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I did not care for Crime and Punishment. It takes forever getting in; you spend like six and a half hours... You know, I can't get through, I've never even fini

I did not care for Crime and Punishment. It takes forever getting in; you spend like six and a half hours... You know, I can't get through, I've never even finished the book. The thing I hate about most "great" fiction is it's rarely made better by the theatrics of it. I'd much rather read the author's anecdotal opinion instead of an overdrawn lie that's subtextually getting to that same point, except taking more time and little entertainment along the way.

readthenotes1 3y ago
Tale of Dad Victory: Teenagers had to read "non-western" novel for class. Child's friend picked Crime and Punishment. I steered child to Siddhartha by Hesse.
- thriftwy 3y ago
  I can see how one may reason non-westerness of Dostoyevski, but - Hesse as non-western!? Isn't he Swiss?
  - SubGenius 3y ago
    I guess the subject matter is eastern/Buddhist in nature? Not sure what GP meant. I liked that book when I was young but a recent reading didn't leave me super impressed. My absolute favorite book by Hesse is Narcissus and Goldmund, it's beautiful. The Glass Bead game is pretty amazing too.
    - readthenotes1 3y ago
      Siddhartha being about Buddha was enough to qualify. I hadn't read it since college, but remembered how short it was ...
  - brmgb 3y ago
    > I can see how one may reason non-westerness of Dostoyevski I can’t. Dostoyevski’s Russia is still very much European. It’s culturally a lot closer to what was produced in my own Western European country at the time than anything written in the USA at the same period. But the very idea of the western civilisation is dubious anyway.
jfk13 3y ago
Maybe it's just a personal thing; maybe it's partly about the translation you pick. But I remember reading Crime & Punishment back in my 20s (without any expectations or background knowledge), and I found it absolutely gripping. [eta:] On the other hand, some years later I got totally bogged down in Brothers Karamazov, and (rarely, for me) didn't finish the book.
- hotdogscout 3y ago
  I read Notes from The Underground and his other short stories first in High School, never read more verbose prose with so few insights. I had searing hate for having spent the little money I had on that collection and that probably colored my opinion of Crime and Punishment. I don't get literature culture in general. I love art. In my view art is aesthetics denouncing intention and information through symbology. What I don't get is why something like In Search of Lost Time from Proust, which I love, is THAT much better than Diary of a Wimpy Kid, when it sometimes explores a lot of similar ideas except using a different aesthetic. Is the value in art to be judged by how prestigious the aesthetics imply said art to be? Some SpongeBob SquarePants episodes have the same depth as a great Azimov short story except that's really far from how they're categorized.
  - QuesnayJr 3y ago
    The second half of Swann's Way is an eloquent portrait of an obsessive love affair. If Diary of a Wimpy Kid has an eloquent portrait of an obsessive love affair, perhaps I have misjudged it. Something I find fascinating is just how often that people will think, when they discover that other people have different opinions from them, that they can't really mean it. They must be lying, or be making some sort of mistake, or (in your case) they are incapable of thinking clearly. The truth is that it's crazy, unpredictable world. Sometimes people sincerely like Notes from the Underground and don't like Sponge Bob Square Pants.
  - drdaeman 3y ago
    Professional critics and their opinions is the worst thing that could've happen to art (edit: in modern times, to be fair I've no idea about the past and its nuances). People like Tarantino killed some of that pompous nonsense, but world is super inertial (and critics had simply adjusted) so we're still there, with "high" and "lowly" arts. Being a native Russian speaker, I've been forced to read Crime and Punishment in high school, and for me (personally, subjectively) it was very difficult to read. Obviously, I had no clue what the heck the fuss was about (because I utterly lacked the historical context - history and philosophy courses weren't there yet, a badly designed school program to be blamed), but three key points I still remember are weird original premise (in retrospect, I see how it was possibly constructed - a Frankenstein's monster of utterly exaggerated Western ideas perverted into a faux killer agenda), a sludge of random ravings beating around the bush of expected outcome until some arbitrary breaking point, and a catharsis and ensuing "enlightening" of sorts, where Dostoevsky had "won" his shower debate and reiterated his views. The language was good, but I had issues with the rest. Purely subjective opinion, of course.
nanidin 3y ago
I think the buildup in Crime and Punishment is what makes the resolution so good. I distinctly remember a point where the book delivered the most intense literature derived frisson I had ever experienced. It was a bit of a slog and I’ve never been tempted to pick it back up, but it was worth it.

