by Anonymous<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What If the Real Demons<\/em> Were the Friends We Made Along the Way?<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the month since I finished reading Fyodor Dostoyevsky\u2019s Demons<\/em> and set it on my end table (next to my tasteful yet practical reclining reading chair), the novel\u2019s content and presence has haunted my mind. The cream-coloured \u2018Penguin Classics\u2019 paperback (1987, David Magarshack trans.) seemed to emanate sheer significance<\/em> and meaning<\/em> across my living room. Moving back to my computer to browse \/lit\/, hoping for a way to express the significance I had just experienced, I encountered people asking if Joyce\u2019s biographer\u2019s daughter\u2019s 1000-page shitpost is any good, people trying to sell me baby shoes, Uncle Ted posting. The usual shit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I scrolled through Twitter screenshot threads and wallowed in the senseless and degenerate happenings in modern America (yes, we\u2019re all degenerate faggots. And I\u2019m tired of pretending we\u2019re not). So many things brought me back to Demons.<\/em> It seemed that every event had a parallel in Dosto\u2019s third masterpiece. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Not to mention all of the people in my personal life who seemed to show up in the novel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Take our earliest female protagonist, one Varvara Stavrogin. She reminds me of my Aunt Elinor (who herself admits to having modeled her lifestyle, appearance, and voice on those of Nancy Pelosi). She\u2019s wealthy, strong-willed, and prideful. And she has come under the false impression that she\u2019s capable of handling serious thoughts in a meaningful manner without the agency of men.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Or how about Pyotr Verkhovensky? He reminds me of this lad I went to school with who was an \u2018idea man,\u2019 yet who always had to get those around him to do the dirty work, apparently not recognizing that he was a transparent, manipulative fuck with no charisma\u2014that guy\u2019s name was Rick and he now unironically works in the Prime Minister\u2019s Office. <\/p>\n\n\n\n (Sidenote regarding this character: I recently watched the 2014 miniseries version of Demons<\/em> directed by Vladimir Khotinenko without subtitles. Haley Joel Osment\u2019s turn as Verkhovensky was Golden Globe-worthy). <\/p>\n\n\n\n Then there is Ivan Shatov, the proto-cuck who\u2019s actually a pretty cool guy. I don\u2019t know anyone of that description in real life, but I wish I did. In every man who\u2019s humiliated himself or abandoned a noble cause just to get a piece of pussy, there\u2019s a bit of Ivan Shatov. For this reason alone, he deserves what he got.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kirillov, whose doppelganger I met in high school (a fella by the name of Jake), is the real hero of the story, if I may say so. We all know practical people. We all know thoughtful people. We all know helpful people. We all know suicidal people\u2026 but all four at the same time? This guy is the total package, even if it wasn\u2019t all realized<\/em> by the end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And then there is our hero, Stepan\u2014the mildly out-of-date, cringe-inducing, disgusted, frantic, delusional, and ultimately faithful fellow who reminds us all why there isn\u2019t a more loathsome creature in the twenty-first century than a Boomer. He\u2019s cultured, bilingual, and a neurotic mess\u2014cut from the same cloth as modern-day heroes such as Slavoj Zizek or Rudy Giuliani. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But the character from the novel I encounter most often\u2014the one whose presence truly haunts or possesses<\/em> the modern landscape more than any other; whose loathsomeness, repugnance, and degeneracy is beyond anything one might encounter in the twenty-first century (outside of the Folsom Street Fair, an Amber Rose Slutwalk, or a Drag Queen Story Hour)\u2014is none other than Nikolai Stavrogin himself. I\u2019ve known many dangerous men, many perverted men, many hungry, desperate, and soulless men. But they do not hold a candle to Stavrogin. I don\u2019t see him in them, I see him in myself. Every day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Did Dorian Gray ever smash a mirror, or was it just his portrait? Did Dick Diver deserve to get his ass kicked? Did Raphael Tisserand \u2018die with his boots on\u2019? Was Kirillov murdered, or did he suicide? Do \/lit\/posters hate themselves or just what they do? And, at the end of the day, does what we do determine who we are?<\/p>\n\n\n\n More than outward actions, which are obscured by the potential to seek an audience\u2019s approval, our inner thoughts and beliefs\u2014our demons<\/em>, as it were\u2014make up the substance of our existences. Therefore, the demons are our friends. And we\u2019re all swine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Anonymous What If the Real Demons Were the Friends We Made Along the Way? In the month since I finished reading Fyodor Dostoyevsky\u2019s Demons and set it on my end table (next to my tasteful yet practical reclining reading chair), the novel\u2019s content and presence has haunted my mind. The cream-coloured \u2018Penguin Classics\u2019 paperback … [DO NOT CLICK]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,8,12],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"entry","1":"post","2":"publish","3":"author-anonymous","4":"post-732","6":"format-standard","7":"category-15","8":"category-nonfiction","9":"category-opinion"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lampbylit.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lampbylit.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lampbylit.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lampbylit.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lampbylit.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=732"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lampbylit.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":733,"href":"https:\/\/lampbylit.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732\/revisions\/733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lampbylit.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lampbylit.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lampbylit.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}