It's amazing how Dostoevsky captured the dark essence of nerdiness in this story.

Here's the original for those who know Russian:

Его пожирала страсть самая глубокая, самая ненасытимая, истощающая всю жизнь человека и не выделяющая таким существам, как Ордынов, ни одного угла в сфере другой, практической, житейской деятельности. Эта страсть была — наука. Она снедала покамест его молодость, медленным, упоительным ядом отравляла ночной покой, отнимала у него здоровую пищу и свежий воздух, которого никогда не бывало в его душном углу, и Ордынов в упоении страсти своей не хотел замечать того. Он был молод и покамест не требовал бо’льшего. Страсть сделала его младенцем для внешней жизни и уже навсегда неспособным заставить посторониться иных добрых людей, когда придет к тому надобность, чтоб отмежевать себе между них хоть какой-нибудь угол. Наука иных ловких людей — капитал в руках; страсть Ордынова была обращенным на него же оружием.

Dostoevsky isn't talking about the "dangers of science" as such. He even goes out of his way to make that clear in the last sentence.

Seems to me more like he's interested in what happens when the intellect runs amok and is unbalanced by other aspects of human nature. Although I haven't read this story, that would be consistent with the rest of his work (Crime and Punishment, for example, which now that I think of it really goes into the dark side of "nerdiness").

Edit: Rereading the passage, I don't think that's really what's going on here either. This character seems naive and almost helpless, and the tone is more compassionate than critical.

Read the story.

Edit: I agree that he isn't talking about the "dangers of science". It's more like "Nerd in the city"

Fantastic piece of writing, thanks for posting this.

This is just the same thing as Faust: selling your soul for science is a devil's bargain by definition. Scientists aren't smart enough not to do it ;)

I am not sure it is so much criticizing as much as it is simply describing.

Being passionate about something to the exclusion of every thing else is a common human folly.

That something being knowledge is common for us hackers.

the excerpt uses very grim words for something which is just "describing".

that said, I agree with your last 2 sentences

If you think a novelist's job is to present "arguments", I can see why Dostoevsky is not for you.

But you'd love Tolstoy! The last third of War and Peace breaks off every five pages so Tolstoy can argue against the "great men" view of history. Then he has a fifty-page appendix at the end in which he reiterates his case, just in case you didn't get it the first time.

It's especially dull, since nobody really believes the viewpoint he's arguing against any more.