I think that in general some artists are this way and that makes what they produce different from anyone else. Jonathan Blow for example is snobby and hates a lot of stuff, but his intense and specific ideas about the way games should be has led to some very interesting and thoughtful work

I read Crime and Punishment as a teenager and I enjoyed it quite a bit. Raskolnikov’s misadventures are not ‘fun’ but as a psychological exploration of guilt (or lack thereof), it was very interesting.

I like Notes from the Underground and his other short stories (like the Double) even more.

Not by a long shot. War and peace is the classic long read, but outside of Russian literature you also get authors like Victor Hugo and Les Miserables.

Also, depending on your tastes, Charlotte Bronte and other similar period writers were equally bland or significant.

i disagree. i'm reading the brothers karamazov right now and i find it so entertaining. such rich drama and conflict.

Of course. But it’s worth recognizing that you like a translation of D, not his original works.

Dostoevsky is funny, but his humour is very subtle and can be easily lost in translation. And being funny and dark are not mutually exclusive things, there is a whole genre of tragicomedies, after all

All the “Amazon classics” have audible included which can make it go quickly. The dinner table conversation with a host which had consumption was quite amusing. Agree on darkness.

Something wrong with the way Dostoyevsky wrote them, according to someone who died in 1977.

I had to look up what "soulful" even means because I see it used so infrequently: "expressing or appearing to express deep and often sorrowful feeling" — while I cannot guess what would appeal to someone who would hire a sex worker as that isn't my thing in the first place, nor can I guess to the lived lives of those who so work, what I can say is that "observing someone being openly sad" doesn't pattern match my ideal for a fun time either when reading or when getting off, even though that is an entirely sympathetic and believable personality trait for a character who is a sex worker.

Especially believable in the case of characters that Dostoyevsky, who died in 1881, would have written about — not only because of the stereotype that Russia is even more grim than Country/Blues paints the USA, but also because while things like chloroform for childbirth pain relief had been used by Queen Victoria this was only in 1853 for the first use on the 8th child, but still advised against it for the 9th child in 1857*; or that likewise "it's a good idea to wash your hands between autopsies and assisting midwifes in childbirth" was only even noticed (and not immediately well received) in 1847.

* including by religious figures even though she was the head of the church

Way to blow up a point into absurd! Nabokov wrote about tiring of specific patterns and cliches obviously