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Dostoyevsky isn't difficult
- david927 4mo agoI also stumbled onto Crime and Punishment at 18 and expected it to be difficult and was blown away with how Dostoyevsky wrote one of the greatest novels of all time, to be sure, but as the author here says, also how engaging he made it. The scene where he commits the crime is an absolute stunner, edge-of-your-seat, thriller. Who does that? Who can pull that off? Dostoyevsky
- NoMoreNicksLeft 4mo agoDunno. I can't read Russian for shit (pre-kindergarten level, I'd guess), but it seems like cheating to read it in English.
- SamBam 4mo agoI can't imagine how much amazing and important literature you'd miss if you were snobby enough to think that you could only read things in their original language. I'm so glad I get to read the Russians and Kafka and Calvino and Murakami and Camus and Marquez and Homer and Plato and, heck, the Bible. I do know the feeling. I struggled through the start of My Brilliant Friend because I ought to read it in Italian, because I speak it pretty well. So then I didn't read it for years. Finally I just read it in English and enjoyed myself.
- TimorousBestie 4mo agoAww, I loved My Brilliant Friend (but I've never studied Italian at all, it was translation or nothing for me).
- analog31 4mo agoA translation is by necessity a work of both the author and the translator. There have been some amazing pairings such as Kafka translated by Edwin and Willa Muir. I don't think a translation necessarily diminishes the original work or the reader.
- crypttales 4mo agoI know the feeling. Reading Don Quixote in English would be cheating. Then again, so would reading Shakespeare in Spanish - even though I'm more comfortable reading in eng, I'm better in Spanish than i am 500 year old English
- summa_tech 4mo agoIf you can read more than one language, try reading translations into two or three different ones. It'll give you a different view of a book you enjoy: the translations will all have a different feel, in my experience.
- RugnirViking 4mo agosome portion of this is based on your own relationship with the language, the people and contexts you use it in and learned it in, and your familiarity with this langugage. This is not only okay, its actually cool as all heck. It's being read the same novel by a stern father, a passionate lover, and a friend in the pub doing stupid voices to make you laugh.
- gtg239a 4mo agoThere’s a Milan Kundera essay (having trouble locating atm) about how most of the great writers, including the Russian greats, read the literary canon exclusively through translations (Shakespeare for example) and were no less intellectually rewarded for it. Translation is an art I think equal to authorship. Someone below mentioned My brilliant friend which was originally written in a Neapolitan dialect but the English translation, at least for me specifically, is a monumental achievement.
- fer 4mo agoI have Crime and Punishment in both languages, in the same book, page for page. So you can always fall back to English if you get lost. It also has (or I remember it having, I don't have it at hand) extensive translation notes, useful for non-obvious idioms and cultural/contemporary references.
- ivlad 4mo agoDostoyevsky was originally published in magazines chapter by chapter, so he would end the December’s on a cliffhanger so that the readers re-subscribed
- dang 4mo agoYou've touched on my favorite Dostoevsky anecdote! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21152240 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21152240. A lot of 19th century novels were published as serials. The TV of their time I suppose. With the final installment arriving by ship, crowds in New York shouted from the pier "Is Little Nell dead?" - https://www.charlesdickenspage.com/charles-dickens-old-curiosity-shop.html https://www.charlesdickenspage.com/charles-dickens-old-curio...
- SanjayMehta 4mo agoThat also explains why they're so long.
- olvy0 4mo agoFunny, I'm just reading War and Peace myself (the Anthony Briggs translation) and having the same reaction, gushing occasionally to people I know how approachable it is, and how darkly funny and modern it feels. Well, at least after passing through the first ~200 pages which are a slog. I didn't find even Tolstoy's historical musings boring, although he tends to repeat himself. And I usually suck at names, but the main characters are done so well I find them easy to remember. There aren't that many important ones despite how it seems at the start. It also serves as a fascinating peek into the daily lives of Russians of all stripes in the early 1800s. I also had the same reaction to Crime and Punishment as the OP did.
- user3939382 4mo agoRead those first 200 pages 10x could never get past it. 300 characters with names that I’ll never remember, some woman and her son, a general or something. A guy that keeps saying “Capital!”, standing around at parties. I’m sure it’s good but I don’t think I have it in me to try again.
- stevenwoo 4mo agoI swear it took me six retries to make it past the start. But if you have six hours the BBC adaptation is pretty good IMHO and captures many of the essentials of the book if not all the details. The show made me cry and the book did not have the same effect but maybe that was because it focused on certain aspects. I particularly remember the combat scenes in the book would have been difficult to match - the prose capturing the chaos and randomness of brutality in the neighborhood of D Day landing in Saving Private Ryan but with horse cavalry charges and cannon fire.
