White Nights by Fyodor Dostoevsky (Review and Book Summary)

This in fact a short story or novella by the Russian writer. It rotates mainly around two characters and is written in the first person view. The main character of the story does not in fact have a name. He is a person who has spent all his years in solitude. He identifies himself as a dreamer. One who builds up fantasies in his own mind and lives them as if it was the reality. He does not have friends and he considers the regular people at parks and even some houses in his normal walking path to be his acquaintances. So we kind of imagine him to be a somewhat delusional person at the first part of the story.

 

It is then while he is walking that he sees a young girl (who later identifies herself as 17 years old) who seems to be sobbing all by herself. The situation arises such that they get to talking and in the first night of their discussion they reveal a little bit about who they are. The end up their discussion by promising to meet up the next day as well.

 

For the first time the narrator is excited with something real that is happening. All these years he was more amused and mesmerized by what was going on in his own mind. He arrives at the place decided a couple of hours early. And it is on this second night that they understand more and more about who they really are.  They discuss their past and the narrator eventually seem to fall in love with the girl even though in the history of the girl she says that she is waiting on a guy who promised that he would come back and marry her.

 

This in fact is somewhat of a troublesome reality for our protagonist who is pretty used to avoid any of these type of scenarios by just living on a imagined life. A fantasy. But he is smitten all the same and he holds on to her and helps her to communicate with the guy she is in love with.

 

Moving on to the third night, the girl is agitated and stressed that the boy who had promised that would be coming still has not returned. She thanks the companionship of our narrator unknowingly that he is in love with her as well. Meanwhile, our narrator feels as if the girl does indeed know about his feelings. And we realize that he is in fact an unreliable narrator.

 

We will meet him together; I want him to see how fond we are of each other.”

 

“How fond we are of each other!” I cried. (“Oh, Nastenka, Nastenka,” I thought, “how much you have told me in that saying! Such fondness at certain moments makes the heart cold and the soul heavy. Your hand is cold, mine burns like fire. How blind you are, Nastenka! . . . Oh, how unbearable a happy person is sometimes! But I could not be angry with you!”)

 

The girl unknowingly says things that lights up a fire inside our narrator's heart. But our narrator now begins to somehow unveil his innermost feelings about her and the girl knowingly just pushes it away saying:

“Do you know,” she began, “I feel a little vexed that you are not in love with me?"

 

The time passes and the guy seemed not to come and the girl seems to be more agitated and our narrator consoles her. After some time she seems to have understood the intentions of our narrator and maybe even unknowingly, stressfully she compares the two guys.

 

"Tell me, how is it that we can’t all be like brothers together? Why is it that even the best of men always seem to hide something from other people and to keep something back? Why not say straight out what is in one’s heart, when one knows that one is not speaking idly? As it is every one seems harsher than he really is, as though all were afraid of doing injustice to their feelings, by being too quick to express them.”

 

They finally conclude that the guy wasn't going to come today. The girl promises to meet the day after and to tell him everything. For the girl believes the guy would come or maybe even send a letter via our narrator.

 

And then moving on to the fourth night. He hasn't come. And he hasn’t even left a letter. The girl's dreams come crashing down. And to cut the long story short the girl in her confused state says that she can make up her mind to not love him anymore.

 

And in the climax of the story, our narrator confesses his love for her. It is not news to neither the readers or Nastenka. But she had allocated to some sort of brotherly, friendly love.

 

In her great distress she turns her bottled up love for the guy and converts into hate. She now hates him. For giving her hope and promise and not adhering to them. No she doesn't hate him yet. But she says that she is thankful for our narrator's presence that had soothed her while he only brought sadness and misery.

 

They put all the past behind and we the readers are sent into a wild trance thinking 'Well. This is going to end well'

 

And then the world comes crashing. The young man comes.

 

My God, a whole moment of happiness! Is that too little for the whole of a man’s life?

This is how Dostoyevsky chose to end his short story.

 

What is actually amazing in this story is the style of writing. I particularly enjoyed the Second Night where he was pouring his heart out to this unknown woman whom he had met only yesterday in hopes that she might understand. The fantasies in his mind and how he perceives the surroundings and the internal monologue of his life. It is how he portrays the characters and leaves the spaces in between conversation that allows the reader to absorb it all in. To put ourselves into the situation. There is no character that we can't understand. We understand the desperation of our narrator as well as the agony of Nastenka as well.

 

It is indeed a great book to introduce someone to Dostoevsky.