[dovvdkc]

I can’t speak for the OP, nor can I express how D. changed my life.

Perhaps D. is the exact opposite of a self-help book at the airport. It’s hard to read and emotionally devastating. You go into the depths of human depravity. Sin is real. Modernity is fraught with contradictions, with danger. Modernity offers mechanical band aids for what are sicknesses of our souls. For Doestoyevsky the greatest man is Christ but he is what we would consider an Idiot.

In the end you are offered catharsis. accept it and you are changed.

[simonh]

I like they way he challenges himself and his beliefs. If he presents a character with a contrary position, he doesn’t cheat. He makes them powerful, compelling, articulate characters and presents their arguments in the best light. He’s incredibly tough on himself and his protagonists or sympathetic characters.