- abecode 4mo agoI listened to the audio book version of War and Peace. I think it was something like 25-30 hours. The audio format helped keep the pace going and also it helped with the names. Although for some things, the audio format made it harder to look up in the dictionary, like I kept hearing agitant instead of adjutant, so that part didn't make sense in a lot of the military scenes. I agree with the parent that the book was very engaging, parts even felt like I was watching a movie, e.g. the drunken party tying a bear to a police officer, the foxhunt scene, the duel, the battles like when Petya gets shot, and the burning of Moscow. I even liked the abstract ending when Tolstoy relates human history to calculus so that each individual person has an infinitesimal but real contribution to history.
- ks2048 4mo agoThis rings a bell, because I decided to tackle Don Quixote (English translation). At 200 pages in (of around 1000, I think), it’s funny and entertaining and feels fresh.
- stevenwoo 4mo agoMany of the subplots have been reused for entire romance movies, and lots of the mini adventures would not be out of place in something like Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia, as odd as that sounds.
- blueblazin 4mo agoNot difficult, just boring.
- sharts 4mo agoIMO The Russians were always more of a joy to read than English and Americans
- _doctor_love 4mo agoA read I enjoyed in college was Ada, or Ardor by Nabokov.
- rayiner 4mo agoNo, too much emotion.
- _doctor_love 4mo ago"I never got into the Russians, they take too long getting to the feckin' point!" "Oh? Not even Dostoyevsky?" "Oh come on now, he was the main offender." - The Guard
- archonis 4mo agoSometime in the 90s we started getting really good Dostoyevsky translations, and they make a huge difference.
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- carabiner 4mo agoLMAO he's saying russian lit is readable when using the most bastardized, westernized translations available, Garnet. That was the point of her work and what P&V sought to rectify when they put out their vastly more faithful renditions.
- sno129 4mo agoDon't really know what point you're trying to make here. Maybe Garnett is more westernized, but that doesn't make it more readable. IMO Garnett's not great (at least for Anna Karenina, which is all I've read by her); from what I've read P&V is more readable than Garnett.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- nephihaha 4mo agoI avoid Pevear and Volokhonsky translations. I've tried reading a few of them but I really can't stand their English style. I've been caught out more than once when reading a Russian book and wondering why I didn't like it, and finding their names on the cover. They are prolific and have cornered the market, which is part of the problem.
- EddieB 4mo agoI recently worked my way through (in order) Anna Karenina, Crime & Punishment, The Idiot, and The Brothers Karamazov. Each time seeking Garnett translations as I found the usual recommendations just not hitting the spot. That said, and for context I'm English, and new to the classics- so not sure if the writing style just clicked more. I did switch half way to McDuff for The Idiot and wasn't too far from Garnett.
- mv_d5339e31 4mo ago[dead]
- enthdegree 4mo agoFrom the circles I am exposed to Pevear and Volokhonsky's translations are not seen as the most natural ones (although they are the only ones I have read because of the cool abstract paperback covers). I have heard they miss anecdotes and humor in favor of word accuracy. Characters are always "twisting their mouth" and similar. I'm looking forward to re-reading Demons in some other translation. He might have been well served by Garnett.
- mikrl 4mo agoThe death of Ivan Ilyich by Tolstoy is bleak, humane and fairly short. I enjoyed it like a good Charles Dickens
- stevenwoo 4mo agoOne thing is a lot of common television/movie tropes are instantly recognizable in one form or another in there, the murder in Crime and Punishment is a series of coincidences and lucky timing for him to initially get away with it that would not be out of place in modern thriller or comedy. I had the same issue with the names so I took notes and bookmarked the Wikipedia page for the books to refresh my memory of whom was whom until it stuck. Audiobooks (most of the russian classics are free from my local library)help a lot with the pronunciation if one is like the writer and pattern matches names - hearing them a few times initially is very helpful. Side note - not a sea person but only from audiobooks learned i didn’t know how to pronounce English words boatswain, gunwale and forecastle.
- nine_k 4mo agoCrime and Punishment is a bona fide detective story / crime novel, and can be enjoyed as such.
- dang 4mo agoOne of my professors, so long ago that I can't remember which*, said it was not a who-dun-it but a why-dun-it. The murder scene is so vivid that it's easy to forget how the long middle of the novel is the cat-and-mouse game between him and the detective whose name I forget. * I think I remembered. Thank you Roman! https://www.dignitymemorial.com/en-ca/obituaries/calgary-ab/roman-struc-5676146 https://www.dignitymemorial.com/en-ca/obituaries/calgary-ab/...
- projektfu 4mo agoPorfiry Petrovich
- simpaticoder 4mo agoWhat disginguishes Dostoevsky is his attention to detail and this unusual ability to describe someone inside and out with a voice that finds some sort of intrinsic fascination with the person no matter how dark, dingy, flawed, or just plain strange they are. It's like he withholds judgement without being clinical. His writing is peppered with these sketches, filled with insight, and it's not just a still-life - he manages to weave in these character studies with action and interaction. Most of us look out and see a lawn, boring and inert. He looks out and sees a lawn comprised of individual blades of grass, growing in soil of a specific kind, some weeds, cut some time ago, insects striving and fighting and dying and reproducing, the effects of weather and sun and shade making microclimates from which whole communities of life escape from or to....if there is anything to learn from him it is his gorgeous attention to details that we know are there but have long since ceased bothering to note.
