Buddy Glass

Anyone read Dostoevsky and if so, what do you think of him?

Athlynne

I read "The Brothers Karamazov" recently. I liked it a lot. It's funny...there would be a few pages that would make me want beat my head against something (characters struck me as slightly bipolar), then a single sentence or paragraph would just amaze me. I'm so glad I stuck with it, it was quite an engrossing story.

I recommend that one, though I can't speak for any other Dostoevsky works.

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Buddy Glass

The Brothers Karamazov is, in my opinion, his greatest work. It's so broad in scope, so open-minded and brilliant in its depiction of life and life's great question. The Grand Inquisitor? Genius....

SteMcGrath

I'm just going through Crime and Punishment at the moment. He's a very intense writer who demands a lot of your energy when reading. I'll comment more when I've finished it.

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Crime and Punishment put me through some serious punishment. I was really sucked into that mindset while reading it. I was feeling feverish when Raskolnyikov got feverish and so on......it was very powerful. But can't say it made me too happy either. Nevertheless a must read.

His books are all pretty heavy duty, and not for just casual reading, as Ste said a lot of energy is required.

Arin

I also read Crime and Punishment, which was an intense read, but I feel like some of the long, rambling parts could be pared down and still maintain the intensity of the novel. There were some excellent character interactions,particularly between Porfiry and Raskolnikov, but I had no sympathy for Raskolnikov, making the book difficult. Despite the ending, he was still just an arrogant axe murderer. He called himself a victim of his surroundings, when others managed to live in the same conditions he did without developing superiority complexes and viciously killing people. Despite this, Dostoyevsky was clearly a brilliant writer whose skill with words comes across even through translation.

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Mr Sci Fi

"The Brothers Karamazov" is currently collecting dust on the bottom of my bookshelf. It looks to be an intimidating read, but I'm going to have a go at it one day.

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mprosa

The idiot is a great book. If you like Dostoevsky, you should read it. It is so powerful, and you are bound to identify yourself with one of the characters. Not the main character though, he is kind of like Christ. This is not my opinion, I think he was actually written to remind you of Him.

"Don’t let us forget that the causes of human actions are usually immeasurably more complex and varied than our subsequent explanations of them."

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Malone

Love him.

I like Notes from the Underground the best, but I haven't read Brothers or Idiot yet. I'll check them out based on you guys good reviews.

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shraga

I really enjoyed crime and punishment, it was an amazing journey into the human psyche.
Although I always find it hard to believe that the human conscience is that overpowering. In my opinion once you get away with murder why turn yourself in?

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Rogozhin

The Idiot is a good read.

Yeah, in order to understand the Russian existentialist, you have to understand their form of cultural trade. Most, if not all of their literature was delivered to them via a private French or German tutor, meaning that, the intellectual Russian writer was knee deep in moody, dramatic, soap opera style prose for most of the first part of his life. By the end of his education, he’d practically be insane. Dostoevsky obviously thought this idea was horse shit - so he wrote one fucking book about it, and they sent him to prison for nearly 6 years. This was the time of the emancipation of the peasent class.

After being sent to Siberia for simply trying to make the peasent seem important, and facing a prank firing squad, Dostoevsky shat himself and gave up.

So you’ve also to realize that he was writing in order to conform to a realist viewpoint, within the structure of a genera, and he used that style to serve his antithesis. This makes him funny, and pretty motherfucking terrifying.

He's my favorite dude in the world.

RainyDayNinja

I really liked both "The Brothers Karamazov" and "Crime and Punishment," but for some reason, I couldn't really get into "The Possessed." Maybe it was because I was starting college and got really busy, but it just didn't catch my attention.

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sumthingnice

Dostoevsky is my favorite author. He took the study of the human consciousness to a whole new level.

Crime and Punishment was the first book I read by him and I read it fairly half-heartedly. I read it again, paying more attention to the characters and details. I liked it, but not his best.

I then read The Brothers Karamazov. To call it godly is an understatement. I think it's one of the best books ever written. The Grand Inquisitor is perhaps the best chapter in world literature. A highly recommended read if you haven't already.

I also read the Idiot. This book I had mixed feelings about. Some parts were great and others were not so great. There were times when Dostoevsky added a subplot because he didn't really know how to end the novel. It's a good read, though, but I would recommend reading his other novels first.

seigfried007

I read the Brothers back in high school--my copy's currently falling apart.

I loved the characters and political soap opera of it--that great nose-thumbing. I wanted to smack Mitya, but I could sympathize with him. I'm having a hard time remembering the Grand Inquisitor right now.

Moslty, what I came away with was the so-typical human foibles of the characters--many of which would not have been so sympathetic or understandable in the hands of another author.

I htink it could have been pared down a tad, but all in all, was excellent if heavy reading.

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