Where do I start with him? What is the entry level book

TBK honestly

I'm reading C&P now, picked it up randomly after my friend who works at the book store near my house recommended it to me.

>I only brought it because she is cute! God I am such a loser.

However his writing style is infecting the novel I am writing now, kind of weird how I immediately begin to integrate the styles and quirks of works I read.

You should stop then, Dostoyevski is an awful writer.

>Dostoyevski is an awful writer.
>Top 5 most famous and revered writers of world lit

If he's an "awful writer" then everyone here needs to throw away all their pencils, pens, keyboards immediately.

>McDonalds has the best food because it has the most costumers
He's pretty bad, just that he's popular, because his books are very easy. Tolstoy is the much more superior Russian author, just that Tolstoy got censored by the Russians while Dostoyevski got advertised by them.

His prose is mediocre, he forgets about developing the scene and setting. He just focuses on the psychological part of his characters, which he excels at, but he's atrocious at everything else so his books are lacking in such ways that makes them impossible to be considered good.

He's not great, difficult nor influential. His books are very easy to digest and that's why a lot of people read and think high of him because they don't know any better. People see him as an introduction to serious lit, without really being serious lit itself.

Dostoyevski is the YA of serious literature.

I want to read C&P. Which translation I should pick?

>but he's atrocious at everything else so his books are lacking in such ways that makes them impossible to be considered good.

Pretty odd that he has 4 novels considered masterpieces then.

>There's only 1 way to write a novel
>develop scene and setting like muh english 101 senpai told me
>Comparing McDonalds to Dostoevsky

You're a moron. Most Americans wouldn't have a clue who you are talking about. By famous I meant in the eyes of other writers and academics, you fucking idiot. Or are they all wrong too?

>not serious literature
>impossible to be considered good
>not influential

You're trying too hard. Go to your library (if you've even attended uni, somehow I doubt it) and see how much criticism they have on Dostoevsky. I know you haven't read any of it but just count the books like a child and then reflect on why this might have occurred and if it might be incompatible with what you have just said. Or just keep thinking everyone else is wrong and you're the special snowflake.

I'm sure the big mac is considered a masterpiece by many as well.

Most Americans do know him, because Crime and Punishment is one of the books you read in High School and everybody recommends him.

I have read almost every book by Tolstoy and Dostoyevski, a lot other Russian lit as well. Dostoyevski has little value compared to other authors. The Kreutzer Sonata did a better critique of humans than all of Dostoyevski's books combined.

I've never been to an University, because I know better than waste my time studying something that will not give me any value in the modern capitalistic world, but I do have read quite a bit of critique of Dostoyevski; my favorite is the one from Nabokov.

>I'm sure the big mac is considered a masterpiece by many as well.

I'm sure it's not considered a masterpiece by world-class chefs. But you're trying, at least.

Whichever one has the best illustrations on the cover

>Most Americans do know him b/c C&P is a book you read in high school

Lol, are you even American? C&P is not American high school curriculum. In American high schools you read stuff like Shakespeare, Dickenson, muh Civil War authors, muh founding fathers, muh industrialization/labor literature, Poe for sure, Frost, basically you read a bunch of safe-space Anglos who ultimately reinforce the "do yer job" conditioning. You MIGHT read Hemingway if you're teacher is an ultimate "fuck da system" edgelord. You would never touch a Russian author with 50 different ways to transliterate his name and his "Should I murder this women to prove I'm the uebermensch" characters with a 100 foot fucking pole. I'd love to watch you walk around and ask Americans who Dostoevsky is though.

>I've never been to an University

Ok, so you're uneducated. Why would you assume a contrary opinion when you aren't even educated about the standard one?

>C&P is not American high school curriculum.
goodreads.com/shelf/show/high-school-required-reading
I'm not american, yes.
I could dig up more reliable websites, but it just shows me how "educated" you are, mister English literature student.

>so you're uneducated
>everybody that doesn't go to university is uneducated
I'm a businessman because I'm smart enough to realize University is a scam nowadays, it's not what it used to be 100-200 years ago. Universities are filled with uneducated, dumb brainlets, especially because sports are so highly valued. I have made more money in my early 20s then you will make in your 40s.
I read and research literature in my free time, I'm sure I'm more well read and more educated then you are. I think for myself instead of just gobbling up whatever my professor says.

Notes is so bad that if I had picked it up first I'd have probably never read another book by him.

