What do you guys think of this book and Dostoyevsky's other non-major novels?
all his novels are major novels
major major major major
>>7796374
kek'd
>>7796334
It was a bit different for my tastes, it wasn't really what I expected. I read it alongside poor folk, and I noticed that both were fragments of what he would later become, strong emotions, the sense of life of the times, the pain of loneliness, that was poor folk, the characters in the House of the Dead were varied and interesting, a touch of madness pervaded, and a sense of bleakness and depression.
I really liked the bathhouse scene, where the one guy pays the others to beat him senseless.
>>7796374
hehe
>>7796334
In terms of his medium-length works, House of the Dead is excellent, as are The Double and The Gambler. In fact I rank all three of them above Notes from Underground. I also think Netochka Nezvanovna, The Village of Stepanchikovo, and The Insulted and Injured are worthwhile. Poor Folk is only good for completists (although it does show that Dostoyevsky's heart was with the underpriveleged classes from the start).
For 'non-major novels' meaning full-length but not universally famous (read: C&P and Karamazov), Demons is the most underrated in my view, and The Idiot is also very good. The Adolescent has the least to offer, page-for-page, of anything Dostoyevsky wrote.
Actually my favourite Dostoievski book.
>>7796334
I thought it was ok, I struggled to pick out anything particularly special about it though. I thought it'd be an account of the sheer brutality and complete lack of humanity found in Russian prisons, but it actually seemed like his Siberian gulag was relatively comfy. The guards and other inmates were mostly good people, and he seemed to have lots of techniques for making his imprisonment bearable. Because of that, I'm not really sure what I should take from the book.
