On Mr D and Chapter 7.

My latest foray into the Form 4A school prize is Dostoevsky’s The Little Hero.

I’ve decided I’m not much of a fan of Dostoevsky. I find his prose style turgid and tortuous by and large, and tend to accord with those critics who say that he is too concerned with philosophy and psychology. The occasional psychological insight is laudable, but page after page of nothing but psychological insight grows a little tedious. I remember reading Crime and Punishment when I was very young (in my early twenties as I recall) purely out of a sense of duty to acquaint myself with the classics. I remember gritting my teeth through the first eighty percent of the novel, and only finding some enjoyment during the last twenty when matters were coming to a head and we were finally getting somewhere.

And I think I should add that this opinion in no way reflects upon Dostoevsky’s nationality. I greatly enjoyed Chekhov’s The Kiss, which also contained quite a lot of psychological insights but which was balanced by some finely tuned lyrical observation.

When I grew tired of Mr D, I turned my attention to my own novella The Gift Horse again and read chapter 7. A friend of mine read The Gift Horse once, and suggested most firmly that chapter 7 should be ripped out and thrown away. I begged to differ; chapter 7 is a natural and necessary bridge in the plot to cover the return home after the startling revelations discovered during the trip to Donegal. But I must admit to cringing quite a lot on re-reading it after fifteen years away and feeling desperate to make some much needed edits. Too late now, of course, but if anybody should ever read The Gift Horse, please don’t judge me on the basis of chapter 7. Just get through it and move on. I have.