraded, reduced to objects for others' use. And the question: can love and forgiveness redeem what power and cruelty have destroyed?
Also from
Petault, David
Journey to the Center of the Earth: A New Translation in Modern Accessible English
Verne, Jules
Paperback
From the Earth to the the moon: A New Translation in Modern Accessible English
Verne, Jules
Paperback
Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A New Translation in Modern Accessible English
Nietzsche, Friedrich
Paperback
In Search of the Castaways (The Children of Captain Grant): A New Translation in Modern Accessible English
Verne, Jules
Paperback
Magellania (The Survivors of the "Jonathan"): A New Translation in Modern Accessible English
Verne, Jules
Paperback
In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower (In Search of Lost Time Vol. 2): A New Translation
Proust, Marcel
Paperback
A Country Doctor And Other Stories: In the Penal Colony, The Judgment: A New Translation
Kafka, Franz
Paperback
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea: A New Translation in Modern Accessible English
Verne, Jules
Paperback
A Mexican Drama, The Blockade Runners, The Rebels Of The Bounty: A New Translation
Verne, Jules
Paperback
Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon ("La Jangada"): A New Translation in Modern Accessible English
Verne, Jules
Paperback
An Antarctic Mystery (Sequel to Edgar Allan Poe's Arthur Gordon Pym): A New Translation
Verne, Jules
Paperback
The Adventures of Captain Hatteras: A New Translation in Modern Accessible English
Verne, Jules
Paperback
Michel Strogoff (From Moscow To Irkutsk): A New Translation in Modern Accessible English
Verne, Jules
Paperback
Also in
Fiction Anthologies
On Quality: An Inquiry Into Excellence: Unpublished and Selected Writings
Pirsig, Robert M.
Pirsig, Wendy K.
Hardcover
James Weldon Johnson: Writings (Loa #145): The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man / Along This Way / Essays and Editorials / Selected Poems
Johnson, James Weldon
Hardcover
Frankenstein, Dracula, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Shelley, Mary
Stevenson, Robert Louis
Stoker, Bram
Paperback
Sez I to Myself: The Collected Essays of Frank and Malachy McCourt
McCourt, Frank
McCourt, Malachy
Hardcover
Here in New England: Unforgettable Stories of People, Places, and Memories That Connect Us All.
Allen, Mel
Paperback
The Greek Tragedies: Seventeen Plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides
Euripides
Aeschylus
Sophocles
Paperback
Learn Russian with Beginner Stories: Interlinear Russian to English
Van Den End, Kees
Hyplern, Bermuda Word
Gettys, Serafima
Paperback
Obvious Adams -- The Story of a Successful Businessman: New Business Edition
Updegraff, Robert R.
Paperback
The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Writings: Poems, Tales, Essays, and Reviews
Poe, Edgar Allan
Hardcover
Bookin' in the Big House: What I Learned Leading a Women's Prison Book Club
Devoto, Pat Cunningham
Paperback
Japanese Folktales for Language Learners: Bilingual Legends and Fables in Japanese and English (Free Online Audio Recording)
Sato, Anna
Sato, Eriko
Paperback
The Valancourt Book of World Horror Stories, volume 1
Pedraza, Pilar
Fager, Anders
Cubas, Cristina Fernández
Paperback
The Serpent Mound, Adams County, Ohio (Facsimile Reprint)
Randall, Emilius Oviatt
Randall, E. O.
Paperback