Books like humiliated and insulted

Humiliated and Insulted(Russian:Униженные и оскорблённые,Unizhennye i oskorblyonnye) — also known in English asThe Insulted and Humiliated,The Insulted and the InjuredorInjury and Insult— is a novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky, first published in 1861 in the monthly magazineVremya.

Narrated by a young novelist, Vanya (Ivan Petrovich), who has just released his first novel which bears an obvious resemblance to Dostoevsky's own first novel,Poor Folk, it consists of two gradually converging plot lines. One deals with Vanya's close friend and former love object, Natasha, who has left her family to live with her new lover, Alyosha. Alyosha is the saintly but dimwitted son of Prince Valkovsky, who hopes to gain financially by marrying Alyosha off to an heiress, Katya. Valkovsky's cruel machinations to break up Alyosha and Natasha make him one of the most memorable "predatory types" (like Stavrogin inThe Possessed) that Dostoevsky created. The other plotline focuses on a thirteen-year-old orphan, Nellie, whom Vanya saves from an abusive household by taking her into his apartment, and whose deceased mother's story in some ways parallels that of Natasha. It's unusual to see a well-developed character as young as Nellie in a Dostoevsky novel, but Nellie may be one of his most moving creations, and she in particular shows the influence of Dickens (Dostoevsky is known to have read Dickens during the Siberian exile; this novel was conceived near the end of this exile. In turn Japanese director Akira Kurosawa adapted Nellie's story in his 1965 film,Red Beard).