MrCat

At the start of 2016 I said to myself that this year I will finally read some of Dostoevsky's works and in late April I started reading The Idiot. I followed that with The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment, all in about one month. I know I am in minority when I say this but for me Dostoevsky didn't click. First of all, he is a bad/average writer. Tolstoy imo is a much better writer and I am referring here strictly from a literary view (Tolstoy and Nabokov also thought the same thing apparently but Nabokov was a weirdo, especially when it comes to the stuff he told his students so don't take his word for it). Of course one could say that the language barrier is one issue and probably translating a Russian novel in any language makes it lose its charm but this does not happen to good writers like Jane Austen or Virginia Woolf. People usually talk about his "psychological" writing as well but that's really an overstatement. Read any existentialist philosopher and see how easily he can dismiss Dostoevsky's ideas, especially the ones on religion. Some characters are interesting though and the interaction between them is great (he does this especially well in The Brothers Karamazov) but that's not enough to grant him the literary status he now holds. I'd take Tolstoy or Bulgakov any day over Dostoevsky.

I read this a few years ago for a challenge on Goodreads and enjoyed it. I was a bit skeptical at first but when I realized that it was a wanna be victorian gothic novel it was at ease. The writing was good and so was the pacing (two things that are really hard to do imo) and I loved how the author never mentioned the main character's name. Side characters were forgettable but all in all it is a good book.

Good day everyone. I've been lurking the forums for about six months now and today I decided to finally make an account here. I am a 29yo chap, that likes reading, good music and old movies. I am more into classical literature then anything else, so you will most likely find me in the appropriate subforum, though I don't say no to SF or fantasy. I am also working a little on my Russians and modernists. Have a nice day.