Бѣсы vs Записки изъ подполья: Which Should You Read?

Бѣсы Fyodor Dostoyevsky · 1871 ★★★★☆ 4.0 617 pages · ≈ 11 h 26 m · Demanding

“BEFORE DESCRIBING THE EXTRAORDINARY EVENTS WHICH took place so recently in our town, hitherto not remarkable for anything in particular, I find it necessary, since I am not a skilled writer, to go back a little and begin with certain biographical details concerning our talented and greatly esteemed Stepan Trofimovich Verkhovensky.”

Also known as Demons or The Devils, this is Dostoyevsky’s most political novel. Though critical of the left-wing revolutionaries, split as they often were into disparate factions and cells the author also tacitly…

Записки изъ подполья Fyodor Dostoyevsky · 1864 ★★★★☆ 4.1 124 pages · ≈ 2 h 18 m · Demanding

Its nameless hero is a profoundly alienated individual in whose brooding self-analysis there is a search for the true and the good in a world of relative values and few absolutes. Moreover, the novel introduces themes —…