- Barrin92 4mo agoHe isn't difficult but I always thought Nabokov (in his fairly incendiary reviews http://wmjas.wikidot.com/nabokov-s-recommendations http://wmjas.wikidot.com/nabokov-s-recommendations) was on point that he was sentimental, preachy and mediocre as an artist. I found Dostoyevsky a slog to get through and it might have been made worse because he was sold to me as this 'great psychologist' when psychological realism is often missing from his stories and characters become page-long megaphones for some version of Orthodox Russian nationalism or Christianity.
- HDThoreaun 4mo agoI think Nabokov definitely has a point with brothers. Ivan's portrayal and brain fever always struck me as a cop out because Dostoyevsky couldnt actually articulate what was wrong with his ideology. Of course thats kind of the point, but still it always felt cheap and clumsy to me
- mamonster 4mo agoNabokov is so snobby. Hating on Céline is one thing, hating on Balzac like come on. Also lol the guy who wrote Lolita criticizing Death in Venice as obscene.
- tyjen 4mo agoWar and Peace is one of those books I've reread every decade since I was a teenager. It's one of my favorite novels because, as I've matured and moved through different stages of life, the parts that resonate with me change significantly. Each rereading feels like encountering a different book, not because the words have changed, but because my own life experiences have shaped what draws my attention. I'm sure many books offer this experience, but War and Peace explores the human condition across a lifetime in a way few novels do.
- redwood 4mo agoI fell into War and Peace and couldn't stop. The opposite was true with crime and punishment for me.. I just couldn't get into it. There are such fundamentally different works
- waynecochran 4mo agoI have never read a book I hated more than The Brothers Karamazov. I never read a book that depressed me more than Crime and Punishment. No more Dostoevsky for me.
- dang 4mo agoYou and Nabokov. Edit: except for The Double.
- B1FF_PSUVM 4mo agoYou're doing it wrong. I bumped into this 'Short Guide to Russian literature': "Russian literature consists of suffering. Either writer suffers, or protagonist, or reader. If all three suffer simultaneously--then it is a masterpiece. In every difficult situation always read Russian classic literature--it is even worse in there."
- waynecochran 4mo agoMaybe I like my characters to be in worse situations but inspire me by overcoming them and giving hope. Dostoyevsky leaves you in a pool of gray melancholy and dispair.
- gaiagraphia 4mo agoLol, remember being in my early 20s on a train and trying to read Crime and Punishhment, and just kept skipping random 5 pages here and there, before going back to playing Durak with some random Tajiks (who got kicked off the train in some random place...). The huge pages of French didn't help. Prefered Demons, personally. Probably becuase I read it when more mature.
- frogulis 4mo agoWonderful to see Durak mentioned. I learned it in its Vietnamese form (Tấn) and introduced it to friends in Australia where it was a big hit. We eventually settled on calling it "Dickhead" or "Dumbarse" which seems like an appropriately Australian interpretation of the source material :thinking:
- vkazanov 4mo agoOh, this weird little game! In my little hometown back in Lithuania we played the game as teens so much that everybody knew the optimal strategy, and it was more about either sheer luck, or who misremembers other people hands. A bit like checkers after a certain level.
- eapriv 4mo agoAre there any pages of French in “Crime and Punishment”?
- still-learning 4mo agoI thoroughly enjoyed Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, and White Nights, but I'm finding myself slogging through Karamazov. I'm about 600 pages in and its picking up at least. Banking on it all being worth it in the end. Normally I subscribe to the quote "life's too short to read a bad book", but making an exception for Dostoyevsky.
- crypttales 4mo agoKaramazov is amazing. But if you're 600 pages in and it's a slog you might have lost the train of thought of the novel. It is a lot to keep in your head!
- still-learning 4mo agoYeah I've picked it up and put it down multiple times over the past year, might have had some context loss. Theres been a few very lucid monologues I've enjoyed, but I haven't felt the same level of internal revelation as the previous novels.
- crypttales 4mo ago[dead]
- yalue 4mo agoI had the same experience, lol. I started with Crime and Punishment expecting thinly veiled philosophy where each character is a mouthpiece for one of the author's thought processes. Granted there's some of that, but I wasn't expecting such an exciting murder drama. Went into Karamazov expecting an exciting murder drama, and got the type of Russian literature I initially expected Crime and Punishment to be! Really it's a question of expectations.
- HDThoreaun 4mo agoNabokov didnt like Dostoyevsky either, especially Karamazov https://www.nytimes.com/1981/08/23/magazine/nabokov-on-dostoyevsky.html https://www.nytimes.com/1981/08/23/magazine/nabokov-on-dosto...
