Böse Geister

A city in Russia is haunted by evil spirits that create a labyrinth of passion and fear, torment and obsession - a world of delirium from which no one can escape. At its center stands Stavrogin, the one from whom everyone seeks direction. He is a genius disillusioned, who disregards every social and sexual convention, yet experiences the same emptiness with every indulgence. In Stavrogin's vicinity, a revolutionary cell is formed, its members bound together by a murder. Also caught in the swirl of events is an old liberal, the godfather of that revolutionary cell, who defends the beauty of art against the bread of necessity, but stands on a losing front. Like no other book by Dostoevsky, Demons is a novel of voices: an entire city speaks and unfolds its themes.