One great Russian novelist (V. Nabokov) takes down another:
My position in regard to Dostoyevsky is a curious and difficult one. In all my courses I approach literature from the only point of view that literature interests me - namely the point of view of enduring art and individual genius. From this point of view Dostoyevsky is not a great writer, but a rather mediocre one - with flashes of excellent humor, but, alas, with wastelands of literary platitudes in between. In ''Crime and Punishment'' Raskolnikov for some reason or other kills an old female pawnbroker and her sister. Justice in the shape of an inexorable police officer closes slowly in on him until in the end he is driven to a public confession, and through the love of a noble prostitute he is brought to a spiritual regeneration that did not seem as incredibly banal in 1866 when the book was written as it does now when noble prostitutes are apt to be received a little cynically by experienced readers. My difficulty, however, is that not all the readers to whom I talk in this or other classes are experienced. A good third, I should say, do not know the difference between real literature and pseudoliterature, and to such readers Dostoyevsky may seem more important and more artistic than such trash as our American historical novels or things called ''From Here to Eternity'' and suchlike balderdash.
As for me, I just finished re-reading
Crime and Punishment. I enjoyed it a lot more than the first time I read it, over 30 years ago, and even laughed out loud a few times (I don't recall finding it funny in my youth). The translation I read was from 2017 by Michael R. Katz: I think he did a great job modernizing the prose while keeping that feeling of 19th century Saint Petersburg.