The day before yesterday, I was in a library which I had never visited before but luckily I was with my friend and that’s when I asked her if there were any books by Fyodor there to which she started laughing and said “if you want to make a reel about reading that stuff then go ahead” and I was a bit confused by this because there were only two of his books I had read. And after a while I asked her to elaborate on what she meant by that and she told me that only the people who want to look “quirky” read Dostoyevsky and he’s actually overrated.
Is she correct ? Because honestly, I loved both the books I had read by him ( crime and punishment, notes from underground)
Need your opinions please! :3
by CuteCoach9362
32 Comments
No. Nothing is “actually overrated”. Rating is subjective.
In no way is the man overrated. She’s just mad daddy Fyodor will body somebody like Sylvia Plath or something.
No, Dostoevsky is not overrated. Your friend is a crank.
No, not overrated at all
He’s not overrated. But people that want to do reels and look quirky do read him. Both are true at the same time
I don’t think, based on the vast library of critical discussions both for and against the man’s works and the fact they still invite study to this day, it’s possible to say he’s overrated.
I downvoted your post so it wouldn’t be overrated.
Depends who you compare him to.
I think your friend just isn’t like the other girls, she’s *different*
No, your friend wants you to think that she is someone who thinks people that read great literature are quirky thereby causing you to believe she is smarter than she probably is.
You’ve read two of his books already and loved them. Why does your friend’s opinion even matter? She’s never even read Dostoevsky. When you asked her to elaborate, all she could do was mock people who read him. It seems like the only knowledge she has of Dostoevsky is via Instagram reels. That should answer your question pretty clearly.
You would probably love Brothers Karamazov btw.
Pretentious maybe but “quirky” is not how id refer to Dostoyevsky readers.
This person is so stupid and uneducated I doubt this was even a real interaction
I personally think in regards of Russian literature it is better writers of that time than Dostoevsky.
I do read in Russian and I couldn’t stand his writing style.
Also he was very religious, antisemite, gambler, had extramarital affairs…
“Compared to Tolstoy’s rich and flamboyant prose, some of Dostoevsky’s works really do look weak stylistically. Sometimes his novels even contained sloppy mistakes. For instance, in Crime and Punishment he once mentioned “a round table of oval shape.
I do not like this trick his characters have of ‘sinning their way to Jesus’ or, as the Russian author Ivan Bunin put it more bluntly, ‘spilling Jesus all over the place,”” Nabokov wrote”
https://www.rbth.com/arts/328963-russia-dostoevsky-hate/amp
Dostoyevsky, especially in notes from the underground, offers what can be a very relatable image how it feels to be unsatisfied, bored, self-loathing, and angry for no real reason.
One chapter is him working up the courage to stand up for himself and not step aside from a bigger dude in the street.
Another is him inviting himself to his rival’s farewell party and making a complete ass of himself. He doesn’t really even want to go in the first place, yet he goes and stays out of stubbornness and spite.
It can be a fascinating read, sometimes pathetic, sometimes funny, sometimes disgusting, sometimes all too human.
> she told me that only the people who want to look “quirky” read Dostoevsky
It’s only deeply insecure people that make dumb proclamations like this. They’re unable to relate to any piece of art outside of the context of its impact on how they’re perceived or how they perceive others. All optics and perpetual self-regard, and the art itself is only useful to them in that capacity.
Nabokov is famously negative on him.
“My position in regard to Dostoyevsky is a curious and difficult one. In all my courses I approach literature from the only point of view that literature interests me – namely the point of view of enduring art and individual genius. From this point of view Dostoyevsky is not a great writer, but a rather mediocre one – with flashes of excellent humor, but, alas, with wastelands of literary platitudes in between. In ”Crime and Punishment” Raskolnikov for some reason or other kills an old female pawnbroker and her sister. Justice in the shape of an inexorable police officer closes slowly in on him until in the end he is driven to a public confession, and through the love of a noble prostitute he is brought to a spiritual regeneration that did not seem as incredibly banal in 1866 when the book was written as it does now when noble prostitutes are apt to be received a little cynically by experienced readers. My difficulty, however, is that not all the readers to whom I talk in this or other classes are experienced. A good third, I should say, do not know the difference between real literature and pseudoliterature, and to such readers Dostoyevsky may seem more important and more artistic than such trash as our American historical novels or things called ”From Here to Eternity” and suchlike balderdash.”
>only the people who want to look “quirky” read Dostoyevsky
– People who want to look quirky
I would say yes and no. In some respects no one has ever done better. I don’t know if any author has ever been more successful, for example, at coming up with an apparently endless succession of completely convincing and absolutely unique characters.
But to me, his deep christian faith hindered his ability to see what was really going on. And so the problems he worked on and the conclusions he came to don’t hold up. His conclusions, I think, were pre-ordained by his faith. And so he really has nothing to teach us. No what you might call wisdom to impart.
I would say so, crime and punishment has this reputation, especially on tiktok, of being the book that makes you a brooding intellectual or whatever, but that’s not how books work
So yes people online overrate dostoyevsky
The whole thing of worshipping authors, placing them as Book Gods is pointless and harmful. You can enjoy Dostoyevskiy, and I hope you do, but it really doesn’t matter if he is or is not overrated.
He is overrated. In a way that if you don’t read him, you are considered as some kind of a book “normie” by plenty of people.
Lol is this a real story?
he isn t overrated. i d say he is underrated. he describes human behaviour amazing and it s avery interesting read. your friends seems…shallow or is a kid
Anyone who assigns a general label like ‘overrated’ doesn’t offer much value. I think some translations are more concise than others, and there’s a certain writing style that people need to be aware of when reading works from the time/place. There are also a lot of nuances to the Russian language that simply aren’t the easiest to translate to western languages. His work provides a lot of fascinating insight, and I highly recommend it. Some might not agree with me, but a label like ‘overrated’ is useless.
Lol. Dostoyevsky was a genius.
I wouldnt say overrated, BUT, there are other russian authors from the same era that are overlooked and just as good as and less cumbersome to read.
Babel, Chekov, Bunin. amongst others.
Dostoevsky is certainly not quirky, nor for the quirky type. No, I’m reading Crime And Punishment currently. It is absolutely astonishing. So much going on, so thought provoking and such brilliant writing. One of the very best books I’ve read and it’s been on my shelf for 15 years.
Not at all, but maybe BookTok has given him a bad rap somewhere down the line?
Nah. She’s just at that life stage where she thinks that putting down literary greats somehow makes her look cooler and smarter.
I once was bagging Machiavelli and got called out by someone much older and wiser. Never did it again.
I wish I could smack your non quirky friend with a Dostoevsky book preferably “The brothers karamazov”.
Not overrated, no. But I found that The Brothers Karamazov was by far his best work; so if you wanted to start there, you could see if you like his style enough to try some of his other stuff. I confess I struggled a bit with The Idiot.
Are you stupid or something?