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What made Dostoevsky's work immortal
- greenie_beans 2y agoa writer's financial situation does not make art immortal. it cites faulkner, too, and he famously wrote "as i lay dying" while he was broke and working at the university electric plant.
- brodouevencode 2y ago> a writer's financial situation does not make art immortal. That was not the point of the article. The point was that the narrowness of circumstance - living between riches and poverty and what type of person can handle that (not to mention the unique problems that might come up with that) - requires someone that can balance that sort of situation.
- greenie_beans 2y agohow is that not "a writer's financial situation"?
- brodouevencode 2y agoBecause that's a manifestation of the struggle, not the struggle itself.
- greenie_beans 2y agoso am i struggling with my art or my financial situation? genuinely trying to understand what you're saying.
- sexyman48 2y agoLike most literary analysis, GP's remarks ("narrowness of circumstance") are bullshit. The title "What Made His Work Immortal" was completely off-topic.
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- brodouevencode 2y agoWhich book would this be? His catalog, the great bulk of it anyway, is quite prolific.
- thrwwXZTYE 2y agoCrime and Punishment, obviously. But he was a russian empire/orthodoxy apologist through and through, except for a brief period early on (which earned him the gulag).
- potatoman22 2y agoWow, I got something completely different from that book. It's crazy how two people can read the same thing and have drastically different takeaways.
- riehwvfbk 2y agoJust think: if that's what he took away, he probably thinks killing old ladies is good enlightened capitalism.
- thrwwXZTYE 2y agoI think presenting the philosophy you disagree with as leading to murdering innocent people is bad writing.
- riehwvfbk 2y agoMuch better to say they are Nazis or rapists or both, and be done with it :)
- kristjankalm 2y ago“Non-Russian readers do not realize two things: that not all Russians love Dostoevsky as much as Americans do, and that most of those Russians who do, venerate him as a mystic and not as an artist. He was a prophet, a claptrap journalist and a slapdash comedian. I admit that some of his scenes, some of his tremendous farcical rows are extraordinarily amusing. But his sensitive murderers and soulful prostitutes are not to be endured for one moment—by this reader anyway.” V. Nabokov, [0] I really recommend Nabokov's full lecture on Dostoyevsky [1], plus obvs all the of the lectures in the series are brilliant. [0] https://lithub.com/on-dostoevskys-199th-birthday-heres-nabokov-insulting-him-a-lot/ https://lithub.com/on-dostoevskys-199th-birthday-heres-nabok... [1] Lectures on Russian Literature, Vladimir Nabokov, https://www.londonreviewbookshop.co.uk/stock/lectures-on-russian-literature-vladimir-nabokov https://www.londonreviewbookshop.co.uk/stock/lectures-on-rus...
- cbolton 2y ago[flagged]
- ben_w 2y agoSomething wrong with the way Dostoyevsky wrote them, according to someone who died in 1977. I had to look up what "soulful" even means because I see it used so infrequently: "expressing or appearing to express deep and often sorrowful feeling" — while I cannot guess what would appeal to someone who would hire a sex worker as that isn't my thing in the first place, nor can I guess to the lived lives of those who so work, what I can say is that "observing someone being openly sad" doesn't pattern match my ideal for a fun time either when reading or when getting off, even though that is an entirely sympathetic and believable personality trait for a character who is a sex worker. Especially believable in the case of characters that Dostoyevsky, who died in 1881, would have written about — not only because of the stereotype that Russia is even more grim than Country/Blues paints the USA, but also because while things like chloroform for childbirth pain relief had been used by Queen Victoria this was only in 1853 for the first use on the 8th child, but still advised against it for the 9th child in 1857*; or that likewise "it's a good idea to wash your hands between autopsies and assisting midwifes in childbirth" was only even noticed (and not immediately well received) in 1847. * including by religious figures even though she was the head of the church
- beoberha 2y agoMy favorite course I took in college was a Russian Literature elective my first semester. I fell in love with Dostoevsky when we read Crime and Punishment and I ended up writing my 25 page term paper on him and his role in the proto-existentialist vs nihilism movement in Russia in the 1860s. There will always be a part of me that wishes I had taken my career in that direction instead of computers :)
- mdp2021 2y agoPlease consider an advice: try using some of your spare time on that interest. You never know.
