The Pevear / Volokhonsky translation...or, at least, this printing of it...is just wretched. There are nonsensical lines which I had to check against other translations in order to understand, there are missing lines, and there is an overall awkwardness which is not present in, for instance, Constance Garnett or Fred Whishaw's versions of these stories. For some specifics, see https://songsofinnocenceampexperience...
but the short version is AVOID THIS TRANSLATION. If you already love Dostoyevsky, this will be a disappointment. If you don't yet love Dostoyevsky, this will only discourage you from finding that love.

Five stories:
The meek one
The dream of a ridiculous man
Bobok
The eternal husband
A nasty anecdote

Eternal Husband becomes long and boring at places. But the others are good. Too good. The non-continuity in the thoughts of a human are so clearly brought out, its amazing to read.

"I loved their defiled earth still more than when it had been a paradise, only because grief had appeared on it"

A collection of 5 short stories/novellas written by Dostoevsky:

A Nasty Anecdote - 5/5 absolutely loved this one, my favourite of the bunch, hilarity ensues when a functionary crashes his underlings wedding

The Eternal Husband - 4/5 the sad story of a cuckolded husband and his further humiliation in front the man that his wife slept with, a fair bit of tragedy but some comedy too

Bobok - 3/5 a very short story of a man hearing recently dead people arguing among themselves in a cemetery

The Meek One - 4/5 a husband recounts the sad tale of his relationship with the wife that had recently committed suicide. This is the darkest and most tragic of the stories

The Dream of a Ridiculous Man - 3/5 a man wants to kill himself but dreams of an ideal world where everyone is happy and loves each other

Dostoevsky is like my comfort read lol

Although I haven't read other translations, I highly recommend Pevear and Volokhonsky! The notes are always helpful and allow me to learn and understand the background knowledge. I also love that Dostoevsky includes poetry, words, and music from various sources!

The satire and farce of A Nasty Anecdote work to great effect. I was curiously unaffected by the Eternal Husband, and feel I am missing something. Bobok is a trifle, but brash and witty. The Meek One is an early example of "stream of consciousness" that masterfully explores how we are controlled by forces internal yet alien to us; and how knowledge can both be known and disguised, disclosed and hidden. And if we so little understand ourselves, what torment can come of our encounters with another? The Dream of a Ridiculous Man almost reduced me to tears.

A Nasty Anecdote

This was a short story in which Dostoevsky makes fun of how difficult it is to put ideas into practice, regardless of how sensible, good-natured, “humane”, moral, and so on, these ideas are. However, I do not think that it is dismissive of people willing to put their ideas into practice but it shows what can happen as a result of those ideas being tyrannical modes of morality. The overarching lesson is that good intentions are not synonymous with good outcomes. I really enjoyed the amount of characters he gave background on for such a short story.

A quote

“Strangely, at times he was overcome by fits of some morbid conscientiousness and even a slight repentance of something.”

Eternal Husband

What a complex story that evokes an amalgamation of different emotions. It was instantly captivating. I think this is the quintessential Dostoevsky novel. It will have you on the edge of your seat when you think something will happen, it catches you off guard. One of the best examples of this is the conversations between Alexei Ivanovich Velchaninov and Pavel Pavlovich Trusotsky which never really seem to get THERE but have you waiting for the moment and when it does get THERE it is done in the most implicit but organic manner. Indignance and sadness.

A quote:

“Yes, loved me from spite.. that's the strongest love.” This quote showcases the complexity of human emotion Dostoevsky presents in this book.

Bobok

I am not a fan of magical realism but picture that you have a chance to eavesdrop on the afterlife and you take it. It is not what you expect.

A quote

“There is so much suffering and torment in life, and so little reward..” I like this quote because it seems taken out of a Woody Allen movie.

The Meek One

This is the best story narrated from the point of view of a villain. It is not clear at the start, while reading it, or even at the end that he is in fact a villain. I personally did not notice it till after I sat the book in front of me after having finished it and came to that conclusion. A conclusion that is brewing in the back of your head but you are unaware of. In short, it is the story of an antisocial man who drives his inappropriately younger wife to the point of suicide. He had such “noble” intentions while he was doing it too, so it has you confused but it is really a rationalization of incapapabilities. I will not share anymore besides that it was wonderfully crafted.

Two quotes:

“And since she was too chaste, too pure to consent to the kind of love a merchant needs, she didnt want to deceive me.”

“Only people and around them, silence- thats the earth!”


The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

Starts off with one of the funniest quotes I have ever read… “Maybe from the age of seven I already knew that I was ridiculous. Then I went to school, then to university, and what- the more I studied, the more I learned I was ridiculous.” Fucking hilarious, had me laughing out loud in a coffee shop full of people making me look, incidentally, ridiculous. This extremely short story is a little over twenty pages. I firmly believe due to its short nature and incredible ethos and pathos but even better the dismissal of logos, it should be a must-read in every school. The main idea is hard to describe and there is some insight I have developed through it which is something along the lines of “knowledge is only attainable through stories which is how we have processed information for thousands of years”. To put the lesson to the best of my abilities would be that honor, TRUTH, and many notions that make us act ostensibly virtuously.

A quote:

“The consciousness of life is higher than life, the knowledge of the laws of happiness is higher than happiness- that is what must be fought!... And I will. If only everyone wants it, everything can be set up at once.”

Don’t know where I picked up my addition, but it is only the Eternal Husband. If you have red his stories, the characters are keeping with his style and comical and painful to witness at the same time.
What if you are lonely and the only person you have to befriend is also someone you want to seek revenge on. That is the conflict of the novel and worth the read.

From A Nasty Anecdote: “It is known that whole trains of thought sometimes pass instantly through our heads, in the form of certain feelings, without translation into human language, still less literary language. But we shall attempt to translate all these feelings of our hero’s and present the reader if only with the essence of these feelings, with what, so to speak, was most necessary and plausible in them. Because many of our feelings, when translated into ordinary language, will seem perfectly implausible. That is why they never come into the world, and yet everybody has them.”

Five stories in all.

'The Eternal Husband,' my favorite one.

Philosophical, Satirical, Psychological.

Who better to write on these three pillars?

3.8 - if I was sixteen and had to marry a 50 year old I would kms too

First reading of Dostoevsky. I enjoyed the writing but all the stories were so grim both the setting and story, even with the glint of humor which Dostoevsky displays. I intend to read more of this author.