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Finishing this book, along with deleting my Twitter account somehow got me to start reading regularly again. It took me 6 months to finish it. I have so many thoughts about this book, but it's hard to put them into concrete words. This was one of the only books that Dostoevsky published in serial, and you can really tell as you're reading it. The plot is often meandering and hard to follow, but the wide cast of characters is so fun to hang out with that only the third quarter of the novel feels like it could've used some major cuts.
It is bleak but also surprisingly hilarious at times, I always though of Fyo boy as a very dry writer but there were so many good bits, drama and scandalous intrigue throughout the entire book, and many wonderful moments throughout the ~500ish pages, most taking place at a raucous party of some sort. The whole book is very long, and a lot of things could've been tightened up in the storytelling, but the feeling I got at the end of this strange journey was so powerful and memorable that I feel like anything less than a 5/5 is underselling. One of the very last images in the novel is seared into my brain even 3 months later, as if I had seen a painting of it, and it still makes me shiver a bit to think of it. A challenging read but worth it
It is bleak but also surprisingly hilarious at times, I always though of Fyo boy as a very dry writer but there were so many good bits, drama and scandalous intrigue throughout the entire book, and many wonderful moments throughout the ~500ish pages, most taking place at a raucous party of some sort. The whole book is very long, and a lot of things could've been tightened up in the storytelling, but the feeling I got at the end of this strange journey was so powerful and memorable that I feel like anything less than a 5/5 is underselling. One of the very last images in the novel is seared into my brain even 3 months later, as if I had seen a painting of it, and it still makes me shiver a bit to think of it. A challenging read but worth it