- functionmouse 4mo agoShoutout to The Gambler
- CalChris 4mo agoI liked The Possessed by Elif Batuman. I had read The Idiot in high school, a death march for a term paper. But I liked Batuman's reading of it better than mine (but not enough to re-read it). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elif_Batuman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elif_Batuman
- blast 4mo ago> The Possessed (2010), The Idiot (2017), and Either/Or (2022) That's like publishing Hamlet (2010), King Lear (2017), and Thus Spake Zarathustra (2022). I wonder what her thought process is in choosing these titles? And what will her next work be?
- gtg239a 4mo agoShe has an academic background in Russian Literature and writes really engaging essays about her encounters with the literature (The Possessed). I can’t recommend her novels and essays enough. They’re riotously funny and erudite and readable if you’re looking for something.
- everybodyknows 4mo agoHer coming-of-age short story or perhaps memoir of a few years ago in The New Yorker has stayed with me. Only after finishing and contemplating it does the tragedy of the young woman's experience really make itself felt.
- deleted 4mo ago
- dang 4mo agoAs I've said at least once before: come back, pvg! If ever we needed you...
- cyberax 4mo agoIf you liked "The Idiot", there's a wonderfully bizzare adaptation: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0255958/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0255958/ Looks like there are English subtitles that are quite decent.
- alexey-salmin 4mo agoI watched it before I read the book and I wasn't aware it's an adaptation (not obvious at all). Imagine how perplexed and confused I was when I finally got around the book :D The film is hilarious but probably hard to enjoy for someone who's not deep into the cultural context, it's not just the language.
- slackfan 4mo agoThe Pevear and Volohonsky "translations" are an affront to english prose, russian literature, and the craft of translation in general. A heavily quantized LLM with an aneurism would provide the reader with a better translation than that trash. (I used to be a professional translator for the relevant languages, so I have opinions™)
- jallmann 4mo agoWhich translations would you recommend for Crime and Punishment or Dostoyevsky in general? When I'm starting to read a non-English novel, the process of deciding which translation to use is half the fun. The Kent and Berbera (revised Garnett) version of Anna Karenina was mesmerizing.
- LearnYouALisp 4mo agoAs a matter of tangent-(ial relation), have you ever come across or read any of Silverman's translations of mathematics or science from Russian? Supposedly they were slanted by opinion, a mis-informed Westerner's perspectives, and had a number of liberties such as re-arrangement (in a mathematics text!). I wanted to read the (more recent) original and asked a classmate to buy it on an exchange but have not met up afterward.
- slackfan 4mo agoI have not, but you can verify for yourself - https://github.com/nika-skybytska/fa/tree/master/books https://github.com/nika-skybytska/fa/tree/master/books has a copy of Komogorov/Fomin's text that's well known vs Introductory Real Analysis in his translation available on the Internet Archive. A cursory glance at the respective TOCs shows that there is reordering. First couple of chapters match up, then it diverges heavily.
- fl4regun 4mo agoI see a lot of praise for Dostoevsky in here, personally, my attempt to read Crime and Punishment resulted in me giving up after a couple hundred pages, it read kind of like a crime novel if it was mostly slice of life and random characters rambling about the goings on of their personal lives, which I did not have interest in and so I dropped it. Maybe I am too stupid for it, but I can't say it is my cup of tea.
- uberex 4mo agoThat is fine. You may not do well in the UK's The Office trivia quiz* (next question is about Suez Canal!) but apart from that who cares. * The joke being they do a huge running one upmanship sketch on how much they know about Dostoyevsky before the quiz.
- nilirl 4mo agoAs someone who only gets time to read when tired at the end of the day: I can't get past the first 50 pages of any Dostoyevsky work. Why are the classics classic? I doubt being a great read is sufficient or necessary; I struggle to read most classics, Dickens being the only exception. I'm not reading to study, I want to be entertained! I want engagement, I want clarity, I want suspense! I don't want to wrestle with the author's intentions, I want to be gripped by the character and their situation.
- fuidani 4mo agoI agree with all your points on why you should read... in fact I loved Crime & Punishment exactly for those reasons I think its ok not to like Dostoyevsky, de gustibus - but you are implying that people read him to feel smart or that they need to put a great amount of effort in reading... great books have an healing effect even when tired and at the end of the day...
- nilirl 4mo ago> but you are implying that people read him to feel smart or that they need to put a great amount of effort in reading Yes, I did imply that. Maybe my experiences have been more challenging than I expected. Ok, I will try Crime & Punishment again. I really do want to have that feeling of reading something great.
- ventana 4mo agoIf you still want to give the Russian literature a try, maybe Bulgakov? A little bit more modern (early 20th century); "A Young Doctor's Notebook" is probably what you are looking for in terms of engagement, clarity, suspense, and size as well (those are short stories). English translations I looked at are good enough to my taste.
