I think, on the whole, there is little that can be done. Dostoevsky gave everything he had, and more, and yet this book is nothing to society. No man, artistically bent, can accomplish anything of value. Even morally bent it is extremely unlikely. I don't understand why people shy away from technical criticism of him, if anything it makes the power of the work more inviolable. Every sentence is wonderful and yet at times there are mistakes and swayings that clearly are matters of inability. But there's so much of the world in it, so much of a brilliant leaning, incredible romanticism, and terrifying nihilistic madness. He can manage infinitesimal detail and overarching purpose in every beat simultaneously. That's a version of madness: it's a grain that's moving around on the ground in the writer's brain and yet he never loses his faith. To call this work religious, and him a religious writer, is like pretending humans are dogs ("For not only is an odd man 'not always' a particular and isolated case, but, on the contrary, it sometimes happens that it is precisely he, perhaps, who bears within himself the heart of the whole, while the other people of his epoch have all for some reason been torn away from it by some kind of flooding wind"). I am curious about his interest in America too which seems at least to me to have had an interesting effect on him. I like the subtlety to the plotting, how books and parts and time are sequenced so that nothing is sentimental. It is motivating work. I enjoyed reading it and will soon read Crime and Punishment and then finish Chekhov and then Anna Karenina and if I am still alive War and Peace but hopefully I will have finished my book by then or at least I want to.