The Cross: Where does your interest in Dostoyevsky come from, and particularly in The Brothers Karamazov ?
Marina Poydenot : When I was 19, a friend, Ivan, gave me The Brothers Karamazov. Since then, I have read this text a dozen times because these brothers literally impacted my life. I come back to it as I would return to Gospel texts: I find the same burning consolation there.
I have read most of Dostoyevsky’s books but The Brothers Karamazov is truly his masterpiece. With this novel, I deeply feel how this immense artist is capable of speaking in truth about human darkness. Through the eyes of his young hero Alyosha but also of the starets Zosime, Dostoyevsky looks evil in the face, without concession but without fascination. He looks at it at the root without dwelling on it. In his latest novel, darkness itself streams with light. This is something very rare! I only find this with one other person: Christ, in the Gospels.
What do you mean by the fascination with evil?
M. P. : It is a profoundly human phenomenon to be horrified by evil, and at the same time, if you are honest with yourself, fascinated by it. In a paradoxical way, evil is blinding. He hides, but when he is seen, he darkens the whole picture. It seems to me that Jesus, in the Gospels, has a unique way of looking at what in humans relates precisely to this enigma.
The Bible reveals to us that there is an origin of evil, external to humans but which reaches and passes through them. But Jesus did not spend his time on earth fighting evil! He spent his time healing, teaching, arousing what throbs, intact, in every human heart. Even the demons, he did not exterminate them: he chased them away, pushed them away from the living things they colonized. Pierre knows this by heart. However, in the Garden of Olives, there he draws his sword to cut off the ear of Malchus, servant of the high priest, at the moment when the soldiers seize Christ. So what does Jesus do? Far from being interested in the evil that descends on him, he only pays attention to Malchus’ injured ear and heals him. Wanting to fight evil in the way of Pierre is in reality giving it an enormous place. Fascination with evil is a form of awareness that makes a pact with it.
How does Dostoyevsky give evil its rightful place?
M. P. : In Dostoyevsky and the Biblethe author Simonetta Salvestroni shows how the Gospel of John is implicit in the Karamazovs’ novel. Dostoyevsky’s faith was certainly tormented and challenged but, whatever some say that he did not have faith, he had an undeniable relationship with Christ who not only sustained his life but also fueled his work. In the Gospel of Saint John, in chapter 9, with the episode of the man born blind, Jesus distracts us from the obsession with understanding where evil comes from. He appeals to the inventiveness and mercy of his Father so that the glory of God may be manifested.
Marina Poydenot in 2023. / Isabelle de Rouffignac for La Croix
And it seems to me that The Brothers Karamazovwith their three paths, embody this. They will be led to recognize the temptation to want to eliminate their father, one way or another. And we understand them, because the book opens with the description of an absolutely odious man. And at the same time, thanks to Dostoyevsky’s story, sometimes Fyodor Pavlovich touches us, he makes us laugh. We find a lot of humor in Dostoyevsky, but it is never a laugh that removes such an odious character from our humanity. This is something important to consider in our time where we constantly say that such and such, like pedophiles for example, are monsters, and that we ourselves are never crossed by this monstrosity. It’s so liberating, Dostoyevsky’s way of looking at all these characters in their complexity, even the most odious!
In his Diary of a writerDostoyevsky explains wanting, with The Brothers Karamazovwrite an epic that would tell the rebirth of destroyed beings. This is what inhabits him. We see it in all of his characters. The spiritual heart of this novel is the starets Zosima, the spiritual master of Alyosha (the youngest of three brothers, Editor’s note). The latter will make a journey, go through doubt, because he will see his dear starets die. The latter having the reputation of being a saint, his body should not smell bad. But he smells of corruption, which fills Alyosha with despair. Ultimately, this will access a deeper dimension of the relationship with truth.
What does Alyosha’s disillusionment with his spiritual master teach us?
M. P. : Alyosha has a dream in front of this body which gives off an odor of corruption, in which Zosimas says to him: “I too have lived my whole life knowing that I am guilty. » Meeting a criminal who changed his life, this man’s honesty led Zosimas to change his life himself. It all comes from this: recognizing that we are guilty is a grace from God, which puts us in communion with all other sinners. Division turns into communion! It is the recognition of my own sin that will mean that, deep down, I no longer allow myself to be fascinated by evil. Lucidity about the evil that passes through me is a grace because only mercy can ultimately make me see it in a fair way. In this work, we dare to look at the evil that exists in the world. In this oriental spirituality of Dostoyevsky, which is none other than Christian, we discover a healthy guilt.
As someone who lives in a community, I know that without this lucidity, it is unbearable. It should not be a morbid guilt, but a conscience that I cannot love, in this or that aspect, in my impatience… Yes, I am a sinner, and I can invoke Christ: “Lord Jesus, have mercy on me. » This puts me in my place and allows me to experience this active mercy differently, it opens paths for me.
Beyond evil and suffering, do we see a light in this work?
M. P. : The harm suffered causes suffering, as does the evil committed. In The Brothers KaramazovFyodor gets lost, he is cynical, a pleasure-seeker… He is also aware of being crossed by something that is not fair, that he is lying to himself. But at the same time he has real affection for his son Alyosha, while making fun of him a little. He’s not a monster, it’s too easy to say that. And this is what upsets me, which is disturbing, which questions us precisely in the way in which we would sometimes like to give such importance to evil. This is why this reading nourishes my hope.
Evil is present in the book on multiple levels: several characters are mediocre, there is no illusion about human nature, we also see metaphysical evil with the presence of the devil, and yet all of this is embraced by a breath of transformation and rebirth. Dmitri, the eldest of the three brothers, is transformed into a being of blessing. Ivan, the second son, a moving character, is in denial of the good will of God. He describes a Creation in the manner of newspapers which report murder after murder. But is the world really made up entirely of bad news? I believe that we are still living a lie today, which is the sign of a very deep spiritual battle, a battle that concerns how we decide how to look at life.
Once you have closed The Brothers Karamazovwhat is your hope?
M. P. : In the same way as when I meditate on the Gospel: suddenly, things fall back into place. The weight of evil is enormous, but it is in reality incommensurable with something else at stake, a much deeper goodness of the universe and of our being. Dostoyevsky shows us: the human being is so broad that there are two abysses within him, the capacity to do anything and the capacity to let oneself be transfigured into something very great.
The hope in this book is extraordinary. The last paragraph supported me in very difficult times. Grief was the place of despair for me before I met Christ at 21. Especially when I lost my mother, who died young. A few years later, Béatrice Douvre, a very talented poet and soul sister, died of anorexia. A friend sent me the last sentence of The Karamazovs at that time. In this extract, the children return from the funeral of Ilioucha, this mistreated little boy. A child asks Alyosha: “Is it really true what religion says, that we will all rise from the dead, and we will be resurrected, and we will see each other again, all of us, and Iliushechka? » And Alyosha answers: “We will rise again, and we will see each other again, we will joyfully tell each other what happened.» This phrase has lived with me for thirty years. I know it’s true, it’s the whole Bible!
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Artist and devotee
Born in 1968, Marina Poydenot, poet, musician, theologian and biblical scholar, is consecrated in the Chemin-Neuf community where she entered in 1989.
With a step of flame, his latest collection of poetry, was published in 2020 by Unité editions.
Graduated in biblical exegesis from the Pontifical Biblical Institute, she has been teaching for several years at the Center Sèvres – Faculté Loyola Paris.
This year, until December 12, 2024, she is giving a course there entitled “Looking at evil with Dostoyevsky, biblical motifs in The Brothers Karamazov ».
