Russian novelist Fyodor Mikhailovitch Dostoyevsky was a journalist and short-story writer, whose psychological penetration into the human soul profoundly influenced the 20th century novel. Dostoevsky's novels have much autobiographical elements, but ultimately they deal with moral and philosophical questions. He presented interacting characters with contrasting views or ideas about freedom of choice, Socialism, atheisms, good and evil, happiness and so forth. Dostoevsky's central obsession was G...
Le Rêve d'un homme ridicule
Le Rêve d'un homme ridicule
Synopsis
On the brink of shooting himself, convinced that nothing in the world matters and that all things are equally meaningless, a lonely, disaffected man is interrupted by a frightened little girl begging for help. He turns her away, then falls asleep in his chair and begins to dream.
In the dream he does take his own life, only to awaken on a distant planet, a second Earth untouched by sin, where humankind lives in perfect innocence, love, and joy. But his very presence carries a kind of contagion, and he watches, horrified, as this paradise is corrupted and falls. He wakes transformed, no longer ridiculous in his own eyes but seized by a burning conviction: that people could be happy, that a heaven on earth is possible, and that love is the only truth worth preaching.
One of Dostoevsky's most concentrated and visionary short works, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man is a fantastical philosophical parable about despair, utopia, and moral awakening, presented here in André Markowicz's French translation.
Vibe
Genres
Characters
The Ridiculous ManProtagonist
A despairing man whose dream of a sinless world transforms his view of life.
Places
Edition
Le Rêve d'un homme ridiculeMass Market Paperback, 2002
59 pages
Actes Sud
