What's the best reading order to obtain the most rewarding experience out of Dostoevsky?

What's the best reading order to obtain the most rewarding experience out of Dostoevsky?

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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_literature#Early_history

Notes>C&P>Iidot>Demons>TBK

You can flip Idiot and Demons.

You can also read some of Gogol stuffs to prepare you.Historically you should know most of his works take place after the emancipation reform, so you should read a bit on that as well.

just read Notes From The Underground, great shit

They say that Cleopatra (excuse an instance from Roman history) was fond of sticking gold pins into her slave-girls’ breasts and derived gratification from their screams and writhings. You will say that that was in the comparatively barbarous times; that these are barbarous times too, because also, comparatively speaking, pins are stuck in even now; that though man has now learned to see more clearly than in barbarous ages, he is still far from having learnt to act as reason and science would dictate. But yet you are fully convinced that he will be sure to learn when he gets rid of certain old bad habits, and when common sense and science have completely reeducated human nature and turned it in a normal direction. You are confident that then man will cease from INTENTIONAL error and will, so to say, be compelled not to want to set his will against his normal interests. That is not all; then, you say, science itself will teach man (though to my mind it’s a superfluous luxury) that he never has really had any caprice or will of his own, and that he himself is something of the nature of a piano-key or the stop of an organ, and that there are, besides, things called the laws of nature; so that everything he does is not done by his willing it, but is done of itself, by the laws of nature. Consequently we have only to discover these laws of nature, and man will no longer have to answer for his actions and life will become exceedingly easy for him. All human actions will then, of course, be tabulated according to these laws, mathematically, like tables of logarithms up to 108,000, and entered in an index; or, better still, there would be published certain edifying works of the nature of encyclopaedic lexicons, in which everything will be so clearly calculated and explained that there will be no more incidents or adventures in the world.

Then—this is all what you say—new economic relations will be established, all ready-made and worked out with mathematical exactitude, so that every possible question will vanish in the twinkling of an eye, simply because every possible answer to it will be provided. Then the ‘Palace of Crystal’ will be built. Then ... In fact, those will be halcyon days. Of course there is no guaranteeing (this is my comment) that it will not be, for instance, frightfully dull then (for what will one have to do when everything will be calculated and tabulated), but on the other hand everything will be extraordinarily rational. Of course boredom may lead you to anything. It is boredom sets one sticking golden pins into people, but all that would not matter. What is bad (this is my comment again) is that I dare say people will be thankful for the gold pins then. Man is stupid, you know, phenomenally stupid; or rather he is not at all stupid, but he is so ungrateful that you could not find another like him in all creation. I, for instance, would not be in the least surprised if all of a sudden, A PROPOS of nothing, in the midst of general prosperity a gentleman with an ignoble, or rather with a reactionary and ironical, countenance were to arise and, putting his arms akimbo, say to us all: ‘I say, gentleman, hadn’t we better kick over the whole show and scatter rationalism to the winds, simply to send these logarithms to the devil, and to enable us to live once more at our own sweet foolish will!’ That again would not matter, but what is annoying is that he would be sure to find followers—such is the nature of man. And all that for the most foolish reason, which, one would think, was hardly worth mentioning: that is, that man everywhere and at all times, whoever he may be, has preferred to act as he chose and not in the least as his reason and advantage dictated. And one may choose what is contrary to one’s own interests, and sometimes one POSITIVELY OUGHT (that is my idea). One’s own free unfettered choice, one’s own caprice, however wild it may be, one’s own fancy worked up at times to frenzy—is that very ‘most advantageous advantage’ which we have overlooked, which comes under no classification and against which all systems and theories are continually being shattered to atoms. And how do these wiseacres know that man wants a normal, a virtuous choice? What has made them conceive that man must want a rationally advantageous choice? What man wants is simply INDEPENDENT choice, whatever that independence may cost and wherever it may lead. And choice, of course, the devil only knows what choice.

youtube.com/watch?v=mym35_oFXEg

I had never heard of Gongol before. What would you recommend in anticipation for Dosto?

And is reading the Wikipedia article on the emancipation enough for this task, or should I look deeper into it?

Gogol was big inspiration for Dostoevsky. Their style is not very similar but they have some common themes. Just read the Overcoat, since I think Dead Souls can be a bit much for someone just getting into russian lit. Again, it's not important.

Yeah, it should be more than enough. You should just know that Russia is in a very poor state after it, and there are groups of people, often called liberals and nihilists, that want more of those reforms and are willing to spill noble blood to carry them out.

Also now that I think of it, if you are looking for more story focused novel, you should probably start with C&P, since Notes has a lot of philosophical rambling, and can be difficult to get into by some people.

Thank you for being so thorough in your response. I was planning on starting with Notes; I'll try to see how well I handle it and I'll move on from there. Although now I feel that I should check out the Overcoat first.

you should start with Notes. its really hilarious at times. Dosto created a charter that is really fucked up but beautiful. its kinda like the genesis of the Joker or something.