Why read Dostoevsky? A programmer's perspective
Having read about 1 to 2&#x2F;3rds through most of Dostoyevsky&#x27;s books: I really believe they&#x27;re over-hyped.<p>Same with Pushkin, Tolstoy, Bulgakov, and so on -- with the only exception of Solzhenitsyn.<p>I think the difference is I&#x27;m Slavic, speak a few of the languages, and come from the cultures that succeeded those authors; so they read mostly as sentimental, overly-emotional, and superstitious, i.e. what I feel are the worst parts of the mythologized &quot;Russian soul.&quot; Their works don&#x27;t feel new, novel, and original: I&#x27;ve seen parts and pieces of it, reflections of its essence, expressed all over the average Slavic person.<p>&gt; Dostoevsky&#x27;s genius lies in his deep understanding of human nature and of spelling out truths about it in ways that inspire reflection.<p>If you resonate with this statement, perhaps you should also watch Tarkovsky&#x27;s <i>The Mirror.</i><p>But for me, the only truth Dostoyevsky has shown me is that people are very flawed, are the source of all of their own problems, and that Fyodor was a deeply emotional person. But I am not, and I find his expression of those emotions to be grating.<p>I resonate more with the quotes in the Wikipedia article for <i>Idyot</i>:<p>&gt; However the chief criticism, among both reviewers and general readers, was in the &quot;fantasticality&quot; of the characters. The radical critic D.I. Minaev wrote: &quot;People meet, fall in love, slap each other&#x27;s face—and all at the author&#x27;s first whim, without any artistic truth.&quot; V.P. Burenin, a liberal, described the novel&#x27;s presentation of the younger generation as &quot;the purest fruit of the writer&#x27;s subjective fancy&quot; and the novel as a whole as &quot;a belletristic compilation, concocted from a multitude of absurd personages and events, without any concern for any kind of artistic objectivity.&quot;<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;The_Idiot#Reception" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;The_Idiot#Reception</a>