Conclusion
This chapter recounts how Fyodor Dostoevsky was decidedly not on the straight and steady path that Pushkin and Gogol, Turgenev, and Tolstoy appeared to travel to glory and fame in 1846 and 1847. It elaborates Dostoevsky's feelings of going off the rails in literature and life when he published The Double, Mr. Prokharchin, The Landlady, and A Novel in Nine Letters after he released Poor Folk. It also describes the disturbed and deranged characters, complex and convoluted plots, and winding and windy prose of Dostoevsky's four works that caused former admirers and fans to lose faith in him and look elsewhere for solutions to national problems. The chapter speculates about scenarios of what would have happened if Dostoevsky had handled the success of Poor Folk in a more humble and judicious way.