William Leatherbarrow makes the intriguing suggestion that Dostoevsky’s “non-Euclidian” response to the Inan’s Grand Inquisitor poem in the “Russian Monk” is part of “Dostoevsky’s professed desire to show his readers the way to the Church is shipwrecked on the inadequacy of the realistic novel as a vehicle for religious or moral persuasion. The strength of this genre lies in the subjecting of experience to analysis. The affirmation of faith and the presentation of the ideal require something quite different: the synthesis afforded by the poetic image.” The Russian Monk is thus an “artistic picture.”
In response to Ivan, Dostoevsky gives us not a competing argument, nor even a competing narrative, but an icon.
Dear Reader,
Can I be direct with you?
War abroad. Socialists on the rise. AI upending human life. Endless uproar online. The modern attention economy doesn’t want readers — it wants users enslaved to the tyranny of the present.
First Things is the antidote: literary excellence, timeless truths, and a fixed point of reference in a culture that has lost its bearings.
But we can’t do it without readers like you.
Our goal: Raise $150,000 by November 1 to sustain First Things in the year ahead.
Your gift anchors readers in the permanent things.
Make your Fall Campaign gift now using the button below.
If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact Giovanni Del Piero, Director of the Editor’s Circle, at gdelpiero@firstthings.com or 212-627-1985.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
The Church in the Age of Therapy
In 1966, Philip Rieff wrote in The Triumph of the Therapeutic that “Religious man was born to…
Canada’s Deadliest Blind Spot
On September 20, the Daily Mail ran a story with the provocative headline, “Our 83-year-old Christian grandmother…
The Faithful Joy of Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen
Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen seem to have had little in common. She favored rhinestones; he wore…
