gripping

amazing story told with passion. Never felt so invested in a character and so many questions along the way. As long as it is I will certainly be listening to this one again

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Brilliantly translated and performed

Just really well done. The characters come to life. The scenes have real drama. Really enjoyable.

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easier to listen to than I expected

narration was excellent and made the Russian names easier to deal with than I expected in my first Russian literature audiobook. Got a little tedious in the middle but mostly enjoyable and was definitely worth sticking with to the end. I see the same narrator has read some more Dostoyevsky audiobooks so after a break I'll be back for more.

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8 people found this helpful

Very good despite strangeness of final chapter.

Firstly, the narration was outstanding. Especially important when the character names are so complicated. Constantine Gregory is a genius. He ‘played’ all the parts with incredible skill.

The story is certainly long and meandering. It’s almost as if Fyodor had no idea what was coming next. I drifted off into my own thoughts multiple times, though I viewed this as positive stimulation. Perhaps I was being unreasonably kind.

The final chapter, though, was difficult to believe. The central character, our ‘idiot’ prince, was almost dismissed as being peripheral to the story. An afterthought. It’s just as well the author is long gone as I would be tempted to write and ask why? Am I missing something by missing something?

Whilst an important observation, and the reason for dropping a star for ‘story’ and ‘overall’ ratings, the writing is nothing short of brilliant. I was pleasantly surprised. It takes considerable will to take on books of this length but the lucidity of the writing was so good, it never became a chore.

A very enjoyable experience.

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Good but not his best

Having heard this, "Crime and Punishment" and "The Brothers Karamazov" I'd say this was the least satisfying in terms of philo/theo logical content and less enjoyable in terms of depth of characters involved.
Constantine Gregory (the narrator) is, as always, great, although the quality of this particular recording was poor - reverby and glitchy.

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78 people found this helpful

Amazing story

I've now encountered three versions of this story and it's just a work of genius

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long winded saga with tragic pitiful dull end

long winded saga with tragic pitiful dull end.
A dual instead of dull murder would have helped

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Good book

Good story but unfortunately too long too much guff and boring segments which didn't add value

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Wtf

If the parts like the dinner where the Prince gets annoyed at Catholicism or when they see live music one million times are intentionally boring then this is a 5 star because they are an insane comparison to that absolutely brutal and disturbing ending seriously the most disturbing thing I done read. Not as good as other Dostoevsky works but worth a read :)

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Brilliant characters

A novel of brilliant characters and people speaking their minds with great eloquence, unusual among 19th century novels in that a woman is NOT blamed for having been abused and has some agency. However she is ultimately deemed mad by one of the people who has empathy for her, and stabbed to death by another. The "woman question" is often mentioned, but usually as an indicator of corruption. I was a bit thrown by Muishkin's tirade against the Catholic Church, but then it was when he was becoming ill. The plot does dodge about and seems almost incidental, those eloquent characters are extremely capricious.

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