>muh Civil War authors, muh founding fathers, muh industrialization/labor literature
what the actual fuck are you talking about? we literally read like 3 dystopian novels, Shakes, black people lit, and Steinbeck who was a fucking Communist. What the fuck is "industrialization/labor" literature. Name the propaganda they forced you to read and convince me your not a deluded tumblrina

I would honestly just start with C&P.
Notes literally starts with a philosophical essay, and if you're not the target audience(r9k) you're not going to care and that's just a bad way to start.
C&P is an easy read. I was intimidated by it at first, knowing nothing of Dosto, but it's very accessible

>What the fuck is "industrialization/labor" literature.
Not him. The Jungle comes to mind as do The Grapes of Wrath and Atlas Shrugged (or The Fountainhead), two authors of vastly different ideologies.

>I'm a businessman because I'm smart enough to realize University is a scam nowadays
What does it mean to be a businessman? It sounds like a lazy word for an office clerk.

Meant the second question to go to this post.

Businessman means I own my own business. I made 120k post tax this year by producing a Nutella clone.

>Businessman means I own my own business. I made 120k post tax this year by producing a Nutella clone.
So you are a chemist? Or are you an advertiser?

Yes folk, please do it.

Notes from the Underground first. If you like that, move on to Crime and Punishment (I would say that it is the most accessible of his longer works). The Idiot and The Brothers Karamazov are probably the only ones worth reading unless you fall in love with Dostoevsky.

>baby is too stupid to figure out what words mean if they don't come prepackaged in meme form

...

>i'm too smart for university
>i'm a businessman
>i'll make more money
>i research in my free time
>i'm a free thinker

Haha you're even stupider than I thought. This post is like the greatest hits of "memes stupid people say"

I bought a machine for 15k from China that mixes shit and packages it, I hired 2 people that operate the machine and another one that drives a truck to transport the materials and finished product.

>he isn't a capitalist
>he goes to a mediocre college everybody can get into
>he gets mediocre grades in his courses that will not give him any market value once he finishes his degree
Hell, call me a meme all you want, but I'm pretty successful for a 21 years old.

I never said you weren't successful. But if you think you can "free time" your way into being academically informed then you're underestimating what people actually mean when they talk about being educated.

Are you the same 21 year old?

This. I don't need a professor to tell me what to read.

oh my god dostoevsky

dostoevsky!!!!!!!

will you fuckers just read one of his books already instead of preppign for it like its the god damn SATs. who the fuck cares. stop making dostoevsky flow charts and spreadsheets you fucking fags. just READ it. IT DOESNT FUCKING MATTER WHAT ORDER YOU READ THEM IN.

>not influential

Confirmed for knowing nothing of literature. The greatest writers that you will never be on par with have cited him as influence and revered him. He has been cited as an early precursor to modernism and he has influenced countless sociologists and psychologists.

I know you think Dostoevsky isn't great because he isn't difficult and that only true intellectuals read Pynchon and Wallace (I won't pretend you've read Joyce) but the truth is that he is a staple author in the pantheon of great writers and will remain there until the death of the written word.

fucking lel, this.
it is too early in the morning for this much autism.
that goes for this entire thread and the two or three other fucking auxiliary Dostoyevsky threads.
you faggots are going to read him and feel dumb as hell after realizing how accessible he is

Why are you turning literature into a meme? Literature isn't like your garbage Internet forum, you can't just reduce it so some underage memes.

what the hell are you talking about

>you faggots are going to read him and feel dumb as hell after realizing how accessible he is

Accessible=bad is a meme and a very shitty one. Dostoevsky isn't great because he's hard to get into, he's great for his characterization and his ability to approach arguments from multiple angles allowing the reader to get a full view of the situation and understand the different sides of the argument.

It's easy to read Ulysses and then say Dosto and other "straightforward" authors are shit because their prose is simple, but it doesn't make you smart or prove that you've understood what you've read. Joyce himself had high praise for Dosto.

Okay, Nabokov.

Notes is not entry at all my pleb friend

Only in literature will you see this degree of appealing to authority. It's like all lit majors are born bottoms.

Not mine

No you aren't.

Crangus and Pangusment

Chances are if someone has 4 novels considered masterpieces by scholars and has been well-regarded for over a century, they're not "lacking in such ways that make them impossible to be considered good". Don't be obtuse.

Are you calling me fat?

Massive.

None of Dostoevsky is really entry level but usually people start with Notes, Brothers or Crime and Punishment because those three have the most scholarship about them.

Nobody got into Dostoevsky with a Little Hero.

Yes I am

>literature is 100% subjective, each person experiences a work differently
>but certain works are objectively greater than others, as determined by collective consensus
*sweats*

I'm literally reading The Idiot right now.
on what the fuck planet does accessible=bad?
Accessible means "easily accessed"
as in shut the fuck up about reading Dostoyevsky and just read Dostoyevsky. You're like a bunch of pussies too scared to jump because you think the water's cold when it's room fucking temperature.
Starting ten more threads about it isn't going to magically equip you with enhanced Dostoyevsky-reading abilities.