Christmas in The House of the Dead (Dostoevsky)
Christmas has come around again this year.
The streets are filled with the glow of illuminations, and it is a wonderful time of year when the expressions of passersby become bright and cheerful.
I imagine there are many couples whispering things like, "All I want for Christmas is you," just like in the Mariah Carey song. How delightful.
Since it is a special occasion, I would like to introduce a wonderful novel that is perfect for Christmas.
It is "The House of the Dead" by Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky. Dostoevsky was sentenced to death as a political prisoner, later pardoned, and sent to exile in Siberia. He was thrown into prison as a convict. After finishing his approximately five-year sentence, he wrote a work based on this harrowing experience. That is "The House of the Dead".
When it comes to Dostoevsky's works, "The Brothers Karamazov" and "Crime and Punishment" are famous, but I also consider "The House of the Dead" to be a masterpiece. I am not an expert on things like literary value, so I don't really know about that, but it is simply interesting.
Changing the subject, are you familiar with the "torture of just digging holes and filling them back in"?
It seems this was actually practiced in the former Soviet Union, and from what I hear, it is a form of torture intended to drive someone to the brink, both physically and mentally, by forcing them to perform endless, useless, and meaningless labor.
A similar story appears in "The House of the Dead".
The work that prisoners do—making bricks, digging earth, plastering, building—has a proper meaning and purpose. That is why, at times, prisoners even take an interest in their work, trying to finish it skillfully, quickly, and well. But if you were to make the same prisoner, for example, move water from one tub to another and then back again, or just pound sand with a hammer, or "move a pile of dirt from one place to another and then back again", the prisoner would surely despair of life within a few days and hang himself, or else, in order to escape such humiliation, shame, and suffering, he would become desperate and commit crimes, not caring if he died for it.
The concept of "bullshit jobs" has been proposed for some time now, but in 19th-century Imperial Russia, useless labor was not just bullshit; it was torture.
As long as people believe that the suffering they are experiencing now will eventually be useful for something or rewarded in some way, they can keep looking forward. But when they can no longer find any meaning or significance in the pain that befalls them, they might break quite easily.
Dostoevsky's specialty is capturing the fundamental parts of the hope and despair that people harbor. In addition, "The House of the Dead" has a terrifyingly vivid depiction of prison life and has the appeal of a documentary. Even though it is a novel, not an essay.
The paperback is quite thick, so it might seem like a high hurdle to read, but once you start reading, you are drawn right in. And, this is the main point, the Christmas scene in this work is truly wonderful.
The days of great festivals are clearly etched into the memories of common people from a very young age. This is because they are days to rest from hard work and days for families to gather. In prison, it was only natural that such memories would be accompanied by a painful and heartbreaking feeling. The feeling of cherishing a festive day became a kind of etiquette among the prisoners; there were not many who were boisterous, everyone had a serious look on their faces, and many of them acted as if they had something to do, even though they had almost no business at all. Even the idle loafers were trying their best to maintain a sense of dignity...
Most of the prisoners are poor peasant criminals, a collection of outlaws. They do not have good backgrounds or upbringings. Insults and fights are an everyday occurrence. Yet, even these ruffians try to behave themselves on Christmas Day. They stop fighting and are considerate of each other so as not to ruin the happy holiday. The most serene and beautiful time in "The House of the Dead" flows on this Christmas day.
This state of mind among the prisoners was remarkable, and I even felt moved. In addition to an innate reverence for the great holiday, the prisoners felt unconsciously that by celebrating this festival, they were, so to speak, in touch with all the people in the world. This meant that they were not completely abandoned and ruined people, not just a discarded piece of bread, and that even if they were in prison, they were the same as those in the outside world.
Even the prison cells, where shouting, mockery, and fighting are constant, become quiet on Christmas Day, and everyone behaves politely. The prisoners even exchange Christmas greetings, and the usual bleak atmosphere vanishes entirely; the reader clearly understands through the narrator that everyone in the prison cherishes this holiday.
By the way, the protagonist, Goryanchikov, is a nobleman and a landowner. In other words, he belongs to the class that the peasant prisoners consider their "masters" or "lords," and he is treated coldly by most of them. After all, landowners are the ones who exploit them. Naturally, he is bullied.
There are some eccentric, helpful types who offer advice and support, but generally, he is met with malice and hatred from everyone. It is disheartening.
The author, Dostoevsky, was also the son of a landowner, so he must have had similar experiences. As an aside, I have had a similar experience. My first job was in a place where many people were high school or vocational school graduates, and as a university graduate, I was sometimes told things like, "Your parents paid for your expensive tuition, so you must have just played around the whole time."
I was even told, "At the same age you were sponging off your parents and playing around at university, I was supporting two children and a wife." I had no comeback to that.
Even if such words were not spoken directly, there was often an attitude that clearly showed, "You're one of those people, you're different from us" (perhaps I was being self-conscious), and I could not help but realize I was being shunned. Or perhaps it was I who did not open my heart. I cannot deny the possibility that an arrogance of looking down on others was unconsciously seeping into my words and attitude.
Returning to the story, the protagonist, Goryanchikov, is isolated because of his noble background. His friendships (if you can call them that) in prison were almost non-existent at first. However, on the morning of Christmas, a prisoner approaches him.
Right near the kitchen, a prisoner from the military cell, wearing a long fur coat draped over his shoulders, caught up with me. He had spotted me from the middle of the courtyard and called out, "Mr. Goryanchikov! Mr. Goryanchikov!" (omitted) He was a young man with a round face and gentle eyes, extremely quiet with everyone; I had never spoken a word to him, and I did not recall him showing any interest in me since I entered the prison. I did not even know this young man's name.
"Did you want something?"
I asked, somewhat surprised, as the person standing before me just stared at me with wide eyes and a smile, not opening his mouth at all.
"No, nothing, it's just that Christmas..." he muttered, but realizing there was nothing more to say, he abandoned me and walked off toward the kitchen.
I might add that after this, until the moment I left the prison, I never encountered this young man again, and we barely spoke another word to each other.
I love this scene. It is a very modest episode where, on a special day like Christmas, a prisoner I had never spoken to before calls out to me, and in the end, it just ends there without further conversation. Perhaps it is these small events that we end up remembering later in life.
Dostoevsky's literature is very dark. However, perhaps it is precisely because it is dark that the fragments of memories shining like small lights in the darkness appear so gentle and irreplaceable.
Christmas illuminations shine precisely because they are in the dark night. Even if one walks through the valley of the shadow of death, there will surely be stars shining in the sky above the valley. There are things that shine precisely because it is dark. I think Dostoevsky's literature teaches us that.
"The House of the Dead" is highly recommended. Please do try reading it this Christmas.