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I capolavori: Delitto e castigo - I demoni - I fratelli Karamazov - Il giocatore - L'idiota - I racconti - Il sosia - Umiliati e offesi
In qualunque storia del romanzo moderno, a prescindere dal metodo e dal gusto di chi la scrive, Fëdor Dostoevskij (1821-81) è destinato inevitabilmente a occupare uno dei capitoli centrali. Nella sua opera si espandono e giungono a piena maturazione i caratteri maggiormente significativi della grande narrativa dell'Ottocento: il senso del drammatico dei conflitti sociali, la riflessione individuale, le passioni più pure e quelle più torbide, l'introspezione e l'analisi minuziosa e profonda dell'animo umano. La raccolta comprende i romanzi: Delitto e castigo, I demoni, I fratelli Karamazov, Il giocatore, L'idiota, Il sosia, Umiliati e offesi; e i racconti: Il signor Procharcin, La padrona, Le notti bianche, Uno spiacevole episodio, Bobòk, La mansueta, Il sogno di un uomo ridicolo.
4018 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 24, 2012
About the author
Fyodor Dostoevsky
3,577 books77k followers
Фёдор Михайлович Достоевский
(Russian)
Works, such as the novels Crime and Punishment (1866), The Idiot (1869), and The Brothers Karamazov (1880), of Russian writer Feodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky or Dostoevski combine religious mysticism with profound psychological insight.
Very influential writings of Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin included Problems of Dostoyevsky's Works (1929),
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky composed short stories, essays, and journals. His literature explores humans in the troubled political, social, and spiritual atmospheres of 19th-century and engages with a variety of philosophies and themes. People most acclaimed his Demons(1872) .
Many literary critics rate him among the greatest authors of world literature and consider multiple books written by him to be highly influential masterpieces. They consider his Notes from Underground of the first existentialist literature. He is also well regarded as a philosopher and theologian.
See also:
Russian → Фёдор Михайлович Достоевский
French → Fédor Dostoïevski
French → Fiodor Dostoïevski
Spanish → Fiódor Dostoyevski
Portuguese → Fiódor Dostoiévski
Works, such as the novels Crime and Punishment (1866), The Idiot (1869), and The Brothers Karamazov (1880), of Russian writer Feodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky or Dostoevski combine religious mysticism with profound psychological insight.
Very influential writings of Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin included Problems of Dostoyevsky's Works (1929),
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky composed short stories, essays, and journals. His literature explores humans in the troubled political, social, and spiritual atmospheres of 19th-century and engages with a variety of philosophies and themes. People most acclaimed his Demons(1872) .
Many literary critics rate him among the greatest authors of world literature and consider multiple books written by him to be highly influential masterpieces. They consider his Notes from Underground of the first existentialist literature. He is also well regarded as a philosopher and theologian.
See also:
Russian → Фёдор Михайлович Достоевский
French → Fédor Dostoïevski
French → Fiodor Dostoïevski
Spanish → Fiódor Dostoyevski
Portuguese → Fiódor Dostoiévski
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Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
June 28, 2026
Mi è piaciuto molto ma non lo consiglio a chi ha poco tempo da dedicare alla lettura.(2016)
Ho letto "le notti bianche" (2020) 2**
Delitto e castigo (2026)
Ho letto "le notti bianche" (2020) 2**
Delitto e castigo (2026)
July 7, 2026
My favorite book by my favorite author.
I will keep updating this review as I read all the works included in this collection. So far I have read: The Gambler, The Idiot, The Brothers Karamazov, Notes from Underground, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, A Gentle Creature, and White Nights.
THE GAMBLER
The Gambler was the first Dostoevsky novel I ever read. I chose it because of its brevity, as a way of becoming familiar with the author. What struck me most was the brilliant way he portrays the descent into the vortex of gambling addiction, masterfully showing the many ways in which addiction quietly takes hold of an unsuspecting victim.
There are two contrasting examples. First, there is the Countess, who falls prey to the diabolical mechanisms of gambling, representing the way an ordinary person can become addicted. Then there is the protagonist, who, unlike the Countess, was already trapped in the grip of addiction. He simply transfers his emotional dependence—his obsession with the General's stepdaughter—into a gambling addiction.
