De-sexualizing the Underground Man, Tolstoy’s Dangerous Music, and Literary Rivalry

This chapter examines two initiating moments in the history of literary scandals and rivalry, as well as the idea of neural diversity—Dostoevsky’s epilepsy and Tolstoy’s manic-depression. After Dostoevsky’s death Tolstoy was compelled to incorporate Dostoevsky’s narrative “pitch,” as James Joyce called it, into his The Kreutzer Sonata (1889) in an effort to surpass Notes from Underground (1864). The chapter describes the way that emotional pitches are carried through contagion from one text to another. For Tolstoy Dostoevsky’s work spurred a negative creativity, an attempt to empty out his rival’s disturbances and to stabilize Christian faith by damning the body and sexuality.