- nilirl 4mo agoOk, I've added "A Young Doctor's Notebook" to my list. Thanks! Funnily enough, I'm currently reading a book by a Russian author. 'Metro 2033' by Dmitry Glukhovsky. It's post-apocalyptic and set in the Moscow subway.
- shermantanktop 4mo agoI (precocious, pretentious me) read Anna Karenina in 7th grade. It was long but not difficult. Keeping track of the characters was the hardest part. I’d like to say the story stayed with me, but alas it was the reaction of adults to my reading matter that I remember. Part of growing up was realizing that being precocious really isn’t a thing anymore at some point.
- senkora 4mo agoThis made me smile because I did exactly the same thing (i.e. I also read Anna Karenina in 7th grade, and was very pretentious). I mostly read during lunch periods when it probably would have been a better idea to be developing my social skills. I remember being most interested in Konstantin Levin's efforts to modernize his farm estate. I think that at the time I thought that I understood the difficult books that I was reading fully, but looking back on it I must have missed so much. I'll need to have a re-read one of these days.
- alex0015 4mo agoThis resonates with me very much. I remember being very proud of myself each time I was tested in school and I was told I was reading at such-and-such a grade level above my own. Now in my 30s, I still like reading a lot, but there's so much more to reading than finishing books. I still have a bit of reticence toward admitting that I find some books hard or haven't finished them. I found the Iliad enthralling and the Odyssey very good, but basically any other English epic poetry or drama is such a grind and I've given up many times.
- eitally 4mo agoI think a lot of the deeper enjoyment of literature comes when one has a sufficient understanding of the relevant culture & context and can adequately bring the characters to life. I studied Latin for 5 years (and Spanish for 3, Portuguese for 2 and German for 1), and I can tell you the immersion into Roman (and Roman Empire) culture absolutely made reading everything from Homer to Herodotus to Augustine to Seutonius to Cicero, Catullus or Ovid far more engaging than if I'd picked up any of these authors without context.
- SugarReflex 4mo agoI was blown away by Crime and Punishment. I truly felt like I was the main character, and I read it with feverish sweat and dread for my impending doom. I cringed and felt terrible sadness at the poor little lives of certain individuals. So much woe and tragedy. I was glad to see how it turned out though. I'm currently reading Karamazov and it's good to have something a bit more jovial and dry witted. The main difficulty is the names. The names make it so hard. I love the Space Trilogy by Lewis but I lose my place when he describes a place. Dostoevsky is better at describing people (and bringing them to life in your mind) than Lewis is at describing a landscape.
- mrexroad 4mo agoSimilar, read Crime and Punishment earlier this year and it took me a few pages to realize two different names were the same character. Felt silly when I realized lol. Also just started Brothers Karamazov, but decided to switch translations and am waiting for new copy to arrive.
- alexey-salmin 4mo agoA thought but maybe switch to the Idiot instead. I think of all the Dostoyevsky works the Brothers is the least enjoyable one. Keep it to the end or else it may suffocate your interest and prevent you from reading some of his greater works.
- Forgeties79 4mo agoNothing silly about it. That’s a very common thing people have to get used to with Russian literature. People have several names they go by as well as nickname variations of those names, and different people based on familiarity will use different ones. So you can have a single character referred to by 3-4 different names in a single work! It also doesn’t help if one of their nicknames resembles somebody else’s name lol
- chistev 4mo agoI've tried Crime and Punishment like three times but always stopped at some point because I wasn't feeling it. Maybe I'll give it another go.
- postalcoder 4mo agoI became motivated to read Russian literature after Norm Macdonald died, knowing how much influence it had on him and chasing more of his voice. Reading Brothers Karamazov in Norm's voice made it so much more entertaining. Ironically, Norm viewed Dostoyevsky as one of the inferior Russian writers. Here's some of Norm's thoughts about Russian literature and how to read it: Norm Macdonald @normmacdonald · Feb 9, 2016 Tolstoy is the best writer who has ever lived. Some people are intimidated by that fact. Norm Macdonald @normmacdonald · Feb 9, 2016 Read, in chronological order if possible, everything Tolstoy has ever written. Norm Macdonald @normmacdonald · Feb 9, 2016 People think Tolstoy would be too difficult to understand since he is the greatest writer to ever have drawn breath. Norm Macdonald @normmacdonald · Feb 9, 2016 Since I am asked about Tolstoy I will suggest all read him. Read all he has written. Here's the thing about Tolstoy. Norm Macdonald @normmacdonald · Feb 9, 2016 Tolstoy could write a massive book like War & Peace and have every word be necessary. Norm Macdonald @normmacdonald · Feb 9, 2016 Dosto is a fine writer. Better are Tolstoy, Chekhov, Gogol, Turgenev and Pushkin. Norm Macdonald @normmacdonald · Feb 9, 2016 To be a great writer you must be able to communicate with the reader. Tolstoy communicates better than anyone else ever. Norm Macdonald @normmacdonald · Feb 9, 2016 Dostoevsky was far the inferior to Tolstoy, he was inferior to most of the great Russians. Norm Macdonald @normmacdonald · Feb 9, 2016 Agree completely. Should read both actually. and P&V have not translated most Tolstoy, so then go to Constance. Norm Macdonald @normmacdonald · Feb 7, 2018 Well, Jocelyn, I don't know of what other authors you refer to, but Tolstoy isn't a nihilist. X.com/FLEURdian_slip... T.L. States @epmornsesh · Dec 21, 2018 @normmacdonald Any authors you would recommend that are writing killer comedic fiction? Norm Macdonald @normmacdonald · Dec 21, 2018 Tolstoy, Chekhov, Philip Roth, Salinger, me. Norm Macdonald @normmacdonald · Jan 21, 2019 @GaryGulman Read great works of Literature out loud. If you do not understand what you are reading, stop, figure out what it means, then repeat the exercise. Do this an hour a day and in time, your own voice, your own thoughts will become the same as Tolstoy, Faulkner, Twain.