Through these characters, Dostoevsky shows us that one does not need to have an addictive personality to become addicted. However, if someone is already struggling with addiction, escaping that infernal abyss without psychological help becomes extraordinarily difficult. The object of the addiction may change, but its underlying cause remains the same.
THE IDIOT
I should begin by saying that I consider every one of Dostoevsky's works to be a masterpiece in its own right. But if I had to choose just one, it would probably be this one. Just looking at my Goodreads username is enough to understand how deeply I identify with its protagonist.
Let's start with what I believe is the novel's most essential observation: Prince Lev Myshkin—the "idiot"—is the happiest character in the entire story. Everyone else is tormented by their fears or consumed by their passions, whereas Myshkin remains serene throughout, always trying to make the best of every situation. The one person who has attained what everyone else longs for—happiness—is regarded by them as inferior, as an idiot.
So how has he achieved this elusive happiness? Through love.
The Prince has no concern for his social status, his reputation, or any of the other superficial attributes attached to his identity. These are nothing more than distractions that pull us away from happiness because, to borrow Robert M. Pirsig's words from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, they deepen the subject-object dichotomy.
Myshkin, on the other hand, places no importance on appearances. All he wants is to experience moments of genuine quality. For example, when he is about to marry Aglaya, everyone—including Aglaya herself—is consumed by the excitement of the wedding. Myshkin, however, has no real interest in the marriage itself; what matters to him is simply spending meaningful time with her. That is why he agrees to marry her despite his indifference toward the institution of marriage itself.
Ironically, this very "indifference" leads Aglaya to the mistaken belief that Myshkin is actually in love with Nastasya Filippovna, setting in motion the final confrontation between the two women.
In the end, Lev Myshkin is, like Jesus Christ, misunderstood by the many and understood by the few. Yet his actions inspire both men and women who, by following his example, become "people of quality."
THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV
Someone once said of The Brothers Karamazov: "There is one other book that can teach you everything you need to know about life... it's The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky, but that's not enough anymore." And that is true. The Brothers Karamazov on its own is an extraordinary novel, but only when paired with its complementary work, The Idiot, does it become absolutely essential. In this review, I want to focus on two major theses explored through the novel's story and characters.
The first thesis concerns the opposition between belief and unbelief, embodied by the characters of Elder Zosima and Ivan. Both ultimately desire the same thing: the earthly paradise portrayed in The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, the emblem of the idea that "everything is permitted." Zosima follows the principle that "everyone is guilty before everyone else, for everyone, and for everything," a conviction that stems from each person's guilt for not having chosen the earthly paradise. This leads him to serve others and, consequently, to love his neighbor. Ivan, by contrast, is paralyzed by his own thought and, like the Underground Man, remains imprisoned within his own mind. If, like Ivan, one believes in nothing, one cannot truly act, because the principle that "everything is permitted" prevents reason from evaluating the possible alternatives, leaving faith as the only remaining guide. The supremacy of reason alone therefore leads to confusion and meaninglessness. This is why Ivan says that he wants to live only until the age of thirty: the more time passes, the more he will resemble the Underground Man, and he is fully aware of it. It is therefore far better to be a believer—in the sense of believing in something, not necessarily in a religious sense—than to be a proctophantasmist, to borrow Goethe's term from Faust.
The second thesis concerns the contrast between a society founded solely on reason and one that incorporates Catholic principles into its foundation. Dostoevsky argues that the former is not merely inadequate but actually gives rise to more crime than the latter. This idea first emerges in the discussion surrounding Ivan's article, in which he envisions a State becoming the Church, thereby creating a community of people who freely choose one another and, consequently, love one another.
The argument returns during Dmitri's trial, where it becomes clear that the murder of Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov was ultimately the fault neither of Smerdyakov, the actual murderer, nor of the unfortunate Dmitri, but of the entire town, which lacked the sense of community necessary to prevent such a tragedy. Had the townspeople cared about the fate of Dmitri and Smerdyakov, had they consciously embraced them as members of their community and therefore loved them, events would have unfolded very differently. Through this, Dostoevsky illustrates how modern society creates a separation between the individual and everyone else. Once someone has been condemned by society, that separation makes genuine rehabilitation impossible, because it encourages the condemned person to believe that they are right and everyone else is wrong. A society governed solely by reason, therefore, does not eradicate crime—it merely preserves it.
