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EXCERPT:
Penguin Classics has a real mystery on its hands. Since 2016, sales of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment have risen 450 percent, and his other great novels have climbed along with it. Ten years ago, Dostoevsky ranked 40th among the publisher’s bestselling authors; today, he ranks 4th.
Jess Harrison, editorial director of Penguin Classics, admits the trend “feels quite mysterious,” guessing that it’s the old Russian author’s “gloom and nihilism” that is drawing in younger generations. And why not? Gen Z’s detractors have long called them a shallow, nihilistic generation. The shoe seems to fit.
But the shoe doesn’t fit. Gen Z is less colored by cynicism than a hunger for truth — a generation reaching, only half-knowingly, for the old Christian teachings of man’s fallenness and God’s grace. To call Dostoevsky a nihilist is to miss the core message of his books — redemption.