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The Possessed

By: Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Constance Garnett - translator
Narrated by: Constantine Gregory
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Publisher's Summary

Also known as Demons, The Possessed is a powerful socio-political novel about revolutionary ideas and the radicals behind them. It follows the career of Pyotr Stepanovich Verkhovensky, a political terrorist who leads a group of nihilists on a demonic quest for societal breakdown. They are consumed by their desires and ideals, and have surrendered themselves fully to the darkness of their "demons". This possession leads them to engulf a quiet provincial town and subject it to a storm of violence. Inspired by a real political killing in 1869, the book is an impassioned response to the ideologies of European liberalism and nihilism, which threatened Russian Orthodoxy; it eerily predicted the Russian Revolution, which would take place 50 years later. Funny, shocking, and tragic, it is a profound and affecting work with deep philosophical discourses about God, human freedom and political revolution.

Translation by Constance Garnett; appendix translated by S. S. Koteliansky and Virginia Woolf.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

Public Domain (P)2017 Naxos AudioBooks

What listeners say about The Possessed

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Takes a while to get into but worth it

The story gets off to a slow start, but interest and tension quickly build. Scarily relevant today. I gave up before the end of the appendix however. I think the original editor was right to cut out those two additional chapters

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Gets better and better

This may not be the instant hit that Crime and Punishment or The Idiot are, but as the characters are introduced the story gets more and more intriguing.
Once again, Constantine Gregory makes it come alive. A book I have been putting off for years, now I want to listen to it all over again.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Ticks all the boxes

I really enjoyed both the story and Constantine Gregory’s reading. Gregory made it much easier to keep track of the many characters through his different voices and the timbre and tone of his voice are pleasant to listen to.

The story is very interesting and the inclusion of the controversial chapters was appreciated, although it would have been better if they were in the correct part in the story rather than at the end.

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