If you asked someone to name Dostoevsky's major works of fiction they would probably give you the following list--Crime and Punishment, Brothers Karamazov, Notes From Underground, The Idiot, Devils. To all but the most informed The Adolescent would not be named. This should not be the case. The Adolescent follows in the same tradition as Dostoevsky's other great works and demands to be read just as they do.

The book is told from the point of view of Arkady, a raw youth just finished with high school and coming to Petersburg to become better acquainted with his estranged family before he sets off on his young adult life.

Arkady graduates gymnasium and has decided not to go to college. He has instead chosen to embark on plan to become the next 'Baron Rothschild'. Before he does that he returns to Petersburg to visit his family -- particularly his father. Arkady's mother was a surf, so he is considered illegitimate. He has disdain for his father, however, the one time they met he was drawn to the charismatic man. What follows in Petersburg is your typical Dostoevskian drama. Arkady falls in love, befriends a prince, grows close to his sister, learns a lot about his father, and plays high-stakes roulette. Perhaps most of all book is about Arkady's experience growing up, leaving the naivety of youth behind and learning about life through experience rather than through books.

Other Dostoevskyan themes are explored here as well. The relationship between father and son; the conflict of idealist thought and human action; and of course, all the psychological subtlety one could ask for in a novel.

A first person point of view is not without its advantages, but ultimately it proves to be a failed experiment. A first person narrative does not diminish Dostoevsky's brilliance as a psychologist. It limits his potential, however, by focusing on a single character. That might not be so bad, but it is, because Arkady's naivety and makes him somewhat unlikeable. In short, he's an unremarkable character doing unremarkable things.

If you judge this book on plot and style - you would probably be inclined to toss it after the first hundred pages. However, plot and style are not parts of what modern art is all about. Every reader is, essentially, a passive consumer, sometimes endowed with a degree of healthy curiosity. And every writer's goal today, in my opinion, is to penetrate deeply into the heart and mind of such a consumer, shake him up, wake him up from his slumber, and, if possible inspire him to "create". Not to the extent of turning him into a writer, but at least into a "co-creator", raise a storm in the reader's soul, so that both the writer and the reader now participate in building this amazing world that only a human mind can build.

Dostoyevsky achieves this par excellence. The long and tedious phrases, the weird characters, their strange, bizarre actions, their mood swings from one extreme to the next within a sentence, and, above all, the grotesque that this novel is saturated with to such an extent, I am almost tempted to call it a farce.

Above all, if one were to think about it in context of modern Russia, one would be shocked at how nothing has changed in more than a century.

If, when you pick up a book, you seek entertainment - don't pick up this book. If, however, you like to embark on self-exploration rollercoaster rides, then, by all means, buckle up!