I haven’t read their translation of Demons in a few years but I remember it being very readable and fluid. But when I read Maguire recently I was able to digest and understand a lot more of the philosophical points characters of Dosty was trying to make. Maguire was more readable and digestible.

Now The Idiot, I was not a huge fan of the book when I read P&V’s translation years ago. A lot of the book was lost on me, and there was A LOT of re-reading pages and sections to try and understand exactly what was being said/inferred. I felt it was clunky and confusing. But re-reading the book with Avsey’s translation made me fall in love with it. The writing style, again, was so much more readable but still maintained that Dostoyevsky feel. Also the book is very dialogue heavy so I was able to understand a lot more about our characters.

So I guess it does come down to readability and understanding!