!bookworms thoughts?
Here is Vladimir Nabokov's 
on why Dostoyevsky was a 
writer
https://old.reddit.com/r/literature/comments/17n8lrt/why_did_nabakov_dislike_dostoyevsky_so_much/
https://www.nytimes.com/1981/08/23/magazine/nabokov-on-dostoyevsky.html
One of the key facts about Nabokov is that he was a cranky old man his whole life.
Lmao
Hemingway talks about Dostoyevsky's unique style quite a lot in A Moveable Feast.
One famous quote is: “I've been wondering about Dostoyevsky. How can a man write so badly, so unbelievably badly, and yet make you feel so deeply.”
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I can definitely see Nabokov's arguments and would agree that Dostoevsky is in some sense less artful than other great writers, but I also think it's hard to ignore the stylistic clash that is likely at the root of his distaste.
What it boils down to, in my opinion, is that Dostoevsky wrote in a time when modernism was emerging, but his work is decidedly anti-modern, really kind of romantic in nature. This fact, combined with his lack of attention to style compared to Nabokov, a notoriously fussy stylist, earns him very little goodwill compared to his contemporaries who present similar problems, but in a modern and stylistically palatable way.
Tolstoy, for example, is at least partially guilty of several of the sins Nabokov named. You can't tell me characters like Levin in Anna Karenina, or Pierre in War and Peace aren't at times ridiculous, mouth pieces for Tolstoy's big religious and political ideas. The key difference is that Tolstoy restrains himself and presents more varied characters in a realistic setting. And yes I agree that makes him more artful, but this is also a difference of romantic idealism vs. modern literary realism and not just an issue of quality.
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That degree finally paying off
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