Not as good as I had hopes for. I thinkg Crime & Punishment might be one of the best books of all time and The Idiot is a classic. So of course went into this book with extremely high expectations.

That all said, this book is fine, though with several flaws. For example, it feels very schizophrenic in that there is maybe 3 or 4 different types of book its trying to be, all of them reasonably well done, but none of them reaching the heights I expected, and I think the tone suffers from the constant switching. In addition, though Dostoevsky sets up an interesting premise of the three brothers, I was hoping for more exploration of their relationships and what they represent (I was thinking more like Stalker. Instead hundreds of pages go by between their interactions, as the narrative focuses on other characters and themes.

And of course, Dostoevsky is a great writer, so even his worst book would be still very good. And there is a lot to like in this book, but it feels a little watered down, inconsistent, at times forced.