Firstly, what an ungodly amount of politeness and political correctness in the era. Honestly made me cringe from time to time, as the "flirt" is smaller than small talk in a cafe, yet one of biggest cues through the story. This story is basically the meme of hooking up in england 1752 and having to undo bazillion buttons and 45 layers of clothing to find a fishy reproductive organ and half-crust half-skin to get touchy to, but instead of hooking up its an ill millionaire trying to flirt.
Now i know Dostoyevsky was a sad old poor man, but the story was so lame by todays world i had to look up if he actually had any romance in his life. This book is great in portraying the "walk" done around high class society, so im not hating on the writing, but honestly i felt so relieved when it was over. Sorry Dostoyevsky, you are depressing.
I am reading it right now. What do you make of the main character?
He was interesting for the first half with an unique background, but this made him such a passive ping-pong ball to be played around by the others. He is like a character with single ability: faint. And he doesnt even do that properly. Also his emotions are not written much so i felt really distant through the story, its like i want to feel sorry for him but he is a rich elite so no.
This is ragebait. He spent the majority of his life as an poor invalid and goes back to being a poor invalid. Also he doesn't just faint. He offers to marry Nastasya. He gets Gavril to research Burdovsky. He rants about hating catholics. (And that's just what I remember off the top of my head.)
I don't know. I'm wondering how it would work if you'd transpose the story nowadays. The etiquette is very different and very important in the story, so a simple transposition wouldn't work. No wonder it can look idiotic to someone discovering 19th century Russia, the premise is not easy to swallow.