IMHO there is a world of difference between AR's writing and DOestoyevsky's, or anyone comparable to him. The difference is in the depth of the characters. AR's whole intent, in creating characters like Dagney Taggart and Hank Reardon, was to embody a polemic, to put a face on a message, much like a ventriloquist uses a dummy. The result was pretty two-dimensional characters. Her weak-spined bureaucrats are similarly drawen in two dimensions with exagerrated features, cariactures of genuine human experience.

Fyodor, on the other hand, almost went too far in the other direction, but at least his people were rich in individual personality and experience, and real human passions.


A