What on earth?

[Unregistered]

When reading these comments, i must question if you actually picked up C&P, anyone with an ounce of witt can appreciate such a fine classic, and it takes so much more to use 100 words than 20 words to make a piece as excellent as this novel. I read it my junior year at one of the most difficult highschools in the nation. there we analyzed it more than you can ever imagine, and believe me, this work is brilliant! I'm not stating that you are in fact ignorant, but i completely disagree that he is overrated!

[Liz]

Maybe I'm just completely ignorant (though I sincerely doubt it), but I think that Dostoevsky is quite possibly the 2nd most overrated novelists of the 19th century, second only to Dickens.<br> How is it that a person can write a 550 page book in which about only 100 pages worth or action takes place and have it become a classic? I really think that most the so-called "great" 19th century novelists must have been paid by the word. In any case they certainly didn't believe in using twenty words where two hundred would do.<br> The cumbersome language employed by these two novelists I find neither intellectual or witty. It is more a way to show off their vocabulary, or at least to repeat the same vocabulary over and over again, than to make any sort of real statement about anything.<br> Oscar Wilde is much more the man for me: witty, profound, and straight to the point. If you haven't read "The Picture of Dorian Gray" you should.

[Psynema]

Maybe I'm just completely ignorant (though I sincerely doubt it), but I think that Dostoevsky is quite possibly the 2nd most overrated novelists of the 19th century, second only to Dickens.<br> How is it that a person can write a 550 page book in which about only 100 pages worth or action takes place and have it become a classic? I really think that most the so-called "great" 19th century novelists must have been paid by the word. In any case they certainly didn't believe in using twenty words where two hundred would do.<br> The cumbersome language employed by these two novelists I find neither intellectual or witty. It is more a way to show off their vocabulary, or at least to repeat the same vocabulary over and over again, than to make any sort of real statement about anything.<br> Oscar Wilde is much more the man for me: witty, profound, and straight to the point. If you haven't read "The Picture of Dorian Gray" you should.

??? Action?

What about tension? Suspense?

Also it's translated from Russian, so calm down on the English. Read it no problem in a week for fun. Found it to be quite a page turner and virtually never a bore ('cept the epilogue)