- jffhn 2y agoReminds me of an interview with Fields Medalist Laurent Lafforgue, where he mentioned that at one point, he had only been interested in literature, particularly Dostoevsky, and couldn't understand how anyone could bother with mathematics, but that he later realized that mathematics could also convey profound truths.
- UncleOxidant 2y ago> There will always be a part of me that wishes I had taken my career in that direction instead of computers :) Well, it's not like there's money in that direction, so the computer work can provide money for the Russian literature/philosophy interest.
- SeattleAltruist 2y ago@kristjankaim is correct - this sure isn't Nabokov. Example: "Immortality of Dostoevsky’s art is unquestionable; his art will likely continue to live on." Wait... which is it?
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- fumeux_fume 2y agoSounds good but doesn't add up. I think his writing's legacy is due more to the time it was published, it's translations into other languages and boosters like Freud who thought BK what the greatest novel ever written. That opinion gets echoed a lot, but thinking about literature in a ordinal sense is a little absurd. For me, the ruble ammouts in BK were almost meaningless. I just assumed 3,000 or 5,000 rubles was a shit ton of money, but def less than a million dollars today.
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- totaldude87 2y agoHis works will live on regardless of the culture or the time it was written. As long as there is Poverty, Guilt consciousness, Morality his works would be relevent. I did not bow down to you, I bowed down to all the suffering of humanity. This cannot be put an expiry at..
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- braincat31415 2y agoI fail to see the connection between Dostoevsky and air defence. Following the same logic, I should stop listening to Beethoven (because of nazis), or drive a Honda because of unit 731. Say whatever you want, but people will listen to Tchaikovsky and read Tolstoy hundreds of years from now.
- eimrine 2y agoYou know we in Ukraine use to observe how the Government tries to cancel everything Russian. This logic really considers the Jews weren't choose to listen any German compositor at least by the time of end of the war. Even some famous Ukrainian artists such as Malevitch are being cancelling here right now instead of merging all of his outcomes as cornerstone of our Ukrainian culture what else do you expect to hear about Russian ancient writer from Ukrainian now? Air strikes from Russian side have become really ubuquitous this winter season who knows weren't some of it launched by any of Dostoevsky's offsprings.
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- ruthmarx 2y agoI think his idea in Crime and Punishment of there being a class of 'special' humans is pretty interesting and enduring.
- UncleOxidant 2y agoIsn't Dostoevsky's idea in Crime and Punishment that there are humans who feel like they are 'special' (and thus can become monsters when they act on that belief) as opposed to the idea that a 'special' class of humans exists?
- ruthmarx 2y agoI think that is the idea, yes, but it's open to interpretation as all art is. It could be they exist but Rodion wasn't one of them.
- jaredhallen 2y agoIt's been a long time since I read it, but my takeaway was that he was depicting the true nature of humanity. Specifically, that people are neither fundamentally good or evil, but are fallible beings that react to their circumstances.
- rrherr 2y agoThis Substack post is a summary of an essay by Joseph Brodsky about Dostoevsky — but the post does not link or name the essay. The essay is named "The Power of the Elements" and it can be read here on Google Books: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Less_Than_One/N5Nzm2uihkAC?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=%22The%20Power%20of%20the%20Elements%22 https://www.google.com/books/edition/Less_Than_One/N5Nzm2uih...
- nsatirini 2y agoThe author mentioned the name of the book in the very first paragraph. Yes, it seems the essay inspired the post and it quotes excerpts from the essay but also has also some nice additional commentary.
- scandox 2y agoThe book in which they read the essay but not it seems the essay itself.
