About this title: Based on the four years he spent in a Siberian prison camp, Dostoevsky presents the lives and tales of his fellow convicts in a vivid documentary style.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: dell, new york
Date Published: 1959
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. has yellowed, has a feew good reads left, pages are becoming frail, cover shows wear but all pages are intacked, yellowed, pages are clean. 352 pages Bibliography: p. x-xi. read more
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Dell
Date Published: 1967
Description: Good. No dust jacket. Highlighting/underlining. Presented in fictional form as the memoirs of a man condemned to 10 years of penal servitude for murdering his wife, it is in essence the account of this purgatorial period of Dostoyevsky's life. 352 pgs in good reading condition; some have writing and underling. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Dell
Date Published: 1967
Description: Very Good. 16mo-over 5¾"-6¾" tall. Moderate edge/tip wear-readers crease back cover-moderate rubbing-surface tear front cover-5th printing #3836. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Dover Pubns
Date Published: 2004-04-22
ISBN-13:9780486434094ISBN:0486434095
Description: NEW. Softcover. From an inventory that is 100% brand-new, 100% direct from the publishers' distribution channel. We carry NO pre-owned, NO remaindered. We pack in CARDBOARD to ensure the pristine quality is maintained. (Bubble-wrap alone is NOT sufficient to protect from USPS equipment. ) Guaranteed brand-NEW, protected with CARDBOARD, your satisfaction is guaranteed. BKLUVID: 9780486434094. read more
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Everyman's Library
Date Published: 1977
ISBN-13:9780460015332ISBN:0460015338
Description: Fair. No dust jacket as issued. Paperback, reprinted in 1977. Reader copy, has wear from reading, not marked-up. See our customer image #7823. read more
Description: BRAND NEW PAPERBACK. 9 by 6 inches. This book is printed on demand [allow 1-2 weeks for printing]. (00228 pages) lang=english accessory: no accessory (Paperback ) read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Dutton Adult
Date Published: 1972
ISBN-13:9780460015332ISBN:0460015338
Description: Acceptable. MAY HAVE COVER WEAR, SPINE CREASES, HIGHLIGHTING, UNDERLINING & PAGES YELLOWED FROM AGE. FASTER SERVICE FROM US! ! ! read more
Edition: Later Edition
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Dell
Date Published: 1969
Description: Fair. Size: 16mo-over 5¾"-6¾" tall; Spine creasing. Edge and corner wear. Binding has been re-glued. Yellowing. Fair. Mass market. Detailed information and/or scans available upon request. read more
"In reality my rating is 3.5 at the very least. Dostoeevsky refuses to let his customary bombastic writing style run away with him in this book. The detail of the life of prisoners in Siberia is lavish and, obviously real (after all, the author spent 4 years in prison) and for the most part is novel and absorbing. Sometimes he does go off on tangents and abstracts, but he only does this towards the later half of the book and he can be forgiven; he obviously wanted to bring about a few changes in the prison administration in Russia via the book. The characters are many and are realistic (probably because they were based on his fellow inmates) though don't expect and character growth; this isn't this kind of book. Nor does the book have a plot really, but that didn't really bother me. Solid, enjoyable reading."
"I've been wanting to read Dostoevsky ever since I read Henry Miller and Anais Nin discuss how great Dostoevsky is. Tolstoy wrote that The House of the Dead was Dostoevsky's greatest accomplishment, so I figured it was a good place to start.
The book is a memoir of Dostoevsky's prison experiences in a Siberian prison. He thinly disguises it as the memoirs of a fictional character condemned to ten years for murdering his wife. The book is about spiritual enlightenment in the face of humiliation and degradation.
I hope it is not his best work as Tolstoy says. It is a good book, an interesting book dealing with an interesting topic- Siberian prisons in the mid-1800s. I did not think it was exceptionally great as a work of literature. It is mainly a series of character descriptions and short scenes of action connected with thoughts on the psychological effects of prison life between the "gentleman class" and the peasants.
It was a good read, but I hope to read better from Dostoevsky."
"This was my first Dostoyevsky. I'd always dreaded reading him because his weight--not only in length but also in canonical import--intimidated me, but the subject matter of this deeply personal book intrigued me and felt like a good introduction given my tastes in fiction. I wasn't wrong. Dostoyevsky's portrayal of life in a 19th-C. Siberian work prison is bleak and sometimes brutal, a stark vision of human depravity as well as humanity's capacity for adapting to--and accepting--almost any depth of depravity. The book is long, occasionally over-descriptive, and sometimes tedious, and the fractured arrangement of events and categorical assortment of characters feels disorienting at times, but even in translation Dostoyevsky has an powerful ability to paint deeply moving portraits of human beings, so I appreciated his work with character tremendously. My only real complaint is the ending: the back of the book promised revelation and redemption for the novel's broken, autobiographical narrator, but--though Dostovevsky does attempt to spell this idea out for us--the "resurrection" in the end feels rushed, forced, perhaps even trite, and ultimately anticlimactic, nothing nearly as profound as similar movements in, say, Maribou Stork Nightmares or For Whom the Bell Tolls. Still, the book was moving in places, and utterly brilliant in the middle few chapters, so I will definitely return to Dostoyesvky for some slow leisure reading in the distant future."
"Apparently not really considered one of Dostoevsky's major works but it's a pretty fascinating insight into the 19th century Russian penal system. I always want to put people in the "special category.""
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