- scrame 4mo agoOh, yes, he was doing a "book club" on twitter for a little while. I remember him doing an interesting thread on an Updike book where he was making a point that the author was a great writer because he could make a character that was simply a good writer, with the larger point that people can't write convincing characters that are smarter than they are.
- shrubble 4mo agoFor a change of pace in Russian authors, I would recommend the newer "Jamila" by Chingiz Aitmatov, 1958.
- kmmbvnr_ 4mo ago[dead]
- ventana 4mo agoAs a Russian native speaker who graduated from the high school in Russia many years ago, one thing that I don't really understand is why these great works of Russian literature are included in the school must read list. An average teenager, myself included, always has some better things to do than reading a huge novel, barely understanding characters' motivations, because neither of these books were ever intended for teens. Those who find time later in their adult life will re-read the classics and appreciate it, but many will not, and that's probably a result of forcing the kids to deal with something most of them are not ready for.
- necovek 4mo agoOnly one or two of Russian classics were obligatory in Serbia high-schools — yet I devoured them all (esp Dostoeyvsky, Bulgakov, Gogol... Tolstoy a bit less so). I am sure I'd find them different if I re-read them, but I could relate to characters and their struggles quite easily. I do not necessarily think that those who wouldn't appreciate them as teenagers would ever appreciate them as adults either — maybe a small percentage would.
- eloisius 4mo agoThis is a conundrum to me. I was a pretty bookwormish youngster and read a lot of classics. Often I had to push myself through works like Crime and Punishment but I felt like it was good for me. I’m glad I exercised the muscle of reading, but now I can understand that those books just don’t hit like they should when you don’t have the life experience to understand them. Something like Ulysses is still difficult, but at mid life you can really get it. Would I rather have waited until 35? No, but I’ll probably go back and reread a lot of those books I read when I was younger.
- kubb 4mo agoCrime and Punishment is mild compared to something like Law and Peace or Anna Karenina.
- usrnm 4mo agoAre kids "ready" to deal with organic chemistry? Or integrals? Do you think that more people will need the knowledge of the reproductive system of plants than the skill of reading and uderstanding large texts? Not simply understanding the words, but actually analyzing and comprehending what's being said
- d1ss0nanz 4mo ago> I discovered that I don’t actually read names, I just pattern match, and I have sometimes gotten hundreds of pages into a novel before I realize that I have no clear sense of the the middle syllables of the protagonist’s name. Same. TIL this is not just me being lazy.
- jszymborski 4mo agoI did the same for a long time, but the diminuitives and nicknames for characters made that too hard to do, so I just ate the acorn and learned a bit about patronyms, pronunciation, etc...
- mattoxic 4mo agoHaving trouble following names? Read I Claudius.
- darthvaderxx7 4mo agoVennira Iravugal (White Nights) translated in Tamil by R. Krishnaiyya was my first read from Dostoyevsky's works. I came to a realisation that the dynamics of formative romance, anguish of unrequitedness, dithering nature of one's mind towards commitment have long been fundamental characteristics of a human being from the time immemorial (at least from when this book was published in 1848) after the read. Dostoyevsky has this acumen of rightly pointing out primal nature of a human in various settings through his stories. Crime and Punishment, which I read in English, entrenched this view in my mind undisputedly. Tamil translators have done astonishing efforts in presenting the worlds and sentiments of Dostoyevsky, yet I cannot compare it with OG Russian versions as I do not know Russian. I might one day be in a position to read his classics in native versions (I want to learn Russian for this).
