Saturday, January 20, 2018

Toska: Like Ennui, but Worse, and Russian

Dostoyevsky talks a lot about the French "ennui" but doesn't touch on the Russian concept of toska. Toska, from what I can tell, is an indescribable pain, encompassing mind, spirit, and body. Vladamir Nobokov, author of Lolita, explains the condition:

"No single word in English renders all the shades of toska. At its deepest and most painful, it is a sensation of great spiritual anguish, often without any specific cause. At less morbid levels it is a dull ache of the soul, a longing with nothing to long for, a sick pining, a vague restlessness, mental throes, yearning. In particular cases it may be the desire for somebody of something specific, nostalgia, love-sickness. At the lowest level it grades into ennui, boredom."

To me, it seems like toska is an reasonable summation of the Underground Man's condition. Specifically, with regards to a "sick pining" and "love-sickness." 

1 comment:

Margot Scott said...

Maybe Dostoevsky doesn't touch on toska because of just that: it seems to be a reasonable summation of The Underground Man's condition (at least in regards to one or two of the aspects you listed at the end). The Underground Man was a fairly mysterious figure as was the author himself. Perhaps he didn't want to "give out" another explanation, another name, for what The Underground Man was going through. I don't think this could have been done out of simplicity's sake, but possibly to maintain some sort of disturbing vagueness about the state of things. OR what if the concept of toska and its meaning just didn't cross Dostoevsky's mind? Dostoevsky sounded kinda crazy; he definitely deliberated over a multitude of things already in that head of his. I don't think he successfully kept up with it all, not enough to explain everything and understandably so.
I do wonder how Dostoevsky would have described toska as opposed to Vladamir Nobokov's description.