Dostoevsky was a master, but his writing isn't suited for a mass audience. It takes an awful lot of effort to really get it. I can never tell if that's because of the translation or if it's just the way he wrote. I suspect the latter.

I remember reading Faukner's The Sound and the Fury. I had to read sections over and over to figure out what was going on. There's one scene of dialogue between Quintin and his father that isn't even broken into sentences and paragraphs (much less quotes). I remember sitting down to read the book every so often and only being able to get through a few pages before drifting off. Then I'd have to go back and reread what I just read. The whole novel basically went like this for me.

Then I became sort of facinated with the few scenes I read that actually made sense. Based on those building blocks I went back and read it again, and I thought so much of it that I went and read a bunch of literary criticism. It became like a puzzle that I had to solve. There have been several novels, however, that I started and just couldn't see to the finish (including others by Faukner).

So, I'd say if you don't have that kind of narrative power, you'd better try to write for your audience.  

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