- __rito__ 4mo agoRussian stuff were translated into Bengali a lot in 1970s - especially works favoured in the USSR. I came across multiple translations of children's books, and loved reading them as a kid. My father and aunt read those in their childhood. Raduga and Mir published Bengali books and printed them in Moscow, and shipped them to Calcutta. They were cheap, too. I didn't like the flow of translation of Bengali versions of "adult" books, and read them in English. My favourite Russian writer has to be Bulgakov who fell from grace of the Party, and his work was not translated. I am yet to read Solzhenitsyn. Nowadays, there are indie blogs that scan and preserve those Bengali books. A lot of people I know download and print those books. You can still find Moscow-printed Bengali books in used-book stores of book fairs.
- coldtea 4mo agoFor people who read literature, yes. But the average person in the US atm can't even read a children's book, and this includes recent college students: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/11/the-elite-college-students-who-cant-read-books/679945/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/11/the-eli... https://futurism.com/future-society/college-students-losing-ability-read https://futurism.com/future-society/college-students-losing-... We're becoming an oral and pictorial society.
- weinzierl 4mo agoDostoevsky published many of his novels in installments in journals. Being easy to read and hooking the reader in was a basic requirement for his writing to be successful.
- ajuc 4mo agoUnpopular opionion - Dostoyevsky is just russian Kipling. Empire apologist who pretended to write about deep stuff but in the end always got the convenient result.
- tau5210 4mo agoI'd much prefer people just stay away from reading it altogether if they find it difficult... If it's difficult, then it probably isn't for you. At least I wouldn't bother wasting my time, unless I treat it as some kind of exercise. I read his writings because they read like my own thoughts from the very start and I never had any trouble finishing. He is the only writer who's works I've read countless times (never thought about counting, but Idiot, Karamazov at least 20 times). That would make him what would normally be called my "favorite writer", although I do not say that either. On the other hand, I have difficultly reading most other writers.
- keiferski 4mo agoCrime and Punishment is basically the modern Ur-novel for “your rational plans for success seem logical to you, but will not work out in the way you imagine.” Pretty relevant for the contemporary tech world, if you ask me.
- perfunctory 4mo agoI am genuinely curious why Russian literature is so popular in non-Russian speaking world. How do you wake up one day and decide to read Crime and Punishment? How do you find out about Russian literature in the first place? Recommendation from a friend, marketing in your favorite book store, school? Could somebody shed some light
- jhbadger 4mo agoWell, Crime and Punishment is often taught in US high schools. Or at least was back in the 1980s. During the Cold War there was a lot of interest in Russian literature in general in part because in the bipolar world they were seen as "the other civilization" that we needed to understand if we wanted to avoid nuclear war. You'd think these days people would be more into Chinese literature but except for the Three Body Problem series, I haven't really heard of many Chinese books becoming popular here.
- wildzzz 4mo agoRussian lit was never part of my highschool reading. Freshman year was Greek classics and Shakespeare, sophmore year was more Shakespeare and Romance. Junior year was classic American lit, and senior year was Norse mythology and british lit. I diverged from my friends and decided to take the non-AP English classes junior and senior year. I would have been reading non-fiction in AP English Language and books by Bronte and Dickens for AP English Literature. I'm don't think the IB courses covered Russian lit either although my school didn't offer IB. My liberal arts classes in college didn't involve Russian lit either. My freshman year English I and II classes were very unserious, we read Philip K Dick and a (somewhat distasteful) book by the current governor of Maryland. I could have taken a Russian lit class but instead decided on Appalachian studies which was surprisingly interesting and probably helped shaped some of my politics. I did read A Day in the Life while I was taking summer classes. Admittedly, I was on Adderall at the time which led to me reading at a rate that matched when I was a kid and was tearing through books faster than I could get to the library. I listen to a lot of audiobooks now and miss when I had the attention span to actually crack a book (or at least use a kindle). I've got a copy of Crime and Punishment in my queue but I've been reluctant to start it.
- keeeba 4mo agoThis is not an attempt at affected nonchalance, but I’ve simply never come across the idea that Dostoevsky is particularly difficult to read. A somewhat gifted teenager will race through it, as will an average adult.
- rceDia 4mo agoDelved into Russian literature during the "pandemic years". Reading "Crime and Punishment" was definitely the latter but used a study guide to assist (read guide after reading the book chapter). Then the "Brothers..." followed by other authors Turgenev "Fathers and Sons" and Tolstoy's "The Resurrection". Many lessons to learn by these brilliant writers.
- bartender26 4mo agoyeah it is. don't be pretentious. that said, audio books are the way to go if you are having trouble
- noja 4mo agoWill Poulter (yes, him) has a very good Crime & Punishment audiobook.
- throw4847285 4mo agoDoesn't surprise me at all. He's really a character actor who happens to look like he does. Similar to Dan Stevens, who coincidentally, has some great Agatha Christie audiobooks. He does all the voices.