- alangou 2y agoDostoyevsky was truly great and could see the true and important things about the world, while Nabokov's contribution to literature will not be remembered past this century. One foresaw what the death of absolute good would do to the world—the casual mass murders of millions in places such as Germany, Cambodia, Stalinist Russia. The other is famous for Lolita. “Don’t be afraid of anything, ever. And do not grieve. As long as your repentance does not weaken, God will forgive everything. There is not—there cannot be—a sin on earth that God will not forgive the truly repentant. Why, a man cannot commit a sin so great as to exhaust the infinite love of God. How could there be a sin that would surpass the love of God? Think only of repentance, all the time, and drive away all fear. Have faith that God loves you more than you can ever imagine. He loves you, sinful as you are and, indeed, because of your sin. It was said long ago that there is more joy in heaven over one repentant sinner than over ten righteous men. Go now, and fear nothing. Do not be offended if people treat you badly. Do not hold it against them. And forgive your departed husband all the harm he did you. Become truly reconciled with him. For if you repent, you love, and if you love, you are with God. Love redeems and saves everything. If I, a sinner like yourself, am moved and feel compassion for you, how infinitely much more will God! Love is such an infinite treasure it can buy the whole world and can redeem not only your sins, but the sins of all people. So go and fear no more.” Dostoevsky, Fyodor. The Brothers Karamazov (pp. 64-65). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
- bowsamic 2y agoIf you think the point of your work is what you end up being famous for, then you have no moral ground to stand on
- alangou 2y agoHow should one decide what to read?
- nkmskdmfodf 2y agoHuh? If you're going to write a book, for other people to read, you ultimately want people to understand and recognize your ideas/the point of your work. It has nothing to do with morality.
- bowsamic 2y agoI don't find his work to be immortal, in fact I find his writing full of all the worst late 19th century writing cliches, and thus extremely dated.
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- volkk 2y ago[flagged]
- bowsamic 2y agoWell one example would be how the characters are all extremely overdramatic and prone to hysterical outbursts at the slightest provocation, or how they enter a fever if they get into an argument, etc. This is very obvious after reading something like George Eliot's Middlemarch, who has a very realistic depiction of the characters rather than Dostoevsky's overly dramatic approach. The latter, imo, just makes the characters impossible to empathise with, because they act in ways that no common human ever acts. This is common in 19th century writing, but in the 20th century it seemed to improve. One of the reason George Eliot is so praised is because she eschewed that convention far earlier than authors like Dostoevsky.
- volkk 2y agoThank you, fair enough
- alivengineer 2y agothis tbh. the only reason crime and punishment isnt a short story (which it was planned to be) is that dostoyevsky lost a lot of money drinking and gambling. so he stretched it out every way he could conseivably do so, as he was paid by content length
- sctb 2y ago> "[...] Reading him simply makes one realize that stream of consciousness springs not from consciousness but from a word which alters or redirects one’s consciousness." This has a slight ring of Derrida and/but I find it a very interesting point. The "stream of consciousness" really does seem like a stream of the words themselves, each one in reflection of the previous and anticipation of the next. The flowing is not just in the writer's mind but the reader's as well.
- drdaeman 2y agoDostoevsky is one of those authors whose works absolutely require deconstructive double reading. :-)
- vishkk 2y agoNabokov's recommendations: http://wmjas.wikidot.com/nabokov-s-recommendations http://wmjas.wikidot.com/nabokov-s-recommendations I love Dostoevsky too much and am quite happy in my bias and echo chamber of that—he was one of the writers that I read in my early days, and to date, I feel that he changed a lot in me or resonated so much that I can't explain. I believe Nietzche said this about him "the only psychologist from whom I had something to learn." And one of my favorite quotes by him: For, after all, you do grow up, you do outgrow your ideals, which turn to dust and ashes, which are shattered into fragments; and if you have no other life, you just have to build one up out of these fragments. And all the time your soul is craving and longing for something else. And in vain does the dreamer rummage about in his old dreams, raking them over as though they were a heap of cinders, looking in these cinders for some spark, however tiny, to fan it into a flame so as to warm his chilled blood by it and revive in it all that he held so dear before, all that touched his heart, that made his blood course through his veins, that drew tears from his eyes, and that so splendidly deceived him!”
