About this audiobook
Nineteen-year-old Arkady Dolgoruky tries to construct a vision of the independent person he wants to become. His ambitions for wealth and freedom develop alongside a much less orderly family history, particularly his difficult relationship with Versilov. Entering a world of concealed motives and emotional demands, Arkady finds that an idea of self-sufficiency cannot protect him from other people.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky tells the story through a young narrator whose judgements are forceful but repeatedly unsettled by experience. Admiration, resentment and the wish to be recognised complicate his understanding of those around him. What he learns about his family also changes the meaning of the future he has imagined.
The novel explores growing up as a struggle between a private theory of life and the contradictions of actual relationships. It considers pride, dependence and the need for belonging, following a character who must learn that knowing what he wants is different from understanding why he wants it.