- scrame 4mo agoThat's funny, I recognized the name, but had to look him up and went "oh yeah, eyebrows guy!". The kid who played Joffrey on game of thrones also always came across as a very smart, thoughtful kid, he just played an intensely hateable character. Similar to the actor who played Marlo in The Wire, I saw him host an actors roundtable and had to blink twice "wow, one of the scariest villains in a gritty show is actually this cheerful, charismatic guy. I don't think all actors are smart, and I certainly think some actors think they are smarter than they are, but I don't think being smart hurts if you're an actor.
- Yizahi 4mo agoI regret every minute I've spent reading Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. The most overhyped literature ever, with an unhealthy obsession by contemporary readers living far away from the epicenter of it all.
- __rito__ 4mo ago> The most overhyped literature ever Just because you aren't ready for it doesn't mean it's bad literature. That's basic. I really like Dostoevsky. He was really onto something. What he wrote was deep and meaningful and profound. Tolstoy is also great. His short story "The Three Hermits" (1885) profoundly impacted how I look into these things.
- Yizahi 4mo agoThey are not bad. But neither they are great, just average. They are also super outdated and missing a lot of context from the time authors lived in. These books just have this fleurs exotique by the virtue of being russian and written in a very hard language for the Roman group speakers. It's a self-perpetuating self-reinforcing cycle of hype. Like a joke a about "no one was fired for ordering IBM" the same goes for the "classic" literature. No one was criticized for including Tolstoy and Dostoevsky in a 100 Best Books Of All Times list, and so they are invariably included again and again.
- biggestfan 4mo agoWhat's a book you would recommend instead? I quite like what I've read from those authors but I would be interested in something with a different appeal.
- __rito__ 4mo agoDostoevsky is surprisingly great to read. I first started with "Notes from Underground (1864)" and I found it a profound book. Then I read Brothers Karamazov, and it is one of those "great" books. I wrote my reflections here: https://ritogh.substack.com/p/reflections-on-brothers-karamazov https://ritogh.substack.com/p/reflections-on-brothers-karama....
- xbar 4mo agoWhen raising children, introduce Dostoyevsky to Sophomores not Seniors. The Landlady and some short stories, like White Nights. Leave Notes from Underground lying around at-hand. Watch Love and Death on family movie night. Chekov is nice at about this time, too, but again, short stories are best. Developing the skills to read Russian literature take a little time, and when you pick up Crime and Punishment, Anna Karenina, War and Peace, The Brothers Karamazov, or Dead Souls, it's nice to feel at home in the genre so the glories of the work can shine without caveat.
- plexman 4mo agoim only getting 504's on the website
- havblue 4mo agoAs I get older I appreciate more how much nineteenth and twentieth century literature has in common with the modern era. Notes From the Underground was a great example of this where the narrator feels that he's destined for great things but self-sabotages along the way, becoming more and more isolated. He isn't that much different from the many educated, underemployed and frustrated, or even insufferable, people on the Internet. We haven't changed that much at all.
- gregopet 4mo agoPeople here have trouble with names, but for a Slavic language speaker like myself, the names are one of the best parts. Even if I don't speak Russian, names like "Razkolnikov" ooze his indecisiveness. And the characters the author doesn't like, he shows contempt for them by not even giving them a proper name, calling them Mr. C. or something like that. My problem with Dostoyevsky is that I simply don't like his style.. despite being a voracious reader it was pure torture getting through The Idiot and I gave up 1/3 of the way during Crime and Punishment. Had to re-read parts out loud again to help my son who had to read it for high school and begged me to help him somehow (we share the dislike it seems). He's one of the authors I would really love to like, but it's just not happening
- aerhardt 4mo agoI'm reading Crime and Punishment now. I've previously read Karamazov. I agree that it's not particularly hard reading other than the names. And also, maybe, the characters tend to go on long tirades. And I guess you need to know a little bit of Russian history, too. But they're not that difficult. Otherwise his books wouldn't have been that popular. They sold phenomenally well in his lifetime and continue to do so.
- generuso 4mo agoIt is uncontroversial among Dostoyevsky's scholars that his main focus is on Russian mysticism while the stories themselves are merely a setting for presenting author's theology. But that may be flying over the head of a typical Western reader. Even for Russian schoolchildren this requires to be carefully explained. Dostoyevsky subtly advocates that Western rationalism, materialism, and utopian socialism lead to failure, and only spiritual communion of people bound together by love and Orthodox faith can give hope. This idea of specialness of "messianic Russian soul" and of Orthodoxy is extremely in vogue today in modern Russian ideology. But that is a different subject.
- gknapp 4mo agoI read Crime and Punishment, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I then thought I'd move right over to War and Peace and could not get through the first 5% of the book. I'm sure with diligent effort, you can get over the very lengthy and plotless character interactions to the point where it's engaging, but I just felt like there were other books to read. Now I'm back reading The Brothers Karamazov and it's instantly captivating! The author of this article describes the same thing... could it be that Tolstoy is just much more of a slog than Dostoyevsky?