Well, I might have been too harsh. Listening is better than "skimming". It is actually slower, so you're retaining more.
>greatest novels of all time
I was forced to read it at high school, finished about a quarter, didn't enjoy it a slightest bit, and managed to sabotage the rest of the reading successfully.
Many people told me that the book just wasn't fit for my age and maturity level, so I promised myself to re-read it as an adult. Now I am executing this plan.
I am still not impressed. Of course, the language is much better than what youtubers are speaking in, so listening is more pleasurable, but overall the book is underwhelming.
Dostoyevskiy himself admitted that the book is a merger of two drafts, none of which he managed to complete on its own, and indeed it feels like that.
The first component (which had been called "Drunkards" before the merger) is about the life of alcoholics. I cannot really reflect, since I never drank any alcohol at all. Perhaps it could teach me how to deal with them, but so far the most conclusion I have drawn is just "avoid".
The second component is a so-so detective story. It could have been better, if the protagonist hadn't been clearly mentally unwell. You know, any plot involving insane people is not really worth reading, because admitting that your character is a madman is basically saying "his motivations are not what real people have". Any question of the form "why did he do X", are immediately answered with "because he is a madman". Okay, fine, now what about actually describing real human behaviour?
>That can be accomplished with a read-through of the SparkNotes
No, not really. I can feel it quite well when something like this can be accomplished. Sometimes I start listening to a book, only to find out that listening doesn't work, I _need_ to see the words in order to understand what is going on. This happened more than once, so I am confident that it's not an exception.