These two theses allow us to demonstrate a third, stated by Dostoevsky himself in the opening pages of the novel: that Alyosha is a hero. Every day he struggles for the realization of the earthly paradise and for the establishment of a genuine spiritual community, one capable of bringing greater well-being and greater freedom to all people. Unlike the others, who work each day to perpetuate a society that has already fallen into the abyss, Alyosha dedicates himself to building a different future.
NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND
A novel unlike Dostoevsky's more conventional works, Notes from Underground stands out because, in its first part, the author develops a genuine philosophical treatise through the voice of the protagonist, the Underground Man. The central theme of this discourse concerns human nature and human existence, focusing in particular on the following question: Should human life be governed by the Crystal Palace of reason, or is it more important for individuals to seek their own identity by striving to free themselves from the rational models that seek to constrain them?
The Underground Man rejects the Crystal Palace, believing that above all else human beings long for their own identity and freedom. At the same time, however, he is a prisoner of his own mind, as becomes evident in the second part of the novel.
This theme is also revisited in The Brothers Karamazov through the characters of Ivan and Smerdyakov. Both champion freedom and the philosophy that "everything is permitted," yet both prove to be so enslaved by themselves that they are ultimately incapable of fully putting that philosophy into practice.
THE DREAM OF A RIDICULOUS MAN
A short yet profoundly thought-provoking story.
After being relentlessly belittled by those around him and dismissed as ridiculous by everyone he meets, the protagonist decides to end his life. However, on his way home, he encounters a little girl who, quite unexpectedly, causes him to abandon his suicidal intentions. The purity embodied by the child stands in stark contrast to the horror of the tragedy about to unfold, making him incapable of taking his own life.
That very night he has a dream. He dreams that he has died and that his soul has been transported to another planet—a world where people love one another unconditionally and freely share the resources provided by nature.
The protagonist's arrival proves disastrous for the peace of this idyllic world when, as a joke, he teaches its inhabitants how to lie. From lies is born the feeling of shame, and from shame follows a chain reaction: absolute love crumbles, giving way to individualism and, ultimately, wars fought for domination.
When he awakens, the protagonist not only abandons his resolve to kill himself but also devotes himself to spreading the boundless love he experienced in his dream.
Beyond showing us the life that each of us has sacrificed in the name of our own ego, this story reminds us of the transformative power of love. It is love that saves the life of a man who had become imprisoned within his own mind, convinced by reason that there was no longer a place for him in the world. In the end, it is love that enables him to finally find that place.
Dostoevsky's message seems clear: reason alone may convince us that life has no meaning, but love gives us a reason to keep living.
A GENTLE CREATURE
A Gentle Creature is a story about human relationships and the harm we inflict on others without even realizing it.
A man is forced to confront his wife's suicide, retracing his memories from the moment they first met to her tragic death. Through this stream of consciousness, it becomes increasingly clear that he never truly loved his wife. Rather, he used her to fill the emptiness within himself, even going so far as to fall to his knees and beg her not to leave him—an act that terrified the poor young woman.
The crushing awareness that another person's life rested in her hands became so overwhelming that, despite her deep religious faith, the gentle creature ultimately chose to take her own life in order to escape the prison in which she found herself trapped.
With this story, Dostoevsky teaches us that when something seemingly unforeseeable happens, it was often foreseeable all along. The problem was not a lack of signs, but a lack of love. The husband looked at his wife, yet he never truly saw her.
To quote Umineko: "Without love, it cannot be seen."
I will keep updating this review as I read all the works included in this collection. So far I have read: The Gambler, The Idiot, The Brothers Karamazov, Notes from Underground, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, A Gentle Creature, and White Nights.
THE GAMBLER
The Gambler was the first Dostoevsky novel I ever read. I chose it because of its brevity, as a way of becoming familiar with the author. What struck me most was the brilliant way he portrays the descent into the vortex of gambling addiction, masterfully showing the many ways in which addiction quietly takes hold of an unsuspecting victim.
There are two contrasting examples. First, there is the Countess, who falls prey to the diabolical mechanisms of gambling, representing the way an ordinary person can become addicted. Then there is the protagonist, who, unlike the Countess, was already trapped in the grip of addiction. He simply transfers his emotional dependence—his obsession with the General's stepdaughter—into a gambling addiction.
