6 Comments

I like Dostoevsky, but I do find I like Conrad, Scott, Dumas & Hugo better, I also don't get the humanities, loving Dostoevsky for so long, and Conrad, and Austen but despising the likes of Walter Scott, Alex Dumas and Victor Hugo, maybe because the latter three are imbued with much more humanity and tales of bravery and overcoming the odds.

Expand full comment

I happen to like Dostoyevsky (maybe because i am a depressing person) but Nabokov agrees with you. While he considered Tolstoy the greatest novelist and Anna Karenina the greatest novel, he did not like Dostoyevsky at all. He felt he wasn't much of a writer.

Expand full comment
Jan 19Liked by Michaela McKuen

Great piece. I feel some force of nature or society is coercing me to read The Brother's Karamazov and I'd not a huge fan of fiction. "I don't believe in illusions. 'Cause too much is for real." The Sex Pistols...

Expand full comment

May I suggest The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky..?

Expand full comment
Jan 19Liked by Michaela McKuen

I feel it's my "duty" to read this novel. I don't know why I feel this way. And, gasp, I really don't even like fiction that much.

Expand full comment

By many minds I respect it’s spoken of as one of the best ever written. Had I not encountered some of its ideas in the last couple years, my Christian upbringing would have closed the door on so much of the advancement of my own.

That book changed the way I view family & religion & holding on to faith & love when those first two are under attack is exactly what that book forces you to deal with. A challenge of the heart & spirit. Godspeed.

Expand full comment