I disagree with both of you. Having slogged through it once, in a highly-recommended translation, I have no desire ever to do so again.

(about the sorry view on Crime and Punishment, not about the disagreement as such)

I suppose I'd have plenty of time to figure who is who. But, so help me, I took a pledge after reading that to never read another Russian novel again.

They are great, if you like mud and melting snow and misery.

And the same person referred to by five different names for no apparent reason.

And huge tracts of introspection.

And huge ... tracts of land.

So now it comes out............after all this time..................

Father hates Tolkien!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

Someone broke the page and should be banned.

I admit to being not fond of the Silmarillion. He doesn't much do this in LotR.

Strider, Aragorn, Elessar, Gandalf, Mithrandir, the White Rider, Gollum, Smeagol, Slinker, Stinker, Treebeard, Fangorn............

True, though, it's kept, kind of, to a minimum, sort of.

He normally calls one character by one name throughout the course of the narrative, even if other characters sometimes use a different name. So, for example, Gandalf is always "Gandalf" in narrative passages and only "Mithrandir" if someone (usually an Elvish speaker) calls him that in conversation with someone.

Dostoyesky would call him "Gandalf," "Mithrandir," "the Grey Pilgrim," "Tharkûn," and "Olórin" in the space of five paragraphs.

Muddy.

They aren't generally 'five different names', they are 5 diminutive variations of the same name that seems like different names to us English speakers because we aren't familiar with Russian naming conventions. It would be like an English author who had a character named 'Michael Jr' but would refer to him variously as 'Mike, Mikey, Mick, Mickey or Junior' at different points in the narrative, for English speakers, it would be clear at each point whom he was referring to, but it could be a nightmare for non-English speakers. And the changing names generally aren't random, but rather, he calls the character by a given diminutive depending on what aspect of the character's personality he wishes to emphasize at that moment. So, in the hypothetical example above, he could refer to his character as 'Michael' when he wished to emphasized his dignity, or 'Mikey' when the character was behaving childishly, or 'Junior' if he was in a subordinate position to another character etc.

What I'm getting at is that the name changes are not random, and they aren't confusing if you understand Russian naming conventions. In short, all you really need to follow the story is a reasonably well-annotated edition that explains this stuff that can't be easily translated from the Russian.

I like Dostoevsky - but I've never read Crime and Punishment. I've only read The Brothers Karamazov and The idiot. Brothers > Idiot.

I'd say Brothers > Crime and Punishment > Idiot.

But then Idiot > most other novels, so in a way it's kind of like trying to figure out which Beethoven of symphonies is the best.

9th.

True, and then the 7th. And then the 3rd, 5th and 6th. After that, I get a little mushy. But still, even if we imagine that the 2nd is the worst, it's still very much worth hearing, and better than most other stuff...even Metallica.

I agree, generally, with gherkin. Odd symphonies best, 1st aside.

Music, in general, better than Metallica.

You would probably like 'Notes from the Underground', at any rate, I've never found it difficult to keep track of characters in Dostoyevsky, as even when he is using different names, the context always makes it clear whom he is talking about. The bigger problem with Dostoyevsky is that his books are a lot of long-winded philosophical speeches, which make for tedious reading at times.

I plead guilty, but I was under duress.

While I'm at it, did anyone see the PBS thing on American Reads? If I were stuck on an island with some of those books, I'd have a huge advantage if I had a match. Surely, someone would see the bonfire while flying overhead. Fifty Shades of Fire.

http://www.pbs.org/the-great-american-read/home/