The Devils: (The Possessed) (Classics) - Tapa blanda

In The Devils Dostoyevsky created a chilling and prophetic story of revolutionaries and nihilists plotting the overthrow of the Russian government and the downfall of the Russian church. It focuses on the complex and tormented character of Stavrogin, a desperate man whose loss of faith makes him dangerous. Believing he is beyond guilt and remorse, he commits terrible crimes, infects others with ideas he does not believe in and accepts love he does not deserve. Yet Stavrogin is only one of a small band of rebels whose hunger for a more democratic, Western system threatens the fabric of Russian society, and The Devils is a brilliant psychological analysis of a group of people possessed by a destructive passion for revolution.

'Devils' ('Besy'), also known in English as 'The Possessed' and 'The Demons' is the third of Dostoevsky's five major novels. It is at once a powerful political tract and a profound study of atheism, depicting the disarray which follows the appearance of a band of modish radicals in a small provincial town. Dostoevsky compares the radicals to the devils that drove the Gadarene swine over the precipice in his vision of a society possessed by demonic creatures that produce devastating delusions of rationality. The novel is full of buffoonery and grotesque comedy. The plot is loosely based on the details of a notorious case of political murder, but Dostoevsky weaves suicide, rape, and a multiplicity of scandals into a compelling story of political evil.