- readthenotes1 2y agoAnd in song: https://youtu.be/eKfvXBDSiU4?feature=shared https://youtu.be/eKfvXBDSiU4?feature=shared
- tehnub 2y agoGreat song, thanks. I was also reminded of this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2kWUJkRvVs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2kWUJkRvVs
- vishkk 2y agohahah love it, thank you for sharing!
- 5- 2y agoto point out what you probably intended, this is appropriately an english version of an early twentieth century russian song. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Those_Were_the_Days_%28song%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Those_Were_the_Days_%28song%29
- deely3 2y ago[flagged]
- rambojohnson 2y agoyikes, while your points about Dostoevsky’s views are worth discussing, proclaiming what is or isn't appropriate for this forum as though you're its arbiter seems presumptuous. surely we can engage without the obnoxious gatekeeping of the conversation...
- jjtheblunt 2y agoit's particularly ironic considering he's discussing Dostoevskiy behaving just as his discussion itself of Dostoevskiy behaves. So silly.
- mrtksn 2y agoLot's of great people are terrible in some aspect or another. Seeking saints is counterproductive since this is not about celebrating these people's character but their great work. The whole cancel culture is deeply misguided. It's analogous to expecting wisdom on everything from people who are extremely good at this one thing, but in reverse. It never ends well.
- deely3 2y agoSure. I just wish I can recount these wise words to my friends killed by russians army.
- mrtksn 2y agoI'm sorry to hear that, its terrible what's happening in Ukraine right now but its not a dead writer who is doing it.
- hkpack 2y agoIt absolutely is. Russia’s ideology is based on the works of such. Look at the quote in the comments above. Dostoevsky approves any sin and logically derives that it will be forgotten. He does not merely condone sin, he rationalizes it, and in doing so, lays bare the grim inevitability of its absolution in the collective psyche. Living in Kyiv, we were shocked, how a regular person can commit such crimes in a modern day effortlessly, and you can see how - by reading the mind of a russian in the form of a great prose. Dostoevsky is a window into a sick mind of a crippled nation where death and torture is normalized and the life had no value for at least a millennia. It is an ideological base of a russian culture, its code, captured by the mastermind who was able to feel it thoroughly. "It's not a coincidence that one of the last public appearances by Putin before invasion of Ukraine was opening a Dostoyevsky centre in Moscow." [0] 0 - https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/1gxhtcs/comment/lyha0di/ https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/1gxhtcs/comment/lyh...
- sexyman48 2y ago[flagged]
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 2y agoNot only English translations :) And the man was a real nazi. Hated Poles, Jews, French, Germans - anyone not Russian. This is where Dugin, Putin and other modern vampires draw inspiration from.
- aguaviva 2y agoHated Poles, Jews, French, Germans - anyone not Russian. But that does not make one a Nazi. Thinking that it does dilutes the discussion.
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 2y agoWell, nazis had not been invented yet in 18xx, but same line of thinking.
- aguaviva 2y agoThen they probably should have picked a qualifier besides "real". It just leads to garbled thinking, this kind of random sloshing-of-words-around.
- shkurski_ 2y agoI perceive this thread in the same way as the praise of Hanns Johst. With the perceived potential of separating work from its author being inversely proportional to the amount of attention devoted to both (Raskolnikov attitude towards Poles as something on the surface, though it's infiltrated with Russian chauvinism at a much deeper level). With overlooking the fact that it is being used as a weapon (together with the unified Russian language created by Pushkin) for erasure of entire cultures. I'd stress this out: this is not a weapon in a museum. We are talking active phase. And the more obscure the relations above are, the higher the penetration rate. Disappointing.
- ConanRus 2y agoAs a Russian I can tell you: don't go there. You won't understand Dostoevsky fully without growing up in the Russian culture, full of depression, fatalism and похуизм (I don't give a damn attitude). Reading classic Russian literature is the right way to depression and craziness. Just don't do that.
- Dracophoenix 2y agoI've read my fair share of Russian literature, and I never felt depressed from it. If anything works like the Notes from the Underground or the Overcoat reassured me of my sanity in the face of an irrational society and have often confirmed long held yet elusive suspicions I had on how people actually think or behave.