Through these characters, Dostoevsky shows us that one does not need to have an addictive personality to become addicted. However, if someone is already struggling with addiction, escaping that infernal abyss without psychological help becomes extraordinarily difficult. The object of the addiction may change, but its underlying cause remains the same.
THE IDIOT
I should begin by saying that I consider every one of Dostoevsky's works to be a masterpiece in its own right. But if I had to choose just one, it would probably be this one. Just looking at my Goodreads username is enough to understand how deeply I identify with its protagonist.
Let's start with what I believe is the novel's most essential observation: Prince Lev Myshkin—the "idiot"—is the happiest character in the entire story. Everyone else is tormented by their fears or consumed by their passions, whereas Myshkin remains serene throughout, always trying to make the best of every situation. The one person who has attained what everyone else longs for—happiness—is regarded by them as inferior, as an idiot.
So how has he achieved this elusive happiness? Through love.
The Prince has no concern for his social status, his reputation, or any of the other superficial attributes attached to his identity. These are nothing more than distractions that pull us away from happiness because, to borrow Robert M. Pirsig's words from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, they deepen the subject-object dichotomy.
Myshkin, on the other hand, places no importance on appearances. All he wants is to experience moments of genuine quality. For example, when he is about to marry Aglaya, everyone—including Aglaya herself—is consumed by the excitement of the wedding. Myshkin, however, has no real interest in the marriage itself; what matters to him is simply spending meaningful time with her. That is why he agrees to marry her despite his indifference toward the institution of marriage itself.
Ironically, this very "indifference" leads Aglaya to the mistaken belief that Myshkin is actually in love with Nastasya Filippovna, setting in motion the final confrontation between the two women.
In the end, Lev Myshkin is, like Jesus Christ, misunderstood by the many and understood by the few. Yet his actions inspire both men and women who, by following his example, become "people of quality."
THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV
Someone once said of The Brothers Karamazov: "There is one other book that can teach you everything you need to know about life... it's The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky, but that's not enough anymore." And that is true. The Brothers Karamazov on its own is an extraordinary novel, but only when paired with its complementary work, The Idiot, does it become absolutely essential. In this review, I want to focus on two major theses explored through the novel's story and characters.
The first thesis concerns the opposition between belief and unbelief, embodied by the characters of Elder Zosima and Ivan. Both ultimately desire the same thing: the earthly paradise portrayed in The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, the emblem of the idea that "everything is permitted." Zosima follows the principle that "everyone is guilty before everyone else, for everyone, and for everything," a conviction that stems from each person's guilt for not having chosen the earthly paradise. This leads him to serve others and, consequently, to love his neighbor. Ivan, by contrast, is paralyzed by his own thought and, like the Underground Man, remains imprisoned within his own mind. If, like Ivan, one believes in nothing, one cannot truly act, because the principle that "everything is permitted" prevents reason from evaluating the possible alternatives, leaving faith as the only remaining guide. The supremacy of reason alone therefore leads to confusion and meaninglessness. This is why Ivan says that he wants to live only until the age of thirty: the more time passes, the more he will resemble the Underground Man, and he is fully aware of it. It is therefore far better to be a believer—in the sense of believing in something, not necessarily in a religious sense—than to be a proctophantasmist, to borrow Goethe's term from Faust.
The second thesis concerns the contrast between a society founded solely on reason and one that incorporates Catholic principles into its foundation. Dostoevsky argues that the former is not merely inadequate but actually gives rise to more crime than the latter. This idea first emerges in the discussion surrounding Ivan's article, in which he envisions a State becoming the Church, thereby creating a community of people who freely choose one another and, consequently, love one another.
The argument returns during Dmitri's trial, where it becomes clear that the murder of Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov was ultimately the fault neither of Smerdyakov, the actual murderer, nor of the unfortunate Dmitri, but of the entire town, which lacked the sense of community necessary to prevent such a tragedy. Had the townspeople cared about the fate of Dmitri and Smerdyakov, had they consciously embraced them as members of their community and therefore loved them, events would have unfolded very differently. Through this, Dostoevsky illustrates how modern society creates a separation between the individual and everyone else. Once someone has been condemned by society, that separation makes genuine rehabilitation impossible, because it encourages the condemned person to believe that they are right and everyone else is wrong. A society governed solely by reason, therefore, does not eradicate crime—it merely preserves it.
