Just came in the mail, is it any good?

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>>8742284

>paying money for books

FYI you can just download those online. Information isn't a commodity anymore.

>>8742284
It's a good book, much lighter and more entertaining than Dostoevsky's other books. It reminds me too much of a harem anime so I got a little creeped out but it is sweet and sad enough to be of good quality.

>>8742291
>reading pixelated books

absolutelydisgusting.jpeg

>>8742291
Just go to the library you ass.

>>8742310
>>8742319

>irrational clinging to obsolete technology

Sad.

>>8742284
stop posting your diary, desu

>>8742284
Are you not going to read it if we say it isn't good?

>>8742328
Nah, I just wanna know what i'm in for

>>8742304

How can you say it's lighter than his other books when it's by far his darkest?

What does /lit/ think of Demons vs The Idiot?

I ordered Demons the other day over this only because it sounded more interesting, but everyone says The Idiot is better (and its far more popular).

>>8742374
Lighter as in an easy read. It read like a sad fairy tale where The Idiot gets to be Prince Myshkin who falls in love and experiences a romantic life for a time. Not as heavy on the psychology and the struggle within man as his other books.

>>8742386

Both are different from the rest of Dostoevsky's works, with The Idiot being a little closer to the norm, but they're polarizing because of this; if you enjoy the political critiques he gives in his other works you're likely to enjoy Demons quite a lot, if, however, you enjoy the sentimentality of Crime and Punishment, or the philosophical discussions of Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov, you're likely to enjoy The Idiot.
I much prefer The Idiot because of this. To me, Demons lacks the essential Dostoevsky touch of philosophical conversations between characters and instead focuses on action, and I found that the characters were weak as a result of this, which is something you don't really see anywhere else in Dostoevsky, who frequently creates wonderfully realized characters, especially in his other three major novels with the prime examples being Raskolnikov, Myshkin, Ivan, Alyosha, Svidrigailov, and so on.

>>8742420
Isn't the whole book about nihilism though?

>>8742391

Ah, I see. I'd have to disagree with saying it's not as heavy on the psychology and the struggle within man as his other books, though. Like Crime and Punishment The Idiot's focal point is on the heart of a single man, and we see the effects of his actions on him throughout, even going so far as sharing the motif (as commonly happens in Dostoevsky) of making the character physically ill in response to their psychological torment. In The Idiot, Myshkin is "responsible" for ultimately ending back up in Switzerland as an actual idiot, due to his being too good a man and harming not only himself, but also the people around him, even going so far as to be at least partially responsible for the death of Nastasya Filipovna because of his kind-hearted pursuit of her.

>>8742435

Are you referring to Demons? If so, yes, to your question.

>>8742284
It's very good, though less than his other three great novels. Dosto wrote it fast for money.

>>8742449
So how is it any less philosophical than TBK or C&P, and The Idiot?

>>8742325
You're willingly ignoring a service that offers exactly what you want, and is even better because it helps the extremly poor and thrives from support and use

>>8742476

>exactly what you want

Having to physically go to a different location to pick up a pile of papers to read something I could just look at on my laptop at home isn't "exactly what [I] want."

>it helps the extremely poor

The extremely poor can help themselves by not having children.

>>8742484
I meant that it has the text you want to read. And the extremely poor are always going to have children. Sometimes great people are the result, too.

>>8742493

I already have the text I want to read. Because it's freely available on the internet. I'm not going to pretend conveniences I already have don't exist for the sake of propping up other people's livelihoods. If someone wants to be less poor they can produce something worth money.

>>8742465

Oh no, you've misunderstood me. Demons is not necessarily less philosophical than the others, it's just that that book focuses on action itself rather than theoretical philosophical musings. There is very little discussion about nihilism in Demons, and instead real actions are taken, such as the murders, the burning of houses. Compare this to The Brothers Karamazov, which has frequent philosophical discussions between characters (especially Ivan), which later pays off by elucidating the theme of that discussion through action. In other words, there is a natural order of discussing something and then acting it out, or reacting to it. The best example off the top of my head is Ivan's lengthy Grand Inquisitor poem, followed immediately at the end with Alyosha's action that refutes (or supports, depending upon your interpretation) Ivan's ideas.
The other major difference between Demons and the other three novels is that it's much less focused on the psychology of the characters. In the other three, with Crime and Punishment being the best example, we're given so much detail about the characters *from inside of them*, whereas Demons has us acting more like observers. In other words, one gives us the internal dialogue of a character, while the other has us view the actions of a character and try to reason what is going on inside of them.

>>8742505
You know, it's not impossible to take some minor inconvenience for the service of others. Fine if you're a selfish person in this particular matter, or maybe it's actually a much bigger inconvenience to you than I imagine it would be. But it really wouldn't kill you to help someone even if they could help themselves.