Through Petrovitch, Dostoyevsky gives us a peek inside the labor camps and shows us both the brutality of the czarist system, but also creates a literary preamble to what would later be The Gulag Archipelago.

The story explores snapshots from his time in prison which are recorded in his writings as he, like the author, try to cope with the reality of what they have experienced. It may be daunting to start with the 840-page Brothers Karamazov or the nearly 600-page Crime and Punishment, in which case this comparatively short book of 368 pages is a great place to start without having to compromise the depth of his analysis.Ī narrator, by the name of Alexander Petrovitch Goryanchikov, is sent to a Siberian prison camp for the murder of his wife. For those who have never read a Dostoyevsky book, fear not. Fans of Dostoyevsky can enjoy this book as a sort of origin story to his coveted style and because the book is semi-autobiographical, readers are given a glimpse into his incredible mind. However, readers can expect Dostoyevsky’s writing style of moral questioning and struggle to understand human behavior along with a freshness that is specific to this book. The novel Notes from the House of the Dead is one of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s great works, and yet it is not the first one that comes to mind for many people. James Scanlon or Notes from a Dead House, Trans.

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