This is the third in our Heroes series of posts. Our guest author today is Neil Usher, his Twitter bio describes him as part property professional, part performance poet, part parent. What do I think about him? I think Neil is a cutting edge thinker on now and future workplace (he is chairing the afternoon session at Workplace Trends 2011 and participating in Stop Doing Dumb Things 2011), and a great lyricist, for it is he who wrote the words to the chart topping classic tune Human Resource. Take it away Neil:
My hero – Fyodor Dostoevsky.
The ultimate flawed genius who battled through an addiction to gambling, a relentless torment over the existence – or otherwise – of God, a mock execution commuted at the final moment to a stay in a Siberia prison (immortalised in his Memoirs from the House of the Dead), to create some of the most incredible literature of all time including The Brothers Karamazov, The Devils, The Idiot, The Gambler, and Crime and Punishment.
A master of plot, suspense and character, he lived for a time during his most desperate spells of poverty on coffee, writing with pencil stubs by candlelight. He made repeated personal sacrifices in his relentless pursuit of his art, and submitted on many occasions to his own frailty and vulnerability. It was his second wife Anna who rescued him from the eternal cycle of despair into which he could never help falling, and in managing his affairs gave him comparative comfort in his later years.
When he died, his coffin was followed by forty thousand. He has been imitated by many including artists as diverse as Woody Allen whose final scene in Love & Death is comprised of Dostoevsky’s novel titles, and Magazine, whose Song From Under the Floorboards is a lyrical version of the incredible Notes From Underground. The final word – for me – goes to the mischievous cat Behemoth in Bulgakov’s magnificent Master and Margarita who when calling at the Russian ministry of arts and culture announces himself as Dostoevsky. “But Dostoevsky is dead” says the doorman – “I beg to differ” says the cat “Dostoevsky is immortal”.
