Charles Smith’s Reviews > Demons > Status Update

Dostoevsky is the master of alluding to a murder several hundred pages in advance and still blowing my mind when said murder finally occurs. i actually threw my head back and said "oh my god" out loud.

so many secrets & hidden agendas happening all at once, hopefully they are all adequately revealed in this final act (i'm sure they will be).

this secret society and brewing conspiracy that's slowly developing is keeping me very intrigued. also, Pyotr and Stavrogin's dynamic is becoming one of my favorites in all of dostoevsky's novels.

"and yet the pleasure of charity is an arrogant and immoral pleasure, a rich man's pleasure in his riches, his power, and in the comparison of his significance with the significance of a beggar. charity corrupts both him who gives and him who takes, and, moreover, does not achieve its goal, because it only increases beggary."

"nothing in the world ever ends"


Also, Stepan is slowly becoming the true chaotic character in the story. i'm interested in seeing how his role fully plays out.

"man is unhappy because he doesn't know he's happy"

"there is no pain in the stone, but there is pain in the fear of the stone. God is the pain of the fear of death. he who overcomes pain and fear will himself become God"

Nikolai Vsevolodovich is the right amount of chaotic to really make this story interesting.

"she invented him, and she was the first to believe in her invention."