So as not to interrupt the narrative flow, the sources are given only at the back of the book. It’s a witty motif which works well, not least because it immerses us in the forcefield of Dostoevsky’s thought, which Christofi also employs to explain his own waywardness ... Novelists tend to make good biographers, not least because they know how to shape a story, and it is no mean feat to boil Dostoevsky’s epic life down to 256 pulse-thumping pages. Dostoevsky in Love is beautifully crafted and realised, but it is the great love that Christofi feels for his subject that makes this such a moving book.
... a brief, fierce account of Dostoevsky’s inner and outer life ... The book doesn’t aim to rival standard biographies — above all, Joseph Frank’s five-volume masterwork — but it does dodge smartly past the forbidding mystic monster of the textbooks to find the all-too-human pilgrim through extremities beneath ... Christofi’s rapidly unrolling tapestry helps to capture the madcap, tumbling and ferocious quality of Dostoevsky’s style — a fizzing energy lost, scholars claim, in too-polite translations. Save for a few odd lapses when his editor dozed, Christofi’s own writing helps restore the elements of risk and shock to a writer whose storytelling became 'the skin that kept distance between his tender heart and the cruelties of the world'. He understands that wild Dostoevsky can flay the reader’s defences into ribbons, as Olympian Tolstoy cannot.
... inventive ... Christofi has created an immersive and visceral journey through the life of the revolutionary author ... It is to the biographer’s credit that this feels like a cinematic thriller with one of those protagonists that you want to grasp by the shoulders and shake, though you also enjoy his exploits in the manner of an overblown Hollywood blockbuster. There are passages brimming with Hitchcock-style suspense ... The biographer’s dedication is clear. Like a literary sleuth, Christofi has lovingly spliced Dostoevsky’s inner life to expose its brilliant complexity to us, and to those with little knowledge of the author’s work. The myriad identities of the man are encompassed here in a thrilling literary ride: a revolutionary and occasional traditionalist; philosopher and prisoner; lover and family man; summoned to life with such creative flair that surely the great writer himself would have approved.
... innovative ... It is an ambitious concept, and it works. Mr. Christofi backs up his work with 452 endnotes. In short, he has not made things up ... A personal biography then, but the sociopolitical ferment of Russia does bubble up through Mr. Christofi’s pages ... veils the monstrous side of the subject. What Dostoevsky thought and how he acted were often at variance. (Who among us is immune to this contradiction?) He wrote about humility, but didn’t have much of it ... One sees the novelist at work in these pages. Keeping a hand on the narrative tiller, he understands the importance of specificity, as writers must ... Mr. Christofi’s weakness for cliché corrupts his prose ... Cliché is always regrettable, but especially so in a book on a literary master. The reader might also regret anachronistic language such as 'passive-aggressive.' I would have liked more glimpses of Dostoevsky’s Petersburg ... I greatly enjoyed this book ... Readers often fear tackling Dostoevsky’s novels, possibly because of the fuggy reverence that occludes his reputation. Alex Christofi’s welcome volume will dispel anxiety. It would be sad to miss out on one of the greatest novelists ever to have lived. And after all, as Dostoevsky wrote in a letter, 'Books are life.'
... winningly brisk. We positively gallop through Fyodor’s youth ... Reducing such a crazily eventful life to 240 pages can make it seem farcical, like a speeded-up film, and sometimes Dostoevsky in Love strays into novelettish scenes and dialogues. Christofi gratingly mix’n’matches different registers of narrating voice ... By the end, though, when The Brothers Karamazov is published to acclaim and Dostoevsky’s coffin is cheered through the St Petersburg streets by thousands of fans, you feel you know pretty well the texture of his life and the rhythm of his obsessions. Forced to choose between Christofi’s patchwork quilt and the vast cathedral of Joseph Frank’s five-volume intellectual biography, modern readers might be forgiven for picking the former.
On first reading, this approach is disconcerting as the narrative jumps from first to third person, but once the style becomes familiar, the narrative flows more smoothly ... Christofi pieces together all of these elements of Dostoevsky’s dramatic life with great skill and clarity ... This is not a traditional biography, and there is much more that has been written elsewhere. What Cristofi attempts to do is reveal Fydor Dostoevsky the man with all of his charms and weaknesses along with the power of his ideas. In this, Christofi largely succeeds by producing a serious book about a serious man who is brilliant and charming and, at times, an irritating human being ... If you have immersed yourself in Dostoevsky’s work, you will enjoy working your way back through it as presented and analyzed by Christofi, and it will likely lead you back to read it again. If you have read only smaller portions of Dostoevsky, Christofi’s account will send you off to look for more. And, if you have never read this giant of Russian and World Literature, Dostoevsky in Love will send you off to start a great literary experience with a master of the written word.
Christofi includes vivid details of the author’s destitution...He succeeds in conveying Dostoevsky’s (often self-inflicted) hardship. Yet there are omissions in this short book. The zealous faith and the vigorous theology of the novels are routinely underplayed ... Despite ostensibly focusing on Dostoevsky’s loves, the book lacks a thread to connect its narrative ... The trouble is, Dostoevsky in Love feels reconstructed, more a masterpiece of cut and paste than of creative nonfiction. Christofi’s conceit generates a skeletal biography fleshed with quotation ... Newcomers to Dostoevsky will gain a potted biography of a striking figure, but need greater content and context to appreciate his writing. Those familiar with the author may enjoy the ride, but they’ll learn little. Christofi’s innovative approach might be laudable, but the book reads more like one of Dostoevsky’s experimental short stories than one of his great novels.
Christofi illuminates the formative power of the great novelist’s passionate love ... assiduously researched ... Readers come to recognize how Dostoevsky’s diverse loves all fuse in his culminating masterpiece, The Brothers Karamazov. Literary scholarship laudably synthesizing insightful analysis with emotional empathy.
Christofi’s approach pays off in his recreations of intimate scenes and in his revelations about Dostoyevsky’s fiction ... Christofi succeeds in revealing Dostoyevsky’s personality in ways no ordinary biographical treatment could.
Drawing on Dostoevsky’s letters, journals, fiction, and other sources, Christofi successfully constructs a biographical portrait that is 'both novelistic and true to life.' The narrative is both an illuminating literary biography and an evocative snapshot of the context in which the great writer created his enduring work ... Dostoevsky fans are certain to find this book insightful and captivating.
