Classics > F Classics

Advantages: excellent psychological insights
Disadvantages: very lengthy

...heavy so that it can't be recommended for use on public transport. Unfortunately my Russian is not good enough to read the original as surely it would have been even better. A true must read for lovers of classical literature and for those interested in crime and criminal law! ... Read review

Advantages: Dostoevsky's best - cleverly political, achingly tense
Disadvantages: If you don't like Dostoevsky you won't like this.

...and unusually cutting humour. Devils is the funniest of his books (which, after Crime and Punishment, is probably very welcome), even though it is still technically a tragedy. It is loosely based on a political murder that occurred at the time Dostoevsky was writing. It combines a variety of characters' stories in a small Russian village - beginning with Varvara - the village's matriarch and her foolish, good natured political writer friend Stephan ...
...on her. Both represent the shaky foundations of the village's/country's establishment. Their respective sons, Nikolai Stavrogin, and Peter Stepanovich, return from separate educations abroad. Peter is intent on revolution. Nikolai is a confused, indifferent figure who is hounded relentlessly by Peter who seems him as a charismatic, messianic figure upon which he wishes to hang his revolutionary organisation. The group, led by Peter, is a ragbag ... Read review

Advantages: humour
Disadvantages: obscurity

...where Rabelais effectively lays out a humanist manifesto for education in a letter from Gargantua the father to Pantagruel the son. This is a great read but its repetitive sex, and shitting can become nauseous and boring for a twenty first century reader who has moved on from toilet humour. ... Read review

Advantages: gags
Disadvantages: obscurity

Written second in the series although chronologically this book takes up the first movements in the epic tales of Rabelais. The giants flounder around France urinating on Paris, eating humans, waging war on cake-makers, giving birth out of their ears and vomiting and drinking at will. This is a slightly more mature work than “Pantagruel” and has the same persuasion towards humanist education and learning and is interesting for that very reason. I ... Read review

Advantages: sustained genius; philosophical profundity; splendid characterization
Disadvantages: the ending could have come a little sooner

The greatest myth about this book is that it is not as accessible as Dostoyevsky's shorter works. The Brothers Karamazov is, on the whole, very readable; it is only the sheer size of the work that fosters the delusion that readers would be well-advised to chose a different book. The plot, which is summarized elsewhere, is simple, the themes profound. The range of characters is impressive, but not too great (as it is, arguably, in Tolstoy's War and ...
...whom is wholly different from the others. But as so often with Dostoyevsky, the characters are interesting not only in themselves but because they embody or reflect on greater ideas. Ivan Karamazov, for instance offers some particularly trenchant criticism of optimistic religious views. In fact, those readers who are interested in questions pertaining to God will find in this book one of the most powerful indictments of the concept of wholly benevolent ... Read review