The Little Demon

The Little Demon is an engrossing tale of rage, desperate affection, and subtle opportunism in a small Russian provincial town shortly after the turn of the 20th century. It narrates the story of Peredonov, the antihero, a petty official who lives in constant hate for the world around him and life itself. Throughout the novel, Peredonov struggles to be promoted to governmental inspector of his province and starts going paranoid and hallucinating. The main hero, Peredonov, is as comical as he is disgusting. He is at once a victim, a monster, a foolish hypocrite, and a vicious nitwit. The plot moves from him to the hopeless romance of the boy Sasha Pylnikov and a much older woman Ludmila Rutilova. Fyodor Sologub's The Little Demon is one of the most humorous and the most scandalous of the great Russian classics, packed with nude boys, curvy girls, and a strange mixture of beauty and perversity. Even in its censored form, it is considered one of the most infuriating and sexually open of the Russian books classics.