Poor Folk - Fyodor M. Dostoyevsky

This is one of the Dostoyevsky's that I had been partially itching to read for quite some time now. I finally thought it was time to get back to another Dostoyevsky and hence the book.

"Poor Folk" was the first novel that got Dostoyevsky a decent amount of fame as a writer and represents a side of him before the death sentence episode that scarred his life. It represents a comparatively less mature style than one encounters in his later works, for obvious reasons. The book talks about, as is apparent from the title, poor denizens of St. Petersburg and their thoughts regarding themselves and others. It is very interestingly presented as a chain of letters between two main characters and nothing else. It starts abruptly and ends with the same abruptness.

The two main characters of the story are Makar Alexievitch Dievushkin and Barabara Alexievna Dobroselova, a copier in his later middle ages and a young woman still to see her prime. The are distantly related and closely situated in their lodgings and affections towards each other. Both being poor, seek solace in the other. They share their lives with each other and an occasional book. Makar Dievushkin showers gifts upon Barbara to his best capacity and she returns his gift with her affections as well as monetary help on a couple of occasions. In the background are the lives of the few people that these two associate with, mostly of the same class as theirs. Towards the end there occur a tumult of gay and saddening occasions.

This was a comparatively less gripping Dostoyevsky than the others but it was still a Dostoyevsky. My interest lies more in the author now than his work. The concept of the story was interesting though there were occasions where the author might have been inconsistent. But all is forgotten and forgiven since he is Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky!