What I liked about Dostoevsky was that he seemed to primarily focus on the psychology of his characters, and any politics and agenda felt like a natural part of

What I liked about Dostoevsky was that he seemed to primarily focus on the psychology of his characters, and any politics and agenda felt like a natural part of this. Because of this focus on 'rich' individuals, I never felt he simply put words in the characters mouths to promote or reject an agenda. Real humans are too messy for that. In contrast, a writer who I personally greatly love, C.S. Lewis, had a tendency to become overtly preachy. I'm using him as an example because he strikes me as a perfect case of someone torn between telling a good story and wanting to put out a message. There's an interesting split in his oeuvre between books that are wonderful stories (Perelandra), and books that try to convince you to be a Christian, and his Narnia Chronicles occupy a confusing mix of the two. Many people love his stories despite his preachiness, and many people absolutely hate him for his preachiness despite the fact that he was a good writer. Personally, I wasn't bothered by most of his overt Christian themes in Narnia, for example, because many of those themes transcend mere Christianity (budum ching). But the little tidbit about one of the core characters not going to heaven because she liked lipstick a little too much (basically) felt like a terrible violation of his storytelling just to make a point. Anyways, I'm getting off topic here but I like any excuse to get into Lewis, as he's one of my favorite characters precisely because he strikes me as so maddeningly torn between different things. Carry on.