readthenotes1 3y ago

Tale of Dad Victory: Teenagers had to read "non-western" novel for class. Child's friend picked Crime and Punishment. I steered child to Siddhartha by Hesse.

thriftwy 3y ago
I can see how one may reason non-westerness of Dostoyevski, but - Hesse as non-western!? Isn't he Swiss?
- SubGenius 3y ago
  I guess the subject matter is eastern/Buddhist in nature? Not sure what GP meant. I liked that book when I was young but a recent reading didn't leave me super impressed. My absolute favorite book by Hesse is Narcissus and Goldmund, it's beautiful. The Glass Bead game is pretty amazing too.
  - readthenotes1 3y ago
    Siddhartha being about Buddha was enough to qualify. I hadn't read it since college, but remembered how short it was ...
- brmgb 3y ago
  > I can see how one may reason non-westerness of Dostoyevski I can’t. Dostoyevski’s Russia is still very much European. It’s culturally a lot closer to what was produced in my own Western European country at the time than anything written in the USA at the same period. But the very idea of the western civilisation is dubious anyway.

jfk13 3y ago

Maybe it's just a personal thing; maybe it's partly about the translation you pick. But I remember reading Crime & Punishment back in my 20s (without any expectations or background knowledge), and I found it absolutely gripping. [eta:] On the other hand, some years later I got totally bogged down in Brothers Karamazov, and (rarely, for me) didn't finish the book.

hotdogscout 3y ago
I read Notes from The Underground and his other short stories first in High School, never read more verbose prose with so few insights. I had searing hate for having spent the little money I had on that collection and that probably colored my opinion of Crime and Punishment. I don't get literature culture in general. I love art. In my view art is aesthetics denouncing intention and information through symbology. What I don't get is why something like In Search of Lost Time from Proust, which I love, is THAT much better than Diary of a Wimpy Kid, when it sometimes explores a lot of similar ideas except using a different aesthetic. Is the value in art to be judged by how prestigious the aesthetics imply said art to be? Some SpongeBob SquarePants episodes have the same depth as a great Azimov short story except that's really far from how they're categorized.
- QuesnayJr 3y ago
  The second half of Swann's Way is an eloquent portrait of an obsessive love affair. If Diary of a Wimpy Kid has an eloquent portrait of an obsessive love affair, perhaps I have misjudged it. Something I find fascinating is just how often that people will think, when they discover that other people have different opinions from them, that they can't really mean it. They must be lying, or be making some sort of mistake, or (in your case) they are incapable of thinking clearly. The truth is that it's crazy, unpredictable world. Sometimes people sincerely like Notes from the Underground and don't like Sponge Bob Square Pants.
- drdaeman 3y ago
  Professional critics and their opinions is the worst thing that could've happen to art (edit: in modern times, to be fair I've no idea about the past and its nuances). People like Tarantino killed some of that pompous nonsense, but world is super inertial (and critics had simply adjusted) so we're still there, with "high" and "lowly" arts. Being a native Russian speaker, I've been forced to read Crime and Punishment in high school, and for me (personally, subjectively) it was very difficult to read. Obviously, I had no clue what the heck the fuss was about (because I utterly lacked the historical context - history and philosophy courses weren't there yet, a badly designed school program to be blamed), but three key points I still remember are weird original premise (in retrospect, I see how it was possibly constructed - a Frankenstein's monster of utterly exaggerated Western ideas perverted into a faux killer agenda), a sludge of random ravings beating around the bush of expected outcome until some arbitrary breaking point, and a catharsis and ensuing "enlightening" of sorts, where Dostoevsky had "won" his shower debate and reiterated his views. The language was good, but I had issues with the rest. Purely subjective opinion, of course.

nanidin 3y ago

I think the buildup in Crime and Punishment is what makes the resolution so good. I distinctly remember a point where the book delivered the most intense literature derived frisson I had ever experienced. It was a bit of a slog and I’ve never been tempted to pick it back up, but it was worth it.