Review by Choice Review
Readers from a variety of backgrounds will find much to recommend in this volume. In many respects it far exceeds what one would normally expect to encounter in a general commentary. The student approaching Dostoevsky's complex text for the first time will find welcome elucidation of the novel as well as suggested interpretive strategies. The more experienced reader will discover an informed analysis of the novel in Cox's stimulating part-by-part reading of the text. Cox manages to address, if only briefly, many of the issues that are of greatest interest and urgency to the undergraduate, and he at least touches upon important social, historical, and literary historical contexts. Cox's style is somewhat informal, and the volume contains rather frequent restatement of essential points. However, what might be distracting in another format may here be seen to serve Cox's obvious goal of making a difficult novel more accessible and enriching the reader's experience of the text. The volume includes a useful chronology, adequate bibliography and endnotes, and a map of Saint Petersburg. -D. R. Schatz, New College of the University of South Florida
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