These two theses allow us to demonstrate a third, stated by Dostoevsky himself in the opening pages of the novel: that Alyosha is a hero. Every day he struggles for the realization of the earthly paradise and for the establishment of a genuine spiritual community, one capable of bringing greater well-being and greater freedom to all people. Unlike the others, who work each day to perpetuate a society that has already fallen into the abyss, Alyosha dedicates himself to building a different future.
NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND
A novel unlike Dostoevsky's more conventional works, Notes from Underground stands out because, in its first part, the author develops a genuine philosophical treatise through the voice of the protagonist, the Underground Man. The central theme of this discourse concerns human nature and human existence, focusing in particular on the following question: Should human life be governed by the Crystal Palace of reason, or is it more important for individuals to seek their own identity by striving to free themselves from the rational models that seek to constrain them?
The Underground Man rejects the Crystal Palace, believing that above all else human beings long for their own identity and freedom. At the same time, however, he is a prisoner of his own mind, as becomes evident in the second part of the novel.
This theme is also revisited in The Brothers Karamazov through the characters of Ivan and Smerdyakov. Both champion freedom and the philosophy that "everything is permitted," yet both prove to be so enslaved by themselves that they are ultimately incapable of fully putting that philosophy into practice.
THE DREAM OF A RIDICULOUS MAN
A short yet profoundly thought-provoking story.
After being relentlessly belittled by those around him and dismissed as ridiculous by everyone he meets, the protagonist decides to end his life. However, on his way home, he encounters a little girl who, quite unexpectedly, causes him to abandon his suicidal intentions. The purity embodied by the child stands in stark contrast to the horror of the tragedy about to unfold, making him incapable of taking his own life.
That very night he has a dream. He dreams that he has died and that his soul has been transported to another planet—a world where people love one another unconditionally and freely share the resources provided by nature.
The protagonist's arrival proves disastrous for the peace of this idyllic world when, as a joke, he teaches its inhabitants how to lie. From lies is born the feeling of shame, and from shame follows a chain reaction: absolute love crumbles, giving way to individualism and, ultimately, wars fought for domination.
When he awakens, the protagonist not only abandons his resolve to kill himself but also devotes himself to spreading the boundless love he experienced in his dream.
Beyond showing us the life that each of us has sacrificed in the name of our own ego, this story reminds us of the transformative power of love. It is love that saves the life of a man who had become imprisoned within his own mind, convinced by reason that there was no longer a place for him in the world. In the end, it is love that enables him to finally find that place.
Dostoevsky's message seems clear: reason alone may convince us that life has no meaning, but love gives us a reason to keep living.
A GENTLE CREATURE
A Gentle Creature is a story about human relationships and the harm we inflict on others without even realizing it.
A man is forced to confront his wife's suicide, retracing his memories from the moment they first met to her tragic death. Through this stream of consciousness, it becomes increasingly clear that he never truly loved his wife. Rather, he used her to fill the emptiness within himself, even going so far as to fall to his knees and beg her not to leave him—an act that terrified the poor young woman.
The crushing awareness that another person's life rested in her hands became so overwhelming that, despite her deep religious faith, the gentle creature ultimately chose to take her own life in order to escape the prison in which she found herself trapped.
With this story, Dostoevsky teaches us that when something seemingly unforeseeable happens, it was often foreseeable all along. The problem was not a lack of signs, but a lack of love. The husband looked at his wife, yet he never truly saw her.
To quote Umineko: "Without love, it cannot be seen."
June 6, 2021
Delitto e Castigo: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
April 30, 2023
Letto Il giocatore da questa edizione in eBook.
September 29, 2016
per quanto la mia versione sia della casa editrice Garzanti, Maria Rosaria Fasanelli e' la traduttrice. Avevo letto il libro in una pessima traduzione inglese che, in ogni caso, non era riuscita velare l'importanza di questo capolavoro. Ora, mi imbarco di leggerlo un'altra volta in italiano, una lingua e cultura che tengono più affinità con la cultura russa. Ho cominciato il percorso italiano dell'opera guardando per l'intero la versione RAI a puntate degli anni '60. Una meraviglia!
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