Dostoevsky's "The Possessed"

Anyone out there in ATS land read this book?

I just want to say that it is the most prophetic and disturbing novel that I have ever read, and I read them all. It's unbelievable to think that one man could have written such a thing and moreover had the testicles to show it to people - I myself would simply have assumed they would take me straight to the madhouse... but anyway.

This was the last of his novels I read after consuming The Brothers Karamazov four times. The Idiot twice. White Nights, A Ridiculous Man, Crime and Punishment, once. House of the Dead twice. Notes From Underground about 7 times. And half of the Gambler.

It being his most overtly political novel and tedious at the beginning is the reason I prolonged reading The Possessed until much later than the rest of his works.

In terms of immorality I found it to be eerily similar to Mailer's "Tough Guys Don't Dance", a little known book about psychopaths in New England. He was actually a lover of Dostoevsky so that could be the reason there.

Anyway, I didn't want to write some long-winded treatise analyzing the book in the Psychology forum. Just want to see if anyone else read it and enjoyed it as much as I do.

haven't read any of the books you mentioned but will now.

'The psychopaths bible' is an unique read, a bit stupid...but unique...

-B.M

originally posted by: AProphet1233
Anyone out there in ATS land read this book?

I just want to say that it is the most prophetic and disturbing novel that I have ever read, and I read them all. It's unbelievable to think that one man could have written such a thing and moreover had the testicles to show it to people - I myself would simply have assumed they would take me straight to the madhouse... but anyway.

In my opinion, this is just one of a number of Dostoevsky's novels. I do not think that this novel rises above all other works of Dostoevsky.

By the way, rarely does anyone read the novel The Adolescent (and you also don't mention him among the things you read).

I also read his A Writer's Diary with interest.

Amazing I went to read this book