- danbolt 2y agoIf you’re a young man in your twenties looking for structure and morality in a setting of first-world postmodernity, TBK is an incredible opiate. Much better than alcohol or Call of Duty. That said, I’m skeptical its wisdom will help us carve out a new future that’s better for everyone. I think Cloud Strife’s journey in the original release of Final Fantasy VII is better-suited to that.
- bitcoinmoney 2y agoWhat’s TBK?
- serbuvlad 2y agoI love The Brothers Karamazov so much. I don't think there has ever been a story told that made a better case for being a good person. I think the most important lesson we have to learn in our modern world is that there aren't good or bad sides. Most stories told follow the path of the hero's journey, in which the hero obtains some great power and learns to use it for good, generally by destroying some great villain. In reality, there are no villains and there are no heros. There are only good and bad actions. And every person does bad actions everyday, out of ignorance, out of convenience, out of ego, out if ideological allegiance. There is also very little in the way of greatness in every day life. And there is no other cure than to do what Alyosha does. Try to do good. Alyosha does not judge anyone, he has genuine compassion even for the worst of men. Alyosha has no great skill, is not endowed with any great intelligence and is sometimes socially awkward. He sometimes gets his affairs out of order and makes mistakes. He is not an island: he relies on the moral support of his mentor (the famous monk) for a good part of the book, and is devastated when he dies. And he never does anything which could not have been done by anyone else. But he, at every point, chooses to do the good, as well as he can. At one point, during a time when one of his brothers was wanted for murder and his whole family drama is in full force, while going around town trying to do things to help, he sees a kid which is being bullied by other kids which are throwing stones at him. Alyosha shoos away the other kids, and inquires into this lone kid's drama. He then spends the rest of the day helping the kid, with his problems, instead of rushing to fix his own. It never even occurs to him not to act in this way. And it not only helps the community for him to act in this way. But it also, as it were, helps his own "soul". While other characters go insane, or have manic episodes, Alyosha can bear the tragedies because of his own conduct.
- hnthrowaway0328 2y agoFor whoever appreciates Dostoevsky, I recommend reading Lev Shestov.
- begueradj 2y agoPersonally I believe that Kahlil Gibran's work is also immortal.
- darepublic 2y agoWas introduced to Dostoyevsky by my girlfriend in high school. Read Crime and Punishment and was enraptured by it. Happy memories
- alivengineer 2y agoSigned up to write this comment. Hi folks. It appals me how much praise dostoyevsky and such still get, without any attention to a lot of the context around it. The prime reason his (and of most other russian writers) legacy and importance to world culture is the fact that they were backed by an empire. Try and think, for once, why you tend to know about Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, but (usually) don't know about literally everyone else from east europe? The answer is simple. While russian culture was supported, promoted, encouraged. The culture of their colonies was suppressed, imprisoned, executed. It's about time Dostoevsky and Gorky and so many other russian writers get the same treatment Kipling did. Dostoevsky was a horrible person, a staunch chauvinist who denied the basic existence of other nations and cultures on then russian territory, stating they're just an obstacle on russia's imperial path. And not only were many of them plain bad during their life, their art was (and is) weaponized, to manufacture an image of russia that lifts it from the evil things they did (and are doing) into being something interesting, something positive. To erase cultures of those russia enslaved from the map of the world. It's "Crime and punishment" scaled up -- fuck the victim, they're not interesting. Just look at the murderer though -- fuck the fact he axed a granny, look how deep his soul is! Joseph Brodsky, who is so complimented in the article, also wrote one of the most filthy and nauseating poems i ever read (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Independence_of_Ukraine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Independence_of_Ukraine). Before the author continues with their adorement of both Brodsky and Dostoevsky, i highly recommend they read that one. And Dostoevsky's statements regarding Poles, Ukrainians and Serbs. Such ignorance to the reality of who these people were is disgusting.
- suggestion 2y agoI feel the same way about Marx
- throaway250 2y agoIt's always the martyr-complex guys who love Dostoyevsky.