Christian Novelists: Jane Austen and Fyodor Dostoevsky

If I were in doubt as to the wisdom of my actions I should not consult Flaubert or Dostoevsky. The opinion of Balzac or Dickens would carry little weight with me: were Stendhal to rebuke me, it would only convince me I had done right: even in the judgment of Tolstoy I should not put complete confidence. But I should worry for weeks and weeks, if I incurred the disapproval of Jane Austen. - Lord David Cecil

I yield to no one in my admiration for Dostoevsky, but I have to admit that the enthusiasm he inspires in Christian circles greatly disturbs me. I love Dostoevsky's merciless exposure of the hypocrisy and viciousness which underly the peace and love rhetoric of our "progressives," but there is very little positive spirituality in him. The greatest critic of irreligion ever, he himself is lacking in the vision of the good, unless, of course, you count his incessant parade of teary eyed hookers.

I tend to divide Christians into Dostoevsky Christians and Jane Austen Christians, with a decided preference for the latter. Austen was a deeply conservative sensibility, who would utterly distain our society's timid acceptance of soft liberal nonsense. (She reminds me of a less abrasive version of Margaret Thatcher.) She clearly, though never ostentatiously, honored the vital role religion plays in making us into decent members of society, and by all accounts she was a very devout, orthodox Christian, a fervent admirer the great Christian critic Samuel Johnson, and a moderate sympathizer with the Evangelical faith of her brother Henry. Proper self regard, perceptiveness towards others, and a constant striving to meet our duties are for her the prime virtues. We have to take care. The good is to be known by good humour and constant effort, not by contrast with a Dostoevskian wallow in the filth. I hesitate to call her a better novelist than Dostoevsky, but she is certainly a wiser one, and in my opinion is perhaps the wisest writer of them all, Shakespeare excepted. I frequently wonder how any authentically moral person could prefer Dostoevsky to her as religious exemplar.

I suspect that many Christians tend to prefer Dostoevsky because he, at times, deals much more specifically with Christian doctrine, and because his stories fit much more directly into the sin and redemption narrative of Evangelical Christianity. Furthermore, because people who take religion seriously are now something of an embattled minority in this country, the great Dostoevskian cry of "Though they drive God from the earth, yet will we shelter him underground" is now of deep comfort. (Note that I'm Canadian; things are perhaps a bit different in the U.S.) Austen's novels, on the other hand, do not easily fit into any redemption narrative, and unlike, say, Charlotte Bronte, whom she clearly influenced, she never brings Christian doctrine into her novels. On the other hand, Austen clearly idolized clergymen, and Edmund Bertram, in particular, from Mansfield Park is something of a neo-Christian fantasy figure, fulfilling the heroine's (and the author's) open wish for a strong, masculine figure to instruct her in her religion. I understand the wish of many Christians for a novelist who brings out more clearly the actual religious content of the faith; surely religion should not just be reduced to "being a good person". Perhaps Austen's religion does partake a little too much of the polite, country club Protestantism that has been all been obliterated in the past 50 years. I am just not sure, however, that holding up the half-crazed fantasias of Dostoevsky as the exemplar of Christian art is really any better. For my money, it is still Austen not Dostoevsky who shows us what we are battling for, or perhaps should be.

NOTE: First Things has an excellent article on Austen as public theologian here. I am one of those who thinks Mansfield Park is her best novel.