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A review by tumblyhome_caroline
A Gentle Creature and Other Stories by Fyodor Dostoevsky
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
3.5
Try as I might to find a way into Dostoevsky I am still unable.
It is a bit maddening to me because so many people I admire would put him way up on their favourites list.
This book was ok.. maybe a three and a half star but it still doesn’t fill me with awe. I do think Dostoevsky can write incredibly and I enjoy that aspect of his books… but if books have colour, I just find his to be a very cold sepia, stripped of colour. They leave me with a feeling that my heart is a heavy stone.
For the first story in the book, White Nights, the main character describes an inner life, an imagination and way of dreaming that makes me wonder if the main part of the story is still a creation and wasn’t ‘real’. It feels like that to me. Imagination and reality were blurred… three stars for that one.
The Gentle Creature, the second story in the collection, was the one that almost got me to wake up to Dostoevsky. It was a terrifying story about a terrible cruel relationship but I thought the writing was utterly incredible, I couldn’t put the book down and I think that story will stay with me. I would give that story four stars
The Ridiculous Man just didn’t enthral me at all. Two stars.
I think there is a real connection between Dostoevsky and Edward Hopper, the painter.. both leave a tragic sense of loneliness and alienation.
Anyway, I have read Brothers Karamazov, got two thirds of the way through Crime and Punishment (before abandoning) and now this.. I don’t want to give up… maybe I will try The Idiot… who knows, something might click one day
It is a bit maddening to me because so many people I admire would put him way up on their favourites list.
This book was ok.. maybe a three and a half star but it still doesn’t fill me with awe. I do think Dostoevsky can write incredibly and I enjoy that aspect of his books… but if books have colour, I just find his to be a very cold sepia, stripped of colour. They leave me with a feeling that my heart is a heavy stone.
For the first story in the book, White Nights, the main character describes an inner life, an imagination and way of dreaming that makes me wonder if the main part of the story is still a creation and wasn’t ‘real’. It feels like that to me. Imagination and reality were blurred… three stars for that one.
The Gentle Creature, the second story in the collection, was the one that almost got me to wake up to Dostoevsky. It was a terrifying story about a terrible cruel relationship but I thought the writing was utterly incredible, I couldn’t put the book down and I think that story will stay with me. I would give that story four stars
The Ridiculous Man just didn’t enthral me at all. Two stars.
I think there is a real connection between Dostoevsky and Edward Hopper, the painter.. both leave a tragic sense of loneliness and alienation.
Anyway, I have read Brothers Karamazov, got two thirds of the way through Crime and Punishment (before abandoning) and now this.. I don’t want to give up… maybe I will try The Idiot… who knows, something might click one day